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Asus Slaps Linux In the Face
vigmeister writes "From Techgeist, 'Linux just got a major slap in the face today from Asus. One of the highlights of Linux going mainstream was the wildly popular Asus Eee PC preinstalled with a customized Linux distro geared towards web applications. While I personally never got what the big deal was, I was still happy for all the Linux people out there waiting for this day, but it looks like the cause for celebration won't be lasting much longer.
Asus and Microsoft have teamed up and have made a site called 'It's Better With Windows.' The page touts how easy it is to get up and ready with Windows on an Asus Eee PC, while slyly stating that you won't have to deal with an 'unfamiliar environment' and 'major compatibility issues.' While it is silly to state such a thing since Asus built the Linux distribution specifically for the Eee PC, I give Microsoft two points for snarky comments.'"
Meh. I'll just install linux over the windows install as usual.
https://www.speakservers.com/
I thought it was already pretty easy to "get up and ready" with my EeePC. Well, Asus will have to live with their decision.
My next motherboard will be a Gigabyte.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It is difficult to believe that Asus did this out of love for Redmond. I wonder how much MS paid for this special treatment, or did they threaten Asus with higher prices?
It is better with Windows.
Squirrel!
This might actually make sense economically for ASUS:
_Maybe_ less support calls.
_Very deep_ discounts/kickbacks from Microsoft.
Personally I am very glad that I got the Linux version of my Eee PC 901: More flash disk and more ram, for a little less money.
Currently I run the latest Ubuntu Netbook remix, and I'm very happy with it. The last time I booted it into XP must have been during Easter, to debug a Windows problem.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
Linux is a concept. It's a theory. It's a dream. That's what makes it so powerful.
And it's also what makes it so frustrating for anyone who wants to see it succeed. What is success for an Open Source project? A child learning to walk takes the first step and the parents celebrate the moment, but what is that first step if nothing more than the first of countless more steps?
So what is Linux success? Is it dominating Windows? Domination of Windows is a worthy goal, but there is no one behind Linux to make that a reality. There is Ubuntu, sure. And RedHat. And MontaVista. And IBM. But are they behind Linux? No, they are out for themselves. Linux is the vehicle which they believe will take them where they want to go.
When Asus says they want to use Windows, let them. No skin off our backs.
Michael Sharp 12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd. Box 238 Kent, Washington 98030 United States Administrative Contact: Sharp, Michael rdcpro@hotmail.com 12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd. Box 238 Kent, Washington 98030 United States (877) 788-8066 Fax --
Well then,
that's me never buying an Asus product again, unless it's so exceptional I really have to have it (that's :P).
fanatism combined with a bit of practicality
Just so that I can cost the bastards some money by demanding a Windows Refund on it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
How do we know Asus and Microsoft, were both involved, other than the article's assertion?
Additive identity, multiplicative cancellation, distributive multiplication over addition: pick any two (unless 1 = 0)
Don't get me wrong, I like my EEE but Asus completely screwed up. The interface was poor, the updates were rubbish and in fact some of the updates would break it. It's quite possibly the worst Linux distro I've seen. I might as well buy a normal smallish laptop with an SSD as I still have to uninstall the OS and put my own on with an EEE.
In a way their Linux distro is more of a slap in the face for Linux than not using Linux.
I've had much better luck since putting my own instance of Ubuntu onto the machine which I prefer much more than I would Windows or that custom Xandros OS.
This isn't the end of the world. Can't we all realise that there's a market for both Windows and Linux?
Those who want Windows on their netbook can buy it, those who don't can buy Linux. See?
Ultimately this is business, and it ain't pretty.
ilovegeorgebush
Despite my desire to see Linux being the most popular OS, I fail to see why it should be so worrying to see that MS keeps using what seem to be underhanded deals to keep Linux away from the market. After all, it is not like Linux hasn't been making great progress in spite of a small userbase. Things have come a long way since I started using it around the beginning of the century; I don't have to fiddle with my machine everytime I want to try a new distro; all major distros look quite polished and mature, etc.
Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise to not have "familiarity" as the most important feature of the OS for Linux. Developers can decide to go with the completely radical way of doing thing (Sure it does not happen that often, but with a larger userbase even the possibility would become a challenge).
Flame war in...
......
3
2
[beep]
ill probably see a trollmod for this, but what the hey. this article isnt really news at all, as corporations have been keen to align themselves with the market leader for centuries. this is no different.
its still a computer
it still has an option to install an operating system
you can still order an ASUS with linux preinstalled
windows can be returned for a refund
there are market alternatives.
and just because a corporation appears to align itself with your ideals and interests doesnt mean it likes you or said ideals...its just business.
Good people go to bed earlier.
They definitely lost sales from me... and I regularly buy motherboards from them.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
the two versions were never alike.
Linux was always heavily locked down ( I was told by the sales assistant) to prevent poeple from messing it up.
Nice little detective work. And I must say that there is no indication on itsbetterwithwindows.com that this is sponsored by ASUS. So give me proof instead of inflammatory headlines! (but of course this is slashdot, blah, blah, blah)
So what is an Eee PC?
Not exactly a well researched or even factual story this, even for /.
A quick check of the domain registry shows that the site isn't owned by either Microsoft or Asus. In fact it appears to be some kind of ad agency, probably hired to increase sales of Asus equipment for a third party.
Don't let me stop the conspiracy theories though. I suppose the site is badly designed, looks awful and doesn't actually do anything useful deliberately? Perhaps to instil doubt as to whether such a large and evil corporation would actually publish a web page as crap as this? Microsoft do a lot of stupid crap but I don't think you can blame this on them. I'm sure plenty will continue to do so though.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Asus is just doing this to make a buck selling the EE PCs that have Windows on them. They'll still sell the Linux ones but they're expanding the market to Windows-only people who are afraid of Linux. And they're likely getting some marketing dollars from Microsoft to do this as well. Sucks that the company is "disloyal" but the libertarians among us should be happy that the free market is working so well. Asus is just following their profit motive and doing what comes naturally as distasteful as it is.
And so we put it in the same state as Washington. Now, I'm guessing this is a PR company and we have a perfect match of Arbitron Ad agency listing Michael Sharp as Manager, Agency & Advertiser Services for several different regions of the US. Ok, from there if you google Arbitron Asus and Arbitron Microsoft you come up with two very juicy powerpoints from Microsoft on Arbitron's site.
I just noticed those two powerpoints only come up because they're Microsoft Powerpoints so that's not a very strong link.
But that linking is probably unnecessary considering I just found this bio on Microsoft of a Michael Sharp as Director with the Information Security Team. Yes, it's a pretty common name but I'm pretty sure this ad work reeks of Microsoft and not Asus.
My work here is dung.
Because nothing is sweeter then fanboy tears.
-Calbrenar
I was introduced to the eeePc when a friend bought one. It came with their version of Linux installed and he called me for help. I have been almost exclusively Linux since the early on and I was literally unable to help him. We were on the phone and with the graphical shell they put on the Asus, he couldn't find anything. He got frustrated and installed Windows. He ran for a short time before he screwed up Windows. At that point, he brought his Asus over and I installed eeebuntu. It has been a love affair ever since. I even offered to make his machine dual boot and was turned down. Now I have my own Asus running eeebuntu.
Check it out, a company has a marketing campaign, and you heard it first here on Slashdot! Oh, wait, no you heard it first on Techgeist, but they got it from a forum somewhere so... where was I going with this? Oh, yeah, did I mention Microsoft was evil? It said so in a blog I read once, when I wasn't reading actual important news stories that have content and meaning.
Hope you bought your Thinkpad used; IBM's PC division has always been in bed with Microsoft, and I doubt Lenovo is any better. This is just more of the golden rule, "He, who has the gold, makes the rules." in action; it will continue as long as Microsoft maintains it's ill-gotten monopoly.
This should be posted in the "Need More Spin" category. I don't see how Microsoft funding a marketing campaign targeted at a threatening competitor (Linux) is really news. In fact, it's not so different from techgeist.com creating an inflamatory article with some spin on it to generate clicks. I guess everyone has to make money.
Don't think of it as a flame, more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage.
"Sucks that the company is "disloyal""
Well those two words have never been uttered in succession before... and never will again!
I don't know what people are getting so upset for, it's just marketting, it doesn't mean anything. It's not like they're gonna be saying on their linux pages "but you'll prob want the windows version, cuz this one's shit"... no, their linux page is gonna be bigging up their linux product (presumably, I cba to look). Is like when a waiter says "excellent choice sir" when you choose the soup, the guy who cooks the chicken isn't gonna pipe up and say "what's wrong with the chicken?!". Everything is better than everything else, depending on what you're looking at.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Also excellent reasons not to use Vista and Windows 7.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Just make sure this isn't a ploy by Micro$oft to push the Linux fans away from a company that supports them.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
Love,
That percentage of the world that doesn't want to have to compile an OS and install a virtual box just to fucking play Half-Life.
Dear Microsoft employee
Please build an OS that does not suck.
Love
The percentage of the population that did not get infected with Conficker.
As compatibility with other stuff. On a windows netbook you can run the same software on your desktop (resources permitting of course but office should be fine as should quite a bit of internal and specialist software and some older games). Without too much messing arround you can use any cheapshit printer you pick up in a big chain, any mobile broadband dongle and so on.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
These tech writers just don't seem to get it. They are treating FOSS as if it is a corporation that has some master plan. Granted there are parts of FOSS groups that have plans. Canonical or RH have goals that they want to do but 'Linux' or the FOSS idea works on different overall principals than deals with hardware vendors.
Of course writing about all that nuance would require actual thought and work so...
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
I don't know. The whois says that domain is registered to GoDaddy... Last I checked MS and Asus owned their own domains. It doesn't seem legitimate to me...
While I'm a fan of Linux I have installed the Windows 7 RC on both my primary desktop and my EEE recently and it is working wonderfully. Finally MS will release a decent OS.
I love Asus motherboards and hardware. That said, the site looks very fishy to me. It doesn't look "professional" at all. The Asus and Micro$hit websites look really polished and complex. Itsbetterwithwindoze looks like an attempt to start a new flamewar between the M$ and OSS camps while putting Asus in the middle of the crossfire.
... it's just marketing....
There are some people that would like to take an organization's word for what the words mean. Asus made their own cut of Linux to work with the Eee and now they've caved to Microsoft pressure to eat their own words. Worse, it's a lie.
The integrity of such an organization then becomes suspect, as if they lied about this, then what else did they lie about? Trust is broken. And we then know them for what they are: an organization that will capitulate, lie, send mixed messages, all in the names of sales desparation. Too bad about Asus....
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Got rid of Linux...
Now why not get rid of the Eee altogether.
I sat through nearly all that rubbish and there is nothing that they were doing that I can't do on my phone (And I've got a 2 year old SE k610i).
Oh wait! I couldn't run Microsoft Works....
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
There are some people that would like to take an organization's word for what the words mean.
And those people are incredibly naive.
Well I maybe a prick, but I just canceled the order I did yesterday. It's a matter of principle for me. They won't go bankrupt due to my action but I really don't like being ridiculed for using Linux. There are other companies out there that also offer nice netbooks.
Someone should make a site like that. It wouldn't be hard at all to make a site better than itsbetterwithwindows.
Hold it tight. First you have to understand Asus and M$ involvement in this marketing stunt.
If you check the web page you will quickly find out it's so poorly done there is no chance in hell Asus or M$ would want anything to do with it.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
may be... not maybe, I'm pretty sure I am a prick. Sorry for any confusion due to that error.
Fcuker
Has anybody checked whois database? Guys, it's fake, somebody made a website (hosted on godaddy) just to stir a hornets' nest.
Have fun being played...
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
A) Slashdot has a very vocal group of whiney emotionally reactive girls
B) Slashdot has a vocal group of Linux fans
- therefore
C) All linux fans are whiney emotionally reactive girls.
I call faulty logic. A and B being true doesn't imply any truthiness to C.
I also question your use of the word 'love'... that was sarcasm right?
Your spelling was spot on though.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
That percentage of the slashdot readers that would fit your "whiny" comment is rather low. Try poindexter ?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Ah, money. Is there anything it can't buy?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
If Asus and Torvalds had put up a site to help people put Linux on Windows machines, would it be as Evil?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Yes as in Astroturfing?
"The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity"
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Or perhaps they have an expectation of truth and honesty, and not finding that, believe that integrity is in question.
Naivety, once vanquished, leads to skepticism. Skepticism leads doubts, doubts make us look somewhere else for truth.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
and I guess this applies to the large majority of netbook manufactures as well. I don't own a netbook, but there are stories all around the Internet about Linux netbooks being shipped with broken distributions that don't even support the netbook's integrated hardware properly. I'm perfectly aware of the fact that Linux doesn't support all hardware in the market, but manufactures have control over the hardware they put in a computer, so this should never happen (as long as they care about it, that is).
Sadly, this netbook Linux story seems to have been just an attempt from computer manufacturers to force Microsoft into compliance. And, as today's story shows, they are being quite successful in their pursue. We can now expect most manufactures to ditch Linux in favor of Windows 7, since MS seems to be bending under their pressure by giving them special Windows 7 pricing.
Tried installing a printer in Windows lately?
Tried installing a printer in Linux lately?
With servers Windows is waaaaay behind Linux. My Tyan 1U servers and IBM xSeries eServers all Just Work(tm) with Linux, while setting them up with Windows involves screwing around with RAID driver disks and all kinds of crap.
My ThinkPad T61p Just Worked out of the box, including automagic download of the 3D drivers for the nVidia card on the first boot.
Yes, I concede, Windows is ahead in the area of cutting edge desktop hardware due to the fact that OEMs still place priority on supporting their new hardware under Windows.
Enjoy this state of affairs while it lasts, because it won't for much longer.
I hate printers.
No, it's not like a waiter says - (a) we're talking about published marketing, not casual chat, (b) we're comparing competitors, not entirely different kinds of products.
The analogy would be more like a restaurant having Pepsi and Coca Cola available, and having marketing blurb that makes implicit references against Coca Cola. Coca Cola would probably have something to say about that.
It's hosted by godaddy.
I've worked on an asus netbook running windows once. The proprietary interface was nightmarish, and it took me about 20 minutes to even find a terminal window. Trying to get a printer installed was a joke - especially considering that these machines were marketed to the "browse the web and check email only" crowd, I can't blame them for moving to windows. It sucks, but I have to be fair. If you're going to put on a linux distro and expect the doubleclickers of the world to like it, make sure its easy, and it 'just works.' No finding drivers, no anything special. Just work.
Or perhaps they have an expectation of truth and honesty, and not finding that, believe that integrity is in question.
What integrity did Asus ever have in the first place? Have you somehow missed the last 100+ years of corporations lying, cheating and doing whatever it takes to make a buck? Based on what history should anyone think that a corporation isn't going to do anything it takes to inflate the bottom line?
"A) Slashdot has a very vocal group of whiney emotionally reactive girls"
You, you... you INSENSITIVE CLOD!
