GNU/Linux for the Masses at Robert Pogson

GNU/Linux for the Masses

Published by Robert Pogson February 28th, 2012 in technology. 6 Comments

So far there have been lots of smartphones and tablets running FLOSS but this year a new kind of gadget is becoming mainstream, the computer on a stick. The best one I have seen comes with Ubuntu GNU/Linux or Android/Linux and you can connect USB keyboard/mouse and HDMI monitor/TV. That should work for everyone.

Price? $199 Today. I don’t know what more anyone could want except perhaps Debian GNU/Linux on the gadget. This kind of thing can be manufactured for much less and I expect in a year or so it will be affordable by even a larger segment of the market for personal computing.

If there’s one drawback to this it is that it is too portable and probably would need to be glued down in places like schools. Another is that you need at least a USB hub in addition but it is still the smallest working computer that functions more or less as one normally expects a PC to function.

- Robert Pogson

6 Responses to “GNU/Linux for the Masses”

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1 Phenom Feb 29th, 2012 at 5:02 am

Don’t know, Pogs. Russians have the following joke:
“Новый айфон – как сифилис в колхозе. Сначала у председателя, потом у всех остальных”

Translated in English:
“New iPhone is like syphilis in the kolkhoz*. In the beginning only the director has it, and later on everyone has it.”

* Колхоз is the name of Solviet agricultural unit, which united the propriated land of many people, and had everyone work on that land. It was ruled by a chairman / director, who was always a member of the communist party. These units were absolutely inefficient, and further ruined the agriculture of Russia. Needless to say, most ex-communist countries have similar forms of ruling the land, all of them inefficient.
2 Phenom Feb 29th, 2012 at 5:05 am

Pogson, spam is too strict for me. Please help.
3 Robert Pogson Feb 29th, 2012 at 5:43 am

Sheesh! I found a bunch of comments from regulars in the spam bin. I will see what tweaks I can make. Sorry…
4 Ray Feb 29th, 2012 at 2:51 pm

Thank Pog, I thought there was something wrong with my comments.
5 oiaohm Feb 29th, 2012 at 5:42 pm

http://www.raspberrypi.org/ Just has proven there is a demand out there. Question is how big.

http://rhombus-tech.net/ has Amd x86 and arm based in pipe line. Arm currently look to be under the 15 dollar mark.

By end of year I would not be surprised if cotton candy or is clones are not 100 dollar devices or less.

Raspberrypi is going to turn into a on going. Memory limit of the RaspberryPi is going to be a little painful at 256 megs. But I can see people using the Raspberrypi for some of the same roles as the cotton candy.

The Raspberrypi project is not just stopping at A and B models.

Welcome back the hobbyist computer hardware market. We have missed you. The hobbyist market back is the last thing MS was wanting.
6 oe Feb 29th, 2012 at 9:20 pm

Hobbyist computing dovetails nicely with FOSS kinda like the early days of BYTE magazine….

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My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.