OEMs Looking to Ubuntu for Netbook Market

Anon writes "Mark Shuttleworth provides much more detail today about development of the Ubuntu netbook platform, and says OEMs are calling Canonical when they want to start building netbooks. Channelweb notes: 'It's actually a big deal. For example, Dell CEO Michael Dell has been carrying around an early version of a Dell mini-notebook, and referring to it as the device for the next billion Internet users [...] Asus has become an industry rock star by using GNU Linux to power its Eee PC. HP's niche Mini note runs SLED 10 Linux. The iPhone, of course, doesn't run Microsoft software. Is anyone paying attention in Redmond?'"

Comments

ASUS Eee PC

[murp]

Actually, if you read the latest Distrowatch Weekly, they say that Linux on the Eee PC is almost a thing of the past.

Re:ASUS Eee PC

[compro01]

No idea about the webcam (friends have the webcamless ones) but the Ubuntu site[1] says it works out of the box, though not with flash (though the Ubuntu site also has a workaround for that).

The wifi requires you to download and build the madwifi driver, but it then works fine. Last I've heard, 8.10 should see it work out of the box.

[1] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EeePC/Fixes

Re:ASUS Eee PC

[InlawBiker]

They're losing because they're complacent and huge.

They do a good job eventually but it's the story of low-hanging fruit. Microsoft is raking is barrels of cash because they can leverage their market position. Now suddenly, BOOM! UMPCs are all the rage. Agile companies like Asus can produce one within a year and Linux is infinitely flexible, especially with Ubuntu on board. They can produce a new distro in a quarter or two.

It would take at least two years with all hands on deck to produce "XP Light" for UMPC's. They know this so they probably subsidized the hardware on the higher-powered EEE to run XP. Problem solved! Besides, they've spent a gazillion dollars gambling on Vista and the trend towards more powerful computers. They don't want to admit they were wrong.

But the price is creeping up towards $600 now. The whole point was to make a $300 'Net surfer you can use from your kitchen.

MS will do their best to not miss this boat but they'll have to subsidize the hardware somehow to bring the price down, or hope people don't mind paying more.

Re:ASUS Eee PC

[gbjbaanb]

Not just yet, when Intel releases the Atom it is basically designed to run Linux and not Windows. I posted about this a while back from a link on TomsHardware. Basically Intel were screwed by MS last time round with their Origami platform, so this time Intel doing things their way and partnering-but-not-really-partnering with MS.

The only Atom chip that can run Vista, apparently, is the highest end one. The one Intel is releasing with a huge price tag. The others will run a version of Linux.

I think its a good thing, the beginning of the end for MS at the moment, just like IBM or DEC before them, they got too big, too interested in vendor lock-in, and the marketplace shifted away from them.

Linux critical mass

[poopie]

I'm sure that Microsoft and most hardware vendors are really not thrilled that customers aren't demanding exponentially faster machines with exponentially more RAM and disk space.

How do you drive customer upgrades to more bloaded OSes when customers are demanding devices with lower cpu/ram specs?

As the price of systems drops from thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars, having to pay Microsoft hundreds of dollars for OS + Office licensing becomes a non-trivial fraction of total system cost.

Also, you can bet that the hardware manufacturer's profits on a $500 device are razor thin. If they can cut $20 to $100 or more off the cost by using Linux, it's worth it.

So, at this point, I have to wonder whether Microsoft is going to try to converge WinCE code with Vista code for Windows 7 to have a single OS that can run on phones / UMPCs / netbooks / laptops / desktops (or at least the same codebase even if CPUs aren't the same). That's probably going to be hard for Microsoft. I expect they'll try to reimplement apps in silverlight instead.

Re:Linux critical mass

[Cato]

This also applies to low end desktops that are still far more powerful than PCs a few years ago - even in the UK which often has overpriced components, you can build a PC yourself for £100 (including delivery and tax, no monitor/keyboard/mouse) = $200 US. A recent PC magazine spec'ed this out and the 'premium' version was only $240 - and at this price point Windows XP OEM is £50 or so, a 50% increase, compared to Ubuntu/Kubuntu which works very nicely in just 512MB. If you are cutting specs to the bone you can run Xubuntu (XFCE) in 256 MB quite nicely.

Or you can buy pre-built systems for around $250, which also don't include Windows for the same reason: http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/Arianet+Value+AMD+Starter+?productId=31454 is about $250 US including delivery and tax, and there are other models that cost a bit more.

Savvy consumers are the real threat here - once people realise they can get PCs for almost nothing that are fine for Internet use (not video editing or 3D apps), there's far more price pressure on Windows and Office. Naturally Microsoft will cut their prices enormously, but there'll be resistance to doing this as much as they need to, which should help Linux on such systems.

a case of gaining a different victory than sought?

[cptnapalm]

It seems to be the case that, while the Year of the Linux Desktop may never arive, 2008 may be the Year of the Linux n(ote|et)book.

In trying to compete for the desktop, the open source guys have managed to get a strong foothold on the newest, latest, cheapest portables. Perhaps not the particular victory which was sought, but perhaps victory here would gradually translate into victory on the desktop. If people like what they use most of the time (Linux on the portable), it would be reasonable that they would want the same thing on their own desktops.

The link reads like a rant

[symbolset]

Like the author didn't find the linux eee booth and decided that was a lack of marketing push, a step on the road to deprecating linux on the eee.

I don't see this at all yet, and if I did it would not worry me. There are plenty other and bigger OEMs fishing for the premium experience you get with linux on the netbook now. Asus got an early lead but if they want to throw their advantage away and return to differentiating their product only by price and color that is their right. There are more than enough other mfrs eager to push the mindshare across the threshold and bring about the unchained era of personal computing.

