Netbooks have been heralded as the foot in the door for Linux. With the launch of the earliest Eee PC models, Asus made a bold move by only offering them with Linux pre-installed; Microsoft soon responded by working with Asus to bring Windows XP to the next generation Eee PCs. Since then, Windows XP gained market share in the netbook segment rapidly, casting doubts over whether or not netbooks would really turn out to be that foot in the door. HP has today announced that its new HP Mini 1000 netbook will not be available with Linux pre-installed in Europe.
In the United States, the HP Mini 1000 comes in two models, a cheaper Linux version, and a more expensive Windows XP model. The Linux model will not make its way to most European countries, HP has confirmed today. The cheaper Compaq variant, the Compaq Mini 700, will also not be available with Linux in Europe. The high-end HP Mini 2140 will be available with either Windows XP or Windows Vista.
The decision has apparently been made a month ago, and when asked for clarifications, HP explained that it had “assessed the current EMEA market and believes that the Compaq 700 and HP Mini 1000 [Windows XP edition] better address the market and consumer needs. As a result, the HP Mini 1000 [Linux edition] will not be introduced in EMEA.”
I’m not so sure this is a wise move on HP’s part. They may have their market research, but common sense tells me that when your competitors offer cheaper Linux variants of essentially the same hardware (it’s all Atom platform), you might lose customers if the only HP netbook they can buy is more expensive, but still offers the same hardware.
Apart from that, this is simply bad news if you are an operating system enthusiast who wants to see a healthy market where competition forces players to improve their products. Whether you prefer Linux or Windows, fact remains that competition between the two is beneficial for both. Without Linux, Microsoft would have never made performance improvements in Windows 7 compared to Vista.
Let’s hope other manufacturers will not follow in HP’s footsteps. Acer’s new Aspire One will be available in a Linux model, but no word yet on if this model might not make it to the European market. Asus has not yet made any statements about whether or not its new Eee PC 1000EH will run Linux.
Many people are in a way addicted to Windows, as a result of ignorance. It even goes as far as the understanding that anything else is less trustworthy. Well, reality is quite the opposite. For me I don’t dare using Windows (any version) for anything else than gaming, since it’s security holes are comparable to a swiss cheese and I am not competent enough to know how to protect it.
Sad thing that this scepticism, mixed with ignorance, spread by Microsoft and its resellers, are stagnating the market to such a degree.
No, it’s because linux as a desktop, still doesn’t match the (now) well running/well oiled XP!
Look. I’ve been using Linux for years now (Kubuntu, but RHEL before that), and as much as I *want* Linux to be my favourite desktop, it just doesn’t have the applications and general ‘glue’ and windows does – which is what people want. While people talk about Win7 and Vista, I have to say, XP’s still the most functional desktop O/S out there.
I guess that’s a matter of perspective.
I hate using XP because, for me, it lacks many of the features I’ve grown to love, even depend on, in Linux (plus the DE of my choice).
In fact, I find Linux so functional and dependable that the only time I need to duck into XP is when I need to rewire FL Studio into Ableton Live (which thankfully isn’t that often)
Edited 2009-02-06 10:18 UTC
I think it’s partly right what you say, but only partly.
The Linux distros you get on Netbooks usually are extremely dumbed-down.
Lots of work has gone into these Distributions to make them foolproof, but in the wrong direction foolproof.
When I bought my Aspire One, I had to find out, that I cannot do “whole directory tree” ftp upload with the software pre-installed on it.
With a normal distro, this would not be an issue. Just install one of the 10 ftp-programs out there, and everything is fine. Every computer-novice can do it with the graphical package management software available. But not with those braindead-distros, where you cannot easily install one single additional application without having to go through console typing.
When you get the same hardware with WinXP, you have exactly the same functionality available as on a standard desktop install, with exactly the same ways to add functionality to the netbook as on a desktop.
THAT is the real reason why people buy XP on Netbooks – because the Linux variants are seriously made less usable, and unnecessarily so.
It is NOT a problem of the average desktop Linux distribution, it is a problem of those companies not understanding what customers REALLY want.
[quote]
It is NOT a problem of the average desktop Linux distribution, it is a problem of those companies not understanding what customers REALLY want.
[/quote]
I think you hit the nail on the head.
MH
>> Look. I’ve been using Linux for years now (Kubuntu, but RHEL before that), and as much as I *want* Linux to be my favourite desktop, it just doesn’t have the applications and general ‘glue’ and windows does
SPOT ON. I use both, and frankly for my primary workstation *nix falls flat on it’s face, the appliactions just aren’t there, the hardware support for the simplest of things like video is a confusing train wreck and when you actually DO find a program or driver that does what you want, the quality and interaction between them and other programs/drivers feels forced at best, nonexistant at worst.
