Hp thailand sells $450 linux laptop

[dazdaz]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/05/23/HNthailinux_1.html

Bring on Linux.  Anyone have further details, specs etc?

Regards

[francois]

hi dazdaz'

the only thing we know friends of mine and me, is he chip ..

it's shipped with an intel chip and socket 370 (pga) for intel

PIII and celeron ... not upgradble to any P4 or AMD!

ther must a cd reader and a floppy, the rest should be "onboard" as usual for cheap PC's ...

if lucky there is an AGP slot ... not obious !

nobody talked about any onboard Lan connectivity, or any

usb specifications ...

left, a labtop, running linux, for an office use, internet, mail etc

but don't dream about working with sound or videos, but for

a develloping service or businness purpose, this can be ok.

the kids are going to be dissapointed, it's not this fast

useless to think about games for the kids ...

or may be after format the disk and installa pirate windows version, then kids can play a plenty

anyway, not a such bad news, but did they really needed it?

this remain a question ... do we need PC's ?

cant' we live without, I mean for the non-professional user?

a lot of things like this ... can't spent the night on

good luck to all new linux users and welcome !

francois

[exchange1973]

Hi there,

just a short question related to usung Linux in thailand:

Does anyone know about the use of Linux in professional sector in Thailand! I'm IT-Manager in the field of networkdevelopment and softwareengineering in germany and i'm interested in get to know what Linux_Distributions are preferred in thai_professional_use!

THX and GTX from Berlin/Germany!

Alex.

[Brian]

Call me skeptical... but

My guess is that most of these laptops will have the hard drive re-formatted and a pirated copy of windows installed on the first day that they are in the new owners possesion.

I would love to see Linux take off as a real commercially viable alternative to MS, but the reality is that most PC users have extremely few technical skills and therefore are not suited to a penguins life.

But this offer gets them a cheap laptop, whith out the need to pay for the pre-installed (and legal) MSbloatware.

[Thetyim]

Brian,

Sorry this is off topic but I searched for windows Me updates

today and got a message saying that Microsoft no longer supports Thai Windows .

Do you have any idea why ?

[Brian]

Thetyim,

Probably Bill Gates needs renovate his new house, so he wants you spend some money to upgrade to the latest version of windows.

You might like to send the same question to the Bangkok Posts computer journos at  [email protected]

If they have an answer you'll be able to read it online at http://www.bangkokpost.com/Database/index.html

I also run ME on my PC at home and haven't been able to successfully run an online update for about 6 months.

My operating system of choice is OS/390...   ::

[Dickygozinya]

If your os of choice is OS/390.  The question is: Should you use TSO/EDIT or ISPF??

[dazdaz]

Did'nt IBM change the name from OS/390 to to z/OS?  This is interesting because Thailand from what I can see has very old information technology infrastructure, and if you want to work there in I.T. you need to know about some older systems.

http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/

Returning to IT work in Thailand topic for a bit.  Another interesting point is that a lot of positions want you to be multi dimensionally-skilled such as a systems analyst and a programmer.  Completely unrealistic if you ask me, I don't know where they find the staff, Thailand does'nt produce so many people with a higher standard of Technical ability than the West.  And yet they have unrealistic expectations.

Just see,

http://www.bangkokpostjobs.com/

Look at how ridiculous these positions are.

Computer/IT thats it.  That and your photo.  They will discriminate against your picture and then you have no hope.

OFFICE AUTOMATION TECHNICAL SUPPORT [ALL LEVELS]

(5 Positions)

Bachelor's Degree in Computer-related fields, with at least 2 years experience in Information Technology

Working knowledge of Windows 2000, Win/NT, Networking (TCP/IP, LAN, WAN) and design/support for end user environments

Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) or MCP qualification is an advantage

So for a desktop support jobbie, they want someone with a degree and Microsoft certifications which btw, cost a fortune in Thailand economy/currency.

Maybe we should start a forum on exposing some of these silly jobs they advertise for fun, many IT and Thai interested people here.  We could learn a lot, I think many people would be interested.

Sorry folks, I hate recruitment, and I hate Thai job advertisements.

Regards

[francois]

hello'

to Exchange1973, I think that most thai linix users run the TLE, tahi linux edition, wich is based on red-hat, then come red-hat and mandrake.

it is not so much used in the professional business for one reason, all young thai students taht come on the work-market have skills on windows and for some in programming,

for those ones using linux or freebsd won't be a problem.

the fact is, even if there is a thai linux group, this remain

only for a few, as in the other countries ...

but, we still do hope that someday, people willl realize

that using linux is not ;

1. so hard ...

