Submitted by We’ve seen a lot of reports going back and forth about whether or not Linux is doing well in the netbook space. As it turns out, research firm ABI Research as well as Dell say about one third of their machines ship with Linux pre-installed – which is pretty darn impressive.
According to ABI Research, out of the 35 million netbooks that will ship this year (I’m assuming that’s worldwide), 11 million will ship with Linux pre-installed. This figure does not include dual-boot netbooks or those that have Windows removed and replaced with Linux – but nor does it include those where Linux is removed in favour of Windows.
This conclusion mirrors the words of Dell’s Todd Finch, who in August stated that nearly one-third of Dell’s netbooks ship with Linux pre-installed; Dell added that Linux netbooks’ return rates are similar to those running Windows XP. This one third figure is a lot more than Microsoft’s official figure, which says that about 93% of netbooks ship with Windows.
ABI Research further added that the arrival of ARM netbooks will push Linux in the netbook space to overtake Windows by 2013. Of course, we’ve been hearing the same heavenly predictions being made about these elusive ARM nebooks for a long time now, and yet here we are, in 2009, with only 4% of netbooks shipping with an ARM processor. ABI Research’s Jeffrey Orr now claims 2010 will be the year of the ARM netbook.
“This year, ARM-based netbooks will only represent about four percent of total units. We estimate that the Intel Atom will ship in 90 percent of netbooks sold this year, and the remaining six percent are based on other x86 processors, such as Via’s chips,” Orr states, “Yet, next year there will be a lot of netbooks shipping on ARM Cortex-A8-based processors, and by that we’re including the nVidia Tegra and Qualcomm Snapdragon, which are essentially Cortex-A8 architectures.”
Well, I certainly do hope these unicorn-powered ARM netbooks arrive, because we’ve been hearing promises for a long time now. They sound like little dream machines, HD capable, with long battery lives and good performance.
Then again, Orr did add this: “I think Microsoft really should consider porting a version of Windows 7 to ARM.” That kind of makes me question his qualifications.
1/3rd of the geeks with netbooks most likely just buy a Linux netbook just to save some money up front?….
(… and just DIY windows install)
Edited 2009-12-08 01:16 UTC
How are 1/3rd of geeks getting Windows cheaper than major netbook vendors can, I wonder?
Edited 2009-12-08 01:29 UTC
Piracy.
Indeed. It’s difficult to come up with good reasons for *not* just picking up the phone and calling the BSA (1-888-NO-PIRACY) when one sees this happening. Rampant piracy of closed source software is one of the most major hurdles to FOSS adoption, and to achieving a sane software landscape, in general.
Pirates need to start feeling that they might really get caught.
Edited 2009-12-08 15:36 UTC
MSDN/Technet/Piracy. Or they could already own a copy, really, lots of ways
About 1/3 of the Geeks I know have been removing Windows and Installing Linux for years (myself included). Although I suspect some people buy the Linux version and replace it with Windows, I think about 1/3 is close to correct.
If they are geeks, why on earth would they want to: regress their new Linux netbook machines; render them vulnerable to malware; reduce their functionality and criple their performance by installing Windows?
If they are geeks, why on earth would they want to: regress their new Linux netbook machines; render them vulnerable to malware; reduce their functionality and criple their performance by installing Windows?
Don’t be so quick to bash Windows. It’s not as bad as you’d like people to think it is. For example, my laptop just gained in functionality and performance after I removed Linux and went back to XP.
Now, I like Linux, I’m a stern supporter of F/OSS and I do wish Linux will sooner or later push Windows to the side completely, but that doesn’t mean I need to spread FUD or try to derail discussions just to try and make Linux look better.
Serious question here … how on earth would a netbook (not a laptop, we were talking about netbooks) gain by installing Windows on it?
It would gain by becoming susceptible to malware? I can’t see that as a gain. It would gain by having notepad, calc, wordpad and paint applets? On what planet? It would gain performance? Hardly, especially as it would now require on-access antivirus scans.
AFAIK, suspend works properly on netbooks. Laptops are a different matter, as some manufacturers seem to have gone out of their way to tie some machines to a tailored Windows, but netbooks?
Seriously, how would anyone gain anything at all (other than a bill) by removing a full Linux (not an OEM-crippled version) and installing Windows on a netbook?
Edited 2009-12-08 04:42 UTC
Seriously, how would anyone gain anything at all (other than a bill) by removing a full Linux (not an OEM-crippled version) and installing Windows on a netbook?
