Mr. Zonbu returns to his lair

Just quick note to say that I’ve returned to my lair and within about 20 minutes of booting my Zonbu it quietly updated itself.  I was busy surfing the web when a dialog popped up and said “All updates complete.”.

I didn’t need to do a thing (except reboot – although it wasn’t clear if that was even necessary).

I am now on 5.803 and will be running through my checklists to see what has been resolved and what may still be outstanding.  Look for more coverage over the weekend.

-Mr. Zonbu

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Zonbu OS Release 5.803 announced

Reader Bob has tipped us off to the latest release being pushed out by Zonbu.

According to the Zonbu website, it has the following changes:

Releases

Version 5.803 – released 2007-08-27

New feature

• Adding telnet and rdpclient (experimental)

Improvements

• Optimisation of the Zonbu file system for folders containig more than 1000 files.
• Improve handling of files whose name contain non-alphanumerical characters
• Printing of a Windows shared printer in now possible.

Desktop Linux use doubles; Ubuntu distribution of choice

This is interesting info, although not surprising.

Note where Gentoo ranks relative to Ubuntu based distributions:

According to DesktopLinux.com’s just completed survey, the number of Desktop Linux users has more than doubled in the past year, and Ubuntu remains their Linux distribution of choice.

You can read the whole article here: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8454912761.html

You may also be interested in observations on the recommendation patterns of tech savvy users, as discussed in my post here and the important of familiarity in expanding desktop Linux adoption.

Or you can read a telling excerpt after the jump…

Zonbu OS 5.797 pulled, waiting on 5.804 update

User Bob shared the following comment and I wanted to highlight it on the main page:

Sadly, I just received an email saying that the 5.797 has been removed from the automatic update because of bugs … but that 5.804 is on it’s way and should be less buggy.

I don’t have any other information as this juncture, and I’m still separated from my unit, but I’ll share any more information as it emerges.

-Mr. Zonbu

Computing in the car pool lane?

Are we headed towards a two tiered computing model?

If most of our needs can be met with a small power footprint box like the Zonbu, does it make sense to run that as our principal desktop and keep a full blown PC in reserve?

Think of it as commuting in the Honda Civic and taking our V8 muscle car out on the weekends or for special occasions.

I think this may be the model that we are headed towards, and I think it makes a lot of economic and environmental sense…

Mr. Zonbu takes a vacation

Hello loyal readers.

Just a quick note to let you know that I’ve been away on vacation but I will be returning with some more updates later this week.

In the mean time, thank you to all of you readers that have shared various comments and insights, including the update regarding the removal of the latest software update in favor of a new update due soon.

More to come later in the week.

-Mr. Zonbu

Impressive list of updates in latest release

I just reviewed the list of updates in the latest release.

I am pleased. Zonbu is listening and fixing problems.

While there are still a number of areas for improvement, a vast cross section of the items that we have noted here over the last month have been addressed…

More details on Zonbu OS Release 5.797

As noted by Gregoire of Zonbu, more detail has been posted on what is included in the latest release.

He also noted that Zonbu owners will need to reboot in order for the upgrade to be applied.

Here is the latest from their site:

Releases

Version 5.797 – released 2007-08-17

New feature

• Kiosk Edition: Zonbu can be used as a secure publicly accessible Internet terminal.

Improvements

• Update icons theme.
• Fix maximized windows which have now the right minimize icon.
• Fix multiple problems and add new features in the updater mechanism.
• Improve and fix video driver and mesa library.

ECNMag.com Reviews the Zonbu

ECN Magazine, which bills itself as “The Information Center for Design Engineers”, has a brief review of the Zonbu on their site.

They took issue with a few things, including speed (which again, surprises me, as I find my unit quite snappy), as well as the pricing model.

They also feel the unit has a lot of potential and that with some hardware improvements and more software polish it could prove to be a viable option.

They praised the online store and said they feel the community/developer model has promise…

New Zonbu Software Release

I just noticed this on the Zonbu site, I don’t believe it is being pushed out yet:

Releases

Version 5.797 – released 2007-08-17

New feature

• Kiosk Edition: Zonbu can be used as a secure publicly accessible Internet terminal

Improvements

• Improve video driver.
• Improve monitor detection again.
• Add support for iPods formatted with iTunes 7.3.
• improve support of iPods formatted on a Mac.
• Fix a problem with Yahoo Video in Firefox.
• Fix a bug in sound preferences.
• Fix bugs in cachefs throttling algorithms.

Known bugs

• Printing on a Windows shared network printer does not always work.

It will be interesting to see what exactly this addresses (MPEG Playback?) and whether or not some of the things like the missing fonts reference in the Image Editor have been fixed too.

-Mr. Zonbu