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Canonical Talks Netbook Remix Details

Posted by timothy on from the smart-niche dept.

geekinchief points to a just-posted interview at Laptop Magazine "with Canonical's market manager, Gerry Carr, where he talks about Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Some interesting details: Canonical does not plan to make the Netbook remix available for download or sale. It will only come pre-installed on new systems. It will boot in 5-10 seconds."

11 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. 5-10 seconds?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's not even enough time for me to get my pants off!

  2. Re:Wait a minute... by ClayJar · · Score: 2, Funny

    What, are you saying you want a *preposition* in the headline. "Canonical Talks *ABOUT* Netbook Remix Details"?

    We don't need no steenkeen prepositions!

    And don't get me started about "Canonical Discusses Netbook Remix Details" or all those other ways to say it. Trying to parse headlines is half the fun of /.! :)

  3. Not available? by pablomme · · Score: 5, Informative

    Canonical does not plan to make the Netbook remix available for download or sale Not true. The won't make them available as ISOs ready for installation (since apparently they don't recommend it), but the packages can be downloaded from Launchpad.
    --
    The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
    1. Re:Not available? by lupis42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Which, to my mind, is kind of annoying. I would dearly like to see ISOs for the MSI Wind that I plan on buying, or the eeePC that my wife might wind up getting.

    2. Re:Not available? by Fry-kun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Makes perfect sense to me.
      They're required by GPL to provide the sources to anyone who purchases one of those notebooks. They're not required to post the ISOs, though.

      --
      Did you know that "FTW" ("for the win") is a direct translation of "Sieg Heil"?
    3. Re:Not available? by LotsOfPhil · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I wonder how long it will take for a CentUbuntu to pop up and make ISOs for those who don't want to install from .debs.

      --
      This post climbed Mt. Washington.
    4. Re:Not available? by kernowyon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Whilst an iso would be useful, it isn't too hard to install a normal Ubuntu/whatever distro onto a laptop - or even an EeePC (my Eee runs Kubuntu).
      Once installed, it is relatively easy to customise to your own tastes/needs. For example, I removed all the Bluetooth gubbins, as much printer related stuff as possible and a whole host of odds and ends (various fonts for languages I don't use saved me 70+ mb)

      I haven't looked at the Notebook Remix specs, but I imagine the various tweaks are all going to be easy enough to replicate on your own machine.

      Bearing in mind that the pre-installed Windows OEM versions are virtually free to manufacturers (costs are low plus recouping any cash via all the pre-installed bloatware trial versions etc), I suspect that Linux pre-installed machines will be no cheaper than Windows ones - and maybe even more expensive. Hopefully any machines which come onto the market will be decent spec - not the usual "hey, Linux is free, therefore lets give the purchaser the bottom end processor/amount of ram/graphics/hard drive....." . That really pisses me off.
      I don't use Windows and would buy a Linux laptop if they were easily available at the same (or slightly less) cost as the Windows equivalent machines (I already have two EeePCs) - I hate paying the Windows Tax on laptops which I format the second I get them out of the packaging!

      --
      Awful UID - but I have been here ages...
    5. Re:Not available? by manekineko2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How do you replicate a 5-10 second start time? I have an eeePC and was thinking about switching from its default Xandros, but the 5-10 second Xandros boot time that is replicated by Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a key feature.

    6. Re:Not available? by lupis42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That is the one part of the MSI Wind that bothers me, actually: the Windows model is the one with more RAM and Bluetooth, and since integrated Bluetooth is important to me, I'm going to buy that one. OTOH, I will probably leave WinXP on there, for Diablo II related purposes, so it isn't that bad. If my hand's were a bit smaller, and it were more available and less expensive, I would be getting a EEE 901 Linux. We'll just have to see what the launch price is.

  4. not a big fan by debatem1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ubuntu built its base on the ability to easily, cleanly displace the dominant OS. Now that they've got some traction they reverse directions in a market that provides next to no freedom for users? Color me unimpressed- if they really want software to be free, the first step is giving people the ability to choose between the codebases that already exist.

  5. eeeXubuntu by zeromorph · · Score: 2, Informative
    eeeXubuntu works fine for me for several months now.

    You don't need a company, a community is more than enough.

    --
    "Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team