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The Truth Behind the Death of Linux On the Netbook
eldavojohn writes "Groklaw brings us news of Microsoft holding the smoking gun in regards to the death of Linux on netbooks. You see, the question of Linux on netbooks in Taiwan was put forth to the Taiwan Trade Authority director, who replied, 'In our association we operate as a consortium, like the open source consortium. They want to promote open source and Linux. But if you begin from the PC you are afraid of Microsoft. They try to go to the smart phone or PDA to start again.' It's simple; fear will keep them in line. PJ points out, 'So next time you hear Microsoft bragging that people prefer their software to Linux on netbooks, you'll know better. If they really believed that, they'd let the market speak, on a level playing field. If I say my horse is faster than yours, and you says yours is faster, and we let our horses race around the track, that establishes the point. But if you shoot my horse, that leaves questions in the air. Is your horse really faster? If so, why shoot my horse?'"
first idiot.
Taking the whose-horse-is-faster analogy from the summary, if you decided not to challenge me to race your horse with mine because you are afraid that I might shoot your horse instead of my actually shooting the horse then you can't really claim that you have a "smoking gun" about my evil intentions.
All that is quoted in the article is that someone said they are afraid of Microsoft. That in itself doesn't even come close to a smoking gun against microsoft. Unless "smoking gun" now just refers to something that is just a circumstantial evidence.
I despise MS tactics and personally suspect that there might actually be some truth to whatever is being implied here, but come on, this article is nothing but preaching to the choir.
So an off hand remark by an executive at a trade show is a "smoking gun"? Get real please. The quote seems to be saying that Microsoft is the dominant player (duh) and that was it.
There is simply no hard evidence that Microsoft is abusing its monopoly to crush Linux on netbooks. None. There is no smoking gun here, just more hysterics and jumps to conclusions from groklaw, as usual. No surprise this would get attention from slashdot.
Linux has come a long way and it is ready for the average user. Yes, Joe-six-pack can use linux with a 15 minute tutorial in the basics. I just want to scream knowing that Microsoft is still undermining the market and retarding progress!
Good for the horse analogy union that they seem to be making a comeback against car analogies. Horse analogies were always superior to car analogies - they are more maneuvrable, can use almost anything in nature for fuel (car analogies only compatible with Octane Troll and Flamebait) and they don't need a bailout.
It's... it's...it's Bill Gates !! He killed Linux !! You bastard !!
It's easy to see Ballmer, gun in hand, claiming "Now, mine is faster".
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
if i shoot your horse, i'd bet to hell mine is faster than yours. my horse would beat any dead or crippled horse.
now... anyone got a horse i can borrow? xerox?
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
Do you even know what a smoking gun is? When did they start letting the mentally challenged start posting news on this site... oh wait...
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
he kills your horse so his horse is the only one left standing.
you are free to go on worrying which one would be faster.
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
the terrible pollution from their exhaust;-)
The summary was pure gibberish. I only deciphered it because I had fair idea of what was intended in the first place.
What these companies need to to is to club together to form a new "independent" company that makes netbooks. This company would only sell non-Microsoft netbooks (whether that was Linux or some other new-fangled OS) and thus be immune to Microsoft's mafia tactics.
No turnips required.
Stick Men
I for one welcome our new Scary Microsoft Overlords
I get more battery life with Windows.
OMG I AM SO SURPRISED, MICROSOFT DO SOMETHING NASTY IN THE NAME OF BUSINESS?
Seriously, they have been well known, since their inception for the strongarm business techniques and relentless salespeople
That's why the rose to power in the first place, so why is this really news? Any we all know that plebians are trained to be afraid of linux and "t3rm1n4l h4x"
There are two reasons why it is hard to get a linux netbook these days. First, Microsoft panicked and started letting the netbook manufacturers put windows on for next to nothing. Second, even the better manufacturers put a barely usable Linux on the netbooks that wouldn't allow you to install any software without using the command line, broke the wireless when you installed software updates, etc. Some of the manufacturers didn't even include working webcam drivers on their Linux netbooks.
I'm wondering who's holding the smoking gun? Microsoft or the customers who buys netbooks? Because I know a lot who don't know Linux and don't want to see nothing else than Windows everywhere...
"There is simply no hard evidence that Microsoft is abusing its monopoly to crush Linux on netbooks"
.. we be quite prescriptive in our investments with Dell relative to the competitive threats we see with Linux .. we constantly benchmark ourselves against the actions they do with RedHat'
'The very next day, Asus' chairman, Jonney Shih, after sharing a news conference stage with Microsoft corporate VP, OEM Division, Steven Guggenheimer, apologized for the Android Eee PC being shown'
Microsofts Walmart/Linux Taskforce
'We invest big, big $$ in Dell
'A cross-group team has been working for the last two weeks on a proposal to have a more planned response process to defend against Linux and other low-cost/no-cost competitors in large education/government deals in both developed and developing subs'
I can't remember where I read this, but from what I understand the reason Linux died on the netbook was because the netbook makers didn't bother to install the right drivers for various hardware components and didn't configure them properly. This resulted in many Linux netbooks getting returned.
OEMs tend not to want to write their own software or do much configuration. Their business model has traditionally been to assemble commodity components, load Windows on them, and maybe the odd driver not included in Windows.
It will take a polished corporate effort such as Moblin or Android to get a non-Windows OS on netbooks.
This space left intentionally blank.
the Chinese are already taking the chips and panels from Taiwan and assembling devices
ballmer can throw as many chairs at the Taiwanese horses as he desires - the Chinese won't care
...I obey the laws of physics....
"If I say my horse is faster than yours, and you says yours is faster, and we let our horses race around the track, that establishes the point. But if you shoot my horse, that leaves questions in the air. Is your horse really faster? If so, why shoot my horse?'
Because then my living horse is faster than your dead horse, obviously.
