New Sharp 3D Notebook Available with Linux

Anonymous Writer writes "Earlier this month, Sharp released the Actius AL3DU, the second generation laptop in its line of autostereo display products. EmperorLinux, Inc. is distributing it with Linux pre-installed, dubbing it the Molecule."

Re:Autonomy ?

[bcmm]

If it's like my Actius MM-10 (got it cheaply on ebay) it isn't really intended to be independent. It's really small and light, and it has a docking station so that it can act as a USB disk when powered down(a proper one - not with stupid drivers). However, it's not that powerful and it has a small HD (not that that matters when you use the docking station).
It's definitely intended for use with a desktop.

Re:Good choice of distros

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Except they do have to. The difference in price between the Molecule and the Actius AL3DU is approximately $500. For a Linux install.

It's not appealing to anyone.

Win-modems

[szlevente]

The software win-modems on the Kiwi, Raven, Toucan, SilverComet, and Rhino series systems are fully supported in Linux with win-modem drivers.
They just forgot to add that there is no free Linux driver for software win-modems with Conexant chipsets. The best I could find was at http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/, with a free version limited to 14.4 kbps. Add $14.95 to the price, if you want your modem to work.

Re:Autonomy ?

[delire]

I get 4.5 hrs, including watching a DVD on my Asus M6N, though I don't quite know why this performs so well; considering watching/ripping DVD's is around twice the battery load.

. http://store.agearnotebooks.com/asusm6nphotos.html [agearnotebooks.com]

I run a fairly light window manager, which I'm sure hits the GPU and processor with a softer hand albeit.

Re:what software is positioned to take advantage?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't say for sure as I don't have the hardware, but 3d card drivers can come with support for stereoscopic displays. Therefore, all you would need is a regular opengl app, and the driver would take care of the rest.

Re:argh!

[BenjyD]

It says:

Estimated Life: 1.3 hours

on the linux version. That's barely one average commute by train.

Re:Problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

that's because there is no discount.

first off. Nobody is fucking stupid enough to pay the full $300 for Windows. Only end-users get charged that. OEM's like Dell and other manufacturers have contracts and pay around 30-34 dollars per copy.

Second off, Emperor Linux doesn't get the Sharp without Windows. They buy it from the company with Windows installed just like you and I do, and just install Linux over it and sell it as a 'linux notebook'. If you look closely you'd notice that dual boot doesn't cost extra (or shouldn't)

It's not a Linux notebook per say, like HP's Linux notebook, it's a Windows notebook that has been formatted with Linux install.

Saves you the trouble of getting everything working, but that is about it.

The peripherals? Same as anything else.

Sharp AL3D Windows software beta for non AL3D user

[langoulant]

WARNING: SHAMELESS PLUG

I lead the team developing stereoscopic software that has been distributed with every Sharp stereoscopic 3D laptop ever produced. Well... All the Windows ones... If your interested in trying our DDD TriDef software with one of many stereoscopic viewing methods (anaglyph glasses; other glasses free 3d displays;) please send me an email mailto:[e-mail] [mailto].

DDD TriDef software enables you to:

• Watch your current 2D DVDs in stereoscopic 3D
• enable stereoscopic display for existing third party OpenGL apps
• convert 2D photos into stereoscopic 3D photos

You might like to check out our FAQs http://www.tridef.com/support/ [tridef.com]

Regards,
Brendan Langoulant
Director of Software
DDD

Saw this at LinuxWorld

[tweakt]

The guys at Emperor Linux had one on display at LinuxWorld in Boston last month. It was creating a mob scene of people wanting to check it out. It's actally quite slick. The only thing is, it is very viewer-position dependent. Meaning, you have to be sitting right in the sweet spot to get the full effect. If you're a little off, you can still see it, but it's not as pronounced and you start to see some funkiness with the colors. The 3D mode can be switched on and off and in 2D mode, it looked usable (but 2D res looked pretty low to me, I'll stick with my SXGA+ thinkpad thanks).

Re:what software is positioned to take advantage?

[lovebyte]

I believe that Pymol [sourceforge.net] can display stereo models. It's a modelling package for chemistry/biology. And it's open source. There are countless non open source software in chemo/bioinformatics that use stereo views.
I guess that's the reason why they call this laptop "molecule".

Re:Drop Windows Add $500???!?!

[FauxPasIII]

> I'm not great fan of Windows, but why should I pay $500 so that some screw up can spend 15min installing
> a version of Linux I don't like (vs one I do like)?

Somebody didn't rtfa (yeah yeah, I must be new here). First, we install all the major distros standard, and will do any
distro you like for an additional fee. I'm the maintainer of our Debian and Ubuntu installers, for instance. And, we
"justify" our markup because we put hundreds of hours of work into building a custom kernel for the machine that
supports everything on it. That's winmodems, wireless, all the power management features, etc. When necessary,
we write the code ourselves (and submit it upstream.)

We also provide technical support to all our customers, and frankly I suspect that's why most of them keep coming
back to us.

Re:Gah price!

[FauxPasIII]

> You know, I want to support Linux vendors, but the model with Linux costs *$500* more than the version with
> Windows direct from Sharp. That seems a little pricey for a free OS, eh?

I responded to this above, but briefly:

o) All our laptops work out of the box with Linux. Wireless, power management, winmodems, etc. all work. Most
of our customers don't have time to spend half a week getting their laptops up and running, but they do need
Linux for a variety of reasons.

o) We provide Linux tech support to our customers.

Re:Problem is...

[FauxPasIII]

We have to pay the MS tax too. ( I work at Emperor ).

It's not that bad for us since most of our customers still want dual-boot, but it's disheartening when somebody
orders a 100% Linux (the "no-Win situation" in our parlance) and still has to pay the same Windows license price. =/