It’s why I’ve said time and time again *nix is for servers, windows is for desktops, and never shall the ‘twain meet. I wouldn’t trade my Debian Etch server for a windows one, nor would I trade my XP x64 workstation for any flavor of Linux.
X Windows is slow as molassas, unresponsive and the applications are second rate knockoffs at best – Wine is an unstable buggy mess so that’s no solution either, and while crashing linux itself may be hard, x.org and xfree86 crash in so much as a stiff breeze… Multiple display support is a ******* joke – I laugh my ass off at the *nix people bragging about twinview and better xinerama support when I’ve been running three or more displays on multiple adapters without any problems since Windows 98 and MacOS 6. Hell, using Targa boards I had two displays under windows 3.1 – when we say *nix is in a perpetual state of playing catchup as a desktop OS, we mean it.
Blender is no 3ds Max, OoO and freetype kern text like a sweetly retarded crack addict, the Gimp is a tinkertoy, 95% of the available text editors are like a trip in the wayback machine to 1977, Pidgin and company are screen hogs next to useless even on a 1200px tall display if you have more than ten contacts, Inkscape is certainly no Illustrator, media playback is a convoluted mess of FSF whackjobs and people who want it to just work screaming at each-other over naive socialist bull, I’ve yet to find anything approaching the capabilities of Sonar or a softsynth, midi mapper/monitor or soundfont manager worth a damned, much less actually get 5.1 audio and output selection working.
Which means that for all it’s security woes (99% of which go away if you are smart enough to never use outlook or IE), stability issues (last time I had XP lock up was… uhm… Oh… No… Oh yeah, it was when I had faulty ASIO drivers, so let’s blame the OS), and other alleged issues, XP really isn’t the great evil demon people make it out to be. I can run almost any software I want, I can use almost any hardware I want, with little or no restrictions once I actually pay for the software.
Sure sounds like a hell of a lot more ‘freedom’ than any of the rheotoric vomited up by the worshippers at the Church of Stallman.
Edited 2009-02-07 11:54 UTC
Heh, I think every one of those programs you list I have installed on my XP machine at work.
That said, I wouldn’t trade my Ubuntu HD installation in that same computer for daily use with XP. XP has too many memory problems when I’m working with large datasets in R being a big issue for me. At least with 64bit Ubuntu I can use all 4GB of RAM installed in the machine too.
It’s all in what you need and are used to. I’m convinced there is no one size fits all, that’s why there are multiple OSes. Just because it doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean it won’t work for me spouting things like this as the truth couldn’t be farther from.
“appliactions just aren’t there”
Firefox and OpenOffice and great media players considered by many to be better than their Microsoft alternatives
“the hardware support for the simplest of things like video is a confusing train wreck and when you actually DO find a program or driver that does what you want, the quality and interaction between them and other programs/drivers feels forced at best, nonexistant at worst.”
X.Org configuring has gone, Distributions make the ease of bundling those 2 main culprits Amd & Nvidia and their open Source equivalents get better daily. Wireless problems is all but a thing of the past. You clearly haven’t used Linux for a while. Hardware support is second to none. The only exception I can think of is PCI-E TV Cards, and I’m not sure if that is still true.
“It’s why I’ve said time and time again *nix is for servers, windows is for desktops, and never shall the ‘twain meet.”
And yet two 2 *Nix platforms Mac OS X a Desktop only version has taken 10% of the market and Ubuntu a User orientated Desktop has brought Linux to the Masses.
“I wouldn’t trade my Debian Etch server for a windows one, nor would I trade my XP x64 workstation for any flavor of Linux.”
Personally I’d rather run all 64-bit application on my 64-bit Desktop OS that proprietary application can’t seem to do, upgrade between the 32-bit version to the 64-bit for free…and its successor.
“X Windows is slow as molassas, unresponsive and the applications are second rate knockoffs at best”
I cannot think of a bundled Microsoft product that does not have an Open source equivalent that is better. X is great and GEM will make it even better. Compiz is fantastic please do not even try to compare responsiveness to Vista now that is slow as molasses, hell compiz looks fantasic on intel 915 yet Aero could cost Microsoft Billions on it.
“Wine is an unstable buggy mess so that’s no solution either”
Wouldn’t know I’ve never needed it for anything in years.
“while crashing linux itself may be hard, x.org and xfree86 crash in so much as a stiff breeze”
erm what eh, now your just throwing mud.
“… Multiple display support is a ******* joke”
I’m not sure what you mean I just click and the cube turns around an advantage over Microsoft Vista.
” – I laugh my ass off at the *nix people bragging about twinview and better xinerama support when I’ve been running three or more displays on multiple adapters without any problems since Windows 98 and MacOS 6. Hell, using Targa boards I had two displays under windows 3.1 – when we say *nix is in a perpetual state of playing catchup as a desktop OS, we mean it.”