Privacy is terrorism.
Whether manufacturers were scared of upsetting MS or whether MS actively bullied manufacturers is irrelevant. It's the same argument as the Linux desktop PC. Truth is, the only people that care about a Linux netbook are Linux fanboys. Your average Joe computer user doesn't care about your 'religious war'. He doesn't care about the OS as long as It Just Works (tm). In fact, he may even be upset if he got 'tricked' into buying a non-Windows netbook. (Why can't I view Office 2007 files? Why can't I view Silverlight websites like Netflix?)
The current strategy of "Let's put an XP theme over Linux and say it's just like Windows" used by the Linux camp is working as well as when Apple used it over a decade ago. In other words, it doesn't. Think different.
I badly want a netbook with Linux on it and I know quite a number of people that would love one too.
The truth is that in the country where I live (Belgium) I simply can't buy one anywhere.
There used to be a web shop that had two (2) high end models, but no more.
I just saw they are started selling one (1) ultra-cheap model for â149 at the local Carefour supermarket.
That's *it*.
Note that exactly the same goes for laptops and PCs. I simply can't buy any brand with Linux on it or even without a Microsoft/Apple operating system on it.
After I bought my Dell Precision M60 laptop, I never even booted it into Windows XP pro, I just booted from a Kubuntu DVD. I simply erased all the crapware from the hard disk.
Now, 3 years later, I haven't looked back, but it *still* annoys me terribly that I had to pay Microsoft for something I didn't even want.
That's at least â100 that I didn't want to spend over at Microsoft although I would have no problem spending it at Canonical.
The same sort of laptops get sold with Linux pre-installed in other countries. Not in Belgium, not in many other countries.
It's not very hard to claim that Linux sales is negligible in that sort of situation. Heck, I'm amazed Linux reached the 1% barrier at all.
Matt
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
Seriously.. Grow the fuck up boy.
Whereas Microsoft is a corporation with focus, clarity, and direction. Linux seeped into the netbook niche because it was the best alternative at the time. Any new computing device that needs an O/S and hasn't yet gotten a proven business model for making money is a perfect platform for Linux. It plays to Linux's strengths. The netbook craze caught MS completely unawares, and Linux was very successful for a year or so. Then MS focused on that segment, clarified their offerings, and went directly at the manufacturers to make sure that XP was a viable option on that platform. In other words, the market morphed to a situation that played to Microsoft's strengths. No conspiracies or dead horses here, just the standard business cycle. I hope to pick up a netbook, and I know to get one that has Linux, but most people just don't care, and are familiar with XP. They see the familiar "Start" button and gravitate towards that. To each their own.
If anyone these days has the balls to take on Microsoft, it's Intel. Intel has Moblin, and just sunk a pile of money into Moblin. I suspect they're also a bit tired of getting the screw-deal from Microsoft, too. Intel's entire low-end is pretty much zero profit - they make all their money on the high-end that piggy-backs on top. The lion's share of profit on low-end computing goes to Microsoft. Most live with it, I suspect Intel is tired of that situation.
Not that Intel doesn't have their monopoly abuses, too.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Steve: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local OEM's in line. Fear of this operating system.
Linus: Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed; the ability to destroy a small OEM is insignificant next to the power of the open source.
Bill: Don't try to frighten us with your sorceress's ways Lord Linus. Your sad devotion to the ANCIENT RELIGION does not help you conjure up the stolen datatapes..or given you the clairvoyance to find the rebels hidden fortress...*choked*
I'm using a Dell Mini 12 with Ubuntu "preinstalled". Nothing dead about it. The right drivers are installed and they are configured right.
Oh, and I bought a Mac notebook after I bought a Kubuntu floortop, but then I did go back (to Ubuntu).
If you happen to be in Japan you can buy a Dell netbook like mine here; if you're not in Japan you might find the same thing in some part of dell.com that's in your language.
What I wonder is why Dell won't (here) sell me any bigger laptop with some alternative to Windows.
Microsoft isn't really shooting the competing horse. They know that they can't do that because it is illegal. It would also draw the government's attention to the problem of fixed horse races, and open the door to more legislation. No one really wants that.
The hardware vendors are more like the race track operators. They provide a venue in which anyone can compete, and will gladly let anyone participate if it reflects their business interests. Except that they have one little problem: the owner of the most popular horses is a spoil sport. Microsoft said that they would charge the race track operators more, or even pull their horses out of the race, if Linux's horses competes. Since Microsoft's horses bring in more money than Linux's horses, the business interests of the race track operators is quite clear and Linux's horses cannot compete.
Which may actually explain why Microsoft's OSes are so expensive in retail channels. Microsoft has virtually no control over who buys retail copies of Windows. At least not without facing a major anti-trust suit. So if a vendor wanted to sell Linux or Windows, based upon the customer's request, Microsoft could refuse to sell cheap licenses to them. The vendor could still buy retail copies or Windows, but it would drive up the cost of their Windows systems by 20% or more. So their Windows customers would evaporate since other vendors will always be cheaper.
The great mystery of computing is not that Linux is not in the consumer space, but that Windows is so entrenched in the enterprise space.
Windows is inherently a consumer operating system. It has a developer mythology that the dream Windows development is to make that one product that you can sell and make millions with. It's got a rich set of services developers can use to build consumer products, and it treats a product like a product, a property that can be bought, traded, and rented. You've got a well documented set of graphics and sound APIs, a halfway decent networking stack, and a bunch of tools that are frankly geared towards producing consumer products and these things support a healthy consumer market. Consumers, to some degree, actually like to spend money, so that Windows is non-free actually enhances its perceived value in the consumer space. If you receive something or buy something that doesn't work in Windows, its not something that you try and sort out and fix, its time to move on to another product. Everything is a black box good that you pay for, it either works or it doesn't, and that's what people on the consumer level want.