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
That was a dodgy MS/Unisys website stunt (directed at Solaris, whose customers needed no reminders about their strategic options). While touting the virtues of Windows, the site was actually running on a Unix/Apache box.
At least this time they actually used a Windows/IIS server.
The whole thing traces back to Washington, which means the stench of MS marketing is in the air.
You would think they would learn from the parody websites that sprang up from the "wehavethewayout" debacle, but those marketing guys are slow learners.
Somebody really needs to tell MS marketing that the PC guy in the Apple commercials is NOT some kind of Steve Ballmer brainchild that should be emulated. You would think that a company that has a marketing budget like MS would learn to stop shooting itself in the foot.
Why was this guy tagged as a troll? I mean, despite his borderline vitriol about Microsoft, his concerns about the legitimacy of the website seem pretty sensible to me, if one bothers reading the article and following the link to said website.
www.meneguzzi.eu/felipe
Although parent is modded Troll, just a quick whois reveals that the domain was registered by some guy with a hotmail address using godaddy as a registrar (and likely the host as well.. It also uses godaddy DNS. I would also question the authenticity of this website. A whois to the IP shows that it's hosted by hopone.net. Also, there is nothing on ASUS's website to indicate that they had anything to do with this.
You are correct! inb4moddown Anonymous Coward force fields up ...
Money makes the world go around The world go around The world go around Money makes the world go around It makes the world go 'round. simply disgusting!
Because when private industry does it it's ok. Government can only fail but private industry seeking a profit motive is free to do what it wants. If a non-union business enslaved a libertarian in a gulag where said libertarian was forced to listen to the Numa Numa song and build widgets all day it would be hunky dory if said business was seeking a profit motive. I could build a plant that turned all the dirt in my property into nuclear waste and belch said nuclear dirt into the air but it would be fine as long as I was seeking a profit for it and I didn't have government subsidy or union employees.
Of course in the real world I could only make money hand over fist for so long until the government shut my business down but by then my wife would be a gazillionaire and I would have stashed away enough money in the Cayman Islands that I could afford to go Galt to protest unnecessary government intrustion into my life. Either way, libertarianism FTW!
I have a Linux magazine at home, with an ASUS ad for their laptops on the back of it, saying "ASUS recommends Windows Vista".
But they are going to lose my patronage with this slap in the face of the people that helped make the new netbook segment a success.
80 CC D8 AF AE D3 AB 54 B7 2E CE 67 C7
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Domain Name: ITSBETTERWITHWINDOWS.COM
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Sharp, Michael rdcpro@hotmail.com
12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd.
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"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Too much porn
Oh, so that must be the reason I was wondering why he was being modded troll
Why was this guy tagged as a troll? I mean, despite his borderline vitriol about Microsoft, his concerns about the legitimacy of the website seem pretty sensible to me, if one bothers reading the article and following the link to said website.
Hell yes. Seriously, the site looks like it was designed by a 5 year old downs victim and while I don't like the Microsoft and Asus sites, none of those two are made nearly as bad.
+1 to the questioning legitimacy crew.
Until MS/Asus confirm or deny a participation in this, I will treat is as non-existant.
Nothing to see here, move along.
PS: And if I had mod points atm, I wouldn't have bothered to post this but instead just modded up the grandparent.
The link to the site is on the Asus website.
http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1008HA/features.html
Along the way, I've found that trust-based relationships can be made. Often, it's more with individuals than the organizations that they represent. You build mutual trust, then go from there.
Without trust, we're a bunch of warring autonomous micro-nations.
For many of us, integrity is above making a buck. Yes, we have to survive, but we can do so without lip farting, lies, FUD, and so on. The gift of communications has incumbent upon the gift, the onus and responsibility to do the best to speak the truth.
In this context, Asus has demonstrated their sense of that responsibility. In turn, we take note of that. We file that information for decisions made later. Perhaps they'll listen that we now categorize them as lackey sycophants of Microsoft. Perhaps not.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
heathen!
Ignoring for a moment the fact that there is probably no direct link from this site to either Asus or MS, as pointed out by many above, and that the site is presumably by some low-on-work designer trying to get attention...
If any company were to publish a site like this the community or another manufacturer could easily hit back with a similar "Linux works better on XYZ than it does ABC - look, even the people who make ABC say their hardware doesn't support anything but Windows properly!". OK so many won't care directly because they want Windows irrespective, but such a site could make a link between hardware not working well under all OSs to quality issues (it works fine on our hardware, I wonder what is wrong with theirs?) or lack of future proofing (will they make a version of proprietary custom driver X for future versions of Windows?)
The above is just one reason that a company like Asus would not support a site like this one - it could too easily back fire and lose sales. It would also open them to litigation in some territories with people who bought one without Windows before such a "Linux won't work as well" campaign being able to claim that their version with Linux was mis-sold to them as the manufacturer now admits the arrangement is not adequate.
As a libertarian I'm happy that no one is knocking as Asus door with a ram and a SWAT team because they did that.
As a libertarian I'm happy that no the government will not loot a billion from Asus for doing that.
It doesn't mean what they did isn't distateful.
\u262D = \u5350
With other options out there shipping with ubuntu, who needs Asus?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Seriously, they are taking Microsoft marketing money (just like Dell, HP, Lenovo, IBM, etc.) and stating simple facts.
Their custom version of Linux (or ANY version of Linux) IS unfamiliar to windows users. There ARE major compatibility issues between Linux and Windows - Applications from one can't run on the other, and documents from one CAN be incompatible with the other. Do workarounds exist for most issues, CERTAINLY, but those are just that WORKAROUNDS, that, you know, work around incompatibilities.
Additional claims on the site are:
"Trusted - Windows delivers a dependable experience that Microsoft and a worldwide community of partners stand behind" - this is true, there are countless MS partners and MS does provide a "dependable experience" (even MS detractors can't argue with that!)
"Familiar - Windows is easy to use and familiar so you can be up and running right away" - with 94% market share (Mac at 5% and Linux at 1%) it is reasonable to assume that most people are familiar with the Windows environment.
"Compatible - You can be confident that your devices and applications will work with Windows - more than any other platform" - the MS Windows ecosystem has more applications than either the Linux or Mac environments, and there are Windows-only devices in the market (printers, modems, on-board RAID controllers, etc.) that it is trivial to prve that there are more devices that work with Windows than other OSs.
Now, having said all that, this is not an MS or ASUS website - this is a troll to see how much traffic this site can generate.
View the source of the HTML - no copyright asserted, no authorship claimed, only some "google-analytics.com" javascript voodoo at the bottom of the page. There is no way either organization would develop a webpage annonymously.
Michael Sharp went to Godaddy and registered the domain 5-Dec-2008 - I know, he lives in Washington state, but he's having a bit of fun...
(The website is too thin, and there are small issues that scream fake to me - kerning, lack of contact info, no mention that Windows ia a registered trademark, links to additional info, etc.)
Ken
The campaing is a fake. Somebody took Asus EEE commercial videos and slapped a crappy looking badly aligned 'It's better with Windows' Slogan over it. Fonts aren't MS branding and the layout of the website is notably amatureish. You all have been trolled, so chill. It's a compareatively elaborate troll though, I give him that.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
What?! You trust what someone who's trying to sell something to you says about the very thing they're trying to sell? Sure, when it's objective facts (like how much memory it has, what colour it is) but subjective thing?! "It's better!"??! Even if someone doesn't set out to lie to you, you don't think their bias over a product that they've invested in is going to shape their opinion and therefore what's said about it? If not, I fear you really don't know how the human mind works very well at all, and that's really not going to do you any favours.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Dear percentage of the world that doesn't want to compile an OS,
...that Gentoo user was screwing with you.
Love,
that high percentage of Linux users who never had to compile anything.
"Naivety, once vanquished, leads to skepticism"
Only for people who don't have enough control over themselves to establish a middle ground.
And who needs them?
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Enjoy this state of affairs while it lasts, because it won't for much longer.
They've been saying this for several years now. "'X' driver support is getting better everyday!" "'Y' new distro will solve device compatibility issues!" "'Z' developer will have perfect Windows API integration and then the average user won't notice the difference!"
Puh-lease. Mod me what you like but the fact remains that, while there have been some damn good advances towards this state, "much longer" is not a quantifiable term. The linux zealots out there are predicting The Year of the Linux Desktop but are they really doing anything to make it happen? The Users' Home is the place of the Linux Desktop and Ubuntu is the most notable distro behind the movement, but they're not going to do it alone. It needs to be a global and unified effort across the entire linux community, and this is the biggest challenge facing them against the public Windows opinion.
Businesses are a good start because if they can get Windwos-equivalent software -- not "Windows-only-just-good-enough-for-most-users" software -- on their employees workstations then the home will follow naturally.
There is no knowledge that is not power.
Administrative Contact: Sharp, Michael rdcpro@hotmail.com 12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd. Box 238 Kent, Washington 98030 United States (877) 788-8066
Because, that was difficult...
do Linux any favors with the half-assed customized version of Xandros they chose, anyways. At least, not on the 900A. It was crippled, and after the first update, you didn't have any disk space left with a 4GB SSD!
ASUS would have made a more palatable choice had they chosen an OS configuration that was actually usable, as well as being more customizable than the almost broken OS they installed on there.
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
Uhh, woah. What did they lie about, again? You are accusing them of lieing, but I don't see any broken promises from Asus or anything? People seems to be making a mountain out of an ant-hill here. I mean, afaik, Asus has *always* sold both Linux and Windows versions of the Eee. They are continuing to sell Linux and Windows versions. They are continuing to support Linux on th EeePC.
So, Microsoft setup a new marketting website, and Asus linked it? Asus isn't backing away from Linux, as far as I can tell, here. Microsoft is free to setup any marketting campaigns they like. As for Asus's part in this, they just want to sell more Eee PCs. If you buy one with Windows, they make money, if you buy one with Linux, they make money. Since some people would not buy an EeePC at all if they couldn't get it with Windows, Asus is doing the right thing by oferring a version with Windows. Frankly, I for one believe in Freedom, and that means people should have their *choice* of what to have pre-installed on their EeePC. If people want to buy an Eee with Windows, more power to 'em, and there's NOTHING wrong with Asus offering to sell them a version pre-installed with Windows.
I don't see that Asus has 'caved to Microsoft pressure', I don't see that they've 'eat[en] their own words', and I sure the hell don't see that they've lied. Where is the lie? Point me to just one genuine source of an Asus statement anywhere, which providing a link to a Microsoft marketting site makes that previous statement a lie? If the lie is about the 'compatibility' claim in that "Better with Windows" site, that is very arguably TRUE. How so? Well, one would expect, of course, that the *built-in* hardware is equally supported in both O/Ses, so at first glance, that might seem a lie. . . but what about Plug-in USB devices? Sure, Linux has pretty good device driver support, but there are still plenty of printers, webcams, TV tuners, cell phones, etc, for which there is no Linux drivers. Windows has, basically, Universal driver support, whereas Linux has, I'd guess around 80 percent support (which is still excellent, but does mean that there is a good chance that any given piece of hardware might not be compatible).
I like and use Linux and I use Windows too, but I'm not Microsoft fanboy. Still, despite your angry ranting, you haven't provided *any* evidence as to how Asus lied, yet you accuse them of being liers and untrustworthy.
It would be a funny experiment to see, on one hand you'd have the group who only uses Linux and they'd be fine and everyone else would finally have to learn how to use a computer with a proper OS installed, because to quote the greatest developer of the 20th century
I don't think they're equally flawed. I think Leopard is a much better system. On the other hand, (I've found) OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary. I think OS X is nicer than Windows in many ways, but neither can hold a candle to my own (Linux). It's a race to second place.
Personally I agree 100%, it's a race to second and Linux will always have first.
Perhaps they'll listen that we now categorize them as lackey sycophants of Microsoft.
Since when we're they never not that? Did you honestly think that Asus put Linux on their EEE PCs because they really believed in the ideas of GNU and the GPL? Seriously? They put it on there probably to lower margin costs and to make money on some gullible GNUtards who are apparently just now realizing that Asus was out to make a buck and not to spread their ideology.
The religion slant works both ways. There are far more MS than Linux "evangelists" out there, but the Linux people make up for their small numbers by speaking up a little more often.
The real problem is that once a person graduates past the level of "newbie", they rapidly assume a much higher level of experience than they actually possess. As we all know, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. "What I know is best because I know how to use it..." We all tolerate the shortcomings of what we know how to use, while shouting loudly about it's advantages vs. the other alternatives.
I know a guy who became an MCSE. He loudly touted the benefits of Windows while ignoring its shortcomings. The downside of being a Windows fan is the amount of time spent on patching and rebooting and how little time a server will run by itself before it requires sysadmin intervention. And then there is the desktop configuration issue, where they tend to drift away from "standard" with a stream of helpdesk support requests to fix all of the anomalies.
Mr. Windows had a great work ethic and he worked crazy hours to facilitate the care and feeding of the Windows empire. But as soon as he turned his back, something would inevitably break. One weekend, the Exchange server decided to quietly stop processing e-mail. The senior executives were super-pissed because they were working that weekend on some kind of deal. Monday morning arrives, and Mr. Windows is grilled for the downtime (that somehow escaped the network monitoring system). This guy went so far as to try and creatively interpret the uptime data so that downtime was camouflaged. Mr. Windows was not a happy camper; he honestly felt that his work ethic was a substitute for solid uptime. I tried to explain that a total slacker could configure a non-MS e-mail system that would have better uptime with half the babysitting.
Mr. Windows still works in the same place and they have crappy uptime on their e-mail system. He remains in denial to this day. A more organized sysadmin might be able to mitigate some of the problems, but it's hard to look at Mr. Windows' experience and think that anyone could work so hard while receiving such grief.
Those of us who have worked in high-availability environments just don't understand how anyone tolerates the status quo.
Was the Kool Aid tasty when you swallowed it?
Certainly they're taking Microsoft marketing money; there is little question of that. However, you've succumbed to the message, which in and of itself, is deceptive.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Have you somehow missed the last 100+ years of corporations lying, cheating and doing whatever it takes to make a buck? Based on what history should anyone think that a corporation isn't going to do anything it takes to inflate the bottom line?
Have you really never worked for a company that actually practiced what it preached when it comes to ethics and responsibility?
I've had bad bosses and good bosses, but only once have I had a scumbag boss. Outside of the scumbag, everyone wanted to treat our customers fairly and be able to sleep nights. To a certain extent that is self serving because we wanted to keep our customers, but we often spent many hours trying to resolve a problem for a customer, or implement a feature they wanted. If a customer was unhappy we tried to make them happy. If they felt we had let them down we tried to fix that.
That behavior goes up the chain. If you are not a scumbag chances are you don't want to work for a scumbag, and that is a recursive relationship.
Now, every place I have ever worked has tried to figure out how we could get our hands on more money, and that includes charging whatever the traffic will bear for our products. But that is not lying or cheating. We set a price upfront, and if what we produced was worth it to our customers, they paid it and felt like they got value for their money.
