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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"
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I can't imagine why it would be sponsored by Asus but they certainly link to it: http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1008HA/features.html
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.
"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$oft to push the Linux fans away from a company that supports them.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
I love Asus motherboards and hardware. That said, the site looks very fishy to me. It doesn't look "professional" at all. The Asus and Micro$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.
OK, but that's very 80s and 90s thinking. The whole idea that systems have to be static, fixed, rigid is very much in the past.
There is no reason why releases have to be so long apart. That thinking comes from a license fee driven mentality; when you charge people for an upgrade, they must have something for it. So there is a huge incentive for feature bloat; look at "ribbons" v. "menus". I've yet to see a substantive difference in use but it's a brand new feature that's used to justify the huge cost of an upgrade.
Now look at the way linux develops. It's incremental, it's fast, and it relies on repositories. It doesn't have an attachment to the past. So a vendor doesn't have to customize the software to each distro, that's the distro maintainers' job.
Distro maintainers in linux are much like the OEMs in the MS world. They're ultimately responsible for making stuff work. The problem currently is that the major commercial vendors just plain don't understand how linux works, and so don't want to trust, support, or even acknowledge the package maintainers' role in making their product work.
The flip side is that the linux community has a short bullshit fuse; with flux and change being the norm, a commercial vendor has to be just as nimble, just as competitive, just as flexible as an open source project. Most of them simply cannot do that as they have too many internally competing goals.
So a piece of software that is not being actively developed is likely to be dropped in favor of some other. Look at what's happening to MySQL right now.
There are some people that would like to take an organization's word for what the words mean.
And those people are incredibly naive.
Unless of course somebody hacked into Asus's website and added that link. You can tell it was hacked because if you play the video on itsbetterwithwindows.com frame by frame, there is one frame in the middle where if you squint you can see the reflection from a sign saying "p0wn3d by D4 Cr3w". A quick search of Google will turn up the fact that "D4 Cr3w" are the same folk who faked the moon landing in the 60's.
By the way, cattle mutilations are up.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
I'm sorry, I thought this was a kdawson post.
Thank you for doing homework on it. I was just gonna do the same.
Does the register's name match any other site?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Except that site links to www.asus.co.uk Asus's real UK website is uk.asus.com
Your ad here. Ask me how!
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
--
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)
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.
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
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.