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Acer Bets Big On Linux
Stony Stevenson writes to tell us IT News is reporting that Acer is betting big on Linux, looking to push Tux on many of their upcoming laptops and netbooks. "The company is already heavily promoting Linux for its low cost ultra-portable netbook range out later this year, but senior staff have said that Acer will also push Linux on its laptops. [...] Acer sees two killer apps with Linux on computers: operation and cost. Its flavour of Linux will boot in 15 seconds compared to minutes for Windows, and the open source operating system can extend battery life from five to seven hours."
When I moved to mostly use Linux, cost of the distro I chose was not an issue. Linux for me gave me things that Windows does not. It's more secure (having to be super user to install or run certain things) means nobody else can run things that can harm the system, it runs on lower spec machines (even though mine is up-to-date), and is more flexible in setup (ie. I an not restricted to a certain typeface or size for for example tool bars).
Linux for me does not yet have a killer app, K3B (CD/DVD burner) and Amarok are better than anything in Windows, but for a start, there is nothing like Photoshop, and no killer video capture and editing software, and for some, games are important too.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I beg to differ. I have a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz (I still consider that modern hardware) and it takes me over five minutes from I turn the computer on 'till everything is up and running in XP, and I'm not a typical user. I've disabled many bloated services and my taskbar do not have the 20+ icons you usually see novice users having. In comparison, I'm dual booting and it takes less than a minute for me to boot Ubuntu (not that I'm trying to troll here but it was mentioned in the topic).
I'm glad to see this type of product coming to consumers with a marketing force behind them (Acer, ASUS, Dell etc...)This product is perfect for my parents, grandmother and myself!
Before the M$ bash fest starts let's make this clear. These companies are not using Linux distros because they hate Microsoft or any of that other nonsense. It is purely a financial decision. They can make more money with Linux while at the same time offer the consumers a product that can be judged by its functionality and other merits. Not by a third party having their branding all over it.
If these companies could make more money using M$ operating systems, they would in a hearbeat.
Ok... now that we are clear, The Ubuntu fan boi in me wants say. Sweet it's finally the year of the Linux DeskTo... Lapto... NetBook?
Our bugs are smarter than your test scripts.
You forget that we are talking about low-end notebooks: the article specifically mentions the perceived market advantage Acer will incur in the $200 price range, since a Windows license adds about $50, which is a large percentage of that cost.
Since the notebooks are low-end, we expect them to have relatively poorer specs. So, Windows (and everything) will take longer to boot--a minute seems reasonable. They are arguing that because they custom-tailored Linux to the hardware specifications, and because of inherent advantages in the Linux model, it boots more quickly. Sounds fine to me!
Dont get me wrong. I use Windows and Linux and know about cross compatibility of each and ported programs.
VLC's nice for handling horribly mangled video and audio frames, but mplayer is super speedy. They both have their pluses and minuses.
In Linux, I can process VLC on one machine and port the visualization to another machine (we have 1Gbps wired network here at home). I can also set up rendering jobs when the machine comes live (or from a DVB card ^_^ ).
From my knowledge, scripting Windows to do those sort of operations would be hard, if not nigh impossible. One would need a full scripting language, like bash, to do such. It would require Interix (?) to get that kind of compatibility, not to mentrion being set back by a 100$ or so... And I get that already from Linux.
*sigh*
I gave both Photoshop 6 running very stable under Wine and The GIMP (sans Gimpshop) to my wife, who is a semi-professional photographer but has never used any photo editing applications and is a complete computer n00b.
I said pick the one that looks the easiest to you.
She picked The GIMP.
She's still had some learning curve, but she's also tried learning Photoshop, and that one seems just as hard to her.
Photoshop only seems easier to use because you've used it for a long time. Photoshop is difficult to work with, especially for a n00b.
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Two Scenarios
1. Acer will stay the course, and refuse incentives from MS.
2. MS will give Acer such a good deal that they will announce "it turns out that Linux was a bad fit for most of our product line".
We will now see what kink of company Acer is.