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A Windows CE Shell For Netbooks
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Sep 18, 2008 05:40 PM
from the why-why-why-why-would-anyone-want-that dept.
from the why-why-why-why-would-anyone-want-that dept.
nerdyH writes "Netbooks such as the Acer Aspire One and Lenovo Ideapad S9 usually ship with SSD storage and the Linux operating system in low-end configurations, or else with hard drives and Windows XP Home at the higher end of the market. Therefore, customers who want a "Windows experience" have no choice but to shell out for extra RAM and disk storage, potentially impacting battery life. Perhaps not for long. Quarta Mobile says its open-source (yes, open source) "MID-Shell for Windows Embedded CE 6.0" provides a Microsoft-based alternative to Linux for low-end devices with SSDs (solid state disks)."
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Who would want that? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want Windows, don't you want "real" Windows, to run all the programs you're accustomed to? Windows CE is the suck.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
That's a good point. As an alternative to Linux, it's only benefit is a semi familiar interface and some windows apps. I bet a bunch of users would be confused why their favorite programs don't work on "Windows".
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Who would want that? (Score:4, Informative)
My Windows Mobile smart phone runs quite a few programs that you'd desire. It supports .Net (compact framework), so development isn't that different than desktop apps. I'm actually surprised that there aren't MORE Netbooks going the Windows Mobile route vs the XP route. I'm sure the license cost is similar or lower and the hardware footprint is significantly less (my HTC Wizard does fairly well with a 195MHz processor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Wizard [wikipedia.org] imaging what it could do with a 1GHz Atom). I would also include Andriod in that line of thinking.....once it gets released in some other commercial form.
Layne
Parent
Re:Who would want that? (Score:5, Informative)
> My Windows Mobile smart phone runs quite a few programs that you'd desire.
My Windows Mobile smartphone crashed and hung more often than my Windows XP desktop, required frequent reboots, and would not reliably make a noise at an incoming call. My expectation of a solid state laptop-like device is to be more reliable than my PC, not less.
For example, Windows Mobile seems to want to keep your applications persistent after you've dismissed them, apparently for faster starting when you go back to them later. This tends to cause the device to run slower and slower over time, requiring the user to periodically go into the task manager and kill apps, or, if they're not a total geek, just punch the reset button and wait through yet another reboot. It's design decisions like this (and many others) which makes Windows Mobile such a miserable experience if you try to use it for anything other than the built-in applets that are fed by Activesync.
Parenthetically, I don't understand the vendors who are trying to paste an iPhone-like interface on top of Mobile 6. Like that's going to fix it. Mind you, having to punch Start... wait for the GUI to catch up... navigate... wait... navigate again... choose application... can get tedious, but it is not, by far, the only issue.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I've had an HTC Titan [wikipedia.org] for a few months now and haven't been able to find much useful software.
Most of what I find are sites full of crap shareware. I don't want to pay $30 for a text editor thank you very much. I'd love to have a port of vim or emacs though.
I've managed to find bits and pieces of free software here and there. PuTTY works really well. I'd really like to find a good media player. I came across a project to port mplayer, but it didn't look very far along.
Also, what do you use for a dev environ
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Windows CE has a lot of stupid limitations. For example, it is limited only to 32 processes and total address space is limited to something like 64Mb (not sure about that).
It's incredibly easy to hit these limits on modern mobile phones. And don't even think about netbooks with fast ATOM CPUs and lots of RAM.
Re:Who would want that? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't seem to figure out why some many people (usually MS haters) claim that Windows Mobile crashes consistently. I've had my phone for years and have only had to reset it about 12 times. Windows Mobile likes to keep apps open, but if you get MagicButton or any similar task manager, you can make programs actually close. This improves the performance and the stability quite a bit. And while I haven't done any heavy statistical analysis, I've found the built in Excel to be capable of meeting my needs (quick spreadsheet to track boxes of girl scout cookies sold for my daughter, a spreadsheet to help calculate loan costs of cars when shopping for a new one, etc.). Not a lot of need for Word and PowerPoint, so I can't speak to those.