Depending on the hardware, better hardware support or better performance. Oh, and perhaps some software for which there is no alternative, the alternatives don’t cut it, and/or the software doesn’t work with Wine?
Really, try using imagination some more.
Example, please. For a netbook. A link to a use case and benchmarks.
Try using some reality.
Use case? “I want to use teh Word 2010”. It’s not about what they will actually use realistically, but what they would like to be able to use.
Why do people install OpenSSH on an iPhone? Why do we install 3D games on ARM netbooks that lack acceleration? Because we can. Yes, we can. Unless you want to run Word 2010 on ARM Linux.
Actually, openSSH on a device the size of the Iphone is very handy. I believe it’s done with the Iphone as part of the jailbreaking process. With Maemo, it’s a natural package to install. In either case or any other similar sized computer or media players, the advantages are the same as any SSH supporting system:
– secure terminal access; config or run cli power apps like Metasploit (My keyboard is better than Iphones so it’s very comfortable).
– secure data transfer initiated from the device or the other end. I rsync my portable library to the device very easily; this can happen on my local network or from any internet connection I have handy.
– secure FS; a little sshfs and my PDA is now a mounted drive on my bigger machine.
Of course, this all conflicts with Apples command and control approach to customer freedom. Iphone owners couldn’t possibly have use for SSH since Apple didn’t tell them they did. (or maybe the jailbreaking scene kind of shows that there is demand for an open Iphone with SSH)
SSH makes the device a natural node on my network rather than requiring CIFS or similar insecure protocols to do basic things.
Real use-case: I would like to print a PDF/webpage from a linux netbook, and there are only working drivers for Windows.
Reality satisfied.
This thread looks like a normal spam fight to me… but WHAT?
I have no idea what’s broken on your end, but printing works just fine on mine. Care to elaborate?
– Gilboa
‘there are only working drivers for Windows’
Name one.
For every one that you come up with, I could probably find a dozen printers without drivers for any given version of Windows. Your scenario is actually more likely to be a problem for Windows machines.
The Xerox WorkCentre 5638. It has (some kind of) Linux drivers but they don’t work properly.
That may be true, but it doesn’t change the experience of the person who needs the printer they have sitting in front of them to work, they don’t care at all about the 12 printers they don’t use.
You were asking for someone to use a little reality, now you have it. The only remaining step is for you to accept it.
Xerox WorkCentre printers are Postscript printers. Postscript printers have been supported under *nix since they were invented. Generic Postscript drivers will work fine.
Yes, this is true, it can generally squeeze a page out, but it will not do dual-sided printing, which is a must for me: it cuts paper-usage in half. And even then, the support is still rather finicky.
Edit: Perhaps it makes the point better with a comparison: this is like saying a 802.11b/g wireless card is supported but it really only does b, and not g.
Edited 2009-12-08 21:09 UTC
It is a Postscript printer, it should work just fine.
http://www.openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Xerox-WorkCentr…
Actually, it should work perfectly.
So we have a dozen people (all with different printers) with a Windows netbook who can’t print, versus one with a Linux netbook who can’t print (actually he can, you just got it wrong), and you are claiming that Windows on a netbook is the better proposition and that I should accept reality?
Pffft.
That printer driver does NOT work properly. I have used that printer every day for 10 months, and I have to use Windows XP in a virtual machine to get an acceptable experience (half the features are switched off in the opensource implementation, it really bites).
The real problem is you do NOT listen when someone says there is a fault, you run to a website that says it “works perfectly” and tell me that instead. You’re just parroting a website that says everything is OK to a person that actually knows about the printer, and knows that it’s not fully supported.
You don’t listen to the fact that I say it does not work properly, and I’m speaking as both a user of the printer, and a Linux user.
Again, returning to the question you wanted answered: Why would someone want to use Windows?
Answer: Because sometimes you HAVE TO because it just doesn’t work right with Linux.
Well, I can’t say that I have ever encountered this printer, but I have a number of sources which say it works perfectly with Linux.
The recommended driver is Postscript-Xerox.
http://www.openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Xerox-WorkCentr…
Download the PPD file(s) in either RPM or DEB format.
Warning, PDF:
http://wirthconsulting.org/Documents/WYSK_Xerox_WorkCentre_5638.pdf
http://uk.shopping.com/xPO-Xerox-Xerox-WorkCentre-5638-copier-B-W-w…
http://uk.shopping.com/xPO-Xerox-Xerox-WorkCentre-5638-copier-B-W-w…
There isn’t a single mention of any problems with that printer in the Openprinting Xerox forum:
http://forums.linux-foundation.org/list.php?32,page=1
It should print perfectly, according to every source other than you.