I can't believe my experience in business is that different from most peoples. What makes you think that if you work for a corporation (which most people do) you suddenly turn into a scumbag?
Linus Torvalds isn't.
What is your next stupid question?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Ah, but I do understand the human mind.
Semantics, philosophy, psychology, linguistics, all subjects with which I'm well familiar.
I also have my own bias. In this case, the bias concludes that Asus will take Microsoft marketing money, then allow their own messages to be queered by it. The results are: Asus drops several notches on my good-guy-scale.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
If you notice in the video it only shows the original 7" eeepc. There is no reason to sell that anymore with the 9" ones out - they're quite close to the same size and weight, just a larger screen and better battery life and more storage space.
If ASUS actually made this site, they'd be showing off the newer 9" and 10" eeepcs instead of the older 7". I don't even think you can buy that one anymore.
Or somebody in Asus UK is having a big laugh.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There is no way that this website is endorsed by Asus/Microsoft.
I think you've been had, Slashdot.
Amnesty International
nuke this propaganda website
I'm sorry, I thought this was a kdawson post.
tag "itsatrap"
I bet all my modpoints that that site is fake. Anyone who RsTFA could see the same. It looks terribly amateur, is not mentioned elsewhere by either company and is just a bit too convenient for flamewar purposes. Sorry guys, nothing to see here.
Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
The smart Linux people will carefully assess the entire picture. And I mean the whole thing.
When in the real world, people return the product, you don't squeal about MS, Windows, or anything else. What you do is really assess and work the problem. If they are being returned - why, and beyond why, what could be rectified, and what needs work.
Unix advocacy is utterly pointless and meaningless in the consumer space. Its not going to cut ice with users, and people.
After it shipped, people had to spend time making things work, new distributions have had to be built to cover short comings, and problems, and at the final point, companies that bought into what they were told 'Linux' is ready - have found the real world picture to be a rock and a hard place.
Linux companies I presume made the OEM deals with these companies, if people want to vent, vent at the product shipped.
It_is_not the users job to fix your broken, none working OS.
So, after having high returns, vendors turned away from you.
Learn a lesson. In the meantime, the reality of this is a harsh one. Within the limited confines of 'netbooks', a controlled, limited hardware base, and small requirements in terms of apps and OS, Linux came up short. Its an area where Linux should have hit for home runs everywhere. Absorb the lesson, learn from it, take some humble pie, quite blaming MS, The users, The vendors. This is an area where you should be kicking the absolute crap out of Microsoft, AND you should have been bending over backwards with vendors to ship higher spec machines, given MS's attempt to limit and lock it down.
Wether lessons are learned or not will reflect wether any vendors come back. Bringing them back will take double the work now.
We`re all equal
Then don't compile the distro, use a Binary distro like Ubuntu, install wine or cedega and play Half Life, and BTW it's not unusual for a game on Wine or Cegeda to run run faster then it would on Windows. Not all Distro's are sourced based, Just the best ones are. Linux period will take Windows under the table in a benchmarking anytime, anywhere, no questions. If you don't like Linux fine but at least be able to complan about it in a fair manor. It's clear from your comment you don't know enough (or anything) about Linux so don't run your mouth at it.
Thank you for doing homework on it. I was just gonna do the same.
Does the register's name match any other site?
i confess my sin of "knee-jerk" reaction, my bad is also caused by Slashdot having poor filtering before it gets to the front page, maybe if Slashdot would bother to investigate submissions before posting them to front & center this sort of thing wont happen, (unless that is what slashdot wants?)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
They did it out of love for sales.
Look around you.
WalMart has tried to make a go of every flavor of OEM Linux. Every form factor.
No-name and the Dell brand name.
The dearly departed include Lindows, gOS, Sun Java, Xandros...
and so on endlessly.
Oh, the Merry-Go-Round broke down
It made the darndest sound,
The lights went low,
We both said "Oh!"
And the Merry-Go-Round went
"Um-pah-pah, um-pah-pah, Um-pah! Um-pah! Um-pah-pah!"
WalMart has tried every known sleazeball sales gimmick: the mini board in the maxi case: sold like a flea market BoomBox stereo.
The only customer is the ever-hopeful geek - the sheep who can be sheared as often as you like.
WalMart with its fantastic, enormous, unprecedented, purchasing power has never been able to consistently undersell OEM Windows by so much as $50.
Even when the Linux product is overstock purchased in carload lots. Sweepings off the warehouse floor.
It all comes down to this:
The Windows netbook has better specs than XP desktop of 2001 with integrated graphics. The dual core Atom with ION graphics is not far off.
The back list of MSDOS, Win 9x and Win XP titles that will run on this platform is immense.
You have a viable platform for mobile PC gaming. The legacy PC game. It works with your USB or wireless printer. Your camera.
It is the perfect compliment to your Windows laptop, your desktop replacement, your XBOX 360, your Zune.
That's your sales pitch - clear, concise, easy to understand, and it does its job damn well.
Not only that, but:
You'd have to be pretty naive (or blinded by Microsoft-hatred) to actually think either of these companies had anything to do with this site.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Also, there is nothing on ASUS's website to indicate that they had anything to do with this.
Actually, this page on asus.co.uk links to itsbetterwithwindows.com, although I can't find any such links on asus.com.
need4mospd deserves the credit for finding that link.
It's a really awkward ad and there is a guy at 1:43 mark doing the nazi salute.
Indeed. Everybody has gotten so used to Windows "standing still" that many developers have got lazy and users are well into the comfort zone. Promoting familiarity and backwards compatibility has actually harmed Microsoft in the long run, since they now have trouble with uptake of their newer products.
I swear we should be allowed to give mod points to sigs... "-1, Offtopic"
I appreciate your observations regarding the domain registration for this site, but the site is directly linked from the ASUS website .
So there is no question of this being a fake site.
"Ah, but I do understand the human mind"
Try telling that to the last paragraph of your previous post.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Purely anecdotal, but I've had nothing but bloody trouble with Asus. Motherboards arriving DOA, slow and irritating returns policy, machines randomly dying after years, often a BIOS update seems to 'randomly' fix them. No idea why either since nothing else has changed. I still won't be using Asus, even though I was impressed with the EEE (and with Linpus, I even got a mobile broadband dongle working with it!), I'll be sticking with Gigabyte, thanks.
There are some people that would like to take an organization's word for what the words mean.
And those people are incredibly naive.
Almost as naive as the people who actually believe that this site was created by Microsoft and Asus.
Seriously, have you looked at it? It was made by a 6-year-old.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
If you read the other comments you'll see that this is just a hoax site.. bit of an over the top knee-jerk reaction cancelling your order..
which is totally what she said
Yea and Godaddy says that the registers address is here.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=12932+SE+Kent-Kangley+Rd.++Kent+Washington+98030&sll=47.338823,-122.145996&sspn=10.915678,28.388672&ie=UTF8&z=16&iwloc=A&layer=c&cbll=47.358907,-122.168986&panoid=8YOIhb1P6K1CO1wqcNlNKw&cbp=12,324.39,,0,5
My guess it is a drop box at the UPS store.
Of digging a bit more in Google could find out even more info but I will not go there.
My guess is that it is a scam site. But boy did slashdot send him a lot of traffic.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I personally run Linux on ASUS laptops since 2004. More or less happily. ...) left me with a usable system.
But the point here is quite simple: Linux does it better, but it takes time and sweat to.
In 5 years no single distribution I tried (Gentoo, KUbuntu, Ubuntu, Fedora
From time to time, the NetworkManager, the Bluetooth, the graphics card, the audio chip, the optical authoring, the webcam and so on awarded me with headaches and troubles.
Linux can be made more secure by far, it can sqeeze every single CPU cycle and can provide the best experience ever.
But not all at once and not with a single installation and not completely.
This is the dark part of the Linux. Resource fragmentation.
Too many projects trying to do more or less the same things, and none succeeding at 100%, and not even 75%.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
If you pay me shitloads of $$, I'd say that all day long too. I'm quite sure whatever Microsoft is paying Asus is > $$ spent on developing/porting linux for the EE
while slyly stating that you won't have to deal with ... and "major compatibility issues.'
Great! Now we have it from Asus itself that it ships hardware that has major compatibility issues... with software pre-installed by Asus itself. Given that the company is obviously so inept, who tells us that there aren't any similar compatibility issues between the hardware and its BIOS. Well probably there are, and we should warn friends, family and employers to shy away from such a lousy brand.
Ok, so in reality Asus was probably paid by Microsoft to say this. Like the so numerous companies that were paid to display an "XXX recommends Microsoft Windows" on their website. But if they sell out their judgment so easily, why should they be trusted on anything else that they say? That too would be a reason to run.
And strategically this whole thing is really really stoopid on Asus' part, especially now after all the competitors (even Acer!) have brought out similar mini-laptops running Linux.
*lol* thanks :-)
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Except that you may have been fooled.
The site looks like a joke. The register address is a drop box at a UPS store in Kent Washington and if you want you can even find out the guys name with a little looking on whois
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I mistakenly ordered a laptop with Vista and the new Microsoft Office installed. Both present a new user environment. I am a power user with Excel, and found it very difficult to use the new Excel. They replaced all of the menus with icon panels, with beautifully redrawn icons, and scrambled the locations up. I'm playing a game of guessing what the icon does, hovering, and reading the "tool tip" to be sure. Talk about an "unfamiliar environemnt".
My entreprenurial landlord teaches classes for small businesses on how to switch to Open Office instead of the new Microsoft Office. If they're going to have to retrain anyway, why not go to something that is free?
(Alternatively, it could just be that I am getting "old". When I was a teenager I shifted from WordPerfect to Emacs with less difficulty.)
Lying is what a lot of marketers do and it doesn't always reflect the company they work for.
Give it a few years and you'll see what it's like being someone with ethics in the same company as some drunken or drugged out marketer without ethics. The secret is to work around the slime and deal with people that are not if you are trying to get something done from the outside - and if you are on the inside you spend a lot of time apologising to clients and finding ways to keep the slime out of the loop. Running away isn't necessary if they are not the boss.
Don't give up on an entire company just due to one stupid advertisement or one stupid salesman.
Oh, right, Asus and Microsoft are going to permit this Joe Nobody to video and broadcast promotional videos with both Asus and Microsoft splattered all over without prior authorisation? Give me a break. The registration and godaddy shonkiness are just shabby behaviour, you can't even think it would pass the plausible denaibility test. There's no info at all - it's just a platform to host some adverts strung together. Cute enough MILF, one must admit, but I'll be removing their cookies quick smart so I don't get tagged as a "prospect". I feel all unclean after watching MS adverts - bleccchhhh....
To answer that, we take you now, by the magic of the internet, to One Microsoft Way where we can put that question direct to Steve Ballmer.
Steve, hypothetically suppose that ASUS linked to a site both critical of Windows and, which encouraged Asus customers to purchase the Linux version of the Eee in preference to Windows. It's been suggested this may be a morally grey area. Perhaps you can give us the Microsoft perspective on this issue? How would you feel, Steve?
Sounds of flying chairs. Distant screams. One voice, clearly pleading, says "no no, please, not again..."
I'm sorry, it seems we've arrived at a bad time for Mr. Ballmer. Moving on, we have another pointless question from the audience: What if Richard Stallman was the secret reincarnation of Adolf Hitler...
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Almost as naive as the people who actually believe that this site was created by Microsoft and Asus.
It's better with Windows®
The Eee PCâ 1008HA comes pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows XP Home and Microsoft Works. With Windows® XP, you can be sure that your Eee PCâ will be compatible with your existing Windows applications and devices. Windows® XP is also easy to use and delivers a dependable experience that Microsoft and a worldwide community of partners stand behind. Visit www.ItsBetterwithWindows.com  to find out more.
http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1008HA/features.html
Yep, Asus had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of this website and that's why they link to it from their own site. FAIL.
For me, the Year of the Linux Desktop was 2008. That's when I abandoned Windows for Ubuntu. It's been pretty good so far, except I ultimately had to install Windows in VirtualBox just so I could work with a client's Access database. Wine simply didn't cut it.
But everything else is open-source and pure Linux.
After nine months like this, I'd say the Linux desktop still needs polish, has a few shortcomings, but a lot of advantages. I don't need to worry about anti-virus software. The desktop is usable as soon as you see icons (unlike Windows where it only looks usable, but you still have to wait for stuff to load), and it boots just as fast now as the day I installed it.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi
Looks like I'll be looking elsewhere when I buy a netbook.
Year of the Linux Desktop was 1998 for me. It's all I run at home. My laptop is another matter-device incompatibility just isn't an option and I need Solidworks for school.
I see no point in the future where there will be anything but Linux on my home computer. Really, I couldn't care less which OEM's preinstall Linux so long as I can continue to install it myself.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Asus is screwing up here. They seem not to realize that the eee PC is a success only because of the attention it got because it ran Linux. By getting into bed with Microsoft, they're just creating an opening for another hungry Taiwanese to make a Linux netbook.
Anybody here speak Chinese? And/or live in Taiwan? Help us find that vendor. Get them to give us the specs for their (as yet unbuilt) machine, we'll adapt Ubuntu to it, they don't need to worry about software, we'll have nice hardware with good Linux support.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
...and in this case, it's entirely legitimate.
From what I can see, it looks like the premade Linux distro for the device still exists. If it's still preinstalled on the device by default, you have even less to worry about, since that will mean that no matter how much Microsoft try and promote themselves, they will still have inertia to deal with.
Microsoft are doing what they always do; banking on the concept that most people don't want to engage in intellectual activity, personal initiative, or personal responsibility. For the most part, it's nearly always a very safe bet for them; they have human nature on their side, and they know it.
If you want to beat them at this game, what you need to do is promote the advantages inherent in doing something different. That means:-
- Hardware resource efficiency from CLI or light GUI applications that they will never be able to match. Cplay or LXMusic for music, Dillo for limited web browsing, (but enough on an embedded platform) PCManFM for file management, etc.
- Greater security. Microsoft still cannot honestly compete with the root security model, and you can laugh at them if they try. Linux simply does not get viruses.
- As long as the "big two," contemporary desktop environments and ALSA are avoided, Linux also still has infinitely greater robustness.
Microsoft's solutions are vastly technologically inferior to UNIX. Always.
Microsoft cannot hope to compete on technical merit, but where they generally do beat Linux or the BSDs is via exploitation of the most base and/or negative elements of human nature; fear, laziness, reluctance to make choices or assume responsibility for those choices.
Stop fighting amongst yourselves about how best to get the neurotypical population to drink Stallman's Kool-Aid, and then gnashing your teeth when they predictably don't want to. That isn't going to work. Linux can beat Microsoft exceptionally easily on technical merit, and if you confine things to X apps, that is primarily what end users care about.
All Microsoft ever do...all they ever CAN do...is appeal to fear and laziness. They don't actually offer their customers anything better; they just keep said customers in a state of terror about accepting anything better, if said something better is non-Microsoft.
yeah, the flash file which is the page/site is hosted at cdnetworks, there is no footer, several things tip you off that this is not anyone of any importance... FLAME ON!!!!