It will be chaotic for a while. That's when the interesting things happen.

Re:The link reads like a rant

[locofungus]

Asus got an early lead but if they want to throw their advantage away and return to differentiating their product only by price and color that is their right. There are more than enough other mfrs eager to push the mindshare across the threshold and bring about the unchained era of personal computing.

Actually I think the eeepc is another example of the fact that manufacturers "just don't get it" when it comes to "free" software.

The eeepc has a significant number of closed source bits and pieces. Most of them don't work quite the way people want, so people learn how to hack things in order to get it to do what they really want - an example is the popup when you plug in an SD card or USB stick. And then ASUS releases an update that breaks that previous hack and people get annoyed.

Also, because there are pieces that aren't open, nobody can easily support the factory install. So openssl is still broken and, last time I looked, no fixed package is available. So ASUS are probably finding that it's quite expensive supporting Linux.

Had they just made the whole thing open then there would rapidly have grown up a "support team" around the factory install. Security issue - within 24 hours the sourceforge project would have been updated. Asus then just need to have someone monitoring the sourceforge project and "backport" any fixes into their official distribution.

A little more work would be involved if they also want to pull in "improvements" from the sourceforge project. But not that much work.

Tim.

Re:The link reads like a rant

[Excelsior]

To a non techie if it doesn't run windows it's not a PC.

Interesting that you state that as a matter of fact. My non-techie fiance uses an Eee every day and the only thing I've ever heard her say is how much she loves it. Of course, she doesn't even know what a "PC" is. She does know computers don't usually fit neatly into her purse, weigh next to nothing, and start up quickly.

Further, many non-techies love OSX. I'm not sure where you got your opinion from.

Re:The Year of Netbook Linux is here

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment disregards the whole point of these sub-notebooks:

Photoshop -- on a 10" screen? Really?
Apache -- running on a laptop? Perhaps as part of development...
Desktop publishing -- see Photoshop comment. Hard to do page layout when you can't see enough of the page.

As far as Office goes, again, you're missing the point. Sub-notebooks are fine for creating quick docs and even presentations, but the real work is to be done on a desktop with a much larger display.

Software engineering is a *great* use for this type of system. vi isn't all that resource hungry. :)

Sub-notebooks are for people who want to carry ready access to a few simple functions: web, email, quick document editing and the like. This are to augment your full desktop, not replace it.

Re:Interface needs a make over

[NullProg]

I've tried playing around with the Eeee PC, , and while I can see the appeal, the GUI experience is a bit sucky.

I haven't bought one yet because I need the new wider screen for my wife. When I do buy one I'm following the instructions here:

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ubuntu:eeexubuntu:home

Not to dismiss Gnome or KDE, but try Xfce (No, I am not affiliated).

Enjoy,

Razor thin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of these companies (asus, acer, etc) are taking in 10-20% profits. Nothing razor about those. But no sense in throwing away money. If they can lose Windows AND have a better platform, then they will do it. Finally, These are chinese companies. They all want to remove the American influence. Once MS is gone, it will be pretty easy to remove Intel and AMD and other American companies.

Re:They are listening

[amirulbahr]

Which raises the question: What are the competition watchdogs around the world going to do about this?

Here in Australia, ASUS has somehow managed to price its Eee PC 900 with XP Home cheaper than the Linux version by about $50. They claim that it is justified by the difference in storage capacity (12 GB in the XP version versus 16 GB in the Linux one).

This reeks of anti-competitiveness, yet not a word to be heard from the ACCC (Australia's consumer and competition watchdog).

Re:2008 is the year

[Zombie Ryushu]

I've commented on this before in a Previous post. We are not trying to bring about the year of Linux, we are trying to prevent the LAST YEAR of Linux.

See: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=572739&cid=23648009

Re:Define win

[houstonbofh]

Is everbody using linux the "win"-situation?

For me the "Win" is having an open enough environment that you can use most software without "Having" to use Windows. Like the IBM PC eventually became. I also think Vista is Microsoft's "Micro-Channel Architecture" which was IBM's last attempt at lock in. It seems to be doing about as well. :)

Re:They are listening

[XDirtypunkX]

You fail to understand our motivation. Guns are for pansy girly-girl Americans who are scared of everything and want to stand far away from someone who scares them too much when they shoot them in the back (partly so they don't get blood on their frock). Real men fight face to face with knives and fists fully expecting to have to take a bullet, stab wound or hit upside the head. We hate pansy frew-frew behaviour like yours so much we made it illegal here so that even our women would have to act more manly than you.

Re:They are listening

[KlomDark]

I'm right with you on the pansy-ass pussies who are too scared to take a punch to the head. That's not at all what I support guns for. Guns are a last defense against totalitarian government, which is where you're quickly headed in Australia, just a little bit behind the UK.

That's a big if.....

[crhylove]

I wasn't particularly enamored with the distro pre-installed on the eee. Other than a nice webcam and skype implementation (which is not FOSS, so really, what is the point?), I found it a big cludgy, unnecessarily kid like, a little unreasonably slow, and basically not nearly as clean or simple as standard Ubuntu, OS X, or Windows XP. Now, if they put out a Linux eee clone that was even cheaper, and ran faster and basically looked and felt like a clean XP install.... Then, yeah, I think people would enjoy their Linux time and want to use the OS again in the future. In it's current implementation, it was much better than sugar, but I'd only rate it somewhere in between windows 98 and mac os 9 in it's feel and speed and look. Not a very high mark on my scale.

Re:Sounds good, but Dell should do more

[Ash-Fox]

Flash 9 is the number one reason why I still keep rebooting back into Linux

Why aren't you enabling Linux binary support in FreeBSD's kernel and running the Linux version of Firefox with the Flash plugin instead of dueling booting with Linux?