Eee PC apps

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org>

| On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 02:11:21PM -0400, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
| > Actually, I have an unrelated question regarding one EeePC app...
| > specifically, the menuing system.

It might or might not be wise to add an "unrelated question" to an
existing thread.  I don't think that the question is 100% unrelated.

| > It's my understanding that the big-icon user-friendly menu system used
| > on the Eee is a proprietary system that comes with the Eee's Xandros
| > Desktop.

What do you mean by "bit-iron" in this context?

| > Can anyone point me to any open source projects that try to
| > present a similarly friendly face to the new user. I'm tracking the
| > Ubuntu Netbook Remix but I suspect there are other systems out there...
| > 
| > Any help is appreciated.
| 
| Xandros is based on Debian, so you might even be able to just get ubuntu
| or debian packages for the things you want and install them.

Evan is helping to assemble software for another netbook.  He wants to
know about software he can use on non-ASUS hardware.  He seems to be
asking about open-source newbie-friendly facades (for lack of a better word)
available for such projects.

An interesting question.

Philosophizing:

The desktop metaphor has become so dominant in the last 30 years that
we don't remember that it is just one metaphor and that other choices
might be interesting and worthwhile.

PDAs/phones/media players are an arena where other designs have
appeared.

Netbooks are close to normal computers but go partway towards these
other devices and thus may be a pathway for new designs to reach
mainstream computers.

Coming back down to earth, I imagine that the ASUS EEE front-end is a
very thin veneer over GNOME and thus isn't actually very interesting.
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists