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[teapot]

Just found an article relevant to the YouTube discussion above: Flash Video is still a major issue for millions of netbooks.

[Oh] yeah, Adobe!

Microsoft takes bad ideas, methods and processes, and implements them in a nearly perfect manner. When their products inevitably suck, it's clear that the problem is not with some random stupidity thrown into implementation but with the very foundation of everything they do -- this is why I see them as irredeemable and hopeless, and avoid them like a plague.

Adobe, on the other hand, usually implements everything so poorly and in such a weird, convoluted manner, it's hard to see if their ideas had any merit to begin with. Their crowning achievement is proper use of GTK in modern versions of Adobe Reader for Linux -- every time when I see it, I wonder:

1. How such a relatively non-broken thing came out of Adobe that I know and love so much?
2. Why can't they produce something -- anything -- else with similarly proper use and application of interfaces, mechanisms and guidelines carefully made for them by others and successfully used in thousands of other applications?

I mean, seriously -- of all things video playback and sound output being the Achilles' heel of a large interactive graphics environment? After VLC, Mplayer, Xine and even Totem getting both those things right?

</rant> , I guess...

[sola]

Basic windowed mode Flash playing is enough for me.

If the Nano is at least similar in performance as Atom, then Java apps and OpenOffice will run fine with the 1G RAM of the XO-1.5

[ChristophD]

If the Nano is at least similar in performance as Atom, then Java apps and OpenOffice will run fine with the 1G RAM of the XO-1.5

Please note that the XO-1.5 will use the VIA C7-M CPU not the much newer VIA Nano CPU!

[sola]

Oh, that is bad news. For some reason I believed it will be shipped with the Nano CPU.

Do you think the C7-M is comparable to the Atom which was in the original eeePC? I have a tentative idea of the speed of that one.

[ChristophD]

Do you think the C7-M is comparable to the Atom which was in the original eeePC? I have a tentative idea of the speed of that one.

At the same clock frequency the Atom is faster than the C7-M, by how much depends on the specific scenario. Though do remember that netbooks basically all use a 1.6GHz Atom while the XO-1.5 will come with a C7-M running at a max. frequency of 1GHz.

And the original eee PC (as in the 701 and early 9xx series) used the Celeron processor and not the Atom IIRC.

[teapot]

At the same clock frequency the Atom is faster than the C7-M, by how much depends on the specific scenario. Though do remember that netbooks basically all use a 1.6GHz Atom while the XO-1.5 will come with a C7-M running at a max. frequency of 1GHz.

In my experience typically 1 Intel MHz == 2 VIA MHz. However this is not really important because most of XO problems with slow/bloated applications are caused by small amount of RAM (so less can be cached/preloaded, and the same data has to be read and re-read from slow flash), not raw CPU performance.

[sola]

So Teapot: Do you think that tha Via C7-M and the 1Gbyte RAM will make a marked difference?

At least decent, fast browsing, Flash and Java would be really nice on the XO.

[mavrothal]

At least decent, fast browsing, Flash and Java would be really nice on the XO.

Not really 
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/201324/hp-2133-mini-note.html
(and that's for the 1.2GHz...)

[teapot]

At least decent, fast browsing, Flash and Java would be really nice on the XO.

Not really 
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/201324/hp-2133-mini-note.html
(and that's for the 1.2GHz...)

The article complains about slow Youtube in fullscreen mode, lack of preinstalled DivX player (hi, patents), and for some reason author thinks that slow OpenOffice startup is caused by a slow CPU and not, say, hard drive.

[teapot]

So Teapot: Do you think that tha Via C7-M and the 1Gbyte RAM will make a marked difference?

At least decent, fast browsing, Flash and Java would be really nice on the XO.

I wouldn't expect fast Flash video or Java (I have yet to see a fast GUI application in Java on any hardware and any OS), however web browser and most of non-video Flash should be usable.

Non-Flash video playback may have problems with some codecs, however typical MPEG2/MPEG4 TV-resolution files should be perfectly usable.

