Open PC: KDE Nettop with Amarok and Firefox

The man behind Open PC is Frank Karlitschek, maintainer of several websites for desktop users and developers (kde-apps.org, gnome-apps.org, opendesktop.org etc.) and also a board member at the current KDE Akademy. Aim of the project is the mass-production of Linux machines which can be sold at a reasonable price. Some of the sales revenues will flow back to those software vendors whose products are chosen for the project.

To decide which software is to be preinstalled on the system and which hardware is principally interesting for the scheme, the Open PC Project held a survey in July and has now published the results. A nettop system (with a netbook to follow), KDE desktop, Firefox browser and Amarok media-player were the most popular choices of the survey. The decision to go with a nettop instead of a notebook was taken against the voting because, according to Open PC, the project should be realized by November this year, and a notebook would take a lot longer.

About half of voters described themselves as inexperienced users with around 40% saying they considered themselves to be experienced. A surprising 48.3% of votes favored KDE as standard desktop with 42.7% for Gnome. The complete results can be found on the project homepage. A second survey has been started dealing with the issues of support, documentation and purchasing interest.