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Linux On Netbooks — a Complicated Story
An anonymous reader writes "Keir Thomas has responded to the recent raft of news stories pointing out that Linux's share of the netbook market isn't as rosy as it used to be. Thomas thinks the problem boils down to a combination of unfamiliar software and unfamiliar hardware, which can 'push users over the edge.' This accounts for the allegedly high return rates of Linux netbooks. In contrast, although far from superior, Windows provides a more familiar environment, making the hardware issues (irritatingly small keyboard, screen etc.) seem less insurmountable; users are less likely to walk away. 'Once again Microsoft's monopoly means Windows is swallowing up another market.'"
The problem for me is performance. XP runs significantly faster and has significantly better battery life than Ubuntu. Assuming your hardware is compatible Linux isn't_terribly_difficult to get running. It's hard to justify open source when propriety software just runs better though.
I am holding out hope that 9.04 will work to improve battery life and speed, and not just give me more features I don't need. Like what Windows 7 has done after Vista.
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I myself am at my second factory-preinstalled linux-based netbook (first Asus, now Dell), and my experiences are nothing but positive, The specially created interface on the asus was practical, the one on the Dell is fantastic and even stylish. I wouldn't want to have to navigate the miniature start menu of XP on my netbook. But then again I was already ready for Linux anyway. Let's see if Android will get new Linux users into the mobile devices market.
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I can't get Linux easily:(
I want a decent netbook but can't get the model I want. I don't want an eeePC 1000HA, which is slightly dated, I want the upgraded chipsets in the 1000HE or 1004DN that allow smooth HD playback, but right now both only come with Windows. One nice thing the 1000HA did was if you went with Linux, they upgraded your harddrive from a mechanical 80GB to a 64GB SSD. Not too bad.
As it stands, I would almost have gone with a Windows netbook simply for the hardware I want and be forced to install linux on it. But I decided on the ARM based Always Innovating when it comes out:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/02/touch-book-from-always-innovating-harbors-removable-tablet-netb/ [engadget.com]
It has a really nice 15 hour battery life, which for a true portable is one of the top considerations.
the Linux desktop on the Asus Eee PC 900 out of the box is an abomination for anyone who qualifies as a power user on ANY OS. It's a dumbed down older version of Xandros modified for a tab-based UI.
/path-to/nxclient . Note that nxclient has a perfectly good desktop icon and is happy to install itself to a menu if given the chance, i.e. on any normal Linux OS.
Basically, it's a locked down net appliance UI... the only programs you can install without drastically modifying or replacing the OS that will show up on any desktop tab are the handful of programs available on the Asus repository site. Running nxclient required me opening a terminal window and using the CLI to manually enter
I turned myself from a pissed off Eee PC Linux user to a happy one by replacing the OEM desktop with a standard Ubuntu desktop plus hardware drivers from the Ubuntu-eee project, you can find out how I did it here.
However, I also have some serious doubts about the accuracy of the original "analyst" report. If Linux sucks so badly on netbooks, why are any netbook vendors still selling it to anybody? Note that by and large, computer retail stores have not exactly put any great effort into selling Linux netbooks, the only place it's easy to get them is via online ordering, so it can be assumed that people who buy the Linux netbooks thought they knew what they were getting in advance.
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I can't get Linux easily.
Then buy the one with Windows installed on it, remove Windows and install Ubuntu. Then send Asus a refund request for the Windows Home license that you didn't use.
Sig this!
My HP Mini 1000 worked flawlessly with Ubuntu (and the UNR menu add-on that maximizes the tiny screen space to its fullest potential), wireless and all. Sometimes it just takes one more step to get it working (in my case it was not one more step, but for other netbooks, it may be.) The payoff is immeasurable. My HP came with XP, and I was done with that after the first month. I put 1 more GB of RAM in it and never looked back.
I don't get the sales-guy's attitude on the "cheap" subject. I can't believe in 2009 it's still prevalent. Most people in the past who weren't passionate about linux felt that "free is less than commercial" in terms of software. In some instances we know it was true, but for the most part that stigma sticks with Linux like gum on your shoe. It's a shame too, considering how completely seamless and wonderful running ubuntu on a netbook truly is. As for battery life, it's comparable on the Mini 1000 to running XP. And no conficker, antivirus 360 worms, or other assorted nonsense means a less headache-filled experience on the netbook.
I guess some people are too forgiving of Microsoft's failings... And I'm really not sure what the prevailing reason is, other than the comfort level.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
The very clear-headed Carla Schroeder has a write-up at Linux Today. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols also noticed the figures were bogus.
netbooks have changed from a nerds' thing into a mainstream thing.
I mean that as an open question. Why the hell, as a linux user, should i care if my neighbor is using windows or Linux? While more geeks defiantly help improve things and report bugs, how does it help if there are more ex-windows newbs on ubuntu?
There is the hardware support, but even there I'm gradually seeing even supported hardware (atheros and flgrx) get nudged out by community drivers.
All i can think of are games, is that the main advantage of having more users?
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As long as linux advocates curse the foolish choices of the enduser they will never succeed in increasing market share. One can ask, well is market share the goal? If not then don't begrudge windows for providing an end user experience that is preferred. Sure in your view it's a lesser ecperience, but people want comfort. More people like cheeseburgers than tofu even if tofu is better for them. Does that make cheesburger's bad or good?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
There's still plenty reason to blame monopoly. Check out this thread on the AT forums, user VinDSL comes up with some interesting facts + sources about these supposed "Higher return rates" with Linux. Apparently it's all FUD marketing from MS:
Some netbook retailers are slamming Linux for boosting their product-return rates. Here's why you should take their protests with a grain of salt.
Lately, quite a few netbook makers and resellers are saying that buyers return Linux machines far more often than identical models running Windows XP. Last year, for example, the director of U.S. sales for MSI told Laptop Magazine that customers return Linux netbooks four times as often as Windows netbooks.
As Computerworld.com contributor Eric Lai pointed out, however, such claims can be misleading.
According to Lai, MSI's numbers weren't based on the company's actual netbook return rates.
In fact, at the time, MSI wasn't even shipping a Linux-powered netbook model.
Source.
I love how you so narrowly define it as a "raster editor". Almost as if you are waiting for me to bite and ask you how to draw lines, circles and maybe even easy-to-resize test. Have these gotten better since when I last tried using it?
But everybody wants to use the product that has them all "just in case". The idea of software bloat is something dreamed up by grey-beards who used to do work on punch cards. As long as they are properly presented and organized in the program, the more features the merrier.
My favorite "useless feature" is track changes in Word. Do you have any idea how surprised people get when they send me a Word document and I send them back all my edits with cute little bubble comments next them? Does OO support track changes? Cause if they dont, that is a shame... it is a damn useful feature once somebody drops change-tracked document on your lap and you go "wow, I never knew this existed!". But I can only imagine the number of 37-signals followers who sit around and call it "useless bloat!!! off with its head!!"
Gimp vs Photoshop: intended end-use is everything. Gimp saves a lot of people the bother of either paying money or committing copyright infringement to do 97% of image manipulation. Photoshop is an indispensable tool for a professional operating in a world geared around that tool and/or the 3% of end-users who are actually doing something that Gimp can't do and Photoshop can. That's not most of us.
Blender vs unnamed "big-boys stuff": You tried a complex piece of software for "30 seconds" and expected, I don't know, what? The software to read your mind and render amazing 3-d porn on the fly? We'll skip the Freudian analysis of what's going on for you around "the big-boys stuff". But in short, your "30 second" comparison is irrelevant.
Postgres vs Oracle: the two main comparison points between these two these days seem to be 'we've built an infrastructure around Oracle and switching is dangerous/a huge waste of time' (an attitude I completely support); and Oracle's putative 'richer feature set'. Some people also say that for really huge databases (hundreds of millions of rows), Oracle is superior. Once again, it's what your end-use is that decides whether you want a multi-thousand dollar Oracle seats vs free Postgres seats. You'll note that slashdot (between 10,000 and 40,000 hits per second) uses *mysql* - it fits their fairly specific needs. I work with behavioral data from thousands of respondents at the University of California, San Francisco, and I use postgres and mysql because it suits my very specific needs just fine (and I would happily use Oracle if that was what was needed to manage and analyze my data, but it'd be expensive overkill, so I don't).
Apache vs IIS. Well, whatever. You're comparing a webserver which serves 106 million sites vs IIS's 67 million (http://netcraft.com, accessed April 10, 2009); once again, if you need something tightly integrated with Windows servers, IIS is a decent product and possibly even worth paying money for. For the other 106 million of us, Apache is a more apt product.
I'll stop there. It's my bedtime, and I'm sure someone else will take you to task on the rest of your list.
Regards, Pete
Actually no, XP license costs ASUS/Acer/HP only about $25 a pop.
The same XP software costs them 2 times as much if they install it on a slightly bigger laptop or a desktop.
