Tuesday, August 6, 2013

NetBook Booting and Cloud Computing

NetBook Booting and Cloud Computing
NetBook  (Tablet in due course) is probably the best utility for Cloud Computing and a mobile alternative.
For some reason it did not catch the imagination of many since there were many types of laptops and other market hype.
I bought a NetBook with SuSe enterprise edition (old version) and quickly erased it to install thinking that there are many Linux distributions dedicated to NetBooks.
After weeks of trying I found only two to my satisfaction.
Both were Ubuntu based.
Knoppix did not support it.
The two were EasyPeasy (11.04 version)which had minimal of software.
Only Pinguy Eee had enough software for me to use as my base distribution.
Thank you Pinguy Developer team that come from UK.
Net Runner Kubuntu derivative, I could boot up with a flash card (SD Card) but could not install since the installer crashed.
I played with it for few weeks and but it back to rest for prolonged period.
The when Peppermint IV came I tried it on my spare computer and found it light weight and very flexible.
Subsequently I loaded it up to 10 GiB with latest GIMP 2.8, Libre Office 4.0,Firefox in addition to Google Chrome and all are working to high standard.
I wanted to give it a try erased my netbook hard, repartitioned re-installed Pinguy Eee with the SD card and then peppermint with SD Card.
This is to avoid using the external USB DVD driver and downloaded all the software that I did not have on Pinguy Eee.
Pinguy repository did not downloading updated software.
It is working fine.
The bottom line was that Linux did not take advantage of its light wight capability and the global trend in cloud computing.
In cloud computing every thing has to be paper thin to get efficiency and functionality.
That is what is Linux is capable and Peppermint has shown the way.
Light weight desktop to start with.
All the Linux distribution except perhaps SuSe (Mind you KDE is resource draining desktop) were obsessed with bloated their image but forgot about efficiency and functionality.
This is why Linux is under represented globally just over 1%.
If not for Google and its Android clones and Ubuntu Linux would have been taking final gasping breaths.
It is not Linux Mint but Peppermint that will energize the Linux enthusiasm.
Even Debian and Fedrora have failed us.
I hope Linux magazine do a follow up and I do not mind them using this preamble to show a glimmer of hope for Linux.