And yet has a compositing Desktop first, and a better one, but seriously whats wrong with either?? Where are these people bragging, Although I will Multiple Desktops were about since X11R6.4 released March 31, 1998 when Windows 98 was only launched on 25 June 1998 3 months later. I’m glad Microsoft caught up lol
“Blender is no 3ds Max, OoO and freetype kern text like a sweetly retarded crack addict, the Gimp is a tinkertoy”
…and yet are enjoyed and used by many even in the film industry. Star Office was the standard for Legal documents since forever and continues to improve. If only Microsoft Products could export to PDF , or you could upgrade for free, all of them at a touch of a button.
“95% of the available text editors are like a trip in the wayback machine to 1977”
You mean the graphical ones like gedit that make notepad & wordpad seem retarded and contain exiting plugins to extend their functionality.
“Pidgin and company are screen hogs next to useless even on a 1200px tall display if you have more than ten contacts,”
which is popular on Windows, but their are a large number of replaements including text only versions
“Inkscape is certainly no Illustrator,”
Its not a fantastic program and one of many fine vector programs that fulfill a variety of needs.
“media playback is a convoluted mess of FSF whackjobs and people who want it to just work screaming at each-other over naive socialist bull.”
Media playback is better than any platform, Although I’m confused Microsoft have broken Capitalism with there Monopoly abusing, yet *Nix has vast array of Everything from kernels to Windows Managers to Desktops
To Browsers to Office suites to Full Distributions…with a healthy ecosystem.
“I’ve yet to find anything approaching the capabilities of Sonar or a softsynth, midi mapper/monitor or soundfont manager worth a damned, much less actually get 5.1 audio and output selection working.”
Not a clue, Sorry Other than Creative being crippled in Vista+ and Open Sourcing Drivers for Linux sound is great, and I look forward to pulseaudio. although I’m still not sure of any real advantages.
“Which means that for all it’s security woes (99% of which go away if you are smart enough to never use outlook or IE)”
I’d add any Microsoft product to the list. Including their OS’s
“, stability issues [i](last time I had XP lock up was… uhm… Oh… No… Oh yeah, it was when I had faulty ASIO drivers, so let’s blame the OS), and other alleged issues, “[/i]
Because the drivers are part of the OS
“XP really isn’t the great evil demon people make it out to be. I can run almost any software I want, I can use almost any hardware I want, with little or no restrictions once I actually pay for the software.”
Costs thousands for the products you have listed, people don’t blame the OS they blame Microsoft, but XP is an X year old product Vista has been released for 2
“Sure sounds like a hell of a lot more ‘freedom’ than any of the rheotoric vomited up by the worshippers at the Church of Stallman. [/q]”
Not really freedom is creating a installing an OS onto a pen drive as a standard feature, thats more freedom than Bill Gates offers with his Jihad.
Thak you for playing
//X is great and GEM will make it even better.//
Stopped reading right there. X is great? You’re a delusional twit.
Meh, if I wanted to use a desktop that looked like it belonged in 1998 I’d probably still choose Windows 98 over Linux. Linux has failed to deliver to the masses. It’s complicated for the average user who can’t even figure out how to install most programs. You want marker share, you’ll have to learn to deal with those users.
Further, the Linux community is extremly disjointed unlike the Windows and Mac communities. There’s much internal bickering about which distrobution is the best and there isn’t even a shared experience with the desktop since there are so many flavors out there (Oh, you use KDE, I’m on Gnome).
All of that coupled with the average smug, insulting poster turns most people away from even thinking about trying Linux. Linux has made strides, but it’s not there yet (for the desktop.. for the server it’s a whole ‘nuther story).
I agree with you. Shame on you HP.
Edited 2009-02-06 08:24 UTC
What is the price diff betn XP vs linux preinstalled netbook? maybe 20-40$. And HP or any other mfg is in business of selling more and more netbooks to gain more and more profits.
Why would customer purchase linux netbook where HP cannot guarantee that all peripherals like digicam, scanner, printer, wireless etc will work flawlessly on linux netbook.
Whereas customer will happily pay 20-40$ more to have peace of mind about working peripherals.
And fanboys creates ghost of virus etc etc. But XP with freeware, yes it is freeware like firefox, AVG, zonealarm, spywareblaster, openoffice, spybot installed garuanteed to be as safe as linux distro.
You get double benefits with XP netbook, 1) almost all of peripherals will work and 2) with above listed freeware your comp is safe. 3) no headachecs of spending hours to tweak printer and scanner and camera and Wireless card…
get some more family /personal life for cost of $20-40…Good for me Good for you
And they can guarantee that Windows will support all their “peripherals like digicam, scanner, printer, wireless” flawlessly?
Windows Vista nor XP has detected all my hardware I have to hunt for a lot of drivers, I mean almost nothing works out of the box. On the other hand, in Ubuntu all my hardware is supported out of the box, and I can even plug in my cell phone and be automagically mounted and ready to transfer files.
Your argument is flawed. And I don’t think HP is doing it because they don’t believe in Linux, since they have recently gained an European company that switched from windows to hp and red hat.
I have experienced exactly the opposite.
Quiet, you! Everybody knows that every XP and Vista install on reasonably mainstream hardware crashes like crazy and is virus-ridden and blah blah blah blah.
If someone is going to release any type of computer, they will make sure all the hardware works or they won’t be in business for long.
Also FUD… and 5 year old FUD at that, if you are going to spread shit, at least spread FRESH SHIT.
Linux is more compatible with hardware out of the box than Windows is. If you were to do a fresh install on a computer using Windows and Linux, more things would work with Linux than Windows.
And you are well beat if you have no internet connection to get all the drivers for a Windows machine.
Malware is a ghost invented by fanbois ? wow, you really are deluded.
Do everyone a favour and either try an up to date distro like opensuse 11, mandriva 2009 or fedora 10, if not, then NEVER post outdated FUD, it just makes you look retarded.
That doesn’t really matter, since you can usually go to a vendor’s website and download whatever Windows drivers you need. Or if you’re really smart, you’d use driveragent.com and have it scan your machine and then let you download whatever you’re missing
Anyway, that’s not really a relavent discussion for Netbooks, since you’ll probably never be gutting them and replacing the inards.
I think what HP and other Netbook vendors should do is give you the option of Windows or no OS at all, and then just make sure all devices work with the latest Linux kernels. The feedback I have read about most of the bundled Linux distros that come with Netbooks have no been so positive, and most people who know how to use Linux will probably just format the hard drive anyway and install their favorite distro.
Yes, on hardware vendors websites you find Windows drivers, but very seldom Linux drivers (except ASUS and nVidia maybe). This is what is important: Having drivers available for your hardware; and hardware vendors hardly ever support Linux. If Linux doesn’t support your peripheral out of the box, you’re pretty much out of luck. Not to mention the difficulty installing and debugging the installation of a driver on Linux compared to the seemless trouble-free installation of drivers on Windows.
Linux users have to admit it.
I agree that driver installation on Linux is unnecessary complex if you have hardware not supported by the mainline kernel or a specific patch maintained by your os of choice. But… trouble-free driver installation on Windows? Roflmao! I’m guessing you’ve never had to deal with a windows system where a driver installation went horribly wrong, or a driver became corrupted. If you had, you wouldn’t say it was seemless. Quite the contrary, a malfunctioning driver on Windows can easily render the system unbootable, regardless of how essential the driver is. I’ve had the simplest driver issues bring Windows to its knees, the most memorable being a time when a corrupted file from the driver for a Canoscan Lide 50 USB scanner rendered an XP system completely unbootable, it would hang at the windows logo.
I’m not a fan of the driver situation on Linux by any stretch. On UNIX systems though, be they linux or *BSD or even OS X, malfunctioning drivers don’t usually stop the system from booting, unless they’re essential such as an hd controller driver. I certainly can’t say the same about Windows.
Not to troll or anything, but after installing the windows 7 beta, my wifi worked out of the box. Installing fedora 10, it didn’t. Intel 5100 a/g/n. Better then the previous fedora, which choked on formatting my drive at install. And while Intrepid mostly works (with everything important anyways), I spent many, many hours getting WPA2 authentication working in hardy, which was only topped by the amount of time I spent getting VMWare networking to work (absolutely essential for any os I use full time)
Just because you haven’t had any problems in five years doesn’t mean anyone else hasn’t. I tend to keep my hardware up to date, and have repeatedly run into issues in linux because of it. I couldnt even count amount of time I have spent in the last five years troubleshooting linux issues. Sure, it is mostly a hobby thing for me, and I enjoy digging deep into UNIX, so it has been mostly fun. But if you have been fine for the past five years, you have either been extremely lucky, or just not upgraded your hardware.
I too have had problems, like Atheros drivers for Ubuntu on the Aspire One, RT2500 repeatedly dropping sync on Mandriva for example.
I didn’t mean it was all plain sailing. I said in the original post that MORE hardware works out of the box under Linux.
The OP was spreading the old FUD about printers/scanners/and webcams. Those problems are pretty much fixed with most newer kernels supporting v4l devices as standard, and the leaps and bounds CUPS has made.
Another point I was making was about the internet connection. It does not matter if you get the drivers from the manufacturer or from somewhere like driveragent. If you have not got an internet connection, because Windows does not support your networking hardware out of the box, then you are not going to be able to download any drivers in the first place.
