Linux is about to take over the low end of PCs

Category Linux, internet | Permalink | 19. December 2007

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desktoplinux.com / Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols /
- Opinion — Sometimes, several unrelated changes come to a head at the same time, with a result no one could have predicted. The PC market is at such a tipping point right now and the result will be millions of Linux-powered PCs in users’ hands.

The first change was the continued maturation of desktop Linux. Today, no one can argue with a straight face that people can’t get their work done on Linux-powered PCs. Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, MEPIS, OpenSUSE, Xandros, Linspire Mint, the list goes on and on of desktop Linuxes that PC owner can use without knowing a thing about Linux’s technical side. People can argue that Vista or Mac OS X is better, but when Michael Dell runs Ubuntu Linux on one of his own home systems, it can’t be said that Linux isn’t a real choice for anyone’s desktop.

Another change occurred when Nicholas Negroponte proposed the so-called $100-laptop, the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) machine. He couldn’t get them built for quite that price — they cost about $200 — but that’s still remarkably cheap and they’re available today.

Not long after OLPC was announced, Intel and other companies came up with their own take on an inexpensive PC: the Classmate PC. By 2007, it had become clear that you could build a laptop that was good enough to run desktop Linux for about $200.

That gave other hardware vendors an idea. If you could build a no-frills PCs that ran Linux, why not make sub-$500 computers with a bit more power and sell them to consumers? That’s exactly what Asus did with its Xandros Linux-powered ASUS Eee UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC), which lists for about $400. At about the same time, Everex introduced its gOS TC2502 gPC. Available first only from Wal-Mart, these $199 desktop systems are also now also available from ZaReason, an open-source VAR.

And how are these sub $500 computers and laptops doing? Everex is building them as fast as it can and has announced that its forthcoming laptop version, the CloudBook, has already been picked up by a major U.S. reseller. At the same time, according to an unconfirmed report, ASUS is planning on selling 3.8 million Eees in its next fiscal year.

While all this has been going on, broadband Internet connectivity has become almost as easily available as cell phone coverage. It is a small town indeed where there’s not some kind of free Wi-Fi available at a local coffee shop or library. You may have to pay for Wi-Fi at the airport or in your hotel, but Wi-Fi is almost always there. And, at home, well I’m living on a rural mountain overlooking a national forest and I have 3M-bps DSL coming in to my house.

Source and More : www.desktoplinux.com

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