On the other hand, Linux is a total corporate and government system. It has a developer mythology that "welcome to the basement of megacorp, I've got a jar skittles.. we're both cogs.. here's your cube." Thus, the economic prospect that in the Linux world, your work product is worthless in the market sense, but, your boss gets to use the economic benefit of it over and over again, and, if you can get to keep working on it for a bit, that's pretty interesting and you get a paycheck for it. If you want to get rich with Linux, it won't be by making an application. You'd have to make a consumer black box out of it by hosting a web site using it. But all the development and other tools of Linux have a certain corporate basement feel. Nothing is really a consumer level product, but, everything has all sorts of rich nooks and crannies to do a bunch of different corporate tasks. Consumers don't need to replace social security numbers in a giant database with some new form of proprietary identifier, but Linux developers do, and that's where the strength of Linux tools lie.
Do you really want Linux to be a consumer system anyway? To some extent, that means getting rid of an awful lot that is lovable about Linux. It means polishing out (getting rid of), that barely documented switch to a command where an author left a note saying "uh, this piece of code I put in and got to work for this one thing that I was doing but I'm not really maintaining it", or, to not have that feature at all, or, even worse, have the feature, but not the warning. In any case, there's nothing about Windows that reminds me of the guy in the basement offering some skittles in the basement of the power company, but Linux has that in spades, and I like skittles.
For Linux to be a consumer system, we have to have a world where we take art seriously. That means no copying of images, or songs, worrying about who owns what, and, in a corporate world, all of that is a pain in the rear. If we made Linux into a consumer system and had a consumer culture with it, there's no way you could, from your basement, tell the next bit of bits in your desk to get in line, just like all the other bits. We're all just corporate cogs, hey, here's some skittles.
Me thinks that rather than charging to get consumers to adopt Linux, it should be to drive Windows out of the corporation.
This is my sig.
Sorry good sir. All the complete horse $hit has mysteriously vanished from the tracks and the stables. The Apple trees are gone too.
The carbon compounds you see are from proprietary, non-reproducing animals like the mule on the desktop, and a smaller animal similar to the well liked Pony, is being developed for riders with lower speed riding needs.
Talks are underway in Michigan to return the land back to quadraped friendly parkways suitable for buggies. The whips may be found on the internet.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
more like microsoft just up and killed your horse and then claimed it won the race that they would otherwise have lost
Obviously you should have made a better horse, if it were so easy for Microsoft to have killed it.
This is my sig.
The first "netbook" that started all the craze was the XO... everyone wanted one, even paying twice, donating one to schools to get one of those. And run Linux. The first next ones (asus, msi, etc) consolidated the trend, and run linux too. Till last year, most if not all netbooks had Linux as alternate (if not main) OS. And a bunch of distros/interfaces of linux specialised in netbooks started to show up (eeebuntu and similar, ubuntu netbook remix, moblin, android, etc)
Then the campaing started. Microsoft using a chainsaw to manage to show XP in an XO. Then saying that Linux netbook returns were 4 times higher than Windows ones (at least what an msi exec said, an asus one denied that). Some vendors giving lesser options/specs for Linux netbooks than for Windows ones. And linux offers and showings in netbooks starting to fade
The next incoming market for Linux in small pcs are arm based net/smart books. Started with linux in general, then Android, but recently started a push to say that the right OS for that platform is another Microsoft one, Windows CE.
Clearly this is not a smoking gun... the room of Neo's "guns, lots of guns" is tiny compared with the amount of weapons Microsoft is using in all fronts to try to stop the flood. Will it succeed? I only hope that not.
http://www.everexstore.com/everex/products/products.php
Picked up an HP Mini 1000 series 10" about a month ago when my original Macbook Pro drank a glass of water as a stop gap measure. I have run this thing through 4 operating systems and (goddammit) it has been my primary computer with about 8-10 hourse use daily in that time.
First was winXP - as you can infer from my screen name I have never been its biggest fan.
Second was OSX using iDeneb - such a pain in the ass to get everything working right that it completely undermines the entire idea of having a mac. Clones will never kill Apples marketshare.
Third round Ubuntu Netbook Remix... Ok, the install was a breeze, the price cant be beat, and it picked up 90% of the hardware without a hiccup. Not bad. Until you start using it - graphical glitches everywhere. There is some single window dashboard on the netbook version that is sluggish and confusing garbage - turn it off first to even attempt to have a decent time. It still fails on so many common tasks without tweaking / dl'ing that it failed "The Wife Test" and that was it.
I cant see some hardware manufacturer sitting down and saying "Yes, this is the best way to show off and sell my hardware" after using it for a week.
Fourth and finally: Windows 7. Mac zealot since '99 here - first gen iPod and iPhone fanboy - and I have to say Windows 7 is by far the best thing Microsoft has put out since Windows 2000. THIS is what is going to kill Linux on netbook - the fact that Microsoft realized that they couldnt hand this segment to the Open Source community on a platter and designed an OS to run GREAT on a 1.6 Core Solo with 2GB of ram.
XP is garbage. Linux had a great chance to lead this market. But now Win7 is here and there is no way in hell the user experiences can be compared. [That said I am still just biding MY time for another macbook ;]
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
The reality is that Microsoft's stuff is technically excellent and the unix world is a bunch of also-rans trying to tout minor engineering advantages over the better engineering choices Microsoft has to tended to make. Changes to user interfaces make them better. Office 2003 is better than 2000, and Office 2007 is absolutely wonderful. It doesn't take that much to learn a new u/i. Sometimes people should be forced to upgrade. I mean, seriously, do you still think PC's should have ISA adapters.?
This is my sig.
That summary made no sense. I read it twice and still couldn't figure out what point the author was trying to make so I wasn't even interested in the linked article.
