What are you doing with your Zonbu?

by **Pieter** on Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:34 pm

nevermind

by **Rigas** on Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:20 am

Hi,

I moved my ongoing review of the Zonbo to this new address:

http://zonbu.rwmunich.homelinux.org

Enjoy,

Rigas

by **XavierL** on Mon Apr 14, 2008 4:31 am

As many users, a lot of the Services I truly use daily are Web Services such as gmail for my domain (Google Apps) with Google Docs, picasaweb for my photo album, microsoft SkyDrive and JungleDisk-Plus for data storage. "Simple" and "low cost" machines are perfect to me: everything happens via the browser. I still use a Windows PC for some specific "client" applications like dreamweaver, iTunes, skype, etc... but franckly, my Zonbu-Mini addresses 95% of my true needs.

I have 30,000 digital pictures. None of them are on my Zonbu-Mini. Picasaweb sells online storage (beyond the first free 1Gb) to take care of that. (so does Flick, Shutterfly,etc etc...)

I have about 5000 mp3 files and a few DivX videos. Nome of them are on my Zonbu-Mini. I love iTunes and I still have a RAID disk drive to keep my multimedia content.

Bottom line I use a lot Firefox on my Zonbu-Mini and that's pretty much it. I have huge expectations for the applications of online storage on my Zonbu box, but until there is a true account portability from box to box, other S3 applications like JungleDisk and its web version JungleDisk-Plus are more efficient to me.

The PC market seems to move quickly into the new segments of UMPC and low cost laptops. I guess many consumers are just like me and all they need is a browser . Being connected is no longer an issue. 3G+ in Europe is getting real and affordable.

I'm sure Zonbu will join the UMPC trend. I recently read an interview of the CEO of Asus announcing the eeePC 900 with 8Gb SSD local storage + 10Gb online storage (probably in partnership with one of the many S3 startups).

With Asus, Dell, HP and many more in the race, I'm not sure what will Zonbu bring to that market, but I'll love to be surprised :-)

XavierL

by **Rigas** on Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:56 am

Hi Xavier,
I agree. Zonbu is more or less a web client device.

Sooner or later I will bring my Zonbu in the kiosk-mode, where no login and password are necessary.

Rigas

by **Shagbag** on Fri May 02, 2008 12:48 am

Save for the crap support from VIA for the UniChrome Pro II IGP, I love the Zonbu mini.

I've used it as a desktop, web server, game server (the latter two with different OSes). I'm just waiting for delivery of a scan converter so that I can display the XGA signal on to my PAL TV. Then I will use it as a media center PC.

I'm also going to attach two USB IDE drives I already have (sitting in a cupboard unused) and use the ZonbuOS as a small home file server as well as the abovementioned media center PC. I'm hoping my bugzilla request for a printer driver will be actioned in the next OS release so that I may also use the Zonbu as my print server.

I've already shifted my web server onto a Linksys WRT54GL (running OpenWRT with the SD card mod) so I'll have to find another PC for my game server.

by **Juno** on Fri May 02, 2008 7:22 am

Shagbag wrote:Save for the crap support from VIA for the UniChrome Pro II IGP

Luckily, this is bound to change in some time.

http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action

Oh wait, they already uploaded the binaries for CX700M for a couple distros, I gotta try them up! *hopes they'll work for the CX700M2 chipset the Zonbu Desktop has*

EDIT 1: I got the Ubuntu 8.04 binaries, since I use the unstable Debian branch (which is what Ubuntu is based on IIRC) and they installed and worked out of the box! The installation process sets your xorg.conf file up automatically with the proper driver and lots of Modelines and sets your screen resolution to 1024x768, but that can be easily modified. I'm going to try some videos or OpenGL apps to see if they work properly.

EDIT 2: Hrmph... mixed results.
Bad news is I tried TORCS (racing sim) and it worked, but the warning messages said there was no direct rendering context so the performance was *terrible*.
Good news is I could play the 720p DivX video linked here very smoothly if not at full 30fps speed.

Overall, it's an improvement on what we had. I'll keep testing and come here with better results if I get any.

by **gordon small** on Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:11 am

If you can call a computer a 2nd computer where I do 60% of my computer work, I guess it is my second machine. I have a Windows XP machine, and I use it generally for the things I can't do on Zonbu (Quicken, Skype video, GIS applications, iTunes).

I currently use Zonbu for e-mail, web browsing, creating documents and spreadsheets, listening to music and other broadcasts via podcasts, internet radio, Pandora.com, saved music, Sirius, etc. It is great to have that kind of variety available - from NPR news stories to Irish Pub music.

I have burned CDs, watched many youtube videos, etc. I have used Zonbu to store some things I do not want to loose - pictures, special music, files from our homeowners association, etc.

There are two things I would really like to have - a video capability for Skype and a simple check writing program that imports data from Quicken. I am not interested in the level of accounting detail that GnuCash may offer - I just want to be able to keep up with my checks, track by categories, and write checks in a simple, graphical format.

Gordon Small

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