Edited 2009-12-09 09:46 UTC
SHOULD, but does not. You really have a problem with understanding.
I use Linux every day, have done so for nearly 10 years, and I really WANT the printer to not work properly. I hate myself that much that I want to make my work-day even more difficult by having Linux not support the work-printer properly.
Just because you’re so special, I’ll tell you exactly what happens: I try to print, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
This printer has multiple finishers and multiple trays of different paper sizes/types. The Linux driver often says it has printed when it has not, and also reports out-of-paper when the paper tray is full. The Windows drivers work flawlessly, and actually support all the OTHER features of the printer which are available (stapling, hole-punching, etc).
So no, it doesn’t work properly. I can’t work with a printer driver that only has partial functionality, I have better things to do than double-check all my print jobs.
You’ve seem to have invested a lot of your soul into your choice of operating system, and your psyche cannot handle the strain when someone tells you that something doesn’t work right. It’s totally obnoxious and asocial behaviour to discount others experiences in this way. The entire problem here is your attitude, if everyone acted like you did, Linux would never get any better. You’re really hurting the other reasonable people who develop Linux with this ridiculous approach to advocacy.
The websites provide information on how to get the features working.
I understand what you are saying fully. Frankly, I simply just don’t believe you.
You don’t believe me because you’re unable to process anything that doesn’t portray Linux as strictly better than Windows. I can’t be held accountable for your mental disabilities.
The websites provide information on how to get the features working. I understand what you are saying fully. Frankly, I simply just don’t believe you. [/q]
Lemur you are …. nevermind. The pages you linked to specifically say “Note that these printers work, like all other PostScript printers, with generic PostScript PPD files, but then you will not get access to all the printer specific functionality.” Which is exactly what he’s talking about. This makes you very wrong about something you’re being very vocal about. This is a typical case for linux drivers, it’s getting better but it is the current situation.
The websites provide information on how to get the features working. I understand what you are saying fully. Frankly, I simply just don’t believe you. [/q] Lemur you are …. nevermind. The pages you linked to specifically say “Note that these printers work, like all other PostScript printers, with generic PostScript PPD files, but then you will not get access to all the printer specific functionality.” Which is exactly what he’s talking about. This makes you very wrong about something you’re being very vocal about. This is a typical case for linux drivers, it’s getting better but it is the current situation. [/q]
Sigh!
The pages also give you a link to download a package (either an RPM package, or a DEB package, your choice) which contains PPD files from the OEM for the specific printers.
So, if you use the printer “with generic PostScript PPD files” then you will not get access to all the printer specific functionality, but if you install the indicated RPM or DEB package, then the OEM specific PPD files will be available, and the printer will work perfectly.
That is what the website is telling you.
Here are the links it provides:
http://www.openprinting.org/download/printdriver/RPMS/noarch/openpr…
http://www.openprinting.org/download/printdriver/debian/dists/lsb3….
Here are the “how to install” instructions:
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/…
The facts that (1) the OEM specifically provides PPD files, and that (2) the printer’s marketing material specifically mentions Linux compatibility tells you that the printer is supposed to work with Linux.
The openprinting website confirms this … the printer is reported to “work perfectly” with Linux.
The original poster apparently just assumed that the Linux driver didn’t work. It is unclear if he even bothered to download and install the OEM PPD files. Even if he did, given that the printer is supposed to work with Linux, if a particular printer didn’t work why wouldn’t one simply reach the conclusion that that sepcific printer had a fault?
Edited 2009-12-10 02:16 UTC
Listen, the RPM there provides the 4118 driver, which will get you the BASIC printing functionality. The OEM driver which Xerox provides is meant to be installed in god-knows-what configuration.
It does have a PPD, but it’s outdated to the point where CUPS rejects the DEFAULT combinations of printing options, as they are incompatible.
The printer doesn’t work because no-one has taken the time to support it properly, neither Xerox nor the community. That’s OK I guess, I just have to use Windows to get it to work right.
First of all, I’ve used both drivers listed, both the openprinting driver and the Xerox recommended one. As I stated above the 4118 ppd doesn’t support the printer fully, and the Xerox one is outdated.
It is ridiculous to infer that the printer is at fault: it’s a network printer, it doesn’t know if my requests are coming from a Linux or Windows machine, and the Windows drivers work fine, where the available Linux ones do not. Therefore the Linux ones must be at fault.