I would also like to add to something Worknman said, why should they offer a Windows version and a blank version ? While it is true that the user can format and add whatever they like, what is the point of Joe User buying a blank machine ? That is going to add up to another sale for a Windows license, when the poor smoe was just looking for something for email and web browsing….. exactly why netbooks exist in the first place.
Edited 2009-02-06 09:12 UTC
I’ll agree the OP was trolling, which is why I was hesitant at responding. CUPS and SANE definitely cover an insane amount of hardware nowadays. (although OCR support isn’t too hot)
Because another 30-40$ on a 400$ machine to be able to use an os that is familiar to Joe is typically worth the relatively small overhead. The thing with Joe is that he hates having to spend any time learning anything he doesn’t have to about computers, so the more familiar the the better, and if 40$ saves the hours he has already spent getting comfortable with windows, there is no reason for him not to pay it.
Exactly and if he adds $50, he can have a bigger screen that will save him one hour configuring those stupid applications to work with small screen and learning F11 on Firefox. If he adds another $50, he can have a phone support and save some more hours learning to use his computer. If he adds another $50, he might have a course on computers that will save him more time learning by himself. If he adds another $50, he can pay someone to write his emails instead of learning how to use email software. But then for that price plus another $50, he can hire a secretary and save some hours learning and stuff. If you add a lot of $50, even can even stop working and have a staff of people learning and doing the work for him.
What does someone need to learn for a Net Appliance?
Firefox ? Thunderbird ? An explorer type program from accessing your files ?
Netbooks are appliances, simple as that.
Take a trip up to your local computer store and ask them to stick an Aspire One with Linux out on display for people to play with. They love it for some reason, I think it is the simplicity of the 4 boxes on the display.
Edited 2009-02-06 15:54 UTC
No, no, no…This is plain wrong. This simply doesn’t make sense.
It does make sense to me.
I was never able to install Windows XP neither on my laptop nor my desktop. The screen just goes blank (monitor or video driver?).
Linux installs on my desktop with all drivers I need out of the box and on my laptop, I just needed to install wifi driver.
Edited 2009-02-06 15:51 UTC
<<But XP with freeware, yes it is freeware like firefox, AVG, zonealarm, spywareblaster, openoffice, spybot installed garuanteed to be as safe as linux distro.>>
1. No. You know nothing about security. You know *less than* nothing about security. Computer security is a design process, not a “download lots of software and hope it can delete all the malware as it comes to you” process. Linux has the design, Vista has some design, Windows XP does not. Windows 7 might not unless Microsoft pulls its finger out.
2. Who the hell wants to run AVG, Zonealarm, Spywareblaster and Spybot Search & Destroy on a freaking netbook? That sort of software makes full-spec notebooks sluggish; what do you think it will do to a ultra-cheap netbook?!
It’s kinda odd, because ASUS recently emphasized that Europeans tend to buy more Linux Eee PCs than consumers from other continents. There’s either flawed market research, or HPs Linux offering did not attract as many buyers than that of ASUS.
Of course, in the end it’s all question and demand. We can scream foul, talk about people’s addictions, etc. But only building a better system than the competition with innovative features is how you could potentially convince consumers. Most of the Linux distributions included with netbooks aren’t really impressive. So, why would people switch for nearly the same price?
Edited 2009-02-05 22:23 UTC
I bought my daughter an HP for her university work here in the Philippines. The school library has wifi. It came with XP. She insisted I erase XP and install Mandriva (she has Mandriva on her desktop). It installed fine and everything works including her Intous graphics tablet.
I’ve worked with several netbook models, some with Linux (Xandros primarily) and others with XP and in every case I can report that Windows was more sluggish and more prone to problems. The problems being all of those associated with running the aged XP: viruses, malware, bloated OS, crapware. Unfortunately, users prefer Windows because its all they know. People are evidently too scared or too lazy (take your pick) to learn something new even if it’s better. There you have it.
This is exactly why the iphone is such a big success. It’s so much like windows XP that people just can’t tell the difference, therefore they are not afraid to try it.
If you work with them, how did you allow them to get all of that “crapware” on them… are you doing your job?
I’ve personally used Windows since version 3.1 and I’ve never had a virus or piece of spyware. Of course, I install updates and I don’t install every link I click on in the web. I also don’t respond to Nigerian 411 scams, basically, common sense.
“I’m not so sure this is a wise move on HP’s part. They may have their market research, but common sense tells me that when your competitors offer cheaper Linux variants of essentially the same hardware (it’s all Atom platform), you might lose customers if the only HP netbook they can buy is more expensive, but still offers the same hardware. ”
— As if. Nowadays I go to stores and I see 1 out of 15 or so netbooks running linux. I ask for a netbook with a 10″ screen and linux and they go “we only have those with windows”. No netbook for me, it seems…
I apologise for talking from a UK standpoint. Walk into any Dixons Group store and there are as many little laptops as there are full size laptops. They all run XP and they are all about £300 or the same PS3 80GB package.