Growing up with a C64 and then DOS of all flavors and even Windows 3.x, I'm used to limits of an operating system (and before you raise too many flames, how many programs can you run on an iPhone......). If those limits mean that I can't have 20 programs running at once, I'm ok with that. If you live within the limits, the OS is usually very stable and performant. Sure Windows Mobile isn't the worlds greatest OS, but I don't think it's as bad as the bashers like to claim. I think that it's smaller requirements would make it perfect for a NetBook because, let's face it, a NetBook isn't supposed to be your only computer. It's supposed to be something that is portable to be connected anywhere and allow for limited work. My phone (HTC Wizard) is already capable of meeting those basic needs and the newer versions (HTC Touch, HTC [next]) even more so.
Good uses of a Netbook:
Taking notes - Can do with Word Mobile
Surfing the web - Can do with IE (really needs a better browser, though it does technically work -- I've read Slashdot with my phone)
Playing music / video - TCPMP
Play games - yep.....Nethack, anyone: http://www.nethack.org/v343/ports/download-wince.html [nethack.org] or maybe Doom http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Games/Action/Doom-for-Pocket-PC-9834.shtml [softpedia.com] or Quake http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Games/Action/Quake-3-Arena-CE-22440.shtml [softpedia.com]
No Flash support beyond v8 yet (http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/updates/8/flashlite2/fl8_flashlite2_1_update.exe), but I would expect it to be supported soon.
Basically, everything I would do with a NetBook works on my phone. Just without the larger screen and the laptop footprint (I've got a real keyboard). For that matter, it even already supports pen input (including OCR), so you could make a convertible NetBook fairly easily.
Layne
Parent
Windows Apps (Score:3, Informative)
*Very* few windows apps you mean. Especially now since mainstream embedded windows is on embedded XP now.
Re:Who would want that? (Score:5, Insightful)
> If you want Windows, don't you want "real" Windows...
Exactly. The only reason to suffer with a Microsoft OS is the applications. And on a netbook the big one is the browser. The cut down thing they call IE on WinCE isn't going to be much competition whem stacked up against Firefox on Linux.
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Re:Who would want that? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:2, Troll)
There is one very important detail
Windows CE for desktop PCs SUCK.
Case in point, the AMD "lunchbox" that came out a couple of years ago. The thing was AWFUL.
And why is that??
Windows CE only allow full-screen windows. There is no concept of overlapping windows / resizing / moving.
For a mobile phone it's quite OK. But for a PC...
Re: (Score:2)
Linux on the low end? (Score:5, Insightful)
Screw that, I want linux on the high end. That's right, I want the best hardware you got, and I want it with linux. capice?
Re:Linux on the low end? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nevertheless I totally see a reason to be upset about this, because we'll pay for something we don't want at all. As long as I can get the same device witch Linux installed at a cheaper price it's totally fine to me. Even if the Linux version is very poorly preconfigured - it is easy to change that. It's not like Vista laptops run perfectly fine with all the tools the manufacturer of the
Re:Linux on the low end? (Score:5, Interesting)
Amen, I want Linux on the high end too. So I went and built myself something reasonably high-end: ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe mobo, Intel Q6600, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 512MB 9800GT graphics card...so it's not the absolute shizzle but it's the best machine I've ever owned. Put it all together, and have spent the week since discovering just how shocking support is for P45 chipset motherboards still - primarily the ASUS P5xx boards apparently, but MSI and others seem to have serious issues too.
So far, the best result I've gotten is to successfully boot an Ubuntu 8.04.1 LiveCD (which will only happen with AHCI enabled, otherwise nothing) and run the installation. After that, nothing, can't even get GRUB to load. 8.10 with latest kernel apparently might do the job when it's released, but as of now (Alpha 5) it won't load at all.
So maybe I'm straying slightly offtopic but I've got karma to burn and here's as good a place as any to ask: what distro should I be trying for newish, high-endish hardware support? openSUSE? Gentoo? PC-BSD? Just wait for Intrepid's final release? I went from XP to Ubuntu about four years ago and haven't ever had occasion to try any of the others but I'm open to suggestions...
