
$270 Spark Linux tablet is powered by KDE Active Plasma - 11031a
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/270-spark-linux-tablet-is-powered-by-and-generates-funds-for-kde-active-plasma-20120129/
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mindcrime
That is really freaking cool. And it might be the thing that spurs me to
switch to KDE across the board. I run Gnome on my F12 desktop now, but have
been reluctant to upgrade to Gnome3... KDE, OTOH, I've always liked, but I
shied away from it in the past since there were some bits of software I used
that didn't have native KDE support (purportedly because of the KDE libs being
GPL'd).

Now, KDE is under the LGPL, this tablet looks pretty cool... and I'm thinking
that it might be a good time to go head, bite the bullet, and make KDE my
standard environment. I really need to upgrade the OS on this laptop anyway,
since F12 is like a bazillion years old now.

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trotsky
Based on the performance shown in the videos I have some serious reservations
about an X/KDE tablet with only 512MB.

~~~
bri3d
I think the fragmentation of X11 video acceleration is partially responsible,
as well - it's really hard to write a reasonable driver for every X
acceleration technology (which is in good part why Intel keept pushing for
MeeGo to use Wayland instead).

~~~
MatthewPhillips
The lead developer of Wayland works for Intel.

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seabee
And why do you think he's the lead developer? :) Not out of the goodness of
his heart, I should imagine.

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empire29
The performance seemed lacking, but more importantly, while watching the demo
the concept of an "activity" confused me -- I assume its similar to the notion
of an app, but it was hard to tell as the "activity" was represented as a
desktop -- overall fairly confusing.

It doesnt look ready for prime time but its exciting to see the FOSS community
working on it; who knows, in a few years it might be able to garner the same
eminence as xbmc has in the htpc space.

~~~
kijin
The whole "activity" thing tends to get confusing, even in desktop KDE. It's a
nice concept on paper, but badly in need of intuitive appeal.

~~~
ahel
<http://blip.tv/file/get/Chani-activities46160.ogv> That video may help you,
like had helped me.

~~~
agumonkey
There was a lot of nice things there, but .. I'm still confused :D

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waitwhat
That. tablet. has. really. jerky. performance.

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ahel
I don't think that tablet is Spark. I suppose it is the WeTab.

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bitcracker
This is very good news. We desperately need an open source alternative to the
closed platforms which play along the DRM censorship technology.

My dream Pad would support "dual view" modes in the sense that it could be
used as a Pad and as a classic PC as well. Which means: Put the Pad on a
table, connect a keyboard and mouse and use it as a classic PC for Software
development and Office.

The first mode would require the touch GUI (KDE Active Plasma) while the
second mode would be best supported by the classic KDE desktop. Wouldn't that
be nice to have?

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kzrdude
I'd like to see a Meego tablet instead! It's probably more mature too..

~~~
moondowner
MeeGo is dead. This runs on Mer[1] which is a continuation of MeeGo, combined
with Plasma Active[2], the KDE Tablet UI and apps.

[1] <http://merproject.org/> [2] <http://plasma-active.org/>

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jiggy2011
I see they've changed the UI but it still mostly looks like a desktop
interface shoehorned onto a tablet.

Beyond basic stuff like a web-browser I'm not sure what other software you
could run on here.

~~~
DrCatbox
Apache/Nginx, python and all those programs and emacs.

What more do you need? ;)

~~~
fab13n
> What more do you need?

Not a tablet anyway, it seems.

Kidding aside, I believe you've nailed the problem with this tablet's UI: it
seems designed by people who don't see the point of a tablet. They understand
it as "a laptop without a keyboard".

We've seen that before with Windows CE, designed by people who saw smartphones
as underpowered, keyboard-less computers, with a stylus as a poor substitute
for a mouse (they even had a right-click button on some styluses IIRC). They
"adapted" the Windows UX into a phone as an accessibility issue, although it
was to support challenged hardware rather than challenged users. And indeed,
Windows CE felt as compelling as Windows with sticky keys, high contrast, big
fonts and a Braille reader.

I'm afraid this tablet's UI deserves the same success against iOS devices as
Windows CE experienced.

~~~
DrCatbox
Good analogies are rarely seen as this one.

All this just goes to show that for most products there is room for
improvement in UX.

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shmerl
It's running on the Mer Core <http://merproject.org> and I wonder why
developers aren't given credit for in in the article.

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chj
i might be interested in this if it is $27.0

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aiscott
I like the idea and the hardware, but the article was really offensive to me.

I design hardware for a living. To rephrase, I design hardware for money, aka
PROFIT. So when I read something like "at the end of the day you are just
passing along profit to the device makers." like that is somehow a bad thing,
I'm not only irritated, I'm mystified.

I've been in the market for a tablet, but it won't be this one.

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jsight
The actual quote is:

"Android tablet options abound, and Google’s operating system is as open as
you’re going to find on a retail shelf. At the end of the day, though, you’re
passing profit along to the Android device makers."

Isn't that more of a swipe at Google/Android than at device makers in
particular? Ie, presumably he feels that Android and their makers don't
contribute back to the software community, whereas this device does?

(Personally, I think he's wrong in that assertion, but I still don't think
this is a swipe at hardware guys at all)

~~~
MaysonL
Are any Android tablet manufacturers selling enough to make a profit on the
tablets?

~~~
jsight
The Asus transformer has done pretty well, and is almost certainly profitable
(cf,
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/235925/asus_transformer_table...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/235925/asus_transformer_tablet_surprising_second_best_in_sales_after_apple_ipad.html)
though I suspect those numbers are a bit high). I don't know how many of the
other models would have to sell to reach profitability, but I'd be shocked if
the cheap shenzen tablets were unprofitable (why would they keep going if they
weren't?). Not to mention the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire.

The others don't seem to be selling as well, but that has to do with a very
poor quality->price ratio (cf, any Acer tablet). Anyway, I think the argument
that Android tablets aren't selling has been vastly overstated. There was a
huge line for these things on Black Friday in the US for example.

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wavephorm
This looks great, and now all the people complaining about Microsoft's locked
firmware have a place to take their wallets.

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gcb
like what we need is yet another convoluted home screen shenanigans.

just focus on getting regular gnome/kde/whateverwm on those things and be done
with it.

most devices lack drivers even when proprietary.

the touchpad has a chip for hdmi from the usb port that webos doesn't have
code to use