Asus, you are on my boycott list until you somehow redeem yourselves.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Has it occurred to you that the link may have been hijacked? In other words, it may have originally linked to something Asus wanted you to see. Then some guy named Kent came along and spoofed the shit out of it so it now points to his goof site.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
No kidding. I'm pissed off.
Not only had I essentially decided that my first netbook purchase would be an Eee, and that I'd recommend them to friends and family (I have been - that changes today), but I just bought an AM3 board and video card from Asus (both automatically set up via Ubuntu 9.04 installer, of course).
I've been a fan of Asus in the past, but I did specifically go Asus this time around because of their Linux support (whether it was specifically for the hardware I purchased at this point or not). Now I think I'll go MSI for hardware purchases - and likely go for that Dell Mini instead.
They better have gotten one hell of a deal from MS. They're going to lose a lot of business. I guess there goes the hopes of the next Eee being ARM based, too.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I realize that exact figures don't really change your argument much but market share figures are something that have long been slippery. The more appropriate figures, in my opinion, put Windows at about 88%, Mac at 9.7 and Linux around 1%.
Market share properly refers to the number of computers sold during a given period of time, which is not necessarily a good indication of the number of computers actually in use, which is called "installed base." One reason is that the time period given may or may not be representative. For example, the Mac had almost 20% market share in the month immediately following the introduction of the original iMac in 1997. That was short lived and didn't really affect the installed base that much. Another reason is, Mac advocates contend, that Mac users keep their Macs longer than Windows users keep their PCs. Therefore, the Mac's market share translates to a higher installed base. In the case of Linux, it's really hard to tell because many copies of Linux are not sold at all. They're just downloaded and installed on as many machines as the user wants.
Market share is often cited because it's something that's easy to measure. Another method that's relatively easy to measure is the percent of web surfing observed. This can be biased because of different uses for different kinds of computers and different software configurations. For example, the inclusion of RSS feeds turned on by default in recent versions of OS X gives Apple an unfair advantage because it constantly generates multiple hits to popular sites which the user is not actually going to. On the other hand, pervasive spyware may give Windows an unfair advantage for similar reasons. Linux is underrepresented in terms of these kinds of unintended surfing. Internet share also doesn't do a very good job counting the share of Linux in the server and embedded markets since these machines aren't really used that much for web surfing. Web surfing figures are often, wrongly, published as "market share," as in this article. Nevertheless, it is interesting to look at the figures.
Has it occurred to you that the link may have been hijacked?
No, but it has occurred to me that you are just making shit up because you were shown to be wrong. Put up the evidence that the link was hijacked or admit you were wrong.
There are at least two things on that flick which you should never do, according to the manuals they ship with their eee pcs: never put the thing on your laps or on a soft surface (i.e. the bed). I don't have the warranty with me, so I can't say for sure, but I seem to remember the latter even made your warranty void or something.
Oh, and I doubt that if the link was wrong it would also be included in the Amazon page for the same model netbook as well. You're basically grasping at straws.
http://itsbetterwithlinux.com/
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Seriously, it's a good business decision to support the largest OS provider in the world. It may actually be unnecessary because they are so dominant, but who cares. Many companies have dabbled with pre-installed Linux, but the niche players seem to be doing the best. I bought a Lenovo with SUSE on it just to make sure that I wouldn't have to deal with driver issues. I understand that Lenovo no longer offers Linux preinstalled. Good for them, my next PC purchase won't be from them. I don't take it as a personal insult, however, as I realize that I am an outlier in a commodity market.
Well, I tried to install Flash 64bits on a shiny new windows system, and guess what, it doesn't exist yet. On linux, on the other side...
the libertarians among us should be happy that the free market is working so well
when a company chooses more money over keeping existing customers happy. What about that makes me happy as a libertarian? Oh damn, a company made more money, libertiarians rejoice!
... has hitched their wagon to MS.
Michael Sharp (the registrant of the domain) is, among other things a "Sharepoint consultant". He is involved in operating room "live conferencing". Obviously if non-MS software attains critical threshold, his services as a peddler of expensive proprietary Microsoft video conferencing software become less needed. So obviously *his* bottom line is "better* if everyone else continues to drink the MS koolaid.
The site itself was certainly not put up by Asus, nor (at least directly) by MS. I see another comment pointed out that it is in fact linked to by Asus, so at the very least they don't mind using it to sell more Eee's.
But regardless of who made the video - here's a message for you - Windows is used by fools that shell out way too much hard-earned money, by other fools that make unauthorized copies of it, and of course by all the fools who don't know any better who buy machines with it preinstalled that arent even aware its not 'part' of the computer.
No informed, intelligent person, in their right mind, being *aware* that they *have* a choice, actually chooses to purchase and use Windows. And yes, if anyone reading this did in fact *choose* windows, I am saying you are a fool, or insane, or too stupid to know better (Sometimes referred to as 'ignorant', or [un/mis]informed')
I've had a EEE PC 1000 Linux for a little less than year. Being essentially lazy, I haven't put forth the effort needed to tweak the distro -- I've left it pretty much alone. If Asus wanted to make inroads with this, they would need to provide more than half-baked support for it. They did a good job of providing an automatic system to get updates but no way to customize it for your system so I'm continually nagged to install upgrades for Chinese input switching that I don't need, fixes to the display on the 900 models, etc. Not providing that support, it isn't surprising that the forums are filled with unhappy people.
Its been "the year of the Linux Desktop" at home for several years now, thank you...
My wife uses it confortably, after a lot of initial misgivings
My 4 year old uses it, and prefers TuxPaint to any other kids software he's seen
No sig for the moment.
Since everyone else is doing it, hooray!
bridge, friends, jump, profit!
For me, the Year of the Linux Desktop was 1994. I've been addicted to Slackware ever since. I run a couple of Ubuntu/Kubuntu in VirtualBox every now and then.
You mean Windows still exist?!
I haven't bought a Microsoft product since the change. (Couldn't stand the changes going forward in Windows 95.)
As far as Office compatibility... I've not come across an Office document since 1996. Usually it's PDF, HTML, RTF, Text, CSV, and now recently ODF (Was a big fan of KOffice format but they've gone ODF too). I know that my case is like 1% of the world's population. Even though I can now convert the "Office" documents that are out there, I still haven't come across one.
I know it is linked on the Asus website, but I think they must have been hacked. I have never heard of the Eee PC 1008 that the asus links come from.
At least Linux has distributions specifically tailored to EEE/netbook laptops like Moblin and eeebuntu for example. These increase usability by using a window manager adapted to a smaller screen. Does Windows even have something like that?
No it's just the same old "it's not exactly like windows on a desktop, so it's bad" shit (even though MS office file formats are generally supported, so...).
Xandros linux was a horrible distribution anyway, with horribly little software in it's repository.
Someone want to buy my eee900?
No no no, you have to pay $10US per post to be an Apple shill.
Tongue firmly in cheek for the humor impaired.
I first read this as "Ass Slaps Nuts In the Face"
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Any chance I can get a job in an igloo near yours?
And those people are incredibly naive.
That depends on what your definition of the word "is" is.
We need a new mass-market/"newb friendly," distro, and we need to make sure that this one is NOT Debian based.
FreeBSD has the following technical advantages over anything Debian based that I've been able to see, and these could be recreated most easily with a non-Debian based Linux. These might be under the hood things, but they would definitely filter up to make life easier for the end user.
- Single point of daemon loading at bootup with /etc/rc.conf.
- Comparitive ease of kernel recompilation that is so much greater than Linux, and Debian in particular, that it isn't funny. The config file is tiny, and completely documented.
- Package management which doesn't subpackage, or have incomprehensibly stupid, bogus dependency declarations. Said package management also uses the directory structure of the filesystem itself as a database, so it can be used on low-powered systems which would have difficulty running an SQL database engine.
These are simplifications which, IMHO, Ubuntu very badly needs to adopt.
1. Praise Linux.
2. Have Microsoft run to you with deals, discounts, and dump trucks full of money.
3. Praise Microsoft, Bash Linux.
4. Profit!
This also works for government organizations and prominent businesses in the process of choosing software.
Because, you know, that "unfamiliar environment" will kill your children and steal your wife!
Yep, Asus had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of this website and that's why they link to it from their own site. FAIL.
Although it is peculiar that the Asus website links to the site, it doesn't actually mean that they had anything to do with creating the site. I can link to Google, but that doesn't mean I created Google.
Also, it's worth noting that this link only exists on Asus's UK site. It's not found on any of their other international websites. Also, other than that single link, there's no information anywhere on any of their websites that makes any reference to an "It's Better With Windows" advertising campaign. Most companies don't build a website just to hide one tiny link to it (with a typo no less — it should be "www.ItsBetterWithWindows.com") on one page on one of their websites. They generally like to draw attention to it.
So go ahead and assume that this is the result of some grand partnership between Asus and Microsoft, even though it could very well simply be the result of a single website administrator inserting an unofficial link to a poorly-designed website (or any of a number of other reasonable explanations).
Again, I ask you to take a look at the actual site, and pay attention to the fact that it doesn't contain a single link to Asus or Microsoft, it doesn't even mention Asus, it has no logos from either company, and it has no copyright notice. Seriously, do you actually think that in this day and age a company like Asus or Microsoft would build a website and not make mention of their intellectual property anywhere on it?.
The website is amateur, and the link to it from the Asus UK website is suspicious at best.
Face it. Neither of us knows for sure whether Asus or Microsoft were involved with this website, but the evidence is very strongly against it.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
It looks like his main site is here:
http://rdcpro.com/
Also, if you check the URL of the .flv file, it is being delivered from http://cdnetworks.us/
Getting proper content delivery seems like a lot of effort for a hoax.
Except that site links to www.asus.co.uk Asus's real UK website is uk.asus.com
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Also, it's worth noting that this link only exists on Asus's UK site. It's not found on any of their other international websites. Also, other than that single link, there's no information anywhere on any of their websites that makes any reference to an "It's Better With Windows" advertising campaign. Most companies don't build a website just to hide one tiny link to it (with a typo no less â" it should be "www.ItsBetterWithWindows.com") on one page on one of their websites. They generally like to draw attention to it.
Actually as I pointed out above it's also on the Amazon UK product page for it as well.
So go ahead and assume that this is the result of some grand partnership between Asus and Microsoft, even though it could very well simply be the result of a single website administrator inserting an unofficial link to a poorly-designed website (or any of a number of other reasonable explanations).
I never said it was some grand partnership between them. But the very fact that it's linked from an Asus page and on the Amazon page for the same product means that Asus had to have some part in it.
Face it. Neither of us knows for sure whether Asus or Microsoft were involved with this website, but the evidence is very strongly against it.
Your assertions that they had nothing to do with it aren't evidence.
Businesses are a good start because if they can get Windwos-equivalent software -- not "Windows-only-just-good-enough-for-most-users" software -- on their employees workstations then the home will follow naturally.
This is the second biggest mistake the geek can make.
The home is not the office. These are two profoundly different markets - and their divergence is older than Commander Keen.
You may have noticed the HDMI jack on your home PC's video card - and the pass through for surround-sound audio.
This isn't your Dad's VGA. This isn't your locked-down corporate desktop.
It is something the Jetsons would recognize.
Media and game play in two and three dimensions. Instant, free, world-wide, communication - voice, video, text and pictures. Shop at home.
Work at home.
But there will be nothing about the tools you use that will be distinctively Linux.
The port to Windows?
Absolutely.
The port to OSX?
More than likely.
Even when FOSS wins, Linux loses - because there is no longer any reason to migrate.
Oh that's not the best part for the Linux guys, they are also phasing out Linux across the board, from the cheapest EEE to the top of the line laptops. Even though I am a Windows user I think this sucks for everybody.
It sucks because with competition to keep them from sitting on their lazy asses their wouldn't BE any Netbooks, because Vista(or as I call it, the bloated piggie) wouldn't run on it. I also wouldn't have this nice Windows 7 that isn't a bloated piggie. So Linux guys, you do have my sympathy without the slightest hint of sarcasm. As a believer in the free market the loss of a valid competitor will always be a bad thing. While I personally believe that Linux isn't ready for the home consumer because of the lack of drivers for the cheapo stuff like Lexmark, for the business class and enterprise these "baby laptops" could have been an easy and secure way to stay in touch with the home office on the go if marketed correctly.
After all, Xandros(which the EEE was running) had excellent support for Windows AD and Exchange, while the lame ass XP Home was crippled and couldn't support business tech. Also having Linux out there on a major laptop manufacturer's product list helps to bring home the need to support it to the cheapo stuff manufacturers like Lexmark, which in turn would have further helped competition. So Linux guys, this is truly shitty news and am I truly sorry to see one more choice removed from you. Maybe somebody needs to release an Ndiswrapper for all those cheapo Lexmark and other all in ones, so linux would be a better fit for the home consumers? After all if you could defeat the Winmodem and the Winwireless, with all those funky ass chips, surely you can defeat the Winprinter too.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Registrant: Michael Sharp 12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd. Box 238 Kent, Washington 98030 United States Domain Name: ITSBETTERWITHWINDOWS.COM Created on: 05-Dec-08 Expires on: 05-Dec-09 Last Updated on: 05-Dec-08 Administrative Contact: Sharp, Michael 12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd. Box 238 Kent, Washington 98030 United States (877) 788-8066 Fax -- Technical Contact: Sharp, Michael 12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd. Box 238 Kent, Washington 98030 United States (877) 788-8066 Fax -- Domain servers in listed order: NS61.DOMAINCONTROL.COM NS62.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Not everything on the internet is real. Whois is your friend.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Well, Asus is off my shopping list now, but not for some slight against Linux. Just don't have any confidence in their products.
If the site is false and they're just linking to it because they took Microsoft's marketing money, then they're pushing shoddy product over a better product for the sake of third party cash. Who can say what other equipment they do the same thing for?
If the site is true, then they've been selling a product they know is shoddy for quite some time now, and who can say what other equipment they do the same thing on.
Win-win for them for the money, I guess. Lose-lose for me, and I don't play rigged games.
First they laugh at you. (They certainly did at that- Linux on a *tiny computer?* It'll never fly... hahaha!) ... then you ignore you. (The nettop market was certainly ignored by Microsoft for enough time to qualify.) ... then they fight you. (Current stage...) ... then you win. (Well, time will tell...)
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
The sad thing is that they're right, you don't have to deal with compatibility issues and all that bullshit on Windows. Deal with it.
I don't have to deal with it - I leave dealing with the compatibility issues in Windows up to the poor desktop support guys. There's a whole team of them that deal with those things on a daily basis.
I know quite a few people in quite a few different corps so perhaps I can shed some light:
People like to THINK they are looking out for the customer. If that means they need to ignore certain facts (like the guy I know who works for MS and will trumpet how wonderful the company is to his grave) then so be it. It keeps the money coming in, keeps their attitude in the right mode to remain employed and productive. Companies also help a lot with the this.