You are quite wrong, and one has to wonder why you’re pushing an issue you can’t even verify first hand against someone who works with this hardware every day.
Even if you liked Linux before… Lemur kinda makes you hate it, doesn’t he?
Yeah, I mentioned this (I think…) somewhere else, but basically advocacy like this hurts all the other sane people trying to use Linux. Too bad really.
OK, I crossed wires there, sorry about that.
The file I get is this one:
http://www.support.xerox.com/go/getfile.asp?Xlang=en_US&XCntry=USA&…
Printer Model Package.
Filename: WC5687_PrinterPkgXPXX_2009_04_23.tgz
Version: 2009_04_23
Date: 7/8/2009
Size: 24.8MB
Model specific printer information.
Supported Platforms: UNIX, Sun Solaris, Linux
Supported Languages: Canadien-français, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Deutsch, Dutch, English, English (US), Español, Finnish, Français, Hungarian, Italiano, Norwegian, Polish, Português brasileiro, Russian, Swedish, Turkish
Supported Products: WorkCentre 5632/5638, WorkCentre 5645/5655, WorkCentre 5665/5675/5687
It doesn’t look as if it should be out of date, it is only a few months old. It promises that the 5638 model is a supported printer.
Hope that helps.
There is also this driver package:
http://www.support.xerox.com/go/getfile.asp?Xlang=en_US&XCntry=USA&…
Linux Intel Driver.
Filename: WC5687_Linuxi386XPXX_4.30.18.tgz
Version: 4.30.18
Date: 7/8/2009
Size: 10.3MB
Linux (Intel based) Postscript driver for Redhat Fedora Core 5, Redhat Enterprise Linux 4, Suse 10.0.
… but even though it isn’t very old, it appears only to support a very limited range of Linux distributions. Still, you never know, it might still work elsewhere.
I’m interested in details myself. I haven’t seen a printer that doesn’t work with Linux in some time (although I’ve been informed that I’ve “just been lucky”).
Yes, that is a real use case, but a really rare one.
I can’t say I have run into any printing problems in Linxu the last couple of years.
Most printers work just fine with Linux, I guess you will get just as much printing trouble if you buy a Netbook with win 7 or Vista as you get on one with Linux.
Windows XP have been on the market almost for ever, so it is true that if you have some very strange printer XP it is more likely that you can find a driver for XP than for Vista or Linux.
To most users installing a printer is easier in Linux than in windows. Plug it in and and then a mouseclick to confirm that Linux selected the right driver. If you are unlucky you would have to select your printer in a list as well, and perhaps set your prefferred paper size.
I agree with you fully, I am only really trying to reply to the hyperbolic assertion of lemur2 that there isn’t a reason to use Windows. On an individual basis there are many such reasons, but of course my weapon of choice tends to be Linux
.
Don’t bother … lemur2 is a Linux troll
When was the last time you use Windows? have you actually given Windows 7 a go? have you installed the latest drivers? do you use Microsoft’s security essentials? You seem to be very happy to throw around gross generalisations but when it comes to specifics relating to Microsoft products shipping today rather than old wives tales of software shipping from yesteryear you’re lacking in details.
Both my parents have Windows Vista x64 loaded onto their respective computers with security essentials installed – none of them experience the problems you have noted. I would call my parents about as run of the mill as one can find. Where are their issues? where is their malware infection that you claim is common place? or are you yet another one of those people who advocate the individual from taking responsibility for the choices they make?
That would kill all available performance on a netbook, and drain the battery in 20 minutes.
Sorry, I’m wrong … Vista64 won’t run at all on Atom.
Edited 2009-12-08 23:57 UTC
Why won’t Vista 64-bit run on an Atom? I wouldn’t want to (Win7 > Vista, and how many Atom machines can use 4+GB RAM?), but I don’t see why it would not work.
Edited 2009-12-09 02:35 UTC
Atom (the N-series chips used in most netbooks anyway) is only a 32-bit CPU.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom#Atom_N_series
By that logic, no one can have eight threads ready at the same time, because the Core i7 is not a common CPU. But, it is out there. So is the Atom 230, with x86_64 support. Shortly, the Atom 330 will follow (Asus already announced their new ION, something-1201, IIRC).
If someone has a Mobii, FI, can they not run 64-bit Windows?
