Re: [be] OLPC or EEE PC

[Dennis Drescher]

Hi Birch,

I have just a couple thoughts, and they are only thoughts based on theory, not 
practice.

We have a couple OLPC units here in our office that the WeSay developers use. 
From watching them work with those units I'd have to say that they would 
probably be the best choice for durability. However, I'd have to say that I 
have no real experience trying to actually work with them. The units we have 
here are for development only so no real field testing has been done as far as 
I know and I know that BE is not installed on any of them. I'd like to try it 
out but they are a bit out of reach for me. Which brings me to one of the down 
sides of OLPC. Personally, from what I've observed, OLPC will probably not be a 
practical solution in the long run. I don't think they will be able to deliver 
on promises made. I could be wrong though.

A second negative about OLPC is the hardware they are using and it's 
configuration is different enough that trying to get applications that are 
written for other Linux platforms is not easy. I've watched the WeSay 
developers here struggle with that. I guess Teus would be able to give a better 
idea of how BE runs on OLPC (if at all). I think he has tested it on a virtual 
OLPC machine.

As for the EEE PC, I'd love to get a hold of one and play with it. I can say 
with a lot of certainty that it would not be as durable as the OLPC, having 
seen and touched both. However, the EEE PC will be much more readily available. 
We can by them here in Chiang Mai at a number of stores. Where can a common 
person (whose not a child living in a developing nation) get an OLPC?

Down side of the EEE PC, IMO, is size and cost. Can you work with a 7 inch 
screen? Personally, I don't think I can. I'd like to try the 900 model 
(http://eeepc.asus.com/global/news04152008.htm), the latest of the EEE line 
which would probably be a better platform for using BE. It has a 8.9 inch 
screen and the Linux version comes with 20 GB of drive space. However, it is 
$600. Since I'm not a translator or a formal developer of translation software, 
that's more than I have to spend. Probably next year I'll be able to afford 
this year's 8.9 model. :-)

Many seem to compensate for the size of the EEE PC by attaching an external 
keyboard and monitor. If your going to do that and run at processing speeds 
below 1 GHz, then, IMO, you would be better off recycling old hardware which is 
quite plentiful and very cheap. Actually, that's where my interest lies right 
now. As much as EEE PC interests me, I'm thinking a more practical approach 
would be getting BE to run on a light OS like DSL 
(http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/) or Puppy Linux 
(http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=1). The approach I'd like 
to explore would be more of a translation "appliance" application. Have a 
special version of DSL (which I'm liking more than Puppy Linux at this point) 
that is specially tuned to run BE. The entire DSL OS and BE application with 
everything you needed could be packaged together and distributed two ways. One 
way would be to just install it on whatever old hardware you had around and use 
it that way. The second way, if you ar!
 e really wanting portability would be to install it on a flash drive and use 
it on most any host computer (Windows or Linux) without disturbing the host at 
all. Check out http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/qemupuppy/ for an idea of what that 
might be like.

Anyway, these are just thoughts, ideas, and opinions. I play around with these 
in my spare time and I have as much spare time as most people on this list. ;-) 
Like you have pointed out, Birch, people waste far too much time chasing 
viruses on Windows. (Isn't it ironic that the people who have too much time on 
their hands waste the precious time of those who don't by unleashing these 
viruses on the world.) I have used Linux exclusively in my publishing work as 
well as at home and have not seen a virus on any of my own machines since I 
started using it over four years ago. It's a nice experience I wish more people 
could have.

In Him,

Dennis

On Sat, 3 May 2008 22:49:58 -0400
 "Birch Champeon" <address@hidden> wrote:
> After spending a month and a half chasing viruses and Windows bugs in India,
> I'm very interested in anyone's experience with Bibledit on a ultraportable
> like the OLPC or Eee PC.  Is anyone using this in the field?  I'd appreciate
> any thoughts on using ultra-portables in harsh environments with novice
> users for Bible translation.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks,  Birch
>