| Intel's OLPC-killer heads for Vietnamese retailers |
Oct. 29, 2007
 An ultra-low-cost laptop for children will be soon be available for purchase in computer stores in Vietnam. The "Hacao Classmate PC" is based on Intel's Classmate PC design, and will come pre-installed with Hacao Linux, a Vietnamese-language Linux distribution based on Puppy Linux.
The news was broken in a discussion forum posting at DesktopLinux. The Hacao Classmate PC appears to be based on Intel's Classmate PC, Intel's answer to the AMD-powered OLPC (One Laptop per Child) design, which also runs Linux. Both projects aim to create low-cost, rugged laptops capable of improving educational opportunities in developing nations.
       
Hacao Classmate PC gallery
(Click any image to enlarge)
According to earlier reports, the Classmate PC weighs 2.9 pounds, and features a 7-inch LCD display. Based on an ultra-low power Celeron processor, it has 256MB of RAM, up to 2MB of flash-based local storage, and both wired and wireless (802.11b/g) Ethernet interfaces.
Hacao Linux is derived from Puppy Linux, a popular, free desktop Linux distribution aimed at low-resource PCs, such as older systems and thin client systems. Both Puppy and Hacao Linux aim to offer a full complement of office software, while achieving adequate performance by running all applications from a RAM disk.
The most recent version of Hacao Linux, Hacao Linux 2.16 Professional, with a footprint of 281MB compared to 70MB for Puppy, appears to integrate quite a bit of additional open source software.
Touted software features for Hacao in the past have included:- auto detect and connect to LAN and wireless internet
- printing with full CUPS
- Hacao.Office (office application suite)
- Java installer
- Skype internet telephone client
- GIMP image editor
- enables installation of Windows applications with Wine and Winexs
Exact availability and pricing have not yet been announced.
In other recent news, Intel recently joined the OLPC initiative, after years of being criticized by OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte for sabotaging the
-- Henry Kingman
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