Reason? Linux on netbooks scared the bejeesus out of Microsoft, they didn't want the Netbook market dominated by Linux. (BTW the whole thing caught MS completely by surprise)
So, even though most netbooks are probably gonna be sold with Windows on them in the future, we the consumers have the FOSS community to thank for saving us $$
Linux is linux because it is linux. CHange it and it won't be linux anymore.
What is Linux anyway? Is it Linux from scratch or Ubuntu or Linpus (the Linux Acer used to put on its netbooks).
They are all linux but radically different products. Some distro's go for cutting edge, compiling straight from Linus keyboard, others present a product as unchangebale as your VCR "OS".
The linux that most geeks use is probably the cutting edge stuff, we can deal with the problems it gives because, well we grew up on it and we accept that it is the price to pay for having the features we require. I KNOW my linux desktop is not as smooth as Vista's is (firefox especially is a bitch) but I have become so accustomed to the X way of presenting a desktop I would quit any job that told me to use windows.
This however makes it hard for linux to ever kill windows which is what some seem to desire. Linux but its nature is a niche market. How can you sell a product that is free and where the users have no need of tech support or even worse, give said tech support for free? Oh and are also high resistant to adds being displayed. So, you can't sell a boxed product, can't sell support and can't run it add supported.
That is why there is no linux desktop startup.
As for mass market, support is expensive. Sell a $50 profit product, get one support call and watch your profit fly away. How does MS do it? Simple, they don't. MS does NOT give consumer support, that they leave up to dell.
Since linux is not yet capable of being 100% windows (and its current niche market audience has no desire for it to be windows) you can count on any boxed product customer generating at least one support call to find out why their windows software don't run on it.
Simple put, linux is linux because it is a product by nerds for nerds. It can't go mainstream in a similar way that kit-planes can't. Not everyone has the knowledge to build their own plane and if it became so easy any idiot could, one of the kit-plane fans would buy it and the idiots don't have the pilot license needed anyway.
Some things are just meant to be niche.
What would help Linux far more if the world came to accept that windows is not the only OS. I therefor like Apple (despite hating almost everything about them) as any Mac sold means 1 more PC that ain't windows, doesn't do windows and won't do windows. 1 more user wanting opensource or at least portable apps. 1 more user against windows only "standards". 1 more twit railing against wind-mills.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on the netbook arena. They're just the only mainstream OS option available without resorting to breaking some EULAs and/or piracy. It's been quite clearly shown that there is a huge desire for Apple's Mac OS X to be made available to the netbook market. As it is, some people have gone to great lengths to install Mac OS X on the machines due to the underwhelming performance of Windows XP and the lack of commercial software support from the linux end.
Getting Mac OS X into the netbook arena resolves both issues, you get a stable, responsive OS with support for commercial produced software, while still having access to most of the open source market as well.
While the MacBook Air is arguably a "netbook", it lacks the size and form factor that has made actual "netbooks" like the Acer Aspire One, such a runaway success.
If Apple ever plans to penetrate the PC market with Mac OS X world-wide, the netbook market would be the best place to start. Netbooks generally aren't modified by end users in the same way desktop computers are, so Apple could easily develop a standard for officially supporting Mac OS X on them.
Once users have experienced Mac OS X on their netbook, they might even consider buying an actual Mac for their desktop machine.
The netbook market is something Apple really should consider embracing while users are still up in the air over which OS they want.
8==8 Bones 8==8
The REAL reasons M$ is gaining ground in this is due to a combination of vendor ignorance, marketing pressure, and manufacturers with no clue how to prepare a Linux machine.
If companies like Best Buy, etc. will not take the Linux versions, then the sales of Linux based netbooks is going to be weak.
With no financial incentive, it is even worse.
How do machines with a "free" OS happen to cost the same as ones with Windows?
Let's see, if we make the Linux ones with smaller, but more expensive SSDs, and sell them at the same price as machine with a HDD that is 4 to 8 times the size?
Hmm, what will the chains and consumers choose?
Add to this distis and manufacturers offering less and less Linux models.
Case in point:
eeePC 1002.
Specs show it comes in both Linux and M$ versions.
In fact, in N. America,ASUS are not shipping the Linux version.
Finally, calling Xandros "Linux" is a pretty sad situation.
Ever try using it?
Contrast this to eeeBuntu on the same hardware and the difference is astounding.
In the end it boils down to 2 things:
1) Vendor and manufacturer ignorance of how to prepare a Linux machine.
2) Sales channel fear of anything "unusual"
3) M$ marketing pressure and incentives.
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