The truly evil companies in my experience are the ones who basically create a cult following with their employees. That way, no matter what the company does, the employees think it's good and right and ok. I see it at Baxter, Abbott (wow, especially them) Microsoft, Apple, Hewitt, and Accenture (who actually DO go the extra mile for their employees). Those are just a handful of the big ones.
To the individual everything can look ok. Their world can be programmed to look nice. Many companies are VERY strict about making sure you only learn and know things at your job level and nothing else eg Hewitt or Abbott which are really fucking creepy, but act all "Ra Ra Ra!" about their corporate cult. Put all those cogs together and you can still create something terrible. You just need a handful of people deluded enough (management) to make vicious decisions and be alcoholics to deal with it in order to lead an army of people who think they are doing the right thing.
You're right, many people do want to do the right thing, but when all those little things add up are they really doing something good are do they just *believe* they are?
-
But why punish the entity that did not ridicule you. That's like dumping your girlfriend because that guy across the street, whom you've never met, called her a whore. Yet, there is strong evidence that she is completely faithful to you.
/end bad anology
it is starting to look very polished, ionescu et al are doing an awesome job, maybe to some of you it dosn't appeal too much, but from my perspective it might become a drop in replacement for windows, you know, the kind of replacement that you can actually offer to any middle bussiness thats been all its life tied and slaved to windows for one reason or another, unwillingly or not, full compatibility without any of their employees having to buy a couple of neurons to learn about a new os, keeping old data and programs at hand etc. after all asus is a bussiness like any other and ms has all the bucks in the world to buy it's way around, no doubt that if ms sees them as a threat at any moment, they will send some heat their way, just saying
Yes, that site looks fake.
I have a few Eee PC 2G Surf models, which I got cheaply from a company that bought a bunch of them. (The black ones were accepted, but their executives wouldn't be seen with the more unusual colors.) So I reloaded a pink unit from the CD, back to its factory state, and gave it to a friend of mine. She's non-technical, a horse trainer. She has a Windows laptop at home, but the 2G Surf is small enough to carry around for e-mail reading, web browsing, and Open Office work in coffee shops. She likes it and hasn't had any problems with it.
I've used Windows since version 3.1x, and when I transitioned from XP to Vista, one of my biggest gripes was the "unfamiliar environment". Everything was moved around or changed completely. The new user friendly stuff actually made things even harder to use (control panel needs a search engine now?!). The same goes for Office 2007. The tabbed toolbar that allegedly reorganized everything just made finding "left justify" a scavenger hunt. All of new the UI effects made things even more "unfamiliar" and harder to use because you were getting distracted by . Back in 2002, I tried out Mandrake Linux for the first time. Linux (and KDE) really was something I could pick up with zero experience using it and feel like I've been using it all along. The buttons and icons were all where I expected them to be from using Windows all along. Consistency is a good thing.
I highly doubt that ASUS hosts there website on 1and1.co.uk. Nor would they use 1and1 for their registrar. Especially when asus.com is registered with Network Solutions.
Not to mention that page seems to be the only page that the domain has on it and if try to snoop around it just redirects to uk.asus.com which is where asus.com sends you when you choose the UK for your country. If you check other countries on the asus.com landing page you will see that Asus puts there country sites on subdomains.
nic.uk asus.co.uk whois
Result of WHOIS query:
Domain name:
asus.co.uk
Registrant:
Asustek Computer Inc
Trading as:
Asus
Registrant type:
UK Individual
Registrant's address:
The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
address omitted from the WHOIS service.
Registrar:
1 & 1 Internet AG [Tag = SCHLUND]
URL: http://registrar.1und1.info/
Relevant dates:
Registered on: 23-May-1997
Renewal date: 23-May-2011
Last updated: 22-May-2009
Registration status:
Renewal request being processed.
Name servers:
ns59.1and1.co.uk
ns60.1and1.co.uk
WHOIS lookup made at 16:22:49 28-May-2009
--
Didn't Gigabyte and Asus merge? So, they are the same company? Or am I thinking of Asus and ASRock...
It is a terrible analogy not least because in the case of major chains like McDonalds etc, Coca-cola and other drinks manufacturers pay the chains to retail their drinks. If McDonalds were to take any action perceived as negative towards the Coca-cola brand they would either face termination of the contract or a major decrease in the amount Coca-cola would pay them in future.
What are Xandros going to do about Asus saying Windows is better? They aren't paying Asus to use their OS and, it's GPL anyway, so they can't stop Asus using it.
I can see them now: ... (trails off)
Tux: Hello I'm a Linux
Win: And, I'm a windows.
Win: what ya got there Linux?
Tux: well I'm just downloading all my RPM's configing my kernel, and patching my boot loader...
Win: sounds complicated.
Tux: nah, it's easy all you gotta do is drop to the command line and use these toggles on a
Win: huh? Really? [hot babe walks on screen]
Tux: what's that?
Win: Oh, she's my new installer wizard.
Tux: wait, it's a girl? [Tux looks dejected as we fade to black]
[signature]
Mod me what you like but the fact remains that, while there have been some damn good advances towards this state, "much longer" is not a quantifiable term. The linux zealots out there are predicting The Year of the Linux Desktop but are they really doing anything to make it happen?
So when you note that there have been "damn good advances" but then ask if anyone is "doing anything to make it happen"... are you making a joke? If you are, I don't blame you. The whole "Year of the Linux Desktop" meme is, in fact, a joke. There is no such thing. There will be no such thing. The year has already passed. The year is now. The year has yet to come. The year will never be. It all depends on where you stand. We like to talk about our industry like it's a field of mushrooms. One day there's nothing there. The next day, a technological revolution pops up out of nowhere and the field has changed. But the reality is that these things happen over time. Some people are aware of the changes rather early on and can track it's progress. Others suddenly become aware of change well beyond the infamous tipping point and wonder where it all came from.
Actually as I pointed out above it's also on the Amazon UK product page for it as well.
Of course it is. Amazon UK took that info straight from the Asus UK product page. If it's on one, then it'll be on the other.
I never said it was some grand partnership between them.
The article, its summary, and most of the posters on this page certainly said it was. That is the context of this discussion.
But the very fact that it's linked from an Asus page and on the Amazon page for the same product means that Asus had to have some part in it.
No, it means that at least one person with access to Asus's Content Management System had to have some part in it. It does not mean that Asus (the company) had any part in it.
Your assertions that they had nothing to do with it aren't evidence.
Here's the evidence suggesting that this isn't an official Asus/Microsoft campaign as suggested by the article and summary:
Here's the evidence that it is an official Asus/Microsoft campaign:
If you think that's enough to declare my suspicions to be a "FAIL", well, so be it.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
he spells microsoft with a $, duh.
Gigabyte are a totally seperate company. ASRock is a subsidiary of ASUS/ASUStek.
:)
Tier 1 motherboard manufacturers are Gigabyte, MSI, ECS and Asustek. As far as I'm aware they're distinct and seperate companies, nothing to do with each other and t'internet seems to confirm this.
Plus Google uses Gigabyte
Just found this actually: Asustek and Gigabyte to form joint venture - seems like you might have been right, up to a point, after all.
I think Dell screwed up with the minis they have. The mini 9 is good. Too bad now the biggest HD is a 16 GB SSD. The mini 10s and 12s can have 1GB RAM max. Their new latitude 2100 can have 2GB of memory just remember to get the CPU with the 1GB on board first. Else you can have 1.5 GB RAM.
The mini 9 is the only mini model where the RAM is totally separate from the CPU. The others have a card with the CPU and RAM on it. That RAM is soldered in and cannot be changed (unless you can solder the RAM chips yourself). The mini 10 with the 1024X768 screen would be great if I could get it to have 2GB of RAM.
1 GB of RAM should be enough. I have the mini 9. It runs a lot better with 2GB of memory in it. That is with the Ubuntu it came with, Ubuntu Remix, XP pro, OSX, and win 7. I did get mine with the 32 GB SSD HD. Which I dot see as an option anymore from Dell. Runcore makes a 32 and 64 GB SSD for the mini 9. Remember the mini 9 has a smaller then usual pci-e SSD card HD. Unless you plan on modding the case, you need to get that smaller pci-e SSD card.
BTW anyone else try Ubuntu remix yet? It looks like it would be great on a touchscreen netbook\notebook. I don't feel like modding the mini 9 to use a touch screen. Maybe after the warrantee is up.
(The website is too thin, and there are small issues that scream fake to me - kerning, lack of contact info, no mention that Windows ia a registered trademark, links to additional info, etc.)
It's part of a Microsoft viral marketing campaign... and it's working!
Also excellent reasons not to use Vista and Windows 7.
Not really.
SolSuite Solitaire has been quietly - and successfully - migrating players to Vista and The Ribbon.
The solitaire player is as stereotypical a portrait of the Windows user as you'll find anywhere.
If the transition has been easy for him, it will be easy for anyone.
Do you really think Asus would have made a decision like this without a reason?
They likely have a really good reason for saying the Eee is "better with Windows"... and it's because the Eee is... well... better with Windows.
The common complaint, which EVERY vendor has stated, is that the return rate of computers sold with Linux are so high they can't make a profit on them.
Nobody wants Linux. That's why even in countries without a legit software market, Linux can't gain market share. People would rather STEAL Windows than legitimately get Linux for free.
www.asus.co.uk redirects directly to uk.asus.com, but if you go to for example http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1000HE/, you will arrive at a marketing page designed to cater to British buyers. So it almost looks like some yahoo in British marketing decided to do this without be told to. "Taking initiative", I believe it's called...
Linux either isn't competing with Windows or is competing very, very badly with Windows. If Linux was competing, we'd see lower prices from MS, a noticeably better product, or a diminishing MS market share. Those things are not happening. Windows dominates Linux in the laptop and desktop world.
Windows dominates because it can mobilize developers to write Windows programs. It is as simple as that. Developers write for Windows because they have a far greater chance of making money when they develop for Windows than they do when they develop for Linux.
If the GNU tribe REALLY wanted to compete with Windows it would EMBRACE it by making all Windows programs execute as flawlessly on Linux as they do on Windows. When that happens, competition is possible. Linux starts to kick ass then, because it is free. Then, Linux can be EXTENDED to afford greater developer power and flexibility. Only after that stuff will any competition happen. That's when things could get interesting.
But the people of the GNU (those who do all the work) are NOT doing these steps necessary for competition. Why is that? Why? Why? Maybe they have another agenda. Maybe they just want to develop something really cool that works good for their purposes? Maybe they don't care about winning corporate mindshare?? Maybe they derive satisfaction from creating a finely wrought product that generates respect for their work or that works for their employer?
The anti-MS trolls just like to whine. If they really cared, they'd do the really really hard work and fork Linux into a fully Windows-compatible environment.
But they won't do that. They'd rather whine and say how defective Windows is and how they'd never want to create a Windows clone.
This brings us back to the starting point.
If you are not prepared to embrace the enemy that is dominating you, you won't be able to extend your capabilities beyond his capabilities and you'll never be able to extinguish him. So,if you're not prepared to do this very hard (and maybe technically stupid) work. . . .
Stop all the jabbering about competition and get on with helping make Linux friendly for you and your friends.
Let's post the whois of itsbetterwithwindows.com and make the guy's name public here:
Registrant:
Michael Sharp
12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd.
Box 238
Kent, Washington 98030
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: ITSBETTERWITHWINDOWS.COM
Created on: 05-Dec-08
Expires on: 05-Dec-09
Last Updated on: 05-Dec-08
Administrative Contact:
Sharp, Michael rdcpro@hotmail.com
12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd.
Box 238
Kent, Washington 98030
United States
(877) 788-8066 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Sharp, Michael rdcpro@hotmail.com
12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd.
Box 238
Kent, Washington 98030
United States
(877) 788-8066 Fax --
Domain servers in listed order:
NS61.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS62.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Asus UK site is at uk.asus.com
Whois of Asus.co.uk shows it was registered by a private, non-trading UK individual.
That was explained, pretty clearly, several posts up.
First I thought ASUS had crossed the line, it's one thing to promote MS and it's another to trash linux. Especially since it had become wildly popular because of its linux version and all the cool things you could now do with a open system on a tiny computer. Obviously I am outraged (damnit stupid think-of-the-children types have usurped that word). Then I thought about their point of view. They get cash from microsoft, free publicity and a 0.1% of population of outraged geeks and nerds. Looks like a great strategy to sell more laptops while burning any cred they had with the open source crowd. Fuck 'em.
...read this as "Anus slaps Linux in the face"?
Something is still very weird.
http://www.asus.co.uk/ redirects to uk.asus.com.
And searching for the 1008ha never links to the page you mentioned.
The itsbetterwithwindows.com site has no disclaimers or anything. There is no indication this site is in any way endorsed by either Asus or MS.
I got a feeling someone is going to get into some real trouble for this.
Bought it with Windows pre-installed.
For two weeks my biggest fear was when this crap will finally fry the machine. And just for nothing. The launching of some pretty secondary programs was enough to see things going really hot, stupidly slow and disk stressing.
Oh. And I didn't mention that battery lasted for less than half an hour? That's pretty powerful when you are running on public transport and get a emergency call from the office.
Linux did not solve certain risks. However, it made them completely manageable. Besides, it gave several working scenarios. Pretty important if you are looking to be on batteries for a few hours.
So, I my opinion is that "unfamiliar environment" and "major compatibility issues' are advertinsing calls for braindead jerks who really don't have a need for a netbook, except for some exciting glamour of dubious nature. No one likes to see a machine freezing in the middle of a serious issue. I had this with Windows twice in a week. And while on Windows, I had to think not only on my work but also on which next step I should not do or else the machine goes down.
On Linux, I had only one hangup in nearly a year and fortunately not related to a emergency. Just hanged up, I could not find a clear reason for it.
I'll keep using the Eee PC and probably buy a new one. They are the little powerhorses I've been waiting for long. But that "Better With Windows"... In a biomedical environment there are no "betters with". It works,,, Or it is pure crap.
Windows IS pure crap on my Eee PC.
Hello, friend! I am also quite pissed.
Let's wait one year from when they purchase their Windows-disabled Eees, when their machines are clogged with spyware and malware and the registry's broken and the little Atom CPU desperately tries to actually do some work whilst constantly swapping things in and out of RAM. Let's wait until then and tell them "It's Better With Windows!(tm)".
I say f*ck this! I'm not buying another Asus product in my life!
Damn, it feels good to vent!
I just love how at 3:27 in the video, they advertise "Family Safety" while displaying the family safety controls website in an IE6 BROWSER!!
Most likely this was a microsite that a small marketing company pitched to either ASUS or Microsoft. Marketing companies frequently get little ideas like this and approach someone that isn't currently their client with them. Because of their low cost they get approved pretty often and you end up with a bunch of little non-uniform sites representing the end-client all around the interspace.
A quick whois shows that the domain registrar is Godaddy, which seems an odd odd choice for a company as large as Microsoft.