XP shows me that the “netbook” name is a fallacy people want more than the net on these devices they want a computer…a user hackable device.
The Linux on these devices that I have seen although appropriate are not the same as a full blown OS. Desktop Linux is pretty similar to XP for most users.
I have never seen a side by side comparison of netbook with identical specifications showing the price difference of between XP and Linux, and continually wonder why these manufacturers hide the price of the bundling.
I find it hilarious that XP is the option of choice on a massive computing market. XP is running out of time for a variety of reasons. The question should be what will these machines upgrade to, or am I going to pick one up really cheap.
Windows 7 and XP do not allow for touchscreens X already has a surface and will run on cheaper more energy efficient chips. Microsoft has nothing in the sub £100 or even £200 hardware range that competes with this. Desktop Linux may well end up offering more for less, and the killer applications is not Desktop Linux, but the Mobile Firefox+OpenOffice that run on it. Throw in a few casual GPL games and a Movie/Music player and Microsoft cannot compete. You can see major companies like Google and Intel already preparing for this place.
I have never seen a side by side comparison of netbook with identical specifications showing the price difference of between XP and Linux, and continually wonder why these manufacturers hide the price of the bundling.
Simple answer: microsoft
“Without Linux microsoft would never have..” What a load of bull. You mean without Snow Leopard Microsoft would never have modified windows vista. Microsoft couldn’t give a crap about Linux market share right now. It’s not growing at the moment at an appreciable rate. Apple is more of a threat. I use Linux every day as my desktop OS and I realise 90% of people can’t use this software. Too much is broken, if you have any previous investment in windows applications too much is going to be missing/broken on your linux install.
Your mum will switch back to windows when she realises half the dirt cheapware/free cds/dvds don’t work on the platform. Sure you think it’s a good thing because techies hate crapware but a lot of people like that stuff. Things like that screensaver dvd bought in Africa not working are going to turn people off the platform.
Casual/hardcore gamers are pretty obvious as to why they’ll jump ship. Not enough game support. It’s good but still requires console to make them load. As long as people are using wine game.exe and it’s not being hidden by distros and supported by filemanagers (supporting .ico and reading the icons from the .exe files not using stupid tricks like wine’s converting icons to xpm.) and binfmt_misc it’s going to remain a problem.
People like accountants won’t touch it because they have to have Microsoft Office. Not openoffice, not any other software but Microsoft office. They also need some accounting software most/all of which would be glitchy in wine. They can’t afford to have glitches so they won’t use them.
This is basically why my parents and sister (accountant) do not use Linux and possibly never will. Also investment in existing windows platform use is another factor. I see people moving to reactos years before they move to Linux.
Edited 2009-02-06 00:54 UTC
Your missing reality there a bit. I don’t see Microsoft openly attacking Apple. I don’t see Microsoft emails floating around wondering what to do about the Apple threat. I don’t see any Microsoft actions that suggest that they are any more worried about Apple than any other company. Why? Apple caters and sells to the niche crowd. No business can afford to buy all Apple. Linux on the other hand, is a different story as it runs on the same hardware the Windows does.
What does Microsoft have to worry about? Well two years ago NO major OEM sold Linux to the customer openly. Now, Intel, the largest CPU maker in the world, is developing Moblin tailored to their processors and chipsets. Asus dropped the ball because the Linux they shipped sucked. Intel won’t make that mistake. Alphas of Moblin are already very nice looking and will be close to instant on machines.
Microsoft doesn’t need to fear Linux in the desktop? Then why they rushed out to make work a deal to get xp installed at almost no cost on eeepcs’? Because they know that in future products Linux can easily dominate, if given the oportunity. Anyways, is not Linux desktop that has to be feared.
Microsoft is at a bad state when it comes to corporate customers, Linux has already 15% of the corporate market, Mac has another percent of that market as well. So there you go Microsoft needs to fear Linux. And with a cause. But not Linux only, opensolaris is showing lots of promise for the corporate market as well.
Your argument doesn’t make sense.
1st you start by saying that Ms aren’t threatened by Linux because OS X has more of a presence*, But then you say the reason Linux doesn’t have a presence is because Windows software doesn’t run on Linux** which is true to OS X as well. Thus – strictly following your line of thought – OS X shouldn’t be a threat either (despite you claiming otherwise).
* fair enough opinion, but not entirely accurate as Linux still dominates Windows in the server market so MS are fighting to gain market share there.
** again, not entirely accurate as a lot of software runs really smoothly in Wine. But clearly an ideal solution is running native Linux software rather than Windows software on a 3rd party port of the Win32 APIs.
windows 7 has full multitouch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTABGen4Ckg&feature=related
not the netbook edition lol
who told you that?
