- good points and not unreasonable requests
- BUT, in order to get what you want, you'll need to put *some* effort into creating your setup; if you don't want to craft your custom solution, then just use the default OS and pay the Man in Redmond...
- you can use the IA-1 as a standalone with the its modem (but not for long, IIRC, because the Man in Redmond has dropped support for the unit)
- users with an existing Windows LAN can use the IA-1 and a [supported] USB Etherenet adapter to surf; i'm not sure if this support is continued or not
- by installing DOS or Win9X on a 340MB or 1GB microdrive you can use the IA-1 as a regular 'little' computer, albeit with 32MB RAM
- an existing Windows or Linux LAN can allow the IA-1 to surf regardless of the ISP in use by using the hacked Jailbait image, IP masquerading, a supported USB Ethernet adapter, telnet and the X Window System - this solution requires only a 16MB CF card, a little bit of knowledge and effort - the software is free...
the choice of how to use the IA-1 is up to you; if you want to explore the alternatives, but don't have the knowledge or inclination, then get a cheap used laptop - you may be better off (better yet, the cost of desktops with lots of features continues to drop - thank heavens Microsoft doesn't control the Internet, or we'd be buying new computers and software every year)...
if you can't set up your system to host those apps using a Linux solution, try asking a knowledgable friend who uses Linux to show you how to remote launch clients over a network... quite a simple process, actually... i use a short shell script after telnetting to my server, and it launches a half dozen clients that set up my IA-1's desktop, correctly placing a calendar, clock, terminal window, and browser where required... this is accomplished by:
$ ./ia1
- things couldn't be easier, no?
i find the IA-1 to be a great solution - compact and totally silent with enough horsepower, networking support, and a display large enough for a readable console - i'm not limited in any way, and can even run a MacOS or Windows session on its desktop (using vncviewer)... all my applications, with the exception of sound and multimedia, work fine - this includes thousands of programs hosted on various servers on my LAN...