Registered out of Kent, Washington to one Michael Sharp. A quick Google for Michael Sharp, Microsoft, shows this guy as holding or having held a bunch of management positions.
This may be legit, if its not, it was very well researched.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
You people seriously need to get a life.
So Microsoft approaches Asus and says "Hey, let's do a joint advertising campaign. We'll fund $1M (totally made up number) towards the joint effort, whaddya say?" Then someone at Asus starts doing the math and says "Whoa, that's double what the whole advertising campaign would cost! Let's do this and pocket the difference!"
Microsoft gets advertising on Asus's site, may get a few more sales, may cause Linux to have slightly less market-share, and to them it's worth it. Asus gets free advertising and a cash bonus, to them it's worth it. It's not the first time Microsoft has done this, and in today's market who wouldn't take some free cash?
Now think about it a different way. What if the link was "It's Better with FreeBSD" instead of Windows -- would it also be a slap to Linux's face? Is the only non-slap to Linux the exclusive use of Linux?
Don't read more into what happened than what it is. Asus didn't turn its back on Linux. If you could make the product work on FreeDOS and were willing to pay for an advertising campaign (with cash positive results for Asus) I'm sure you could get your own link.
If you don't smile whenever you read about large companies fucking people over to get ahead, why the hell are you a libertarian?
Every environment starts out unfamiliar. What's important is how intuitive the User Interface is.
That said, Windows 7 is damn intuitive.
This gives microsites a bad name. I can't recall ever seeing something so amateurish associated with a major brand.
The entire page is a background image, with an embedded video and Google Analytics script.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
exactly. further investigation leads to http://www.rdcpro.com/, the "Developer's Home on The Web", apparently owned and operated by the same guy, mike sharp.
to say the least, the legitimacy of this site should be taken with a grain of salt.
there are no links back to either Asus or Microsoft, no "About Us" page, no contact page, no Copyright/Trademark notices, nothing. there's absolutely nothing official about this page, whatsoever.
on the other hand, it is directly linked from asus.co.uk, about 2/3 down the page.
how very confusing. and yet, since asus seems to have no oversight or actual control of itself, maybe this is all legit, sort of.
not only is time travel possible, it's irrelevant.
No, they've said they are likely to be phasing out Linux on their netbooks. Only 5% of their current netbooks ship with Linux.
Hey I paid $100 for Windows Vista, and it's missing a lot of features on my Gentoo install on the computer over. If not amateurish to charge all this money for an inferior operating system, I don't know what to call it. Arrogant and demeaning? Hey I like video games, is why I paid for Windows, but Microsoft peddles amateur crap all the time, and like Apple it's fanboys will mock you and defend it till the end.
More data please. I think you're lucky, to have had only 1 scumbag over you. How many companies try to pull something? Half of them? How often do they try something unethical? Once a month? Weekly? Daily? I would guess that 99% of large organizations engage in ongoing unethical activity, and I figure that based on sheer size. And on the fact that one of the big points of a corporation is to allow groups to limit the risks they are exposed to. In an ideal world, the kinds of risks corporations cover are limited strictly to technical risks, not moral hazards. It only takes one department out of dozens or hundreds to give a company a black eye. It's so prevalent that whole classes of businesses have bad reputations (the finance industry is the current dog), and that in turn makes it easy to tar corporations as a whole as evil. Almost any dastardly thing said of any corporation is incredibly easy to believe. What's sad is that Dilbert has so much traction.
There's sweatshops, rent seeking, planned obsolescence, brazenly biased research ("doubt is our product" and FUD), pollution, industrial accidents caused by reckless negligence and disregard of safety, denying rebates or warranty or insurance claims or returns over bogus technicalities, the old bait and switch, misrepresentation of products or services, false advertising, cheapening a product up front in exchange for ultimately costing the customer more in electricity or gas or maintenance, patent trolling, and on and on. For instance, reducing the number of coils in an electromagnetic device saves a few pennies worth of copper. But then it uses more electricity, which in addition to costing the user more, makes it run hotter which makes it not last as long. How many customers are going to spot something like that? At best, they will only notice that the device doesn't have a good EnergyStar rating, or that it uses an inordinate amount of power, if they hook it up to a power meter. There has to be standards and enforcement, or it'd be like mixing athletes with a lack of drug tests and referees.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
that there are more hardware incompatibilities and unfamiliar environments using Vista than Linux.
And who doesn't love using regedit to configure their system?
And the domain was registered by GoDaddy... I find it hard to believe that Microsoft or Asus would use such a service.
Paradox
But the way the site is done.... it's almost like it was done to SAY one thing but reflect another.
Corporate Overlord #35 told Underling #3586586 to say MS is better. Underling follows the letter, but not the word.
Hrm.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
It is linked to on Amazon but (at least in my browser) the link points to a My Documents folder (file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/jross/Desktop/Marketing/ASUS/1008HA/1008HA/www.itsbetterwithwindows.com).
"the word" -> "the spirit"
I have not had my caffeine yet.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Hmm. A quick google doesn't reveal anything useful about this guy. Does he work for Asus? I honestly can't tell if this looks like a residential address...
Color me skeptical.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I wouldn't put it past MS to have a "viral" marketing fund for sycophants that want to support Windows. Otherwise known as "shilling".
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
You must be new here.
A scam/phishing/joke site often redirects to the proper site. Every other URL redirecting, and http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1000HE/ not (a website not found at www.asus.com), is a trademark of a site emulating a proper one. Either all or no traffic would be redirected.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Oh, fuck off already with this. It is much more accurate than MicroWEREALLABOUTUSERSoft.
Can it be more anti-Microsoft than this? Let's go through the video, shall we?
1) Why is the mother laughing at the Windows boot screen? Is it booting 10x longer than her previous Ubuntu 9.04 install? I don't have a clue...
2) Why is she closing the lid after having done absolutely nothing with the EeePC? Tired of waiting for it to boot? Isn't Windows productive, or just plane useless? You tell me...
3) The people in this 'commercial' are supposed to be representative Windows users. Now what mother gives her kids their laptops to s
chool but forgets to give them bread/sandwiches and drinks?!
4) After school, presumably, the kids go to the beach to make photos with a mobile phone. Now why on earth would hey do that? Isn't there a 1,3 megapixel (can't be better than that ancient phone) webcam on the EeePC? Doesn't Windows have photo capturing software? Ubuntu/Linux -> Cheese for Gnome. So Windows lacks software. Wow how bad can advertising be? But it doesn't stop there;
5) The kids need to usb-cable-transfer the picture from the phone to the EeePC while there is a cardreader slot. Except for plane stupidity on behalf of Windows users, doesn't the commercial say Windows redefines mobility/Wireless? Strange... Why don't they do it via bluetooth file transfer? Or isn't that supported in Windows either? Talking about compatibility with devices here... (that accounts for bith the phone and the bluetooth dongle.
6) After transfering the picture (mobility equals taking cables with you?) to the EeePC they can use some Live app to cut the picture. Wow! Totally can't do that with Gimp! Try to red eye correct that picture on Windows, morons. And no, Photoshop is not a part of Windows and no it doesn't run on a EeePC, but Gimp does.
7) The Business guy is spilling coffe over himself. Is Windows targetted for idiots? Nice move Microsoft marketing dicks...
8) After that incident he can share it with Live Messenger. Wow! Webcamming is the killer feature for Live Messenger? Except for the fact that it aint, the Windows marketing dicks suck balls.
9) Then the representative Windows user also like to laugh at himself for spilling coffee all over himself and enjoyes being lauched out loud by the people who he's webcamming with. Windows is targetted for loser? FAIL!
10) Redefining mobility? Like what the hell? Given the fact that this is a commercial for not using Linux and instead using Windows, what kind of redefining is going on here? Ubuntu 9.04 works completely out of the box with the EeePC (I am typing from one) and Windows sucks at connecting to wireless. Speed eh? NOT! Ubuntu 9.04 remembers you connections and auto-connects to one, and when you lost connection (because you're on the go) you can just click on the wireless icon in the system tray and click on a network from a dropdown list and you're finnished before you can say "right-click". No fscking around with settings and no BS.
11) Microsoft works... yeah... OpenOffice 3.1 'nuff said... Don't even try running the latest Office 2007 with that ribbon crap (fills the entire screen)
Ok so that pretty much nailes it: "Are you a loser, bad mom and/or plane stupid? Do you want a sucking EeePC experience? Install Windows XP with Live and Works!
Here be signatures
Perhaps they'll listen that we now categorize them as lackey sycophants of Microsoft.
Since when we're they never not that? Did you honestly think that Asus put Linux on their EEE PCs because they really believed in the ideas of GNU and the GPL? Seriously? They put it on there probably to lower margin costs and to make money on some gullible GNUtards who are apparently just now realizing that Asus was out to make a buck and not to spread their ideology.
Thank you - ASUS could probably give a rat's behind about Linux in general. An OS is an OS. Microsoft saw great potential in the netbook market and they came calling on ASUS. It was a business decision and that's all there is to it. It's funny that the Linux zealots see this as a slap in the face, where as individuals that simply want a netbook could hardly care what OS is running on it.
I tried the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, Easy Peasy, Fedora 11 beta, Moblin 2 alpha and Moblin 2 beta on my Eee.
UNR and the Moblin 2b UI are both trying to solve the same problem, but I think Moblin does it better. It also boots in less than a fifth of the time.
Currently Moblin has a somewhat sparse set of repositories, but it's based on Fedora and the Fedora repos can be enabled. Check it out, it's neat.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
If we do accept that, we are still left wondering why the (possibly fake) Asus site is so polished and the windowsisbetter site is so crap by comparison. If someone is pulling a prank, I don't understand his reasoning.
There's only a couple industries that refer to their customers as "users". One is software.
One thing thats fun with laptops without a cd drive. You can install linux on them with a usb stick but you can't install windows (you can for windows 7). XP is a bitch I mean really horrible to install without a cd drive.
Let's return the favor by adding snarky comments of our own in this convenient forum.
Businesses are a good start because if they can get Windwos-equivalent software -- not "Windows-only-just-good-enough-for-most-users" software -- on their employees workstations then the home will follow naturally.
For the things that most people do at home, there are similar apps for Linux available.. Just as for most apps in Windows there are similar apps available in Windows itself.. Both platforms have good and bad apps, and both for the most part have alternative apps for most things.. these all offer different user experiences, and everyone develops their own opinions on what they think works best for them.. For me, I don't have a problem with the quality or quantity of Linux applications.. I can do everything I need to do.. and I am happy with the pace of upgrades, fixes, and development of the things I use.. I keep hearing how this is some major problem, but that is not my experience.
As to the "workplace".. Yes it would be nice for Linux to get some exposure there.. but it's like this.. businesses like their turnkey "buy what you need in a package" approach.. and this is not a fault of Linux applications, but more a lack of people willing to put together such bundles and sell and support them.. and the lack of businesses willing to do things differently than their competitors (which is probably the same problem with business software providers)...
I think that it is more likely that the reverse will happen.. there will be exposure in the home market leading to a business looking into converting.. the opposite scenario just isn't going to happen very often right now
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Yup. Scam site. It's registered to "Asustek Computer Inc" (asus.com is registered to "Asus Computer International") via a German 1&1 reseller/brand. It seems someone is trying to damage Asus' reputation.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Read down a couple of stories. Windows is so good that NASA trained astronauts can't get a windows laptop to play a DVD.
It just works. My ass.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Registrant:
Michael Sharp
12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd.
Box 238
Kent, Washington 98030
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: ITSBETTERWITHWINDOWS.COM
Created on: 05-Dec-08
Expires on: 05-Dec-09
Last Updated on: 05-Dec-08
Administrative Contact:
Sharp, Michael rdcpro@hotmail.com
12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd.
Box 238
Kent, Washington 98030
United States
(877) 788-8066 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Sharp, Michael rdcpro@hotmail.com
12932 SE Kent-Kangley Rd.
Box 238
Kent, Washington 98030
United States
(877) 788-8066 Fax --
Domain servers in listed order:
NS61.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS62.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off...
Asus.co.uk is not Asus' UK site (which is uk.asus.com).
Additionally, asus.co.uk is registered through a completely different registrar than asus.com (1&1, whereas asus.com comes from Network Solutions), and the contact info for each are different, which makes me suspect something is hinky.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
The site is one big image.
I can't remember the last time I forgot anything.
MS cheats, that's why.
Corporations have at most the conscience of those at their head. Their only responsibility is to make money one way or another.
Contrast that with the FOSS tribe. We're a collective of individuals with some corporate hangers-on. Most of us have consciences, and collectively we have a very good conscience.
We compete on our own terms, that's why. Eventually, the market will wise up. That's why MS cheats, to push that day off for as long as possible.
I just looked at the sites registration details and it looks even more sus. Microsoft and Asus register a domain name with godaddy to an individual and not a company?
Also, and more importantly, look at the whois record:
Registrant type:
UK Individual
Registrant's address:
The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
address omitted from the WHOIS service.
Under Nominet rules a registrant's address cannot be withheld if any commercial use is made of the domain name. I have reported this to Nominet.
So far as I can tell, asus.co.uk is not Asus' UK website. If you go to asus.com and select the United Kingdom, you are sent to uk.asus.com.
The page you linked shows "asus.co.uk" in the address bar, yet if you go to "asus.co.uk" directly, you get redirected (as in "please wait while we redirect you") to uk.asus.com. I was unable to find this page on uk.asus.com. Furthermore, uk.asus.com is 66.238.93.162 while the page you linked (asus.co.uk) is hosted at 87.106.102.168.
A lookup on asus.co.uk shows that it is registered to Asustek, but it was updated very recently (May 22, 2009) and the nameservers are now at 1and1.co.uk (never heard of them).
Is it possible that someone has intercepted the domain in order to provide "proof" that the site in the summary is legitimate?
Can we all agree never to use the word 'polish' when evaluating an OS, ever again?
It does not convey any information beyond a vague dissatisfaction with UI elements; It's not a useful term. It can mean anything from, "I think brown is ugly." to "The clipboard widget has obscene error messages."
At least try to distinguish between aesthetic and technical issues. "Polish" has become a catch-all term for anything that someone dislikes about linux. The worst part of this is that it's distro-specific, or specific to one desktop environment, or specific to one WM/UI. Gnome, KDE, XFCE, Enlightenment, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and the Moblin UI are all 'linux desktops', and presumably all have varying degrees of 'polish'. All of them behave differently and look differently: the only common interface in linux is the terminal.
I think it would be extremely fair to call the terminal a very 'polished' interface, and I hope that idea will dissuade you from using the term in the future :)
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
The Users' Home is the place of the Linux Desktop and Ubuntu is the most notable distro behind the movement, but they're not going to do it alone.
Which is why my mother, mother-in-law, and (soon) father-in-law, who are all tech neophytes, use Ubuntu, which I installed on their PCs quite simply.
My dad, being a power-user and longtime tech-head, can handle using Windows, and fiddling with his graphics drivers.