Is it really so hard to believe that people just want something that works? Sure, people could relearn to use Linux, but why? They already know how to use windows, and learning how to use Linux would take time away from them doing other things. A lot of people simply use the computer for checking email and browsing Facebook/MySpace, why sit there and relearn how to do that when you can just do it in Windows without the hassle/time investment? People are lazy. Those who aren't have other things to do with their time than learn a new OS, which is why I honestly don't think Linux will ever be desktop ready. OSX is so user-friendly that it's a nonissue there, but Linux breaks easily and requires a lot of knowledge when shit DOES break. Windows is just easier, more accessible, and everyone knows how to use it already.
When netbooks were initially released, they were perceived to be a niche/hobbyist market, so putting Linux on a netbook made sense from both a fiscal and a market standpoint.
Microsoft realized that they were on the verge of losing out on a potentially lucrative market, so they quickly reversed course on sunsetting Windows XP, and under some very netbook-specific licensing conditions, made it available to manufacturers for cheap.
When the average user was presented with the choice of Linux -- a "new" OS to many people -- versus familiar XP which works exactly like their sons/daughters/job had trained them to use, and which runs all of their favorite apps, then it became pretty obvious which way the wind was going to blow.
I'm not saying that Linux shouldn't be an option -- I'm all for more choices in the market -- but there's really no conspiracy here, and no smoking gun.
(And yes, I know that you taught your great-great-grandmother to use Ubuntu in five minutes with no manual, and Wine sort-of runs most Windows apps with only some slowdown or glitches, and monkeying with your printer drivers for an hour is something everyone enjoys, etc.)
If I tell my dad to buy the Linux laptop instead, he will.
If Microsoft tells their customers to keep buying Windows, they will.
Microsoft''s voice is just way to big, that's all. It's called monopoly and it's the weakest aspect of the free market.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is either an illiterate moron (not very likely, for someone who is a "Former Ziff Davis Enterprise Editor-at-Large") or is a Linux-Loon spreading FUD ("Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols ran Linux-Watch from 2005 until April 2008.").
Let me quote the fine link you have posted, but apparently haven't read beyond the Microsoft in the title (and that is often translated to Evil Empire, as later in the text - "The Evil Empire wants to make that up this year by forcing netbook customers into buying over-priced, under-powered Windows 7. "):
Shih said, "Frankly speaking ... I would like to apologize that, if you look at Asus booth, we've decided not to display this product. I think you may have seen the devices on Qualcomm's booth but actually, I think this is a company decision so far we would not like to show this device. That's what I can tell you so far. I would like to apologize for that."
Here, a shorter summed up version:
I would like to apologize that, we've decided not to display this product.
He is NOT apologizing for showing the product, BUT for it NO LONGER BEING SHOWN!
That should answer the question that was bothering SJVN "What the heck does he have to apology for?" (Apparently he is a tad illiterate, seeing that one should "apologize for" and not "apology for").
Also, from TFA linked in that article:
Asustek puts Android netbook on ice for now
Qualcomm showed an Eee PC running Android on Monday as part of the company's display of new products with its Snapdragon chips inside.
...
The Eee PC with Android is not ready yet because the technology is "not mature," said Jonathan Tsang, vice chairman of Asustek, on the sidelines of a press conference at the show Tuesday.
"For the time being this project is not a priority because our engineering resources are limited," he added.
...
When asked about rumors that Asustek faced pressure from Microsoft and Intel over the use of Android and Snapdragon in the Eee PC, Tsang said "no, pressure, none."
...
Another Asustek representative suggested that Qualcomm displayed the Android Eee PC without permission. But Qualcomm vice president of business development Hank Robinson said Asustek approved the use of the device so long as they did not discuss any of its specs other than the Snapdragon chip.
Further more, SJVN originally talks about "Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan" and the "ASUS incident" and to strengthen his position adds:
If this was an isolated incident, I might not make so much of it. But, it wasn't.
On the other side of the world, PC World, Britain's self-professed largest specialist chain of computing superstores, announced that, regardless of what was coming with Linux netbooks, it would only be selling Windows netbooks.
Does he even read his own texts? On the other side of the world? How is that related to something happening at the trade show in Taipei?
Well, simple - by using the magic "Evil Empire Invoking" words, such as "Windows".
And then, he continues to cherry pick his quotes from this article.
SJVN tells us that:
In a statement, Jeremy Fennell, Category Director at PC World, said, "Despite initial hype that netbooks would move more users onto the Linux platform, Microsoft has emerged as the preferred operating system because Windows makes it easier to share content, and provides customers with a simpler, more familiar computing experience on the move."
Therefore, "Based on this insight, all the netbooks in our stores will feature Microsoft Windows, larger screens and keyboards, and greater colo
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I like my Eeepc 701, and well deserves 50% credit for the fact that linux soon thereafter became my primary OS at home and work for the first time since college, but... frequently resorting to things like typing "sudo echo 0 > /proc/acpi/asus/cardrdr" and then its opposite is fine for me (glad it's that easy to work around a problem), but not really going to fly with most users.
I'm actually impressed how much that little machine just worked... it did a lot to convince me that linux on the desktop is viable. But they've got to get those remaining rough edges fixed, and track ongoing changes - for example, had to replace flash player once when facebook changed things, and now it looks like I'm going to have to find a way to hack flash player 10 onto there because facebook changed yet again.
like removing viruses, spyware and malware?
When you recognize love in another and realize how precious it is, everything else seems so insignificant.
Bad things happen quite often, services become unavailable, malware causes downtime, heavy load causes crashes. You should work for Microsoft marketing as you want to put lipstick on pigs.
It's probably all your bad programming that's screwing up the servers. I bet if you had a Linux farm to work with, you'd be crashing it too.
This is my sig.
during a presentation at the Google IO conference, Google engineer Patrick Brady stated unambiguously that Android is not Linux.
via
Android is not even a full-fledged OS. It's more like a glorified browser with interfaces to Google web services. Probably fine for phones if you're OK with handing over all your data, not made for multipurpose computers.