Again, I don’t know what your experience is but having used it on a Netbook as soon as Windows 7 came out, I again am confused as to what basis you make these assessments. Going by the tone of your post, however, that you have never actually used it – your claims are not based on real world experience but instead second hand information and old wives tales.
You didn’t run a 64-bit OS on any ordinary run-of-the-mill netbook … ordinary netbooks have only single core 32-bit Atom N-series CPUs.
My comment in relation to battery drain and performance on a netbook was a comment regarding Vista, not Windows 7.
Windows 7 for netbooks is the starter edition. There is no 64-bit Windows 7 starter edition.
But anyway:
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/vista-windows-7-ubuntu-904-and-910-…
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/linux-vs-windows-7
http://tuxradar.com/content/benchmarked-ubuntu-vs-vista-vs-windows-…
Precious few reporter-type people on the net are brave enough to directly compare, really.
These people might have something meaty (some real comparative benchmarks) to report on soon:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzY5MQ
As I understand it, though, the Windows EULA disallows benchmarking and reverse engineering to be done, and so they might be having some trouble via legal channels to get their results published.
Edited 2009-12-09 04:40 UTC
Where did I say that I did; the first post was about my parents experience running Windows Vista x64 on their two computers – unrelated to the netbook issue but an example of how there are many users out there using Windows on their computers quite happy.
I then made the statement:
Denoting that I have installed and run Windows 7 on my netbook – and obviously it is the 32bit version. I’m not an idiot, I know you can’t run a 64bit operating system on a 32bit CPU – stop being a condescending prick when speaking to people on this forum. Btw, how about instead of throwing your dick around in public you take a look in the mirror.
Edited 2009-12-09 04:39 UTC
Indeed you didn’t say anything about netbooks, but I did. This thread is about netbooks, and running software on netbooks, and whether or not Linux is a better option for people on netbooks.
You were saying that Vista64 was a good experience for your parents. That had precisely nothing to do with any of the discussion on this topic, and I called you on it.
Now you are throwing a hissy fit. Poor widdle you.
Edited 2009-12-09 04:48 UTC
“Tuxradar”. Penguin logo. Penguins everywhere. How do you spell bias?
Ho I find it funny to see things like “Ok here 7 is better, but we tested it but not showing it on another 64bits distro and it was faster, so Linux wins!”
The geeks I know are capable of not getting malware.
If someone gave me a netbook I would put Windows or OSX on it just to have itunes and not have to deal with Flash/codecs on Linux.
It would have to have an ARM cpu for me to consider Linux.
You don’t have to deal with Flash/codecs on Linux. Try Mint or Arch. All solved, out of the box. If you use Chakra (Arch with KDEmod, and easy-to-install LiveCD which can be made to LiveUSB), it comes with Amarok out of the box, which will support your ipod.
Flash and codecs are more of a problem for Windows. Windows doesn’t come with a flash plugin, and it does not support quite a few codecs such as vorbis, theora (and flac?) nor does it have out-of-the-box support for mov or aac.
Come to think of it, Windows doesn’t have out-of-the-box support for itunes or ipods, either.
Edited 2009-12-08 05:26 UTC
The installation is only a minor annoyance. The real problem is that Flash in Linux sucks.
Are you really going to try to dance around the fact that itunes is supported in Windows but not Linux?
Why do you care about converting people here? Does your fundamentalist outlook cloud your sense of efficacy?
It wouldn’t matter if you converted everyone here to Fossology. There aren’t enough visitors here for it to matter. This is a niche technology website and most the people here have used Unix or Linux well beyond the level to which you speak to them.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with whatever you think.
Linux is a better deal for people. Far better. It works better, it runs better, it is way more functional, way less expensive (especially in the “netbook” context), and it is easier and safer to use. For people. Ordinary, run-of-the-mill, down-to-earth, honest-to-goodness, salt-of-the-earth people.
I want them to know that they have this alternative. I don’t want them to be discouraged by FUD and shills.
Now why do you apparently want to burden them with the extra expense and endless problems with Windows?
Wow. Linux just is better. It just is!
Classic. When you’ve reached the state in which you accuse others of being “shills”, you should really seriously reconsider your zealotry and advocacy. Maybe some day.
Because consumers want Windows? Not that Linux would somehow be immune to the “endless problems”.
It depends. Is Windows better? Why? Because it can run Windows software? It would be better for someone that “needs” Windows, but not for someone that only needs a computer with a browser, media player and normal stuff.
