PengPod Hits Funding Goal, Plans to Ship Linux Tablet In January

An anonymous reader writes "Quoting liliputing: 'PengPod plans to start shipping 7 and 10 inch tablets with support for Linux as well as Google Android in January. The company, founded by Neal Peacock, has been raising money to help support software development for the tablets — and Peacock just wrote in to let us know the project has surpassed its initial $49,000 fundraising goal. In other words, the campaign will be fully funded and backers that pledged $120 or more should get their tablets starting in January if all goes according to plan.'" And, unlike many ARM SoCs, the kernel for the Allwinner A10 powering it is developed openly.

Either it is Linux, or it is a tablet.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Linux philosophy is incompatible with the concept of a tablet. Sadly kids today think "Ubuntu" would be what Linux is. They couldn't be farther from the truth.

A tablet is a consumer device that is not a computer anymore but is very limited and primitive in its functionality. It is not suited for creating anything, or using a computer for its actual purpose in general.

Linux is an operating system whose greatest features are its total freedom... of configurability... of modifiability... and most importantly: of being able to automate your work away, by using a computer like it's supposed to be used. It is a professional operating system. Something that is designed to be used by people who actually make things instead of sitting there and drooling their life away.

So a tablet is never a Linux computer. It is a gadget with a couple of appliances that happen to be implemented by (ab)using Linux. It lacks the whole damn point of why you'd choose Linux in the first place.

We must stop acting like bash scripting and text config files and everything-is-a-file and udev and dbus and kernel configuration are things to be ashamed of, and start wearing those things with pride! They are a thing of elegance and power and freedom in a word of jails and appliances and meaningless non-captioned colorful clickables... sorry... tapables.

Oh, and all the above criticism can be said about Ubuntu, and in fact all Linux "desktop environments" and monolithic big applications in general.

Households without a production device

[tepples]

A tablet is not the be-all and end-all of computing devices, but it's not intended to be a production device.

So devices that are great for viewing existing works but not much else have become fashionable. The problem is that these devices' popularity will drive people to end up choosing not to buy a device suitable for creating works, but by the time they grow to regret that choice, it's too late. Look at how video game consoles drove set-top home computers to near extinction in the 8- to 16-bit transition, for example. The C64, Apple II, and the like had set-top presence, but by the time IBM's 16-bit PC and its clones became popular, home computers had all but abandoned the ability to view works on the TV monitors of the time, and locked-down consoles picked up popularity.

Re:There goes the tablet experience

[tramp]

I just bought a € 99 tablet with Android 4, 1 Gb internal memory, 1.2 Ghz ARM A8 processor and a usb keyboard in a sleeve. It does everything it needs to do and at reasonable pace. Truth is that you do not need a Ipad to do basic things as browsing (Opera Mobile works perfect), email and some nice to have apps or casual gaming. Of course a Ipad is wonderfull but at a price I do not want to pay.