New Operating System For Developing Countries?

Rohan Amin asks: "What are people's thoughts on new operating systems such as NewDeal that claim to run on older machines such as 286's? Is this a powerful solution to help bring technology to those who can't afford it, especially in developing countries? NewDeal, for example, claims to have developed an operating system and office suite that will allow organizations to resurrect a large supply of unused 286/386 machines and to deploy them in international locations. Is this a sound approach? Many complain about the complexities of Linux and are turning to solutions such as this."

Not an OS

[Anonymous Coward]

Incidentally, NewDeal isn't an OS. It's a productivity suite that runs on DOS. My old high school tried it out with success on their 386 lab. Since the school couldn't afford to upgrade ALL of their labs, it was a good solution. The labs with the higher end stuff run the Microsoft family of tools, though. Yuck.

NewDeal is a good solution

[BusterB]

There's been talk of older machines being just as expensive as newer ones because parts and upgrades are hard to come by. Assuming that an already old computer really needs to be upgraded is ignoring the question. I think the question asker was really wondering what sort of OS or software would be appropriate for an older computer if upgrades were not available, and NewDeal is a good solution. You'd be hard pressed to find another software package that supports TCP/IP, has a web browser, office suite, motif based gui and ran on an 8086 with 640k and a hard disk (it does!) The question is, what kinds of OS's and software can do a similar job with old, limited harware. The ELKS project is porting Linux to old machines (I've got it running on an 8086 from a 720k floppy), but it's not a good idea for bringing to a 3rd world country because it's far from usable. Really, besides DOS and maybe CP/M-86 or GEM, nothing really runs well on older machines, and NewDeal (or Geoworks Ensemble if you can get older copies) provides more functionality and is easier-to-use than anything else. There's a project out there to produce a light version of the GEOS OS that runs from floppies on a PC too (like C-64s and their kin have had for a while now)

Re:New O/S eh..

[jfrisby]

Simple: It's not a new OS.

GEOS, the OS at the heart of NewDeal originated as PC/GEOS, around the same time Windows 3.0 came about.

Like Windows 3.x, it is an environment on top of DOS that provides its own ABI and API. Its filesystem module gives you things like longish (32 chars) filenames on top of FAT16, and it provides a great many useful libraries and modules for programmers. (including something roughly analogous to MFC)

It's VERY small, and VERY fast but rather feature-poor and coded in a low-level object-oriented macro assembler so making it work on a 32/64-bit system in such a way as to take advantage of even just the available memory would be nearly impossible.

-JF

Re:Old Hardware

[Fred Ferrigno]

Ok, so I guess you don't need a network or enough space on the hard drive for more than a few documents. If you need graphics, I suppose you could wait a minute after every action. God help you if you ever try to figure out any hardware problems with the mishmash of random computers you've got.

In my experience working with schools, however, a donated computer is rarely workable as-is and a lot work is put into just getting it to work at a bare minimum level. Sure, you could expend time and energy getting these old computers to work; and sure, you don't need the fastest things on the block. But in the long run I think you'll find I'm right when I say that these older computers aren't as cheap as you think and they aren't worth your time.

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Old Hardware

[Fred Ferrigno]

There are more problems with older computers than just their speed. Hardware upgrades are next to impossible to find. Did you know that SIMMs are more expensive than brand spanking new PC133 DIMMs? Or that a 486DX100 CPU is more expensive than a Duron? Try finding ethernet cards for those 286s. Or larger hard drives. Swaping files between computers that don't support the same floppy format is a pain. Insuring that all the same software runs the same on all computers is next to impossible. I suppose this New Deal thing would try to fix that, but then you can't run any outside Windows or Mac programs.

Really, an old computer is just as expensive as a new one, so you might as well get new ones. And despite what the politicians say about the Internet gap, a computer is a ultimately luxury device. There is no reason to believe that 'developing countries' need computers so much that they should settle for half-assed solutions. Wait a while for the technology to develop; and in the meantime, keep doing what has worked for years.

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This is a bunch of crap...

[Any_User]

...ten copies of the full function word processor/DTP program fit on a single 3.5" diskette

I bet they charge you extra for the other 9 copies on the disk too, those bastards!

Re:Not an OS

[Any_User]

Maybe we could convince them to port NewDeal to Linux and everyone would be happy.

Dude, NewDeal Sucks

[Beowulf_Boy]

I had to deal with NewDeal in my schools typing lab, and it was terrible.
I mean, I guess for a 286, it wasn't bad, but my schools computer guy was a lazy son-of-a-B*tch, and decided to charge my school 50$ (I think) a 486 to buy Newdeal Licences, even though nice little me had tryed to show him such things as AbiWord, Staroffice, and I even suggested running Linux on them and using KDE office or something. But no, the guy was a Dick and Put Newdeal on there, and both the typing teachers were ready to strangle him by months end. In the typing program, the spell-checker sucked, and it was so poorly written, it would continually crach on me.
Any way, my school sucks as far as computers go.
Such as when I was talking to one of the Seniors (this is a high-school) that was helping out with computer stuff, and I mentioned somehthing about that there servers were in the room acroast from the library, and he looked like he was ready to kill me when he told me that room was supposed to be secret (aswell as the Cat-5 witing plans), and I told him they should shut the door to it then, because I walk past there every day.
Also, when I mentioned to the tech guy about linux, he said he had "Tried it" and did not believe it was a good platform for the typing lab, when I asked him a few questions, it was apparent he was Lying, and was most likely afraid to try anything his MCSE didn't include.
But, he resigned last year, so now our "Tech director" is the dude who manages the money for the district, and all he does is change all the passwords once a month, and hire someone if a computer breaks down.
Sorry bout my rant

Blatant lies

[TheMutantPenguin]

Just click on some of the links on their comparison page [newdealinc.com]. (I'm looking at "GUI" as I write this). More than half of the features "missing" from Windows are indeed there (and I thought Microsoft spread lies).

Word processor: N/A for StarOffice executable size? But still, 118K for a word processor is impressive.

Browsers: They compare their browser to the 4.0 versions of both competing browsers. And both of those have a zooming feature.

Visual Programming tools: Can't say anything because I don't know much about VB.

Personal/Home Finance: MicroSoft Money? 13K? ?? Otherwise looks ok...

So this is like MS Works rewritten in assembly. hmmm... worth the $?

Re:

[account_deleted]

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