FWIW, here in Italy it's particularly hard to find linux-equipped netbooks from Asus. I bought a 901 in January but it took a while to find a retailer that still stocked those with Linux. At the moment the very rare linux-ones are even more expensive than windows-ones, guess it's a matter of the law of demand.. no one asks for the penguins ones anymore (and I'm quite sure that if I ask the average user if he just knows about linux I would get a blank stare in return).
BTW, when I read the user manual (yes, someone still reads them) of my 901, I got the sharp impression that Asus is in bad faith when they sell linux netbooks... More than a third of the manual details the wiping of linux and the installation of xp. The accompanying CD is mostly filled with xp drivers..
My guess is that Asus (and the other netbook manufacturers) used linux to force M$ to keep xp alive and to lower the price dramatically. In the end M$ had everything to gain from the widespread use of xp... and the development costs of xp are already well recovered by now..
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Get your lawyers ready! RT was already taken... in the 80s: http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=867 (strange beast, BTW)
FWIW, here in Italy it's particularly hard to find linux-equipped netbooks from Asus. I bought a 901 in January but it took a while to find a retailer that still stocked those with Linux. At the moment the very rare linux-ones are even more expensive than windows-ones, guess it's a matter of the law of demand.. no one asks for the penguins ones anymore (and I'm quite sure that if I ask the average user if he just knows about linux I would get a blank stare in return). BTW, when I read the user manual (yes, someone still reads them) of my 901, I got the sharp impression that Asus is in bad faith when they sell linux netbooks... More than a third of the manual details the wiping of linux and the installation of xp. The accompanying CD is mostly filled with xp drivers.. My guess is that Asus (and the other netbook manufacturers) used linux to force M$ to keep xp alive and to lower the price dramatically. In the end M$ had everything to gain from the widespread use of xp... and the development costs of xp are already well recovered by now..