Consumers want a computer that works without problems. Be it a Mac, a PC, a netbook with Linux, whatever. This thread was about Linux netbooks. People are using them, so clearly for that people it works. Or now only Windows based computers are the only sensible choice? Talk about shills.
Without getting involved in the rest of this argument, I’d have to say that Flash doesn’t suck on Linux any worse than it sucks anywhere else.
It used to be very bad in the past, but that seems to be changing. At least with Adobe’s 64bit flash plugin on Linux, performance & stability are better than what I remember of their 32bit plugin on Linux or Windows.
Of course, it all depends on your specific system, and what you use the plugin for… just sayin’ the ‘It Sucks on Linux’ blanket generalization doesn’t really work for Flash anymore.
You are far more likely to have Flash issues in Linux than Windows, especially when it comes to tearing or full screen video.
Flash is better optimized for Windows/IE. There’s even a noticeable difference compared to Windows/Firefox.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10396076-64.html
I hate Flash so don’t get mad at me for pointing this out.
I have to quite disagree. I don’t touch IE on Windows unless I have to; and I use Full Screen flash quite regularly to watch StarGate Universe on SyFy.com – under Firefox on Linux, and also some YouTube videos.
“The installation is only a minor annoyance. The real problem is that Flash sucks. ”
There you go.
Flash sucks everywhere.
Obviously you haven’t used Flash under Linux for a long time. I use it at least weekly, if not more – YouTube, syfy.com. Works quite well, even under 64-bit Linux.
Granted 2 years ago, that wasn’t the case. But it is very good right not – on par or better than the support in Windows.
Flash sucks on all platforms. Nowdays, it is not worse on Linux than on any other platform Flash 9 on Linux was really bad though. In fact, if anything Flash is better in Linux as on Linux you are likely to get automatic updates when running the Linux equvalent of Windows updates, as far as I know that doesn’t happen in windows when running the real windows update.
You could run it in wine if you like. Sure it might be slightly more work to install it, but on the other hand your Linux distro most likely comes with a preinstalled office suite, while windows don’t.
If you live somewhere where software patents exist, this is not a legal option.
Mandriva PowerPack includes codecs if I remember correctly. Connonical has also worked with codec patent owners to be able to provide them. Like any product category, it’s the make and model of the product (the distro) that makes the difference.
Not to get started on a debate about codecs and related consumer hostile law that makes every effort to block legal consumers from fair use provided by copyright.
Flash itself isn’t a legal problem at all. Open spec, free download for Linux. Several options to choose from.
Most people of the world won’t have a legal problem with any codecs at all.
For those that unfrotunately live in countries afflicted with such oppression … firstly, who is going to know? But if you are worried, use Kubuntu and buy Fluendo codecs for it.
Problem solved.
Edited 2009-12-08 23:44 UTC
Out of the box in Arch? You’re either on good drugs, or just trolling.
That said, I don’t see how it is any harder than Windows. In both, you go to Adobe’s website, have a chance of failure (why can’t you just give me file links, Adobe? That’s all I want), give up and try the repos, or a Windows freeware site, and get it installed. Codecs are similarly easy or difficult to get, but easier to have working on Linux, since you just get ffmpeg, mplayer, xine, etc., a win32 package on some distros, and go about your business. Trying to get CCCP or K-Lite working with everything all of the time is a PITA, and VLC’s format support on Windows is anything but reliable.
That said, you’d best have an nVidia GPU (ION/9400M), if you want Flash to work in any reasonable fashion.
Nope.
http://chakra-project.org/news/index.php?/archives/35-Chakra-Alpha4…
Everything out of the box (but admittedly still a bit experimental. But that is what Arch is for … very cutting edge).
Get a LiveCD here:
http://chakra-project.org/download-iso.html
This will also work for a netbook by booting from a USB stick. Enjoy.
Nope. All installed for you with Chakra or Mint. Enjoy.
Even Kubuntu has Adobe flash available via the package manager and a 3rd party repository. No need to search for websites to download, and risk getting phished.
ARM netbooks (coming soon) will have integrated flash support in hardware.
Gnash has hardware video acceleration for nvidia cards for flash available as a plugin.
Chakra != Arch.
http://www.archlinux.org/
That’s like calling Knoppix Debian, and then saying Debian gives you something out of the box that Knoppix actually does. Chakra/KDE-mod is its own compatible derivative distro, at this point, not unlike Knoppix::Debian, MEPIS::Debian, Mint::Ubuntu, etc..
