Despite the low sales of the OLPC project’s XO-1, and the Windows/Linux troubles that the project is going through, it’s already had some beneficial effects. For one thing, it has firmly established a market for Linux subnotebooks:
The OLPC’s XO-1 runs (for the moment) a version of Fedora Linux
Intel’s Classmate PC runs a version of Mandriva Linux
The CloudBook runs a version of gOS Linux
The ASUS Eee PC runs a version of Xandros Linux
The HP2133 Mini-Note runs a version of SUSE Linux
These subnotebooks, or Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPC) are a new class of machine, and they are targeted typically at high school or college students. Nearly all of them are running some form of Linux, since it’s cheaper than including a Windows license fee in the price. So what operating system do you think these college kids are going to insist on once they graduate?
One Trackback/Pingback
[...] about this for the future of higher education: If you want to learn, you buy a cheap subnotebook, get your courseware DVD burned at a Freedom Toaster, and you educate yourself. If you want a [...]
Post a Comment