A New Goal: Throw Out Your Desktop - Page 2 - maemo.org

Mentalist Traceur | # 11 | 2011-01-06, 09:18 | Report

I say you're looking the wrong way at the 'desktop' form factor. It has a use - a very good one, which is so little explored. Personal cloud computing, basically. Instead of trusting some other company to compute and store data for you, you can invest in a good, ridiculously powerful for even five years ago, computer. Skip the monitor and keyboard and mouse - just keep them nearby if you ever need them for setup/reinstall. Just leave the thing idling away, set it up to have wake-on-lan, install SSH, VPN, VNC/Remote-Desktop, a virtual OS or two for stuff you can't get on the OS you're running natively, and the heavy-duty stuff that your mobile devices can't do gets redirected to it. Encrypt that connection and with IPv6 rolling out and computers - especially the desktop - becoming as cheap as they are to get high-end hardware for, you can soon have yourself personal 'super'-computers, doing your server and intense computing tasks from within your home, under your rules and your supervision, within your legal jurisdiction.

Hook up a bunch of old ones you have lying around, making a "beowulf cluster" as I see them getting called (one of my upcoming projects) and it goes from being just a heavy-hitter computing-wise in comparison to your mobile devices, to being a legitimate super-computer if the I/O and processing assignments are handled by your cluster properly. Again, the cluster's nodes can all have their own addresses courtesy IPv6, or internal ones (unlike home individual computers, a cluster is technically ONE unit, if it's actually being a cluster efficiently, so there's no need for external separate addresses anyway).

And if you're walking about and need to brute force a WAP2 key, say, for completely ethical reasons, like intercepting some illegally operating group's communications or what have you, bam, send that captured sucker over (whatever)G down to your home address, where you wake your computer / computer-cluster, and let it put it's combined power into cracking the sucker.

Hell, I haven't overclocked my N900 yet - but if I do, and it turns out even more powerful when overclocked (and the battery hotswap method, as well as the battery capacities of those battery shapes, are drastically improved), all I'd need is some greater feature support in FreOffice, portrait mode system-wide, an input method like 8-pen/qwo (that will catch on, unless electrotactile screens or something similarly innovative comes out, mark my words), printer drivers from Debian that work with my printers, and hell, I'm pretty much set. I'd love to see expandable RAM; it wouldn't surprise me if someone skilled enough COULD figure out how to solder a better-capacity RAM chip onto the N900's SoC from a later version of the OMAP SoC. *Shrug* Maybe not, but one can hope.

At any rate, if one actually has a beowulf cluster sitting at home, and internet connectivity there, the RAM requirement drops a bit.

Beyond that, I wouldn't MIND having a tablet or laptop, I love my video games like Crysis and StarCraft II and the like, but honestly, if I have an N900-like in versatility and broadness of capacity device, I don't really need those things, and I would be okay with not having them.

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retsaw | # 12 | 2011-01-06, 10:01 | Report

The problem with this thread is that everybody has different needs so will need different solutions, at least with current tech. For me my desktop doubles as a MythTV frontend/backend and it currently has 3TB storage, now I'm not going to be able to fit that into a mobile device any time soon, and even if I could it still needs a good aerial connection for recording so realistically it has to remain stationary. However, many other people have ditched their desktops already in favour of a laptop which in many cases just lives on a desk and it's mobility is never actually taken advantage of.

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ysss | # 13 | 2011-01-06, 10:38 | Report

I've done away with desktop for awhile now. I have a main notebook (MacBook pro 17", hooked up to an external 24" display) and a gaming notebook (17" i7 quad core with ati 5870). Both of which got an SSD drive to alleviate the main bottleneck on notebooks.

I've to say I don't miss 'desktops' at all, thus far

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philh | # 14 | 2011-01-06, 10:57 | Report

What a pointless thread, just sell your desktop and be happy if you are so tired of 'messing with them'

Mine is not going anywhere, nothing else can run my flight sims. As for any other devices I only use N900 when I don't need to run a top end cpu and gpu just to scroll a website up and down...

Kindle? What a joke, I still prefer an actual book.

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ysss | # 15 | 2011-01-06, 11:07 | Report

Originally Posted by philh View Post

What a pointless thread, just sell your desktop and be happy if you are so tired of 'messing with them'

Kindle? What a joke, I still prefer an actual book.

What a pointless post. Just ***** offline and be happy if you're tired of 'messing with forum lusers'.

Heh.

Btw, are you familiar with kindle at all? It's not 'just' a book analog.

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philh | # 16 | 2011-01-06, 11:31 | Report

Originally Posted by ysss View Post

What a pointless post. Just ***** offline and be happy if you're tired of 'messing with forum lusers'.

Heh.

Btw, are you familiar with kindle at all? It's not 'just' a book analog.

At exactly what point was my post pointless? I aired my opinion, that`s what these forums are for, good job at posting your 3351 posts without grasping the basic idea.

Kindle? When I first noticed it on the market my thoughts process was:

1. primarily ebook reader
2. don't need that in my life therefore I don't need to spend anymore time on further research.
3. keep living my life

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rotoflex | # 17 | 2011-01-06, 13:15 | Report

Originally Posted by codeMonkey View Post

I'd like some form of main computer cube that can fit in a pocket or backpack, and a load of little devices that communicate with it. All of the other devices on me would link to the computer.