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If people respond, you will probably get suggestions for just about everything out there. I would suggest trying Mandriva. If the problems you are having is with the kernel, then it is likely switching distros is not going to help. You will just have to wait for and hope for eventual support.
But the real issue is that you should have researched Linux compatibility of your hardware BEFORE buying!
When you shop for tires for your car, you typically make sure you are looking at ones that are the correct size
Give Slackware A Shot (Score:3, Informative)
Then make sure to get your drivers right from NVidia (BTW, isn't the 9800GT one of the 'plagued' NVidia cards? I'd keep that thing cool if I were you) and you shoul
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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o_0 (Score:5, Interesting)
Why yes, I want a WINDOWS experience. It will involve bending shoes together [today.com]. Or something.
What on earth? Windows CE is a fabulous example of software that sells in magazines and looks good on feature lists but basically doesn't bloody work. There's a reason the accursed iPhone is so popular, and especially so with anyone who's suffered a WinCE phone and done the wince of WinCE.
Re: (Score:2)
More usefully: I see there's Familiar Linux [handhelds.org] for ARM-based WinCE handhelds - a tweaked Debian for ARM - but it doesn't appear to have been updated for a year.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
From what I understand of Debian, I'd hazard a guess that the lack of updates is because it worked perfectly a year ago =p
Well, not quite (Score:5, Informative)
It does work. Same way a brick flies, but it does work. (Disclaimer: I'm a Windows CE developer by trade)
You're looking at the wrong market. Around CE 3.0 when SmartPhone came out, yeah. That completely sucked. Hardly worked at all.
Windows CE's market share is in industrial devices that need to talk to Windows desktops. And PDAs. That's why it sells. It's an extension of the MS monopoly into the embedded market space. If you need to get data from a widget to a Windows box, you use Windows CE. At least that's the sales pitch, anyways.
Back on topic, CE on a Netbook? Yeah - no thanks. It would be no different than a PDA. Just bulkier.
Parent
Limits (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
To play devil's advocate to this and one of my previous posts in this topic:
CE at least has Mobile Office 2007, something that traditionally Windows users might find comforting.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You've now put into my head the notion of sex toys running Windows CE.
BAD TOUCH!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The third set are easy - you can sell them whatever they can afford, as long as it looks easy to use. The first set are easy too - you either have the product they want, or you don't. They'r
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
i was thinking this, ever since dell basically put arm next to the x86 for the long life laptop, as plenty of netbooks arnt using windows they can use whatever arch they want. why not just produce an arm netbook, sure it will probably have to run konqueror or something instead of firefox, but it could have a battery life of days not hours. gnash can do youtube now, so apart from a flash games your not missing much. you can browse the web, write docs, read emails, etc?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They still want an x86 computer, so that they can still sell to people who want Windows, never mind if it chugs along slowly.
Actually, that's pretty true. I got the Acer One Note thingy mentioned in the article. It came with a Linux on training wheels kinda thing ("Linpus," they called it) that vaguely resembled an XP desktop with 4 buttons. I booted it, turned it off, and installed memory (had to remove the keyboard and the motherboard to install the memory underneath the motherboard!) and put the who
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Finally!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
*applause*
web browser (Score:5, Interesting)
From my smartphone experiences, there isn't even a decent web browser for the WinCE platform. Opera sucks slightly less than IE mobile. About half the websites I tried to use functioned correctly. Fahgeddabout it
Extra ram and disk storage my arse (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Asus ships with a base of 512MB and is upgradeable to 1.5GB out of the box.
Personally, I got the Linux version and upgraded it. Same specs as the EEE 901 but almost $200 less and an extra 512MB of RAM. :-)
now with vmware on there (Score:2)
you could run linux ;)
For the humor impaired I'm aware that vmware does not run on CE.
Shared source actually (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6932977445.html [linuxdevices.com]
"The company has thus far declined to submit the license for approval by the Open Source Initiative as an open-source license."
