Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] good gift for your favorite geek...

[Shawn Parker <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

i heard someone came out with a pc that looked [nearly] exactly like
the mac mini. either asus or aopen.

for that matter, you could probably build your own pocket sized linux
box. the gumsticks are functional linux pcs about the size of a stick
of ram. and the gumsticks have onboard lan. combine that with a flash
reader and some type of peripheral support and you could make your own
blackdog like box.

for that matter, you can run damn small linux (and other similar
distros) from usb sticks, now. and, with the influx of mobo's that
boot usb devices, you could accomplish the same thing.

but, as toys go, it is still cool. and, i like the branding. a lot of
linux branding, although getting better, still lacks "design" style.
face it, most linux based projects look ugly.

On 12/1/05, Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> On 12/1/05, Shawn Parker <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> > http://www.projectblackdog.com/index.html
> >
> > that looks bad ass. i'm thinking about making it 'my christmas gift.'
> > from my wife.
>
> Cute, but there are problems:
>
> 1) Only 64 MB of real RAM; yeah, it can have 512 MB of flash, but that's
>     presumably what you use for user files plus your need to swap on this thing.
> 2) no networking of its own, apparently.
> 3) Requires XP or Linux (due I guess to (2)).
> 4) Price uncompetitive with a lot of things, I think.
>
> So, for example, you can get the (surely not underpriced) Mac mini
> with 512 MB of RAM (which you can expand), a real hard disk, real
> networking, real graphics, and a CD burner for under $500.  And if
> Linux is your game, you can have that on it instead of Mac OS X (or
> along side it).  It's a bit bigger and heavier than this thing, but
> not much.  The BlackDog thing does have some neat features of course
> (runs off of USB alone is pretty spiff).  Apple is moving to Intel
> more rapidly than expected, and it's believed that an updated mini
> will be released next month for probably less money than the current
> model.  I'm guessing that somebody has (by now) an extremely small
> form factor cheap PC you could use for this, too.
>
> jking
>
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--
shawn

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