[sola]

Java desktop applications can be pretty fast when engineered correctly. They can even be good looking. For example the Eclipse or Netbeans IDEs both are extremely complex programs and they run with acceptable speed on my 4-year old Toshiba laptop with 2G RAM. And the Java VM is still evolving, performance enhancements are still introduced in almost every release.

There are quite a number of well working, fast Java GUI applications in the wild (Areca Backup, RSSOwl, TimeSlotTracker, SweetHome3D...etc). It is rather that people stick to the idea that all Java GUI programs are slow, although this is not true anymore.

The Java apps, I use, run even on the XO-1 but load time and response time is only bearable. If the VIA processor is 2x stronger than the Geode and it will really have 1G RAM, I assume my apps will work fine.

Flash may be a different kind of animal but if embedded (non-full-screen) video playing works, it may be just fine.

[BeninTucson]

Hi  . . .

I just stumbled across this thread tonight . . . still waiting for my 2nd-hand eBay purchased XO-1 to show up in the mail. But from what other have observed here (opinions of other adult "developed world" users,) I already know that Sugar is going to be something that I will probably not like using ,and cute little green and white plastic box will be a novelty at best . . . in its present form.

There are other threads on this forum that address attempts at other Linux distros being installed on XO-1s, but with mixed success. People generally love the form factor of the OX-1 (sealed keyboard, adaptable light condition screen, etc.) but wish they could do more with it in regards to turning it into a "regular" netbook. They don't want to throw in the hat and buy a standard netbook. I think that the 1.5 motherboard is the answer.

There is legitimate concern expressed that the million or so XO-1 already sent to the third world will be "orphaned." But even here one can make lemonade from lemons . . .
especially if the plastic case on the XO-1.5 is going to be identical to the old machine.

OLPC might want to consider a "G1MBG1BM" program . . . that's an awkward acronym for "Give 1 Motherboard, Get 1 Motherboard. All those folks here in North America and Europe, who already have an XO-1, can purchase a motherboard for their own machines while financing the purchase of a motherboard that gets shipped off to a remote part of the world so someone else can upgrade their machine too.

This would run concurrent with folks (regardless of location) taking delivery of new XO-1.5s. The beauty of a motherboard upgrade program, though, is (1) lower cost
for donors and (2) less electronic waste.

I'm one of those folks who laments about electronic trash filling up landfills. This typically happens because consumers are forced to abandon their tech gadgets  long before they actually break, simply because software development out-paces the hardware. Hardware (on most mainstream consumer gadgets,) conversely, gets changed regularly and this prevents the sort of "pop in a new part into the old chassis" upgrade that used to be so much more common in the pre-digital age.

Sadly, much of this "developed world electrotrash" heads overseas to pollute the landfills of developing nations. A motherboard swap would reverse this trend significantly. 80% or more of the old machine (case, keyboard, screen, etc) lives on and only the motherboard has to be contended with.

Yes, you now still have a million or so old motherboards (and a genius more clever than myself can devise an ecologically responsible way to address that issue) but it is a far preferable scenario than a million XO-1s - most still functioning fine but in need of some upgraded parts - consigned to rotting in landfills while being replaced by identical looking machines.

Ben in Tucson

[sola]

@Ben
You are absolutely right, OLPC should be releasing the XO 1.5 baseboard as an upgrade to the XO-1.

[GregYohn]

Don't look for a XO 1.5 upgrade from OLPC!

They don't even offer parts, like replacement batteries!

I got my battery from a vendor and can only expect a new motherboard from the same or another vendor.

[ChristophD]

Don't look for a XO 1.5 upgrade from OLPC!

I also don't expect that to happen...

They don't even offer parts, like replacement batteries!

I got my battery from a vendor and can only expect a new motherboard from the same or another vendor.

Well, and where do you think that vendor got the spare parts from?

Just because OLPC doesn't offer spare parts via laptop.org doesn't mean that they don't make them available to channels such as ilovemyxo.com, xoexplosion.com or one of the community-run repair-centers...