Windows Embedded Standard 2009 (Score:2)
I was going to reply suggesting something like an extended version of Windows XP Embedded [wikipedia.org] when I noticed MS claims to be coming out with a new OS that seems like it may fit the bill well (assuming it doesn't end up bloated).
Personally I picked up a Linux Acer One and through Ubuntu [ubuntu.com] (will probably switch to Gentoo now that I have a distcc build server set up) on it and am very pleased, but I can definitely understand how someone comfortable and familiar with Windows could want a net book with features lik
Re: (Score:2)
I can definitely understand how someone comfortable and familiar with Windows could want a net book with features like a solid state drive and not want Linux.
Except, of course, the user will quickly discover that "Windows", "IE" and "Office" that he gets with Windows CE are completely different, far inferior products that merely share the name and manufacturer with those he expected. And he wouln't know that Linux desktop, web browser, office packages and other software is actually closer to what he expected, because he didn't get Linux intalled or even dual-booting.
Sounds more like a scam to prevent users' exposure to Linux, with both users and netbook manufact
An Excellent Development (Score:2)
Windows CE was developed from the ground up as a unique solution for embedded computing.
It is not Windows.
It is not even Win16 or Win32.
Windows CE is its own thing entirely.
The only thing Windows CE shares with Windows is source compatibility with most of the Win32 API.
Windows CE will make these miniature laptops shine.
I'm bothered that I didn't think of this before.
With all the good press that Linux gets by default, it is nowhere near an embedded OS. Those embedded systems have become more like full compu
I don't see the sense in that (Score:3, Insightful)
They had this already..... the HPC pro (Score:2, Interesting)
They had this form factor of device already.... and running Windows CE. They called them Handheld PC Pros (the Handheld PC were small clamshells).
Guess what.... they sucked and they flopped. If I want an oversized PDA with an anemic buggy OS, I'll get an old NEC MobilePro 800 off of eBay for $40.
I had one for a while.... it ended up running NetBSD/hpcmips with a USB Zip drive attached with velcro. I got bored with it about 6 years ago.
CE really does suck hairy monkey nuts. I had some CE-based thin client
why must they try to be everything to everyone??? (Score:2, Funny)
Bout damn time (Score:4, Funny)
...someone gave us an alternative to linux. Everywhere I look, sourceforge, slashdot, linux.com, its all I see, linux, linux, linux.
Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WHAT? (Score:5, Insightful)
> WHY?
Because Microsoft has nothing that plays in this space, and because of past design decisions, there's no way they can reduce the requirements on their current products to function on these devices.
The Microsoft development model has for many years depended heavily on computers getting faster, disk getting denser, memory getting memoryer. The low-power solid-state PC market came on the scene faster than an OS design cycle -- no time to prepare, nothing to do except concede that you're not a player, or blow the dust off off WinCE and try to make it work. Or convince manufacturers to increase hardware specs until they're like, you know, real laptops. At the expense of the very factors that make them so appealing in the first place -- price, size, weight, heat, battery life, carbon footprint.
To be fair, the hardware requirements for Linux has gotten steeper with time too, but at a much slower place, and for that and other reasons, Linux is much better positioned to compete in this space.
There's a couple ways I see this playing out. The majority of people who actually try the devices with Linux will be pleasantly surprised that the "experience" is not that much different from Winders for what they do, and will appreciate the long battery life, low heat, and low heft.
The people who get WinCE-powered devices with the expectation that they're running Windows, will rapidly run into issues and will blame it on the device. WinCE then becomes almost a disruptive technology, setting people's expectations that the devices are not usable unless they have enough guts to run "real" Windows.
What amazes me is that a vendor would allow this to happen. Putting WinCE on these devices is at best a short-term strategy. When people figure out that their applications won't run, they're going to be upset. Which would you rather have, a user who buys a device with OpenOffice already installed and figures out he can edit his existing documents just fine, or a user who buys a device and then discovers that Office XP won't install? Which one is going to be clogging up the support lines and leaving venomous reviews on Amazon?
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