AlphaMIPS Review

Hi there,

Actually it's the same as Trendtac 700 EPC, Elonex One T, Linux Netbook, Maplin Minibook, Silverstar, Yinlips Micro PC, Sub Notebook, 3k Razorbook, Bestlink Alpha 400, HiVision Mininote, JAY-tech Jee-PC 400S, Letux 400 Linux Minibook, CnMBook, CnM Minibook, Novatech Minibook.

And maybe others.

For the tinkerers among us, it's a steal, there's lot to play with if only as your first try at cross-compiling, or just enjoy & benchmark something as far away from our usual x86-somethings.

Anyone with a serious view as a minimalistic internet device, it's quite there, and frankly, if with an included WiFi chip in it, it would be unbeatable: the screen is bright, the keyboard quite possible, the weight nonexistent - my Facebook experience on it, while a little cramped, is ok; I committed some edits to my wiki and it's just plain working, including the spellchecker. Cool.

[Well, I really miss an integrated WiFi+webcam though. Or HSDPA + Webcam.]

Road Warriors with a back ache, you may not get into your corporate LAN while on the TGV, but you'll take notes and compute any (non macro ridden) spreadsheets in a snap - as said above, it's not exactly quick to launch, but once running it's quite snappy indeed.

Gnumeric is booting in 6 secs on this machine, Firefox in 20. The whole thing boots in 40 and shuts itself down in 6. Pity too for the lack of Screen Off or Suspend function - 40 secs to boot is quite OK, but is never as quick & elegant as just flipping the screen down. On the hardware issue too, there isn't really any power management: leave it alone up and running, it will stay, not even dim it's screen... Old-school *nixers will miss the split-click action for pasting, but hey, maybe someone is working on it right now. Open source rules!

From all the rants up there, I was expecting Total Lack of Support, but check out: http://skytone.net.cn/en/download.php & notice the last update is only one month or so old [And notice that nobody seems to care]

Then more software is available, patches and even the source! Find the lightweight manual here:

http://skytone.net.cn/en/download_list.php?id=2&smallclass=13 at 1.45megs, down it just if to get a look at it!

If it's not enough, head over to

http://www.littlelinuxlaptop.com/software.htm

to get xterm or the likes and more: why not completely switch OS?

http://www.littlelinuxlaptop.com/software/3MX.htm

So to summarize:

-As a minimalist appliance, it does the job;

-As a cheap toy to tinker with, there is a range of possibilities over there

-As a definitive option for Linux power users with some experience, it has the potential to be turned into an effective full-featured machine, the community way.

And it saves the trees, @ not even 400Mhz!

On top of all that, It's all open source after all, and the mission statement of the factory leaves no doubts about that: reduce digital divide, provide e-learning tools, if you needed one more reason, it could be that it's not because some mainland Chinese factory seems obscure to us that they are not on the same page. And for what we know, they may be 100.000 workers in there, with a brand recognition that just hasn't passed the language barrier yet. Still they are pushing open source like very few western companies do.

the FAQ on http://skytone.net.cn/en/service.php?id=1 is hilarious though...

Title：  	How to install Windows XP?

Content： 	How to install Windows XP?

Reply： 	The doesn't support Windows XP.

[SIC] Cheers! I _may_ gather more info and links on http://wiki.zenerves.net/index.php/Linux - look for an AlphaMIPS page where at least you'll find links and current issues.

Jean-Philippe, from Cambodia, Alpha 400 - T62b - join the PPLUG mailing list on the googlegroups system if you live in Asia and want to share/know more about it.

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