They must really really needed for the ASUS Linux experiment to fail. I just wonder what really went on behind closed doors, and what it cost MS in monetary value to squelch the deal.
"In order to compete more effectively against Linux and other providers on these deals, we can now leverage the Education and Government Incentive [EDGI] program to help tip the scales to MS in the deal. After engaging the regional team. the region may use funds to provide services and/or rebates to the customer with the following limitation:
"Not to exceed the estimated Windows royalties recognized by MS from the OEM selling the PC's to the customer (in the example, 50,000 PC's at approx. $100/PC for OEM Windows XP Professional would result in a maximum of $5M for the individual deal)"
It is essential, therefore, that we use this in only in deals we would lose otherwise
"Bottom line do our best to show the great value of our software to these customers and ensure we get paid for it under NO circumstances lose against Linux before ensuring we have used this program actively and in a smart way
davecb5620@gmail.com
Do a whois on that site and compare to uk.asus.com.
Also compare the sites
http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24&l2=164&l3=0&l4=0&model=2912&modelmenu=1. Notice the complete lack of that link?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Check the whois info on your own link. I doubt Asus randomly decided to host the server in a completely different place and register the site with a completely different registar. Not to mention asus.co.uk is listed as registered by a private non-trading individual.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
No mention of anyone walking off with all your financial information, merely by clicking on an URL or opening an email attachment. Oh, wait, at 3:30 a bit about family safety, just how long will it take young Juan to bypass it and find the pjorn ? I see at 3:38 tobacco is deemed unsafe to even look at on a web site. Assault rifle I guess gets through no problem. Who would stoop to exploiting parental fears to sell product :|
davecb5620@gmail.com
At 3:28 they show a screencapture of them doing day to day tasks in windows, but the resolution presented is at least 1280x720, definitely higher than the AsusEE pc's screen res. Apparently windows is so much better that it can alter hardware!
> It is difficult to believe that Asus did this out of love for Redmond.
Everyone is missing the point. If this one turns out to be a troll/trial balloon the next one won't. Reason? ASUS is departing the 'netbook' market as fast as they can do it and avoid anyone noticing.... sorta. Netbooks are small, inexpenensive, flash based, net centric devices. Now go look at ASUS's EeePC line and tell me how many of their recent offerings fit that description. $500 small laptops are going to ship with Windows, its just the way the monopoly works and ASUS has been in the game long enough they understand that. But since the term 'netbook' has a hotness associated with it they want to prevent most customers from realizing the bait-n-switch that is happening.
Why are they doing this, since they created the netbook in the first place? Several reasons. $500 SKUs have more profit in them than $300 ones, so follow the money right off. Second they have a very long term established relationship with Intel that will prevent them from being one of the first ARM vendors and they are smart enough to realize that once those ship the sub $350 space will go almost 100% ARM+Linux or ARM+CE and to compete there they would have to throw Intel under the bus. Finally, look at their contract manufacturing division (Pegatron) which is ramping up cheap ARM netbooks under a variety of badges that don't say ASUS as we speak.
Democrat delenda est
Since when we're they never not that?
Syntax error on line 1.
With servers Windows is waaaaay behind Linux.
I really doubt this. What does a Linux server really bring to the table? It's just a cheap UNIX knockoff.
There are lots of pros and cons for either, but Windows can certainly hold it's own.
I can't believe its not better.~ You can't solve your problems with the same thinking you used to create them. Einstein
I really hope that no one was holding their breath for an update of that site...
np: Barbara Morgenstern - Nichts Muss (Nichts Muss)
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
sooooooooo should I cancel the order I placed?
My abilities are only limited by my imagination
Asus is also known as Asustek, and many big (and even small) companies have subsidiaries etc., especially when they're dealing with different projects, international zones, etc.
Well, face it kids, Windows is a BETTER product than Linux. Especially, for entry level Netbook users. The interface is smoother. Everything is integrated better. There's no building and compiling apps. Driver installation is a breeze. There are thousands and thousands more applications. Aside from price, there's absolutely no reason to use Linux, and with Microsoft lowering the Netbook OS prices to 15 bux, what reason would you have to use Linux on Eee?
But would a british subsidiary not rather be an LLC? Why is the site registered as a "UK Individual"? And why through a German registrar? It just doesn't quite add up. And no, they didn't use their German branch to register the site; the German branch is "ASUS Computer GmbH" and is directly registered with DENIC as an organisation.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
true, but asus.co.uk redirects to uk.asus.com, which is asustech. while i initially agreed that something seemed fishy (as in underhanded), i don't know if i think that anymore. while the quality of the itsbetterwithwindows.com site is horrible, it seems unlikely that it's an illegitimate site. instead, they're probably being heavily courted by MS (with promises of cash, marketing funds, and the usual bit), and wish to please them, at the expense of their loyal fan/customer base.
not only is time travel possible, it's irrelevant.
Did anyone notice the "All rights Reserves" at the bottom of the page? You'd think Microsoft or ASUS would proofread their sites.
"Meh. I'll just install linux over the windows install as usual."
+5 Insightful. I feel sad for what this says about slashdot moderation.
Odd that it took this long for this to get posted. I first happened upon that propaganda over a month ago when I was looking at an eee pc ad on newegg that linked to it(which either makes it real or one of the biggest trolls ever). The hilarious part is if you were to add "XP" to every instance of "Windows" it would make a pretty convincing anti-vista ad. When I think it over though, I could care less about Asus ditching linux on netbooks, considering the version that came with the eee pc was lousy IMHO. I'm surprised they would risk pissing off the linux fans, though, considering they make up a pretty big chunk of their customer base. When I first got into linux I swore I would never become another anti-M$ zealot, but I start to see why there are so many. The way they smear my choice of OS and pull strings to make sure I have a pain of a time using anything but their product is a real thorn in my side. I just hope that with decent distros like moblin and ubuntu netbook remix it will make big enough comeback to make asus smack their foreheads and say "DOH!".
Yeah, that pretty much sums up the modern world.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Besides, the site doesn't really have any content. Just the video on the front page, and that's it.
The site does seem rather amateur. A link to the the site at http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1008HA/features.html points to Asus UK's involvement. There is however no such reference on the international version at http://eeepc.asus.com/global/product1008ha.html
I wasn't specifically referring to the user interface so much as the tools available on the Linux Desktop. But since I'm not being compensated here to provide a detailed technical analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the Linux Desktop experience and my post only commented generically that I'm happy with my decision, that vagueness you find so abrasive is absolutely appropriate for the limited discussion as it stands. I'm sorry you're not happy with the results.
So I guess the answer to your first question is, "No. 'Needs polish' is perfectly sufficient for casual discussion of the subject and specifics will be addressed as the need arises."
Next time, instead of chastising someone for not giving you more than they did, why not simply ask politely, "Oh? When you say 'needs polish' what do you think needs improvement?" Such an exchange invites further conversation and exchange of ideas.
Yep, Asus had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of this website and that's why they link to it from their own site.
http://www.asus.co.uk/ is not the web site of Asus UK. The latter is http://uk.asus.com./ Site that you've linked to is set up to redirect to the official Asus site for any URL, except for the one that you've linked to - it is clearly a hoax to promote the linked site.
I got my EEE with Windows yesterday, and I will be installing Ubuntu on it tonight. I still have some uses for a copy of WIndows, so if I can pay the same price for one with Windows pre-installed and then install Linux myself, why wouldn't I? The Linux distros that ship on these things does not meet my needs, so I would wind up installing Ubuntu anyway.
I'm sure I'm not the only one doing this. Let Microsoft brag about their sales numbers. My machines (which have Ubuntu/Windows on them) spend 90% of their uptime running Linux anyway.
I seem to be the only one on the planet who wants a standard GNOME or Windows desktop on these little things and not an interface resembling a PDA.
Well you shouldn't have a knee-jerk re-action like you said, but the site is real.
As it was said numerous times above, ASUS's UK site links to it:
http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1008HA/features.html
http://www.asus.co.uk/ is not Asus UK website. Check out http://uk.asus.com./ Also check whois info for both.
For asus.com:
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com/
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Expiration Date: 2011-10-24
Creation Date: 1995-10-25
Last Update Date: 2007-03-29
Name Servers:
dns3.asus.com
dns7.asus.com
For asus.co.uk:
Domain name:
asus.co.uk
Registrant:
Asustek Computer Inc
Trading as:
Asus
Registrant type:
UK Individual
Registrant's address:
The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
address omitted from the WHOIS service.
Registrar:
1 & 1 Internet AG [Tag = SCHLUND]
URL: http://registrar.1und1.info/
Relevant dates:
Registered on: 23-May-1997
Renewal date: 23-May-2011
Last updated: 22-May-2009
Registration status:
Renewal request being processed.
Name servers:
ns59.1and1.co.uk
ns60.1and1.co.uk
Furthermore, if you look around the fake site, you'll see that it redirects to uk.asus.com for all URLs that you feed to it (thus creating the illusion that it is indeed an official Asus site), except for that one URL which opens the webpage linking to the site in TFA.
Wow, Why is everyone upset? Up until last year I have used every version of Windows since day one, and now use Linux on my desktop and Aspire one. I think it great that someone out there is worried enough to post anything anti-Linux. Linux is stepping on some toes!!! Bring it on! Being a seasoned, and I mean seasoned user of MS products since the days of DOS, I can do anything in Linux that I would be doing in windows. Gee, I'm just as old as Bill Gates, that is scary!
Microsoft has it, OSS doesn't.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Go there and look for the Seashell product.
http://uk.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=15908
It clearly advertises GNU/Linux as an option.
Copy & paste:
Go Anywhere in Style with Eee PCâ Seashell 1008HA
Display 10" LED-backlit WSVGA Screen (1024x600 pixels) with Color-Shine (Glare-type)
Operating System Genuine Windows® XPâ Home GNU Linux Processor Intel® Atomâ N280 Default Memory 1GB DDR2 SO-DIMM
No, it's an entirely subjective statement. It may not be "better with windows" for you . For other people, "it's better with windows" is absolutely correct.
Stop acting like it's a betrayal - ASUS is trying to make a buck, and figured they could make a buck by selling EEE's with Windows preinstalled as well. To do that they put together a marketing pitch to reassure users who choose Windows that they're making an *excellent* choice. Just like the Linux pitch will assure people choosing Linux that they're making an *excellent* choice.
If you like their Linux offerings, purchase them. If you don't like their Linux offerings, don't purchase them. It's really quite simple.
"It's better with windows" is not a factual statement. It's not measurable in any way. Why would you place an expectation of "truth" on an subjective statement which is entirely based on perception?
L2Understand Libertarianism before you critique it. Otherwise, you look like a moron with nothing particularly interesting to say.
Because I can smile when I read comments like this from ignorant fools who know nothing about libertarianism except what they've read on the DKos forums, or heard from their other similarly-illiterate friends who are all like, smart and shit.
Consider the history of the Eee and Asus, and of the Eee's Linux origins, the statements made by Asus about their distro, their drivers, and all the good stuff that they put into it.
Give them some Microsoft marketing money, and suddenly, well, "It's better with Windows". The incongruity cited is both valid and while it might meet expectation, the expectation is summarily lowered as a result. Were OS/2 or Solaris ported, would the same marketing $$ then cough: It's better with Solaris?
The factual matter of the statement isn't in question. What I question, and seemingly others within this thread, is the incongruous pimping of Windows.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Actually, the factual matter of the statement is exactly what is in question when you spout off about expecting "truth" from a company. "It's better with windows," may hurt your delicate Linux-fan sensibilities, but it's not "false" or "a lie" any more than "Linux Rocks the EEE!" would be "false" or "a lie." They're entirely subjective marketing statements, and that is all they are.
Couple that with the fact that there's significant doubt about whether or not this site and "marketing" slogan is even legitimate, and not some elaborate hoax, and your whinging about Asus and Microsoft, and how your expectations of truth, honesty, and integrity have been violated seem a tad hysterical, don't you think?
FAIL.
Or as soon as you find something that seems like it might match your so-called point, you jump up and down, yelling "FAIL" at people?
The seller provides the product description, not the manufacturer. Read the above. Does it sound at all professional?
Ahhh fuck it. If you can't read the above and realize that there's not a snowball's chance in hell all that came forth from the mouth of a UK-based marketing arm of a multinational electronics manufacturer, you're a lost cause.
I think Microsoft might be making another push to get Windows on more netbooks. There was a poorly-written piece in the Wall Street Journal today warning consumers not to buy netbooks with Linux. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124346723960760371.html Once, just once, I would like to see a column from them warning consumers that their Windows netbooks will not work out-of-the-box with Office documents -- which is true (what netbook comes with an Office license?).
I realize that exact figures don't really change your argument much but market share figures are something that have long been slippery. The more appropriate figures, in my opinion, put Windows at about 88%, Mac at 9.7 and Linux around 1%.
"Appropriate"? Only if you enjoyed the Kool-Aid. The marketshare.hitLink site is owned by NetApplications, whose business model was selling rebranded Windows executables to track Windows visits to Windows websites. No bias there, eh?
http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2009/05/1-linux-market.html
"Matt Assay said it was at 2.02%
ZDNet reported on Feb 24th, 2004 http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=5334 that the 2003 Linux desktop market share hit 3.2% and expected it to hit 6% by 2007.
In 2005 they reported that the 2004 saw the Linux desktop at 4%.
I believe that the all the ZDNet figures were spot on. If anything, the Linux desktop market share has continued to increase and is probably currently at 8-10% and rising. Dell and the other PC OEMs wouldn't have invested in selling Linux pre-installed if it appealed only to less than 1% of the desktop market.
It is quite obvious that NetApplications latest "report" is merely Microsoft's continuing attempt to control the news about Linux's success in replacing Windows on the desktop...."
The best evidence that the NetApplications "report" is fake is from Ballmer himself. In a Feb, 2009 presentation he displayed a graph showing the percentages of desktop marketshare for Windows, Linux and Apple. HE puts the Linux pie slice at around 10%, and slightly larger than Apple's.
http://www.osnews.com/story/21035/Ballmer_Linux_Bigger_Competitor_than_Apple
Ballmer can't listen to his own PR pulp. He has to plan using real data. Fortunately, he let it leak.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Especially since I just replaced my last Windows XP desktop running on my wife's computer last week. She's sick and tired of Windows issues that she asked what's Linux like?
She's in multi boot right now in case she needs anything and I showed her how to access her windows partition for files she's missing. In a few weeks we're flattening the Windows partition and we're done.
Sorry charlie.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
I first noticed this site a few days ago - linked from an ebay auction.
http://cgi.ebay.ca/NIB--Asus-EeePC-1000HE-10"-160G%2F1GB-BLUE-EBONY-XP_W0QQitemZ290318394892QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090520?IMSfp=TL090520166001r25703 was one
(ended) auction. - I was searching to find any 10" eeepcs with linux.
Perhaps this was an experiment in "slashdotting" - to test how much traffic can be driven by a bogus slashdot article pointing to a bogus website.
Some British corporate guy taking an initiative ? I am generally pretty naive, but, please, keep your stuff believable...
