Choosing a platform for work.

After meeting a friend yesterday and talking a bit about technology with him, and after reading a review today, I had an idea.

I recently understood that most of my “computer”-related work is either already done or can be moved to be totally online. Such a thing would lead me to one of the following (or combination of them):

1. I’m totally online. I never loose my data because I have it online all the time. The only moment when its not there is that split of a second I loose my wireless connection and my data not uploaded yet. I can do my work (or entertainment) anywhere, anytime.
2. I’m totally “dead” without internet connection. My powerful computer has no use for me. I can’t access anything. I can’t do anything. I’m so addicted to being online, that I have problems figuring out what are computers for. Although my movies and music are local and with me, I have no wish to “consume” them – after all, I can’t access my email (don’t tell me its unrelated! It is. I am not addicted).

Then I’ve thought about it even more.

We have an internet connection nowadays everywhere. I walk around my neighborhood and I catch easily 10 open WiFi spots. Many can check their email with 3G mobile phones, or even use them to connect to the “real” Internet. Many of those phones are good enough for Internet by themselves. WiMax us promised to come in couple of years give or take. So we have connectivity problem solved. That, probably, also solves me the “problem” with an Internet addiction usage. This means, I can work virtually everywhere anytime.

Now, what bothers me at this point, is the computer itself. I mainly use browser and email. I use simple editor for documents/blog writing. I use simple photo management application. I use somewhat more advanced pictures editing application. I use multimedia players.

These all are hardly resource intensive tasks. But my computer starts to crawl when I open more than 2 apps at a time. Besides, when I’m thinking about installing applications and maintaining the computer, I wonder: why should I invest so much time in it?

So, I know what I want. I want a TV-like usability computer – something that just works. I want a “work” appliance. I want an appliance which is lite, small, convenient, has a long battery life, and fast and responsive. I want to know what it does and how it does it. I want to be able to customize it. I want my computing everywhere with me.

Just like an OLPC with a larger screen and battery life.

-A.

Technorati : Gentoo, Linux, OLPC, Ubuntu, apple, technology, windows

Portage replacement – choice made easy :-)

Steven,

Can it be true? My dreams for finding ${portage replacement} came true? It is so easy?

Now, while I do find a rationale in your post, let me disagree.

1. Right, so you’re sitting bored near you computer, and looking around for portage replacement because it doesn’t do what you want. Why? Did it stop installing packages and syncing nightly? I’d really like to know what is it that you want to do, and portage doesn’t allow you to.
2. Right away you’re starting to look for alternatives. Why? Is everything so terrible, that cannot be fixed? I can believe that this software might not be written to handle workload it now has. But still, portage 3 maybe will? A point to think, at least for me.
3. Your choice of the alternative is by their Doc Language, developer’s nickname and language of choice? Come on, you can do better. You say portage doesn’t do what you want (say, doesn’t have a feature you want), but you neglect feature comparison? Or, at least, checking that either of alternatives has the feature(s) you’re looking for?
4. And if both of them have that feature, does it matter, really, which one you choose? At least either will be better that portage, right?

So, while I’m not really happy with portage sometimes, I’m not really in a search for replacement just yet. Maybe I’m too conservative, but that’s just me.

Paludis and pkgcore teams – right on! I really like your both work (while maybe doubling the effort), I believe it is the very nature of free software – that we all can choose the best software for ourselves.

Ciaran – I don’t know why someones’ nick should even matter at all. I don’t know what nicks most Free/Open Software developers have, but I still use it and I’m happy anyways. Besides, I know you don’t care such background noise.

Just my 5 cents.