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Re: [LUG] CnM MiniBook experience ?

 

On 25/01/2009 20:37, Grant Sewell wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:15:25 +0000
> Alan Pope wrote:
>
>    
>> 2009/1/25 tom<tombrough@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>      
>>> Although I'm not here to promote CnM, I think what I am trying to
>>> say is that the CnM minibook IS a step away from the x86
>>> monoculture and have taken on board the spirit as well as the
>>> letter of GPL.
>>>
>>>        
>> That's not what I'd heard from people who worked with them. As I
>> understood it CnM were not very forthcoming with the build environment
>> to make is possible for others to reflash the device. This may of
>> course have changed since the last time I spoke to them (October).
>>
>> For endusers there will be two (admittedly proprietary) issues with
>> this device. The fact that it doesn't run Flash or Skype. Whilst I
>> appreciate that freedom lovers will not be bothered by this, the fact
>> is that your average joe in the street _does_ feel the need to use
>> this stuff. If it's not available they'll take it back and possibly
>> even blame Linux for having "no flash or skype" support, when in fact
>> it does.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Al.
>>      
>
> Cheers Al, that's *exactly* what I was trying to say. :)
>
> I understand that it's not fault of CnM that there isn't a MIPS version
> of Flash or Skype, but the *average person* will not necessarily be
> aware of this and place blame appropriately at Adobe/Skype.  And yes, I
> am aware of there being a Gnash (or whatever it's called) and that
> there are a myriad of other IM tools and VOIP clients, but Skype is a
> well known brand that *average people* may already know.
>
> Grant.
>
>    
I can see both points here.  For buyers of these machines here in the UK 
they're possibly going to be a bit disapointed to find that they might 
not be able to run certain sites which rely heavily on Flash or chat on 
Skype but on the other hand as Tom was on about sending one (or maybe 
more?) of these machines to Cameroon, presumably they'd be just glad to 
have a machine which would offer the ability to run things like 
OpenOffice and Firefox for basic web browsing?

I presume that they're lucky to have any sort of internet connectivity, 
let along multi megabit broadband :-)

(Saying that, today I've been lucky to get multi megabit broadband on 
Enta!).

Rob


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