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/246677/netbook-version-of-windows-7-wil…
Its all over the place “Starter Edition” Its crippled in a whole host of ways.
Except the average person can’t even buy that edition… you fail to mention that. It’s basically going to be given away for free in developing countries. You fail to mention that also. What are facts to you though?
I prefer the name “laptot” myself, but unless Psion is sucessful in forcing a name change, “netbook” it is. My Fedora/Ubuntu/WinXP-running Aspire One is my laptop. I want it to do everything my previous Fedora/Ubuntu/WinXP-running laptop did, and it pretty much does – with half the weight, half the physical size, twice the RAM, and twice the hard drive space. The only area in which it’s lacking is screen real estate – only 600 vertical pixels vs. 768 on the old laptop.
I counsel patience on this. I’ve been advocating desktop POSIX since 1988. And it has been slow going. But since Linux came on the scene, that situation has improved to “slow and steady”. It is amazing that we are even in this situation, disappointed about a company *not* providing Linux on a particular model in a particular geographic area. If I had been, at some previous time, given a glimpse of this future, I would have dismissed it with disbelief!
These are exciting times. Especially on the server. For the desktop, and netbook markets, too. But we’ve still got a long haul ahead. Don’t let the encouraging signs we’ve seen fool you into thinking this is going to be a quick victory.
I guarantee that if you don’t take a *long term* attitude you will either become disenchanted and burn out, or go insane in the Samsara of Windows’ thus-far continued popularity.
Edited 2009-02-06 00:45 UTC
Great…
HP actually seem to have done a good job with the Linux distribution on these machines, unlike Asus (to pick on them at random).
The Xandros-based Linux system that comes with the EeePC series is crap. Despite taking up about as much disk space as a full Ubuntu installation, it comes with bugger all additional software, and half of the functionality it does have is completely hidden because they didn’t bother to include any kind of GUI for it. It’s completely incompatible with any other Linux distribution (unless you really know how to use apt, and are very careful), it uses weird (old) versions of libraries, and it’s virtually impossible to change anything unless you’re a Linux geek. Asus aren’t capable of maintaining a complete Linux distribution by themselves, and the OS has received no updates since release. Not even security fixes, as far as I can tell. It’s a nightmare – I can see why someone might get sick of it and install Windows XP. I got sick of it, and installed Xubuntu instead.
HP’s Linux distribution, on the other hand, is just Ubuntu. It contains a complete Ubuntu system, with some extra software added on. Most notably, a different user interface, a different theme, some HP branding, tweaks to make it work better on their hardware, and some extra applications. It’s not a cut-down light system – it’s a full system capable of doing everything a desktop Linux distro does.
So what do they do? Drop the Linux versions in the regions that (at least according to Asus) seem more likely to go with the Linux versions.
Perhaps they got a hilareously good price from Microsoft on XP, and they still can sell for a few euros more because it has XP, and everybody knows that Microsft software is expensive.
Also, We have to realize that Linux is not without cost for HP, as they will have to provide support for it. Having support teams that can handle both XP and Linux may have proven too expensive.
The fact the HP now, stops selling Linux tells us little of what the customrs really wants, just that HP will make more money this way. Of course Microsoft would like us to think that HP does this on public demand, but that’s another matter.
HP Ditches Linux Netbook Models in Europe
and rolls out HP-UX Netbook models, and totally redeems itself!
Not really.
Lol! That would def kick ass!
My experience with SLED 10 preinstalled on hp2133 was not a good one. I bought it two months ago. The very first thing I’ve noticed was that setup dialog boxes were higher than the actual screen, so the ‘Cancel’ and ‘OK’ buttons were not visible. And it wouldn’t slide up, so I had to hit the ‘tab’ key appropriate number of times and then hit ‘enter’ to move on. The second thing is that it had failed to set up my DSL, as something called ‘linux-alt-… whatever’ was missing and had to be downloaded. Well, I thought, it’s a little annoying, but I can go to the nearest WiFi place and set it up there. But no, the only ‘repository’ Yast (the everything manager in Suse) was set to look at was the computer’s HD. Third thing, it could read, but wouldn’t write to and external storage. It’s NTFS disk, but didn’t Novel promise better interoperability with MS products?
And finally, if you install another linux distro, and want to download video drivers for it, you are out of luck. You can easily download drivers for XP and Vista. But for linux, hp offers some 1.8 gig iso images. Don’t take my word for it: <A HREF=”http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp…
See for your self
Agreed. I have the mininote 2133 as well. I installed Mandriva because SLED 10 sucks a lot. The default install is using very big fonts and the repos contain nothing at all. There is not a single game, only boring outdated business apps. I can’t do nothing with that. I installed Mandriva 2009 which is way better. Unfortunatelly, the proprietary video driver is only available for SLED and for Ubuntu and the wifi cars also use proprietary driver. I use the open source one, but it disconnects regularly and I have no 3D acceleration with the openchrome driver. If they sell a laptop with linux, why the f–k didn’t they use compatible hardware? And why did they choose outdated SLED 10? I believe they only thought about businesses and not about normal people buying their crappy system.