This is exactly what occurred to me shortly after working with the N900 for a while.

All my data and apps are on the N900, and thus they are where I need them.

The serious issue keeping this from happening is lack of any x-server type application and even print capability on the N900. The VNC server application is too slow to be workable.

Car computer shouldn't need separate applictions and an additional SIM to get a data connection if you've got your phone. You've got the Nav apps and downloaded data for navigation on your phone, plus the mp3s and saved internet radio stations on your phone, plus a data plan on your phone. With the bugs worked out of Carman, you have the vehicle computer on your phone. All the "car computer" needs to be is a thin client of your phone.

If you go to a library to do research, you've got your previously started documents already on your phone, as well as a word processing app that you use. Computers at libraries typically have available USB ports for storage, and the N900 should have a client app for Windows machines available on them so that when you connect the N900 via USB to another computer, you can run an nxclient on the Windows machine to operate the N900 from the full-size monitor and keyboard. The same would work for a home computer, everything is a thin client of your "phone".

I appreciate & use the capabilities of the N900 to operate as a client via VNC and OpenVPN for other computers, but omitting the server side of things like xhost and other programs to operate the N900 is what has limited it from being the paradigm-changer that it's indicating as imminent.

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cenwesi | # 18 | 2011-01-06, 13:29 | Report

Originally Posted by geneven View Post

I have a dream.

Nobody has one computer any more -- we have a bunch of them. We have mobile phones, book readers, laptops, desktops, and other things, such as gps devices.

Once upon a time, people asked themselves what kind of computer to get, PC, Mac or Linux. Or maybe dual-boot. That is no longer the right question.

What we now think about is, what combination of computing devices do we need? We think about the variety of situations in which we use computers and, lately, the number of size choices is increasing rapidly.

What may have been obvious to some of you suddenly occured to me. Is the big box desktop computer dying out? I hope so, because I am tired of messing with them.

So, maybe some of you can help me with this question. What is the best combination of devices that will allow me to toss my desktop entirely? Have any of you done so yet?

Big screens aren't about to go, and a full-sized keyboard is a must.

Another thing: when I'm at home now, I rarely work with one device at a time. At a minimum, I tend to have my N900 and my Kindle within reach. I'd like a larger, tablet computer as well. At first I was thinking of a 7-inch tablet, but at the moment I am dreaming of a ten-inch or even larger tablet, with a slide-out or detachable keyboard. Of course, a detached bluetooth keyboard is another obvious choice.

In order to keep this from being too much of a duplicate of other threads, please try to keep in mind the goal of putting your desktop computer out on the curb to be hauled away. Can we do that now? What else do we need?

Yes... Motorola Atrix

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gmuslera | # 19 | 2011-01-06, 13:42 | Report

The problem with starting a discussion with "best" is that it depends heavily on what criteria you use, and there is a lot of subjectivity around.

But you can take the components and see what fits. All have a meaning, a best scenario to use them. And if well the line dividing the devices for some kind of uses could be blurry (i.e. a tablet with bluetooth keyboard vs notebook/netbook, i'd bet netvertibles could simplify things there) you have cases where is clear the superiority of one solution or another.

I would say that the 2 extremes of the scale can't be avoided. The mobile phone/computer as in the N900 or future devices with that kind of functionality in around that size is a must for a big while. And the desktop computer, as something with separate displays, input devices and central cpu where you can have flexibility to adapt and upgrade, and is meant to be used in a very specific and comfortable spot for a full experience, is a must too. And the middle ground (i.e. at least a netvertible) should be there too.

In theory most of the roles could be done with an N900 or smaller sized device with the right accessories, but not sure if there is some kind of wireless/secure communication technology that could communicate fast between the cpu and input/output device like screen or input cameras, so you need at least cables if not being directly integrated with the cpu, and there you give up mobility or have different devices for different scenarios.

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stickymick | # 20 | 2011-01-06, 13:51 | Report

From an office/work environment point of view, I think it's quite a feasible idea. However, from an enthusiasts point of view, I don't think it would be a welcomed proposition.

Personally, I'd still want a desktop PC, no matter what the capabilities of a smartphone are. I like to dabble with my PC and upgrade it, the next thing on my list is a new CPU. I'm also a gamer, and I'm already at a stage where games that were released last year give my PC the sweats unless I upgrade.You simply won't be able to do this with a smartphone, you'll be effectively stuck in laptop linbo where everything is based on SMT (Surface Mount Technology). No CPU upgrade, no video card upgrade, no sound card upgrade. Unless of course someone does actually take the initiative and produce a modular design where the CPU, video sub-system, audio and maybe the internal storage can be swapped out.
Technological progress in the computing world is moving at a phenomenal rate and I believe that making such a bold move as replacing the home PC with a smartphone that can do everything will hamper the progress severely, if not stop it completely.

I don't intend to p**s on anyone's bonfire, because there's things that I want my N900 to do that would be great time savers if they were successfully implemented. Like sending a document to a Bluetooth/wireless printer, read pen-drives, external optical drives, hard drives, keyboards, mice, projectors etc.
Thanks to you guys (the "ENTHUSIASTS") we're almost there. At the rate you're going when Nokia do finally drop the first Meego handset us N900 owners will still be doing things that even that handset can't do.

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