Furthermore - Google results filtered down to the asus.com site gives only a result for a forum post and a mod commenting on it...
.co.uk to look for other models (eee 901a, etc) give nothing, but killing it down to .co.uk/ redirects to the asus.com site...
People are providing these links to Asus.co.uk, which while under the same registrar, certainly isn't the same as uk.asus.com (going to the latter by visiting asus.com and selecting Europe and UK), and that all of the other regions/localizations on the asus.com site use the *(country code).asus.com/ format, not the asus.*.* format...
Hell if I can guess whats going on, because changing the
He can take a real Asus page and add a fake link in the same style, but he had to build the other page from scratch.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Another indicator it's a joke site. Rather than have the whole domain redirect (which would kill the joke), there's a webpage in the root that redirects people (and has a google-analytics js on it). Shut off automatic-redirection and you get a page with the title:
Welcome to ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - a leading company in the new digital era Please wait whilst we redirect you...
"Whilst" is another indication it's a joke, as is ASUS in all caps.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
A lot of CC domain registrars are assholes still living in the 1950's, who make you send snail mail documents and all sorts of crap just to get a domain registered. Nominet in the UK make you PAY to change the registered owner of a domain, even if it was their fault that the details were wrong to begin with. There's nothing unusual about going through your local/usual registry agent to get specific domains in other countries either; no more than asking your stock broker to get you shares in a company in Australia when he's served you well when trading shares of local companies.
Yeah, in addition to the site looking terrible, there were so many M$isms missing. The commercial was simple and well done without crap flying all over the place trying to throw features at you. It also wasn't NEARLY multicultural enough. I don't know about Asus so much for television commercials, but no talking OR text in an entire commercial series covering features or use case? I don't believe it. Unless they actually took a lesson from http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=36099539665548298, but I doubt it.
:)
I called their US Headquarters to get some answers, just in case
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
This is called an advertising Micro-site, where one of the companies tasks and agency to create a small site for them. They handle the hosting, creating the site, etc...
It appears that the budget they used for this was very small.
Seriously, the site looks like it was designed by a 5 year old downs victim
Obama? When did you start posting to slashdot?
There's no place like
This sucks, you're right. I been meaning to buy one in the very near future. I like being supportive patronize companies that Linux a fair shot in the commodity market. Guess I can put that purchase on hold.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
You seem to be suffering from the delusion that Linux is supposed to run Windows programs, that it is a replacement for a Microsoft Operating System. GNU/Linux is an alternative operating system, just like a Mac is an alternative. Linux runs Linux programs very well, Mac runs Mac programs very well, Windows runs Windows programs. The fact that Wine can run some Windows programs is a bonus, not the goal of the operating system. You do not try and run iLife on a Windows box. The latest kernels have more built in drivers than any operating system ever, even 10 year old gear is not left behind.
Right there with you. Someone showed me another one they got for $150, and I just couldn't help but show a little support for a company that can show that Linux is more than just for professionals. That ad campaign, particularly the text under the video really ridicules Linux users.
For anyone that might like to assist Asus in finding the error of their ways their US headquarters telephone number is 510-739-3777.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
And this is any worse than what kind of thing Apple is doing to Microsoft in their Apple vs PC commercial? Actually I would agree with what the ad portrays because for the regular person PC's are easier to use than Linux. If you get a Linux PC and just use it and don't try and change it, update drivers and such, you're fine. Windows is easier for the regular person to use. Its easier to add a printer, its easier to add a scanner, easier to do different things that Linux at this present time makes it difficult to do. You can put any kind of mask over linux and its still the same OS. Its like Windows Mobile 6, people complain that its not as simple to use as other mobile OS' and even thought handset developers will put overlays over it to try and mask the OS, its still Windows Mobile. You still at times have to use the ugle interface in the background to do stuff. Just like with Linux you will have to use a command prompt to do certain things, no distro has gotten past this yet. Plus Ubuntu even thought it is probably the best distro out it still isn't loaded with a lot of multimedia drivers. Maybe Asus and such can add the drivers but I'm not sure if they do or not. And other Ubuntu distros like Mint are very good but still not as easy as Windows. There is a learning curve to Linux. Until someone stops using KDE, Gnome...etc with linux and make their own desktop environment like Apple did with FreeBSD, it may never get up there. Linux is an OS for geeks and for it to be an OS for everyone it's going to have to be as simple as Windows and Mac OSX. Thats the simple truth.
But the point is that the company asus.co.uk is registered on is neither Asus' German branch, nor does Asus' German branch use 1&1. The question remains why Asus would use a non-LLC that is neither the German branch nor the mother company to register the UK domain via a German registrar not used by the German branch - and why they'd register their domain as "individual" in the UK but "organisation" in Germany. It just seems convoluted and unlikely.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Actually, this page on asus.co.uk links to itsbetterwithwindows.com, although I can't find any such links on asus.com.
Oh, yeah. I see, on a web page that details the technical specifications of their "Bettery packs".
Actually the fact that it's only on one localized page of ASUS makes it even more probable that :
- it's the action of one single manager or one small team who though they new better than the rest of the company
- or the UK website got hacked as part of an attempt to pull a practical joke.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
They've been saying this for several years now. "'X' driver support is getting better everyday!" "'Y' new distro will solve device compatibility issues!" "'Z' developer will have perfect Windows API integration and then the average user won't notice the difference!"
The fact is, Linux works, and works nice, already.
When combining a set of hardware selected by the manufacturer/installer, there's no such thing as a driver support problem. (Unlike an end-user trying to install manually Linux on some hardware put together without taking this into account).
It offers all basic needs : browsing, mailing, word processing. And that's most the needs a netbook users wants. That's why it has been already rolled out on several netbooks.
It's not a high end gaming machine. People aren't going to install exotic applications on something that only has a 9" screen. I mean who the hell in his/her right mind is going to complain about not being able to install 3D Studio Max or Crysis on a machine designed from the ground up to quickly check e-mails on the net and run with long battery life.
In fact, because it covers lots of basic needs, several motherboard publisher are pushing toward fast booting linux in BIOS. /.), you should be able to do that from within your fast booted Linux web session.
Want to just check quickly you mails ? No need to boot the whole beast. With several motherboard manufacturer, you just hit a button and under a couple of seconds, you're on the web. Under Linux.
Want to play a game with all the latest graphical candy ? Then boot the whole Microsoft OS. And with recent advances made by some BIOS manufacturer (and mentioned on
That's hardware manufacturers. Not some random FSF activist making a project out of his basement. It's real hardware manufacturer deploying Linux fast-booting solutions on all their recent motherboard. Real commercial things, marketed to end-users.
And it's something which leverages Linux' strong point : its license is free (thus it can be shipped in BIOS with no additional costs), its opensource and customizable (and thus can be tailored to the specific needs of the manufacturer) and can be light-weighted if needed (try fitting a Microsoft Vista installation with similar functionality inside a BIOS chip) while retaining compatibility with a huge software library from which to select the programs you need to make your fastbooting solution (unlike the Microsoft world, which *has* WinCE as a lightweight OS, but isn't compatible with mainstream Windows and thus you'll have to use a custom OS with custom softwares anyway).
Linux in that context (underpowered netbook - specially the upcoming ARM based ones - and BIOSes) does a amazingly good job, which can't be matched by Vista and that's why lots of manufacturer are picking it.
ASUS themselves are among those manufacturer of fast booting Linux BIOS motherboards (a fact which adds to the above controversy whether this is a scam or not).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
"Familiar - Windows is easy to use and familiar so you can be up and running right away"
~Well, until they completely replace their interface with ribbons only~ :-)
More seriously :
"Compatible - You can be confident that your devices and applications will work with Windows - more than any other platform"
Relevant for a desktop that you assemble yourself (always try to pick up hardware compatible with your OS).
Completely irrelevant there : ASUS build their motherboard and netbooks. They CAN select hardware that has Linux support.
As for the software : it's a glorified e-mail/web browsing machine. Who pays attention if can't install FarCry 2 or Maya on this ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
But how do you explain the link from the ASUS UK web-site to www.itsbetterwithwindows.com? (given in this comment)
I agree that it's dubious.... but that one link from the ASUS web-site really kind of gives it way more legitimacy than I'd expect of a hoax
5468652047616D65
They've already been fucking for a while now. They were Microsoft's first and primary target to fight Linux encroaching on their turf, since the EEE PC is what largely started it all. Yes yes there was/is OLPC, but I'm talking about the "normal" computer sales realm.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
If you want to support a company that supports selling Linux on their machines, you can always swing by System 76, which now sells a netbook with Ubuntu Netbook desktop environment. Forget the bigger players. With the possible exception of Dell, most netbook Linux providers are just playing the game of leverage against Microsoft and will never properly support Linux or even install it in any half way decent form. Look at Acer and that piece of shit distro they decided to throw on there. The environment looks like dogshit and runs like it too. They are just paying lip service and are hoping to use that as a bargaining chip just long enough for Microsoft to lower OEM prices and cut them into any other deals. Why do you think the Linux offerings look like a Texas Instrument baby toy (i.e EEepc Xandros simple desktop).
I got my fiance an Eee PC and after fiddling with it for hours, I gave up and put XP on it. Sure, it was cool, and almost switched me over to nix' for good, but the touch pad drivers were glitchy and I dont have time to mess with that crap. My XP cd with drivers for the rest of my machines worked flawlessly, and I've left her alone on it since. StarOffice was garbage and wouldnt work on Samba shares (on my linux server none the less) so shared office spreadsheets were useless. I tried, and I wanted something free to wisk me away, and it almost did, but alas, I go to the platform that sucks less. (Windows still sucks, but its the less of the many evils out there.)
I think when I bug Asus corporate, I will add that to my list of questions for them; do you think as a system builder and system tech that it would be in the best interest of my customers to encourage them to look to System76 for their machines if they want a company that supports and believes in Linux? Thank you. Awesome site.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
Well, check out this site: http://www.asus-uk.com/eeepc/1008HA/. Here's the whois for this domain:
Registrars.Registrant:
ASUSTeK (UK) Ltd.
Focus31, Westwing First floor, Mark Road
Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 7BW
GB
Domain name: ASUS-UK.COM
Administrative Contact:
Lee, Rex marketing_uk@asus.com
Focus31, Westwing First floor, Mark Road
Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 7BW
GB
+44.1442202700
Technical Contact:
Lee, Rex marketing_uk@asus.com
Focus31, Westwing First floor, Mark Road
Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 7BW
GB
+44.1442202700
Also if you go to http://uk.asus.com/ there's sometimes an ad on the right about EEEpc's (probably will have to refresh multiple times to see it). Clicking on that ad will redirect you to the asus.co.uk site.
Anything I say can and will be used against me in a court of law.
Very interesting. It seems that asus-uk.com also doesn't have any content apart from that single page - its / redirects to uk.asus.com, /eeepc/ redirects to the offending page on asus.co.uk, and the link you gave is the only real content on the site. Also, pages on both asus.co.uk and asus-uk.com are very simplistic - they don't have links to any other place on either site, any menu navigation, whatever. Only a bunch of JavaScript popups, and external links. Definitely very fishy.
But it's hard to argue with whois info for the domain. Admittedly, I don't know how hard it is to fake it (particularly the email), but if it is indeed faked, then it would be well into fraud territory, and I doubt anyone would be willing to take that risk for lulz.
and let Darwin sort 'em out xD
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
Except if you go to any ASUS site they have a copyright to ASUStek Computer Inc, and wikipedia links the company as having this name as well.
Notice the Copyright at the bottom of this ASUS page:
http://asus.com/product.aspx
And the wikipedia link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus
So, looks like ASUS is damaging their own reputation.
Amen.
I used to work for a scumbag company, and I was miserable. It took me a while to catch on that things were never going to get better. Customers were still promised "unlimited" this, and "99.99%" that.
Today's Dilbert reminds me of ScumCo Inc: http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-05-29/
coffee | nose > keyboard
Its Jesus on the cross all over again!! T_T
I needed a cheap computer(=netbook) this past January while I was away from home for a month to be treated for cancer. The residence (Cancer Society's Hope Lodge) had 'public' computers and also wi-fi in every room. I bought an Asus EEE, had to _pay extra_ to get Linux - and what do you know, it would not connect to the network! No way, no how, no matter what I did.
I used the public computers extensively to read the appropriate forums and hey! many people had this problem, no one had solved it.
J$R took it back for a full refund after their test found that it saw the network but couldn't connect. I wouldn't accept the Windows version because at that point I doubted Asus's good faith.
Anyone in the world can register a domain name with any business name in the co.uk 2nd level tld; there's no advance vetting.
What's more telling is that asus.co.uk is registered at 1and1; asus.com is registered at Network Solutions.
That said: asus.co.uk was registered on 23-May-1997, though by a "UK Individual" rather than a company.
My first thought was some scamster created a site where everything redirects to asus.com except the one page he wants everyone to find to give his scam site some credibility...
But the domain was created over ten years ago.
Interesting.
Perhaps you should learn to understand Libertarianism, he was spot-on.
Says the ignorant fool who knows nothing about libertarianism.
Is ASUS removing (and no longer supporting) their previously designed and installed Linux offerings? If not, I wouldn't call it a slap in the face, but just MS marketing 'Hype' attempting to compete with what may be the better performance of a Linux-installed computer.
If MS is requiring ASUS to no longer offer Linux -- it seems like this would be a perfect example of MS using their monopoly position to shut out competition, setting them up for more monopoly abuse lawsuits. If's it's only another option offered by MS -- of course MS will say their stuff is better.
The original article doesn't indicate that the Linux offerings will be discontinued -- just that ASUS is finally
allowing MS to provide an ASUS tuned version of (presumably, XP) to try to compete. I don't see that as a slap -- just S.O.P.
-linda
Right... one of my commenters is saying this is a fake as well.
It may seem convoluted and unlikely to you, but (working for an ISP) I've seen stuff like that on an almost daily basis.
I've read as many articles on this as I can find to see if this is real or not and there seems to be no official word from asus or ms about it. I did find a link to an ad on newegg.com though that links to the website, so it does seem legit. If this is the case I'm certainly not going to buy the 1000he I almost ordered from newegg today. Going to hold off on ordering until I can confirm or debunk this so any info would be much appretiated.
This is the newegg link: http://promotions.newegg.com/ASUS/041609/?cm_sp=Subcat_Netbooks-_-ASUS/041609-_-http%3a%2f%2fpromotions.newegg.com%2fASUS%2f041609%2f478x88.jpg
iv just bought an asus 901 + linux, particularly cause linux seemed to work well with it. its a real shame asus has caved into MS in this pathetic way, still it doesn't suprise me, i will still continue to use linux on the eeepc 901 and recommend it all my friends and family.
Asus introduces Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Eee PC running Google Android
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/06/asus-introduces-qualcomm-snapdragon-based-eee-pc-running-google-android-video.html
This hardware will probably be suitable to run the Linux flavor of one's choice, I guess.
And Microsoft's out of the game here. ;-)