Tip on the mininote: install Mandriva 2009 with xfce with vertical panels. Perfect use of the screen.
Edited 2009-02-06 10:26 UTC
Why are people bothered about HP, their products are poor on the desktop, and have been for a while. Their first netbook was expensive and didn’t sell well. The competition all supports Linux really well, and I have a great choice of quality suppliers
Asus
Acer
Dell
This post is coming off a Eeepc 1000 with Eeebuntu installed.
HP can sell their overpriced stuff to North America, you can keep it.
I agree, why worry, just buy the netbook and put Linux on it if you please. You can get the most of the components if not all through repositories and install them. It’s just Ubuntu.
But still, what’s this about HP making poor netbooks? I don’t know of anyone else that makes anything as nice as the 2133/2140 series. Everything else looks like a toy.
Yes, I run Kubuntu Intrepid on my HP 2133 and it works great. But why should I have to pay for Microsoft software that I don’t want. I never used SuSE 10 that the netbook came with because it didn’t boot, and stalled with ‘grub error 17’. I don’t think that sort of thing is going to attract new Linux converts.
I agree, I walked up and down Tottenham Court Road in London looking at as many netbooks as I could find and couldn’t see anything that came even close. Only the MacBook Air for more than 4 times the cost (I paid 300 UKP/Euros for my 2133) was as well finished, and that is perhaps too big to be a netbook although it doesn’t weigh much more than my HP.
I really hate some vendors.
Everyone seems to use Linux to attract some publicity over their products, and when they are sucessfull, ditch
Linux afterwards.
Now we are speaking about HP, but it seems that Acer is also planning to only offer Windows in northern European countries.
And what about Bioware leaving Linux behind on NeverWinterNights 2?
I really hate this embrace and stab in the community the back process.
Is it possible the reason this is happening is due to Linux hostile Poulsbo chipset in the next revision of the Atom motherboard used in most of these netbooks? See: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzAyOQ
On Slashdot the comments there indicate this is a result of Intel having licensed features from PowerVR and the resulting need for binary blobs to run decently.
Of course, my inner conspiracy theorist has me wondering if this is all intentional on Intel’s part, recall how unhappy they professed to be a few months ago with the canabalization of their more expensive lines. Then again that was before it became clear the Atom was driving the compant’s profits this past year, so…
Still, I maintain one of the biggest selling points of these devices has been how well they can run Linux and whether or not they will remain popular without Linux support is a debatable question in my mind at least.
–bornagainpenguin
PowerVR does provide linux binary drivers. (I know because it was my job to write them). Although they are closed source and require licensing. I can imagine a company ‘saving money’ by only licensing the Windows version or something.
I would suggest there was some pretty intense lobbying by MS behind the scenes at HP.I would suggest also MS are concerned not to see their traditional markets being invaded by Linux…
Presume for the moment that Linux became more popular and demand for MS OS n died away. MS are almost certainly anticipating this and might even have offered to license MS products at a huge discount to computer manufacturers.
Should this notion of not shipping Linux loaded kit to Europe extend to other manufacturers then it may not be unreasonable to suggest it was MS’s market research that prompted the discontinuation of Linux kit to Europe, LOL.
I appreciate the sentiments expressed hitherto but I prefer to believe it’s a business decision in the interests of the manufacturers, not us, and given the global economic depression MS need every sale they can make.
I should imagine the notion of “free” software escaping into the marketplace is the stuff of nightmares for MS and shareholders.
What Linux is really missing. Linspire was on the right track aggressively attacking Microsoft the way they did, and articles about it appearing all over the web.Trying to push lost cost machines, trying to make it easy on people switching, etc.
Microsoft does tons of advertising despite already dominating the desktop. Apple is finally running tv ads for Macs, which they probably should have started doing years ago. But when do you ever see a Linux ad on tv, hear one on the radio or see one in a magazine that is not a Linux magazine? I remember ONE IBM ad for Linux years ago, and that’s it.
When you’re the small guy trying to carve out a niche, you can’t just wait for people to notice you and hope they like you.
no HP then i don’t want to pay the microsoft tax
(i will never agree to any microsoft eula)
Even Unix/Linux People Betray their own Beloved OS. They also Buy XP enabled netbooks instead of Linux enabled ones. Why? Many SysAdmins Use netbooks as a fast, cheap access device to VPN into their companies, open up a quick term, and administer their boxes, Check emails “Outlook”, etc. They’re a victim of their own infrastructure. Most VPNs infrastructures have Only WIndows in mind. Is it ethical? Maybe not. But it’s the facts as I see it.