2. an exlusive OS for programmers

3. something that you nedd to learn for long before to use it

to Thetyim, windows me, is there still some people using this?

no update, sure ... anti-piracy is on ! even with all the smiles

from bill gates or any government instance ...

this remain a problem.

you buy a real one, or you run free as you wish, but there

won't be any special thai edition anymore, use windoze2k,

there is a multilanguage version

anyway

have a good day

francois

[Brian]

Should you use TSO/EDIT or ISPF

ISPF for sure. I think I'd rather go back to punch cards than have to use TSO/EDIT..  well, maybe not.

BTW: I once had ISPF for windows. It was a great product, it allowed you to do great ISPF commands. Never found any other PC ap that allowed the equivilent of "C abc xyz 1 5 .first .last"

Did'nt IBM change the name from OS/390 to to z/OS?  

The newest version is indeed z/OS, but we haven't gone that route yet. Still on Os/390 2.9 which is no longer supported by IBM.

Anyone have any idea how many mainframe sites there are in Thailand?

P.S Sorry for accidently hi-jacking a linux question to discuss OS/390 aka z/OS

[MaiChai]

I just installed Red Hat 9.0, and it does not support Thai without fiddling around and doing it manually yourself. When I had Mandrake 9.0 (and earlier versions), they supported Thai, although the fonts supplied weren't that nice. Not that impressed with Red Hat compared to Mandrake or Suse, but have to use it as its what the corporates love.

IT jobs advertised in Thailand are a joke. I love the age discrimination too, almost like they expect you to be vice president by the time you hit forty, so thus you can't apply for technical jobs, or there is some exact career progression that every company follows, with incremental promotions, with every company promoting people at exactly the same time! And if you did not get promoted at a regular intervals, and had not made it to some senior post fairly quickly, then you must be mentally difficient or slow in some way? And where do they get this idea that age is related to skill level?

Of course Linux is the perfect operating system for Thais; its cheap (free) and you don't have to run illegal copies of expensive American software from Redmond! Personally, I think Microsofts products are far to expensive for Thais, and MS needs to modify the prices to what Thais can afford, just as virtually every other international company operating in Thailand has done.

[dazdaz]

I would love to read some articles on the real state of the IT market in Thailand, and what the real hopes of would be expats as well as the Thai's are.  Would the Bangkok Post be the place who would be equipped to do the research?  I know we've talked about this several times on here and have some good advice, it'd be nice to get some feedback from employers and expose the reality, I feel they will have a great but stinking story to tell.  I noticed the agre discrimination from day 1 in the job adverts, to be honest i've given up looking, Europe is a better option short term because of the difficulty, but long term, i'm keen to probably get a transfer if I can to Thailand through an international company.  Once i'm established for a good few years, then I may be able to setup a business for myself.

Would you be able to post a quick guide on howto setup Thai fonts on Red Hat 9?  Was there any other Thai customisation you had to do?

Regards

[MaiChai]

Sorry, I havn't setup Red Hat 9 for Thai as I haven't had the time. However, Linux is Linux is Linux and if it works on Mandrake, then it should be doable on Red Hat. Now you have me interested. There is a guide (how to) on Thai-izing linux.

Ah, here it is http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Thai-HOWTO.html. I take backups of my Linux installs, so I can probably steal the Thai bits (config files/fonts) from one of my Mandrake backups and put it on Red Hat. But if you want to save yourself the bother, it might be easier just to install Mandrake 9.1 (current version). As I said earlier, Mandrake  and Suse are miles better than Red Hat, and Linux is Linux is Linux...

PS: Mozilla (web browser) on Red Hat 9.0 is a really old version, which can't import your favourites from Internet Explorer (later versions allow you to do this). Not sure if this old version would like websites with Thai characters... Red Hat sucks!

You can download iso images of all the linux distros at http://www.linuxiso.org (providing you have a cd burner and reasonably faster Internet access).

[dazdaz]

Great thanks.  I did'nt know this exists.

In case anyone gets stuck, the URL is here (without the dot).

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Thai-HOWTO.html

Yes, it does look like a lot of messing around, which makes me wonder if people will just make do with English.

Regards

[george]

Where can I buy Mandrake Linux 9.1 (standard 3 cd set) in Bangkok?

Any reseller? Panthip Plaza?

[dazdaz]

http://www.holtww.com/

[MaiChai]

Technically speaking you can download image files of each cd, thus unless you get a properly boxed version of Mandrake 9.1 (with hardcopy guide), don't pay any more than 100/150 baht per cd. That is the unofficial versions will either have been copied from a boxed version or downloaded.

I have a fast Internet connection, so just downloading Mandrake 9.1. Will let you know what its like when I install it. Another day, another version of Linux

[dazdaz]

You have a fast internet connection in Thailand?  A friend of mine has bandwidth capping, it's terrible.  He says their really annoying about charging and calculating how much you've used.  

Regards

[MaiChai]

I'm in the UK at the moment. Looking for a job to finance my next stint of being a bum in Thailand. Oh I love doing nothing sitting around all day in Thailand... I don't even like computers in Thailand; get too much of it back in farang land.