I would love to see more subnotebooks with a free OS, but Android is a strawman here. I don't dispute that Linux distros (and of course Windows) could learn a lot from Android's UI. But it's not a competitor if you want more than a web browsing device.
I have not RTFA and in this case I don't think I need to.
Netbook manufacturers are going to skim the cream. That's been the pattern for all high tech innovations for more than 20 years. It means that that you first work the most profitable price points, then as those markets get saturated, you aim at the lower price points.
People willing to pay $500 - $900 for a netbook expect to get MS Office and probably MS Outlook on it. They may well add a dual boot with Linux after purchase, and they might end up spending most of their time in Linux, but for that price a Windows OS and the ability to handle Excel and PowerPoint files perfectly are an expectation. Failure to meet that expectation is a deal breaker.
So long as there is good profit to be made in selling these high end machines, the less expensive netbooks in a manufacturer's line-up are going to be positioned to encourage consumers to buy the more expensive ones. They will have fewer features, of course, but more important to this discussion is that they ABSOLUTELY CANNOT CAUSE THE CONSUMER TO DOUBT that the top of the line netbook is the best product available. Manufacturers certainly don't want showroom discussions that compare their $750 wonder with all the MS bells and whistles with a $250 Linux with FOSS machine. That would be cutting their own throats.
Savvy sales persons are willing to talk up how Ubuntu could be easily installed as a dual boot on this $999 machine since its got the big hard drive, and that yeah, you might see more battery life, and yeah, it would probably be more secure when you are surfing on the wifi of your favorite coffee shop. Don't expect them to volunteer that info, but a good salesperson will spout on that if asked.
But that's as far as Linux penetration of the showroom is going to go, until the high end market is saturated and the $200 - $300 price point becomes the most profitable for manufacturers. Then things are likely to change, because then the license fees to Microsoft cut too deeply into the smaller margins.
There is no conspiracy here; simply the same market dynamics that have been at work in computer sales since the mid 1980s. Linux is undoubtedly being installed on a lot of netbooks after purchase. But until showing your overpriced netbook in the Golf Club's lounge is no longer a status symbol for the PHBs, Linux on a netbook is detrimental to the health of the manufacturers. Our turn will come.
Will
If you don't like what they're doing with it, then go elsewhere.
Rather like your position on Apple's MacOS X fight against Pystar using DMCA and one-sided and unconscionable EULA binding.
There is no market with Windows. There is MONOPOLY. Ugly and rotten monopoly that even US government does not dare to fight. All the world pays M$ taxes with computer hardware. There is no choice at all in every computer store. So guys, what market you are speaking about? Only few people around the globe managed to get money back for unused Windows on their computer. It is the situation if you dare to look at it with sober eye.
I bought a (Windows) Acer Aspire One 8+8 because that's the flash version that was available at all locally. I have to say, they screwed up big time with the default software. So much was loaded by default that the thing crawled. As it is, I never planned on running it with windows anyways; I need it as a technician's tool and I find Linux more productive for this use (may be based on having many years more experience with Linux than WinNT).
My experience with it has brought up some interesting thoughts...
Most of the netbooks seem to be set up and marketed on the assumption that they're being bought by unsophisticated users for web (facebook, twitter, etc.) and email access on the go. While this may be true for some, it's certainly not true of me and a sizeable (but low percentage) part of the market. There must exist a sizeable but diffuse niche of technicians and contractors who need a light-weight and robust technician's tool, not an adolescent's toy.
So here's my idea for a product that some manufacturer could probably market successfully via direct marketing: A netbook roughly the same specs and form factor as the Aspire One 8+8 but with a mainstream KDE based distro plus a few extra tools:
"No shit, Sherlock."
Of course Microsoft are going to do everything they can, to sink Linux in every potential niche they can.
There are a couple of ways in which the Linux community is its' own worst enemy, however.
1) You think "the desktop," is the primary issue of importance. Maybe in 1999 it was; it isn't now. First Web 2.0, and then the cloud craze both mean that the local client desktop is nowhere near as important as it used to be. Firefox is cross-platform, and if you're using Google, that is all you need. A person can thus do what they want just as well on either system, so the OS they're using ceases to be important.
2) Overuse of promotion. This might initially sound insane, but to get ahead of Microsoft, Linux's distribution actually needs to be as quiet as possible. Spread it one person at a time, via word of mouth. When you have PR releases and bang the drum and have huge crowds of people waving flags, that's when Microsoft are able to come in and step on you with FUD. The Linux community needs to learn to start doing things under Microsoft's radar.
3) Insisting that people still care about "free." (As in Stallman) Nobody neurotypical does, nobody neurotypical ever has, and nobody neurotypical wants to. You can lament and bitch and moan and drum your heels and hold your breath about that as much as you want. It won't make any difference.
The stack is both closed and open source. Normal people use what works, whether it is FOSS or proprietary, and as long as it does what they need, they don't give a shit either way. The only people who care about the ideology are the autistic. Neurotypicals don't, and if you try and tell them that they should, they will simply call you a freak, (or think you're one, if they don't actually say it) and walk away from you.
Personally I think horses analogy to be quite refreshing.
One that hath name thou can not otter
If they said they're afraid of Microsoft, despite thousands of years of Chinese martial arts history, then be very afraid.
Hmm, one of the guys in the pic looks awefully like Chuck Norris with a black wig...
The truth is that in the country where I live (Belgium) I simply can't buy one anywhere
What about Amazon? Don't they sell to Belgium?
They already know how to use windows, and learning how to use Linux would take time away from them doing other things.
Fifteen whole minutes sure is a lot of time. Wowee.
