Johan wrote: >My friends (all major tech geeks all of them) is reluctant since they do not want to have a pc running all the time (noise, electricity bills etc etc). To the majority >of potential customers the threshold is exactly there - having to set up a computer to be always on. This is not an obstacle to most of us here...but for normal people >it is.
Fair comment. Although it truly is shame that this should be an obstacle :( In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't take much setting up (to build a "headless" server) and it doesn't use up all that much electricity. And it can be easily arranged to have a server somewhere it won't be in the way or be a disturbance - particularly on a wireless LAN. (e.g. my server is basically in the shed outside). It's a shame that more people don't realise this :( >Therefore - bundling with Linksys/Buffalo Linkstation or other NAS-devices having built in Linux and storage capacity is a way to circumvent this problem. Very true indeed, and it may tempt some people. But I'd say that if a user thought that setting up and maintaining a server was a bit of a hassle, they'd most likely feel the same way about setting up and configuring/maintaining a Linkstation with built-in Linux. Or, maybe not... I guess Knoppix might be an option - Slim Devices could distribute a complete, ready-configured OS on a CD for each major release. Then any technophobes would simply have to turn the PC on (and boot from CD) to have SS up and running within a couple of minutes. For those users that found it easy to use, they could perhaps migrate to a non-Knoppix build, which could be configurable by the end user. It would probably be a fair bit of work for slim devices though. That would ultimately push the cost up and might put off as many people as it persuaded :( _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