Gnash rarely works for real browsing, as most websites are well into using new versions of Flash. Maybe it will get there, one day (I hope it does), but for now, it’s not nearly good enough.
I do have hopes for A9-based notebooks. If one comes out with a proper keyboard (ins/del,home/end;pgup/pgdn in the right place), multiple cores, and X support is indeed good, it will be on my wish list.
Edited 2009-12-08 23:12 UTC
Fair enough. The point remains that you can get an Arch-based distro that is trivially simple to install on a netbook. Point and click, a few simple selections, and you are done, with flash and codecs supported … you don’t even need an external CD drive.
Gnash works with Youtube and similar sites.
However, Adobe’s flash plugin works better at this time, agreed.
You can normally install either one via the package manager (but not both at the same time).
Flash works quite well on Linux once you get past the driver problems common recently with Xorg and the kernel (especially with Intel).
It’s no more difficult to double click a deb from adobe.com than it is to run the MSI installer from the same location.
I can play Hulu full screen, use Hulu desktop, and Boxee. I can also watch most videos online in full screen.
All on an Asus 1000HE w/ Atom processor and I945 in my preferred Linux distribution.
I understand and can relate to issues in Linux distributions that can make people crazy, but lets not forget that you have similar issues no matter what you run on your PC.
It is even easier to get it installed via your package manager.
Check this : http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=2497685
Many of us Linux users who were interested with Prolink Glee TA-009 which was sold with no OS at S$399, suffering because of its onboard wifi RTL8187B, which works normally in Windows.
Currently I need to resort to the pirated Win XP to make it workable.
http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8328849
Thread stops at Ubuntu 9.04. The last post is a confused reader … wlan0 and wlan1 are his wireless card.
Should work great, out of the box, for Ubuntu 9.10.
Since I’m a UNIX-like OS user, I’ll just take a wild guess as to why people might want to install something other than Linux.
Choice.
Not all people like the UNIX way of doing things.
Not all people want to deal with the upgrade treadmill of Linux distributions. By this, I mean something in the likes of “Hey, I want to install the latest version of _____. What? The distribution doesn’t package this? I need to install a different distribution and/or version? Gosh, I’d rather just install service packs instead of having to install a new version of a distribution. It is possible to build from source, but then the package manager of the distribution will not automatically upgrade it (unless using source-based distributions). Compiling on a netbook is slow. Creating a cross-compiling setup is more trouble than it’s worth.
Some people like using the software they are used to. Evident from this thread, is the desire of people to use iTunes on their netbooks. As great as Amarok is as a piece of software, it isn’t exactly iTunes. Furthermore, I’m assuming iPods aren’t supported (by the manufacturer) unless managed with iTunes.
It’s great to teach users that there is a Free (both Libre and beer) software, but belittling a user’s choice of OS is probably not in the best interest of all parties involved.
Hello little FOSS Troll. Since you don’t have any experience of your own, I will tell you my story.
I bought an Asus EeePC 901 about a year ago. I kept the installed Windows XP and dual booted Linux. Over the course of this year I tried the following distributions, some in several versions, on it: eeebuntu (renamed to easy peasy later), Ubuntu Eee, Crunchbang, and Ubuntu proper. The hardware support improved and is now stable and reliable enough.
But XP excels in all the points that matter to me most in a netbook:
– Boots faster
– wakes faster from sleep
– connects to wifi faster
– Firefox is much faster
– turning wifi and bluetooth on and off works without crashing the OS
– no need to install a new OS to get better hardware support every few months
– screen brightness is not changed randomly
– webcam and microphone works reliably
I have installed Kubuntu 9.10 Linux dual-boot with Windows XP on an EEEPC 1000H and an MSI Wind U100, and as the lone OS on a Kogan Agora Pro netbook.
Kubuntu Linux performs about the same on all three netbook machines. On the two machine which dual-boot Windows XP home, Kubuntu Linux 9.10 (with KDE 4.3 desktop)
– boots faster (a lot faster than XP)
– runs faster,
– is more stable,
– works perfectly with wifi (Kubuntu bluetooth leaves a little to be desired however, as bluetooth audio is only available in GNOME)
– Firefox 3.5 runs identically as on Windows
– screen brightness is not changed randomly
– webcam and microphone works reliably
– works flawlessly with my wifi network, NAS device and aging HP printers and scanner
Oh, and unlike Windows XP Home, samba can join a Windows domain.