Couple of problems here
Another Groklaw commentator pointed out that: (1) people are familiar with Windows which makes them tend to choose it. (2) multiple distributions confuses ordinary computer users (there was no de facto standard distribution for netbooks). (A good fraction of the Linux users who purchase Linux netbooks through out the distribution that came on their netbook and install one of the more mainstream distributions). (3) There are still ease of use problems.
PJs response was interesting. She accused the commentator of working for Microsoft, told him he needs to update his FUD because "Linux is way easier to use now than Microsoft stuff. No comparison", and tossed off a circular argument ("If they were as difficult as you pretend, why kill it?").
I think that's the proper term for it, maybe there's a better technical term, but you can't really download software and install it on Linux, at least right now you can't, at least on most of the mainstream distros.
For instance, with dd-wrt on a router, it's great. Awesome. All these features, all this stuff you can do, Linux here really allows you to get everything you can out of your hardware. Turns a $50 router into a $600 bridge. Stuff like that. Awesome.
However, on a desktop, general purpose computer, you might want to, say, for instance, try out Opera's new beta, or something like Chromium or Google's new beta browser, you might want to upgrade your Firefox or Open Office to the latest version, or you might want to try out some other nifty piece of open source software that you read about in a blog or someplace like that.
Here, you're stuck. You typically can't "just" go to the software maker's website and download and install it, you've go to use the built in package manager, and it might or might not be there, it might or might not work, and it might end up taking your entire OS down with it. Or wanting or needing to download massive amounts of upgrades, which, depending on your location, the amount of time you have available at that moment, and whether or not you can take the risk of being without a working OS until you can do a fresh install, may or may not be inconvenient for you.
I think that sometimes when people talk about Linux they don't really realize what they're doing. The BSD's also fall into this category. There's dependencies, and dependencies of dependencies of dependencies of dependencies, which all have to be downloaded, coordinated, perhaps even complied from source. It's not just about going to mozilla.com and downloading something (although you might be able to get away with that depending).
There's really no way to fix this, at least not in the forseeable future. There may be other problems as well (wireless, for instance) - which may or may not be easily fixed or perhaps already are/have been fixed, are currently being worked on being fixed, etc... But the whole idea of dependencies, and tying in so many libraries and other packages that existing software relies on -- now, of course, if it actually worked, this would be a brilliant way to save space and to save bandwidth -- so for netbooks, that might actually be an innovative solution to those things, but still -- people want to have an OS, not a router. You set up your router and you forget it. Don't even really need to reboot it for months (if not years) on end.
Netbooks, you use every day. Is there a better browser? How's that Opera beta? How's that Chrome beta? How about this other cool app -- geez it's not in my package manager. Update my package manager and it wants to download and install 500 megabytes and 350 packages and remove all these things and install all these new things and I'm on the road and I just really wanted to try out this app 'cause I'm bored... you get the picture.
The whole dependencies thing needs to go away. Linux, if it's going to survive in this type of netbook (or desktop, for that matter) environment (or should I say GNU/Linux so the army of insulters doesn't insult my intelligence and accuse me of being a bad person) needs to not work that dependency shared library model.
Linux needs to be a base system that gets installed -- and then regardless if it's Ubuntu, Slackware, Gentoo, Red Hat, SuSE, whatever... .deb based, .rpm based, .tgz based, source based -- whatever -- those distinctions could apply, but for the base system. On top of that, one should be able to go to any software website, shareware, open source, proprietary, dual, triple, quadruple licensed, whatever -- and download one single software package and install it. Just like an .exe. Until that day, until that happens, it ain't going anywhere. Not as long as people have choice.
Most people don't realize and wouldn't
You must understand under capitalism there is not always a direct correspondence between cost and price. Sometimes retailers sell stuff at cost to clear excess stock. The other customers are paying the rent, the staff and the advertising. Expecting the OEM to reimburse you for the Win Tax is like expecting the retailer to give you the product at the discount price that already expired.
The good thing is that you, I and many others have installed Linux and are getting the word out. This puts pressure on MS to improve Windows and keep the Win Tax low. Witness the drop in their earnings.
So thank you for using Linux ! And sorry that we could not get more people to do the same in 2006.
This is how we settle this matters in Kasachstan (forward video to 17:58).
My heart is with you in "Belgium" and I will include you in my nightly prayers for those suffering under closed regimes, whether in North Korea, Iran, or elsewhere. It sounds like commerce and international trade is ruthlessly clamped down on in your country which is no doubt run by an authoritarian dictator. I am happy that you found a means to post on Slashdot with your story and hope for you and your family's safety in the face of your courage to speak out. Stay strong. All dictatorships eventually erode themselves from within, and there will come the day when you will no longer have to live in fear of receiving international mail. Until that day comes you will be in my thoughts. God bless.
PJ mentions the Snapdragon thing and links an article. But read the first line of the article(emphasis added)blockquote>ONE OF THE rumors floating around Computex involves a pretty little Asus 'Smartbook' based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and it's mid-show disappearance.
It is rumor, not fact, with no supporting evidence and not even "an unamed ASUS rep".
Here is an interesting thing:
So, Linux geeks, showing off their 1337 h4x0r sk177z are busy preventing people from seeing Linux based netbooks resulting in lower sales for Linux based devices.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I don't surf for porn, download warez, download games from the internet, or play web-based games. I use WinXP WITHOUT antivirus and I use Vista with anti-virus. Guess what. I haven't had a single virus, spyware, or malware issue. Not one.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Linux has come a long way and it is ready for the average user. Yes, Joe-six-pack can use linux with a 15 minute tutorial in the basics. I just want to scream knowing that Microsoft is still undermining the market and retarding progress!
The MSDOS and Windows PC has been in the home and SOHO markets since 1980.
Close enough to thirty years as makes no difference.
He may occasionally need an emulator like ScummVM. But, for all practical purposes, the entire MSDOS and Windows back list is available to his 64 bit Quad Core Win 7 system. Gog.com for the good old games.
