There were two new RISC OS computers planned from companies other than Acorn: the Peanut portable from IMS, and the Medi. As yet there is no news of how these projects will be affected.
Also in the long term some people have suggested creating a platform independent RISC OS like desktop environment for a Unix operating system, often mentioning Linux. There are GUIs for Unix, such as X, KDE, and GNOME. However none of these are really like RISC OS so a RISC OS like GUI may have to be created from scratch.
Mike Kinghan has written an article, The Case for Linux, explaining why he thinks a system based on Linux with a RISC OS user interface is the right choice for the future.
An open source RISC OS like desktop running on top of Linux, if implemented in such as way as to make the system easy for normal users to work with, could be very beneficial for both RISC OS users and Linux alike. RISC OS users get a very similar system, but with the stability, portability, and multi-user capabilities of Linux. Linux is given a package which makes it attractive as a consumer OS, and new desktop applications which it needs.
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