Laptops moving in the right direction?

[doug748]

Asus Eee. No hard drive, Ultra portable, Linux....£220. See Sunday Times and uk.asus.com. What does the team think?

 

[nigelhudson]

They look good but the information on Wikipedia indicates that it might be worth waiting until next year to buy. Apparently the next generation will have lower power chips which will mean that they will have no fan - this means no moving parts whatsoever. Also they are planning to increase the resolution of the display.

The other question in my mind is the the use of Linux as an operating system (the onboard storage is too small for XP or Vista). Does anyone know of a navigation programme that works with Linux? If there is one is it any good?

 

[boatbuilder]

MK1 eyeball works ok. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[fishermantwo]

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone know of a navigation programme that works with Linux? If there is one is it any good?

[/ QUOTE ]

Seaclear does apparently after another programme is added. Check out the Seaclear webpage for details. Seaclear is a first class nav programme I use in my professional fishing vessel

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

You can use a programme called 'wine' to run Windows software on Linux machines... it has varying degrees of success, but apparently Seaclear runs OK.

 

[markstirling]

I've been thinking of building myself a solid state PC for the boat, but I couldnt do it at that price!
It might be worth waiting a short while as the website says "ASUS confirmed they will offer the highly anticipated Eee PC pre-installed with Genuine Microsoft Windows by end of this year"

 

[cozzykim]

There's also this one.

Like a lot of things Linux a W.I.P. but promising.

Written in Java so compatible with more than one operating system.

I would go with wine/SeaClear personally as:

a/ Wine and SeaClear are tried and tested

b/ SC seems to be able to import some proprietary chart formats as well as scanned charts.

IMHO although I'm a Linux fan, typing this using IBM T41/PClinuxOS 2007/Firefox, the only marginal reasons for using Linux aboard a boat are; lower hardware/resource requirements, more stable kernel, low/no cost O.S. and thoroughly critical development path.

Dohh! maybe not so marginal after all then

Regards

Kim /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

 

[doug748]

I have very little technical knowledge of computing, but I have dabbled over the years. I would like to try Linux as an alternative to Windows. Years ago I operated Archimedes computers, the operating system was lightening fast, rock solid and intuative. When I was forced into Windows It felt like someone had taken my fast car and given me a pushbike with one pedal.

 

[cozzykim]

Hi, I went the BBC-B route but never got to Arcs I'm afraid.

RISC has come of age now though /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Here's a screenshot of SeaClear running under Wine in PCLinuxOS 2007

I haven't connected my GPS as I use an O2 Orbit and GPS2Blue (for bluetooth connection) to get the data into WinXP normally; I presume that your intended GPS receiver has serial port connectivity though so that shouldn't be a problem for you.

Hope this helps

Regards

Kim

 

[Paulka]

Does any of the experts know about this one ?
Of course, it is not at the same price.

/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

... And it's not a laptop!
/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[alan]

See also :

www.stealthcomputer.com

looks like the one in your pic??
These can be also fanless as an option but still use HDDs.

Alan.