The best in freeware, the best in shareware, the best in proprietary and closed-source, the best in FOSS.
No barriers. No lectures. The Windows world is a global marketplace, with the ethics and values of the thieves bazaar.
That is what makes it so much fun. The geek tends to come across as the Salvation Army Band - a self-righteous and humorless Carry A. Nation preaching outside the old-time Irish saloon.
The mass market OEM Linux PC is a bottom feeder - and a piss-poor showcase for Linux.
The refurbished $750 Vista desktop at Tiger is quad-core - perhaps a Phenom or i7.
8 GB of DDR2 or DDR3 RAM. 1 TB of primary storage on one or two drives, with front panel cartridge mounts for one or more USB drives. Entry level NVIDIA DX10 graphics or better with integrated HDMI audio and video. WiFi a given. The Blu-Ray player. Not a burner. Not quite yet.
The power supply and the video card probably not your first choice. But once the system knows your usage patterns, this bird is going to fly.
Halfway around the track, the MicroSoft jockey pulls out a gun and shoots at the Linux horse, but misses. The MicroSoft horse then trips over itself and collapses on the track as the Linux horse breezes past the finish line. The newly endowed and/or cowed judge declares the MicroSoft horse the winner.
If I'm over here with a straw and come allllll the way over here to your horse and insert a straw into it....and then....go back here and draw strongly on the straw....I kill your horse! I suck him up!
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
OEMs shouldn't *have* to hack into Linux to resolve driver issues, optimize the OS, or anything of that sort. The OS should just do it out of the box. Similarly, you can bet that users didn't return the laptops due to driver issues or speed, but more likely due to usability. It's not the OEM's job or area of expertise to make the system usable. If Microsoft comes along and offers them a software package that just works and charges them some money for it, can you blame them for accepting it? Nobody would be crying foul if it was Apple instead of Microsoft.
The only ones that dont need to be scared of Microsoft are the new players like System76, Zareason.. and Qualcomm to some extend. The others are tied up by MS, even though Dell is being tough by slowly pushing Ubuntu forward. Basically, when you will really see Linux powered computers around, it will be new brand names and not old ones.
But if you shoot my horse, that leaves questions in the air. Is your horse really faster?
No it doesn't... my horse is clearly faster than your horse now. Your horse can't move.
A friend in the marketing arm of MS told me recently that netbooks scare the crap out of MS because they can't expect the OEM to pay the usual MS license fee on an item with such a tiny profit margin.
I just bought an eeePC for $300 (Cnd) and within hours had replaced the version of Win XP Home that came with it with the Ubuntu UNR 9.04. I would have preferred to get it with Linux preinstalled, but that just wasn't an option (I'm in Vancouver).
Every netbook sold hurts MS a little bit because it's a computer sale that won't earn them the revenue they've come to rely on (relative to desktop and laptop license fees).
Every time one of these "X killed Linux", I notice a common subject in every one of these stories: Linux.
It seems Linux is its own worst enemy. Solution? Get rid of Linux, then we won't have these stories anymore.
Problem is SOLVED for X.
All I can say is that reports of Linux on Netbooks' death have been greatly exaggerated.
Unless I've missed something of importance in the past 2 weeks.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
OEMs get to choose what hardware they use. They shouldn't have to hack into Linux because they could have chosen components that just worked. They didn't. Why? That's the $20K question.
Put identity in the browser.
I the last netbook I bought was Windows based because nobody bothers to carry the Linux version of the ASUS netbooks in stock. Once I got it home I installed Linux on it and was done. The Linux only one is sold for the same price so I didn't really care which one I ended up with. A free Windows XP license with this one? So what, I've booted Windows on it exactly twice. Once to make sure the laptop powered on before I did anything to it, and the second time to show a coworker that it could indeed run Windows.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
From what I've heard, horses run rather well on Ethanol.
And believe it or not, so do you!
Now, sober up.
.
- aqk
F U
As I type this, I have a netbook on my desk, right now.
The menu /desktop is trashed. This week, I installed Ubuntu on it, and within a day it got corrupted, and now I am busy pouring over fora and blogs, trying to figure out why the GOD DAMNED menu system is fucked.
> sudo apt-get blah blahhh..
> rm -rf blahhh...
> sudu install blahh blahh.
etc etc.
GOD DAMN FUCKIN LINUX!
Maybe I'll give my netbook to my Aunt Tillie, who always complains about her "Stupd Windows" PC. /. fora)
OH! Sorry- make that her "M$ PC" (de rigeur spelling on
Ohh yeah- This is currently being typed on my Win Vista laptop. Sorry to disappoint you weenies, but it hasn't crashed in 24 months...
I'd like to hang around /. fora more, but I have work to do: so if you'll excuse me, I really must get back to my Asus eee Netbook ubuntu remix debugging!
.
- aqk
F U
I just received my Linux netbook on Tuesday. I never considered buying one with Windows. Though, on seeing mine, my mother asked "is that what I want?" But she wants one with Windows; only because she (both of my parents) use MSN. I'm perfectly happy with Linux on my netbook, even though I've never liked it on my desktop or laptop. My boss thought it was pretty cool as well. Anyway, I didn't RTFA, but they're obviously stupid and/or crazy.
Later.....
i can only agree. If there was a high end laptop with preinstalled linux i would jump for it. i've been using linux for almost 5 years and i am in general happy with it, but buying new gear seems like a lottery every time.
A Linux Net-book sits right in front of me and makes me smile as the whole chatter about horses, zebras, guns and things goes on. Windows is a habit, and its hard to get rid of old habits good or bad. At the same time good things have their place in our lives and as long as the world appreciates good stuff, good things will live on alongside bad things that may die-hard.
Live Life Raw
Just another acknowledgement of fact that there is NO MARKET, there is MONOPOLY of Microsoft. Is it too difficult to say aloud? There is damnded rotten monopoly that no on dares to fight.
