Got an unmarked 'wireless book'. What should I do with it?
28 replies, posted
My grandmother received a netbook for sitting in at some travel company seminar one afternoon. She had no use for it so she gave it to me.
The box it came in just has a picture of your typical multi-ethnic family having a blast with their computer with the letters 'EPC'. That's it. Nothing else at all. Opening it up all there is inside is the small netbook (it's about 3/4th the size of my acer aspire one) and it's charger and a little manual. The manual tells me pretty much nothing other than how to charge it and turn it on and off.
The netbook itself is completely black without any sort of make or model on it. No sort of serial code or barcode. It's completely clean. Turning it on I am greeted with "Wireless Book - Booting OS Image". The OS is Windows Embedded 6.0 (Build 3122). It's CPU is a "WMT, ARM-WM8505" clocked at 300MHz. It has 128MB of RAM and a 2GB HDD. It came preloaded with 'Pocket RAR 3.60 beta 4' and some weird version of Skype that I can't actually get to work.
I don't really know what to do with it myself so I'm looking for suggestions.
Blow it up.
roast it over an open fire, a mighty feast awaits
What's with the sudden rise of seminars handing out cheap chinese knockoffs? I saw someone the other day with a miniature iPad lookalike that ran android, but had all the apple icons.
Is it this?
[url]http://www.dealextreme.com/p/7-tft-lcd-windows-ce-6-0-arm-wm8505-cpu-wifi-umpc-netbook-2gb-flash-disk-usb-host-sd-slot-lan-42015[/url]
Well, it's ARM-based, so most Windows tasks are off the list. Definitely not a gaming rig.
I'd suggest trying to get Android or some variant of Linux on it. Maybe ChromeOS, if that's out yet, just to try it.
If the battery life is good, I'd suggest putting in a larger hard drive and using it as a portable media player. Might be good for watching movies on the go.
[QUOTE=Tobba;29158077]Is it this?
[url]http://www.dealextreme.com/p/7-tft-lcd-windows-ce-6-0-arm-wm8505-cpu-wifi-umpc-netbook-2gb-flash-disk-usb-host-sd-slot-lan-42015[/url][/QUOTE]
Yes.
Ubuntu ARM.
[QUOTE=Badal;29157416]What's with the sudden rise of seminars handing out cheap chinese knockoffs? I saw someone the other day with a miniature iPad lookalike that ran android, but had all the apple icons.[/QUOTE]
I called the idea first, fuck off.
I'm seconding running Android.
put debian/chromeos (does chromeos even have an ARM build?) on it and use it to browse the web.. nothing much else to do with something that shitty
[QUOTE=BigOwl;29158859]I called the idea first, fuck off.[/QUOTE]
...?
[QUOTE=wlzshroom;29161225]put debian/chromeos (does chromeos even have an ARM build?) on it and use it to browse the web.. nothing much else to do with something that shitty[/QUOTE]
ChromeOS does have an ARM build, but apparently it's still unreleased, and surprisingly it isn't going to be open-sourced (if Wikipedia is accurate). I'm wondering how they'll meet GPL requirements - they'll probably have to release the kernel code (if they modified it), and probably whatever windowing system they used.
When I read the title I thought you had found a book about wireless networks :saddowns:
Well the general consensus seems to be Linux/Ubuntu so I'll go with that.
[QUOTE=Nautsabes;29177419]Well the general consensus seems to be Linux/Ubuntu so I'll go with that.[/QUOTE]
DON'T install ubuntu, it's full of shit and i don't think gnome can run on 300 mhz arm
Well then what would you suggest?
[QUOTE=Nautsabes;29178121]Well then what would you suggest?[/QUOTE]
debian with a window manager, not a full on desktop environment
Age of Empires 2!
[QUOTE=hgncommand;29178251]Age of Empires 2![/QUOTE]
i dont think it can run on an arm processor
[QUOTE=Nautsabes;29178121]Well then what would you suggest?[/QUOTE]
Well, I'd suggest Arch or Debian with an Awesome or Openbox + Tint2 setup. I prefer floating window managers over tiling, so I would use Openbox.
[QUOTE=Nautsabes;29156793]My grandmother received a netbook for sitting in at some travel company seminar one afternoon. She had no use for it so she gave it to me.
The box it came in just has a picture of your typical multi-ethnic family having a blast with their computer with the letters 'EPC'. That's it. Nothing else at all. Opening it up all there is inside is the small netbook (it's about 3/4th the size of my acer aspire one) and it's charger and a little manual. The manual tells me pretty much nothing other than how to charge it and turn it on and off.
The netbook itself is completely black without any sort of make or model on it. No sort of serial code or barcode. It's completely clean. Turning it on I am greeted with "Wireless Book - Booting OS Image". The OS is Windows Embedded 6.0 (Build 3122). It's CPU is a "WMT, ARM-WM8505" clocked at 300MHz. It has 128MB of RAM and a 2GB HDD. It came preloaded with 'Pocket RAR 3.60 beta 4' and some weird version of Skype that I can't actually get to work.
I don't really know what to do with it myself so I'm looking for suggestions.[/QUOTE]
Turn it into something like this [url]http://www.instructables.com/id/Dell-Laptop-into-Digital-Photo-Frame/[/url]
[QUOTE=gman003-main;29161340]ChromeOS does have an ARM build, but apparently it's still unreleased, and surprisingly it isn't going to be open-sourced (if Wikipedia is accurate). I'm wondering how they'll meet GPL requirements - they'll probably have to release the kernel code (if they modified it), and probably whatever windowing system they used.[/QUOTE]
I don't believe it has been released. However, two other good ARM based systems would be Risc OS, and Plaszma OS.
Arch + Awesome/Openbox/Lxde.
[QUOTE=Ca5bah;29186109]Arch + Awesome/Openbox/Lxde.[/QUOTE]
i dont think arch has an arm port
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