Re: Cheap PC distro's

[Mike Shaw <mshaw@wwisp.com>]

At 11:51 AM 12/6/2002 -0500, Francis Cianfrocca wrote:
>Mike, isn't the point here that a consumer is buying a self-contained "web 
>appliance"?

Sorta, but these boxes are more oriented toward other tasks such as word 
processing as well.


>You're quite right, having this be o-bsd based will be wonderful (and 
>valuable), but maybe it doesn't fit the economic model. (In this case, no 
>support is eceonomically possible- it's like buying a Norelco.) Would we 
>treat the toaster as essentially a white-box and resell it?
>-f

Naw, no reselling hardware or anything.  It just seems like people are 
re-inventing the wheel with obsd on workstations for joe user and his 
trusty sidekick p200, but this box is a known quantity.  If I had a friend 
who was just interested in the cheapest possible workstation, I'd recommend 
this box....however:

If these boxes are as popular as they say, and if they run a version of 
linux, and if this linux distribution is running typical linux daemons, and 
if the consumers follow the typical consumer habit of patching, then how 
long until we see happy lil' backdoor worms bouncing around on them?

I'd much rather recommend a hardened obsd based solution to someone, and 
with a standard distro for a standard platform that would be possible.  Pop 
a CD in and 20 minutes later you have a fully functional obsd consumer 
workstation (with some sort of way to support the project if you did it a 
bunch....maybe "hey pick up one of those cheap wal-mart pc's and for 30 
bucks I'll get you set up right...).

However, Ben's points are hitting home.  Some of the more necessary tasks 
such as word processing might not be ready for prime time at the consumer 
level with obsd (at least not with alot of work).  Still....the picture of 
my daughter playing barbie.com flash games on an OpenBSD workstation is a 
compelling image.  Maybe one day....

-Mike