OEMs shouldn't *have* to hack into Linux to resolve driver issues, optimize the OS, or anything of that sort. The OS should just do it out of the box.
And Linux would "just do it" if it ran on hardware that it supported. Same goes for Windows. How well would Windows work if it ran on PowerPC-hardware? It wouldn't.
Windows works well on certain set of hardware, and OEM's use that hardware. If they want to use Linux that works well, they should use hardware that works well with Linux. It's the exactly the same thing with both Linux and Windows.
Similarly, you can bet that users didn't return the laptops due to driver issues or speed, but more likely due to usability. It's not the OEM's job or area of expertise to make the system usable.
You are right. I would have preferred if the OEM's had used bog-standard Ubuntu, or Fedora or OpenSUSE. But no, instead they created their own half-baked distros with their OWN crappy UI's. Had they went with what what available, instead of trying to "fix" things, things would have been a lot better.
OEMs shouldn't have done anything since everything was already done for them. But no, they went ahead and ruined everything with their stupidity and incompetence.
If Microsoft comes along and offers them a software package that just works and charges them some money for it, can you blame them for accepting it? Nobody would be crying foul if it was Apple instead of Microsoft.
And OEM's were offered software-packages that just work, and they could have gotten it for free, but instead they decided to create something crappy instead....
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Cost, probably. If a component costs $2 and another costs $1, then for a hundred thousand unit run, you save a lot by going with the $1 version. Once you've done this, you realise that there are no drivers for the $1 version (because you're a big company and your hardware people don't talk to your software people well enough), and that you don't have the in-house expertise to write the driver.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Microsoft gave the people camels. Linux provided the horse.
Unfortunately by the time Linux had come along, all the carriages, saddles, stables, roads, reins, food suppliers, grooming equipment available was for the benefit of camel owners. Using any of it for your incredible new horse was always going to be a workaround.
In the face of the vast network of facilities and services designed to service the camel owning public, getting them to move over to horses was inevitably going to be an uphill struggle...
Try the Dell Mini 10v should be fine - but wait to get the six cell battery option.
On the larger question of a "standard" disro I fell that Ubuntu has gone a long way towards solving the look and feel gap that has been a bit of a problem especially with the latest disro - Jaunty Jackalope.
I would like to ask a question though!
What happens to the XP Netbooks when the support for this product in April 20104? I suppose the cut down W7 will be the upgrade option!? and what problems will this cause in driver support for the aging devices on these little beasts? Or is everyone assumiong that these will be so obsolete by this time that they will just be chucked!. However this could be just what the industry is expecting, as it will then be able to force a sale of their latest up-and-coming. (Just a thought;)>
The major Problem is that while you are debating "you see - the fact that they shot my horse proves that my horse was faster" Microsoft wins races (and pockets the prices) for lack of competitors... you are right, but that doesn't stop them from making lots of money through the action...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
What does this bit about the horses mean? Could you explain it with a car analogy please?
Excellent satire. Bravo.
Hopefully this helped to resolve some childhood issues for you. You don't like his sig? Well, book burners don't like free speech - and communists don't like people making money - what was your point?
What death? What are you all talking about? There's nothing worse when user comes up to me and asks me is linux (Debian for example) ready for my laptop? Why shouldn't it be ready? It's actually you who with stories like this one are trying to make things up, I've been using linux on laptops for ~5 years now, first distro I actually used on my laptop ~5 years ago was Slackware. Now if that doesn't pull some "strings" inside of your head I don't know what does. Stop these absolutely ridiculous stories. Linux is ready for all possible platforms, it's you who's not ready.
Bought this machine with Windows XP because that was all they offered at the retailer. XP is painfully slow, even aftger optimization. After some research I decided to try Eeebuntu Remix. Loaded it as a dual boot. Glad I did. Snappy with a smartphone style desktop perfectly suited to this use profile. Great selection of apps for on the go. I use Mplayer to stream radio through it at home. I keep Windows because Mplayer seems to consistently choke on some live streams. The distro has an important update just out and this issue might be fixed. Agree with parent that the flash option is better. I confidently chuck this little dude right in my checked luggage sometimes. Who wants to go through the TSA computer dance? Not me.
Linux belongs on these modest platforms. Windows is far too clunky.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
horses [...] zebra [...] horse [...] zebras
But I want a pony!
No, they don't.
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
US only I'm afraid.
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
I bought my netbook with Windows XP installed because at Dell it was substantially cheaper than the Ubuntu version after the hardware options were normalized (not to mention that for some "mysterious" reason Dell wouldn't even offer some of the higher capacity memory and SSD options for the Linux version). After it arrived I installed Ubuntu. Any marketshare analysis based on the bundled OS is obviously bogus if Microsoft is going to be subsidizing the sale of netbook hardware when bundled with XP. But of course, that's why Microsoft subsidizes XP on netbooks.
Yes, it is. Even if it wasn't previously.
...and you won't have time to ask questions or debate, you'll be in jail.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
There is no such thing as a functioning free market. The only way "the market" can work is when it's heavily regulated against "bad" competitors. At that point, it's no longer a free market.
That's like saying 'there's no such thing as freedom. The only way freedom can work is when it's heavily regulated against "bad" people. At that point, it's no longer freedom.'
But a society without laws is not free, it's anarchy, and anarchy is not freedom, since one becomes subjugated by others' selfishness (barbarism).
The only real freedom, is the freedom to do anything except compromise others' freedom, and for that you need laws (this is the basic difference between the GPL and the BSD, for example. The former offers protection for freedom, the latter does not).
That's not a contradiction, since the "freedom to do wrong" is not a right of freedom at all, it's an abuse of power.
Suppressing competition with monopoly is one such abuse of power.
Speed issue for me. Windows is so much quicker booting up than Linux on the netbook.