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Ubuntu came along and managed to make an installer that really worked, and a casual user could pop into a CD drive and install without any command-line intervention. The rest was history.

Well, sort of. Ubuntu certainly got a lot closer to that sort of experience, but it wasn't a decade ago. I still tried installing it on stock computers from major manufacturers 5 years ago and would have to go through command line hoops to get some stuff working.

Mint pulled ahead of Ubuntu around this time because (at least in my experience) it was even more focused on the casual user experience. Even when it got the hardware right, Ubuntu presented you with broken media plugins and such. Mint just focused on a polished product, and it didn't hesitate to use proprietary drivers/plugins to make things work when the open-source versions still weren't stable. While giving up some of the idealistic "purity" of Ubuntu, Mint made setup easier and more stable... which most desktop/laptop computer users want.

The whole reason Mint is so popular now is because of Unity; before that, Mint was a tiny derivative of Ubuntu, but then Unity and Gnome3 both came out and pissed everyone off, and Mint launched two projects that were Gnome2 derivatives, and tons of users switched from Ubuntu to Mint in response.

Mint wasn't exactly a "tiny derivative of Ubuntu" before Unity. It's always difficult to estimate these things, but the data of page hits over at Distrowatch puts Mint in the #3 spot of all Linux distros in 2008-2010 (pre-Unity). This analysis written in 2010 shows Mint as the rising star of the newer distros. Here's another page from early 2010 asking whether Mint had finally "killed distrohopping."

So, Mint was definitely having a meteoric rise BEFORE Unity. Unity was just the final thing that dethroned Ubuntu from the top distro spot when a lot of users abandoned Ubuntu. But many Linux users had already figured out that Mint was a lot easier and made the switch in the years before.

... is fuckin' creepy!

Looking at the screenshots, all I hear in my head is this tinny, flanging voice screaming "EXTERMINATE!" over and over...

Why are they only targeting Samsung? there are soooo many other tablets that look much MUCH more like the iPad

Examples? Other than ridiculously cheap no-brand lookalikes-but-not-workalikes, unless you're going to trot out the "black rectangle with rounded corners" strawman (just two of a long list of claimed features - not nearly enough to constitute an infringement). Unlike Samsung, other manufacturers (e.g. Sony and Asus) have managed to design tablets that don't look like iPad clones. Even Microsoft's Surface doesn't look much like an iPad (although I can see them having a spat over the cover) and has a very different-looking UI. Samsung even includes iPad features that get slated (e.g. having a proprietary dock connector and no USB, SD, HDMI connectors).

Incidentally - look at this review, particularly this picture and tell me this tablet wasn't separated from an iPad at birth. Obviously, at some stage, gTabs without "SAMSUNG" in large, friendly letters on the front were in circulation.

Seems to me Apple want to block Samsung because the gTab is a real contender for the iPad.

D'uh! Yes. The whole point of such lawsuits is to stop unfair competition. A $200 no-brand all plastic knockoff with a resistive screen is not actually a credible competitor - the only reason Apple would bother with those is if they infringed trademarks (which have to be defended).

Why are they only targeting Samsung? there are soooo many other tablets that look much MUCH more like the iPad

Examples? Other than ridiculously cheap no-brand lookalikes-but-not-workalikes, unless you're going to trot out the "black rectangle with rounded corners" strawman (just two of a long list of claimed features - not nearly enough to constitute an infringement). Unlike Samsung, other manufacturers (e.g. Sony and Asus) have managed to design tablets that don't look like iPad clones. Even Microsoft's Surface doesn't look much like an iPad (although I can see them having a spat over the cover) and has a very different-looking UI. Samsung even includes iPad features that get slated (e.g. having a proprietary dock connector and no USB, SD, HDMI connectors).

Incidentally - look at this review, particularly this picture and tell me this tablet wasn't separated from an iPad at birth. Obviously, at some stage, gTabs without "SAMSUNG" in large, friendly letters on the front were in circulation.

Seems to me Apple want to block Samsung because the gTab is a real contender for the iPad.

D'uh! Yes. The whole point of such lawsuits is to stop unfair competition. A $200 no-brand all plastic knockoff with a resistive screen is not actually a credible competitor - the only reason Apple would bother with those is if they infringed trademarks (which have to be defended).

in between and arduino are these ethernet jacks with embedded linux

http://deviceguru.com/ethernet-connector-contains-linux-server/
http://www.lantronix.com/device-networking/embedded-device-servers/xport.html

both have a little GPIO
either way it's about $200-300 to get a development kit and a device, and roughly $50/unit in Qty 1,000

Roku has DRM. Now you know.

LOL... hold on....

This article shows that in Europe alone, Android shipped 7.9 million units in the last quarter of 2010. You know, as in just a few months ago. It grew by an amazing 1,580% in that market year-to-year. In all of 2010, Symbian took #1, Android #2, then RIM and Apple respectively. Although note that in Q4, Android did overtake Symbian as well.

Wecome back to reality.

Oh, sales per device per quarter? Does it really matter? It's not Google's fault that Apple decided to close themselves off so much. Comparing device-to-device when talking about Apple vs. Google is like talking apples to oranges. It'd be more accurate to compare manufacturer sales at that point, in which case RIM is still leading Apple (among others, but they're more alike). I've always said that Apple is their own worst enemy sometimes, because they have so much potential just to stampede everyone over and keep it that way, but they continue to opt for a closed-everything market with all their products tying into themselves almost exclusively.

Speaking towards the future, Samsung is expecting to sell 50 million smart phones in 2011, and gleaning from some quick info that they expect approx. 20 million of those to be running Bada, which still leaves 30 million for Android since they'll mostly all be running one or the other. I don't know how much Apple expects to grow by that time, but assuming Samsung gets close to that number and Apple sees significant growth, at the very least they would be very close to compare on a per-manufacturer basis with a single OS. I'm kind of skeptical that Samsung will see that many smart phone sales, but I guess that's based off of the trend of going from dumb phones to smart phones, and since they already dominate the market with that, I think they're counting on upgrades bumping up that smart phone number. I guess we'll see what happens.

The claim I frequently hear is that, in order for Linux to really work as intended, you need to buy a machine with 'Linux supported' hardware.

The other claim I hear is that Linux has vastly superior hardware support than Windows.

A linux kernel has superior hardware support. A full bells and whistles linux distribution may not.

People have put the linux kernel on tiny processors like phones, ARM and weird stuff like http://www.deviceguru.com/tiny-6-chip-open-computer-runs-linux/ without much effort. Its just that the kernel might not support all the programs that ubuntu comes with.

...have been added to the article on DeviceGuru.com. Check 'em out.

30 x 30 mm was an error. That's the size of the chip -- which contains 16 playing fields -- not the playing field, which is actually 2.5 x 2.5 mm. See diagram: http://www.deviceguru.com/files/nanosoccer_field_diagram-sm.jpg

Just look at the icons in this shot. The fellow is running more proprietary code than some windows boxes I've met. Just be glad they aren't .bmp or, even better, .wmf format.

There's a redirect at http://www.deviceguru.com/2008/06/19/via-debuts-mini-itx-20/ but then nothing appears? WTF?