However, there is more: apart from the basic desktop software, I have included in my KDE 4.3 desktop installation, at absolutely no extra expense:
– OpenOffice 3.1 full Office suite
– Kontact PIM including KMail
– Amarok music collection manager
– VLC and SMPlayer video players
– Krita and GIMP raster graphics editors
– Inkscape and Karbon vector graphics editors
– Kopete IM and Quassel IRC
– Quanta Plus web development environment
– Kate programmers editor, and Kwrite plain text editor
– digikam camera/photo management software
– skanlite scanner
– Dia diagram editor
– Krusader, PeaZip and Ark file management utilities
– Okular document (including PDF) viewer
– KTorrent (for obtaining Linux .iso files)
– Arora and Firefox web browsers
– Speedcrunch calculator
– a collection of about 30 games for amusement
Stomps all over XP Home with notepad, calc, Wordpad and paint.
As I said, a truly excellent value proposition for ordinary people working on a netbook.
Edited 2009-12-08 12:11 UTC
You do know that almost all of the applications in there run on Windows as well, right?
Not that you’d actually want to use the abomination that is OOo over Office, but still, it’s worth noting.
If applications run on Windows and on Linux, then why not just run them on Linux?
Faster, easier to use and install more applications, more secure (therefore safer to run with online banking and shopping), and a lot less demanding on your time (since for Windows you have to find all of the applications, download them and install them).
Easier to maintain also … Linux doesn’t have a registry to get all clogged up. The applications are all auto-updated by the one update manager. You can have separate partitions for /home and the OS, so a complete OS upgrade is painless, zero data loss, and only takes an hour or so.
Nicer to use, too. KDE4 desktop has lots of nice bling (such as window blinds, desktop widgets and desktop cube), if that takes your fancy. Multiple desktops. Clipboard history. Middle-click copy-paste. Any window can be made to stay on top. Folderview (organise multiple separate folder right on your desktop).
As I said, if these applications can run on Windows or on Linux, then why not just run them on Linux?
Far better value. Especially if your time is money.
Edited 2009-12-08 12:41 UTC
Yes, and instead I will spend two days trying to get the accelerated driver for my GeForce G103M working well instead of it splitting my screen in 6 parts*
It always depends on the hardware configuration one has. For you, Linux may be hassle-free and Windows may BSOD every other minute, for me, maybe Windows works better and has the drivers that I need.
It’s not as simple as Linux = more free time, Windows = less free time.
* Actually it only takes a bit of googling, and in 5 minutes I’m up and running. Still, not as easy as having it work from the first boot.
Where did you get a netbook with a GeForce G103M video?
Netbooks nearly all have Intel graphics.
The only ones that will create trouble for Linux is Intel Poulsbo chips. That is Intel’s fault. Avoid those netbooks.
Are you seriously telling us that “time” is the most you gain when installing linux?
Tweaking the littlest things require ENDLESS rampage through mailing lists and man pages. Issues you run into takes ages for you to resolve, and I’m talking linux-capable users.
I have a colleague who tried for 2 days to get her taskbar back on KDE4 and just stopped because she couldn’t spend more time on it. I discovered it while manually removing a .ICEauthority file that got locked up, spawning a cryptic error message. I restored it but seriously, poor woman.
Anyway, you’re just hilarious, Linux is good and tweakable and blablabla, but it is a serious time hog any way you look at it. Same can be said about Linux and UNIX server architectures : you can do everything, but you have to do everything. And before the flame fest, I do manage BSD and Linux servers daily and I do all my programming under Linux.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TG6-YizvQU
Boot times are pretty similar, and this is my personal experience too. The whole “Linux boots faster than Windows” is a myth, and is of little impact on any operating system anyway (wow, 3s more boot time, someone’s gonna die).
Use case on my netbook : I wanna use my Poulsbo chipset. I wanna play League of Legends (breaks under Wine). I wanna test Office 2010. I wanna use cute MSN smileys with my wife. You “have an app(tm)” for everything under Linux, but it’s not what people are used to, or sometimes it lacks some functionality or the feel just is not right.
I have no problem paying for software to feel good using it, or because I like it, and this blows not paying for software and disliking every second of it.
OOo is no office, but it can be made to run quite well on a netbook. It just takes a little application tuning.
Yeah, because VLC for windows is so much more expensive than it is for Linux? I can see why people are starting to throw around the title of Troll here. Looks like we have Linux users who can’t get Windows to work right and Windows users who can’t get Linux to work right. Gee, really?
To the usage question. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like the app. If Bob likes Quicken 2009, he should have the “freedom to run the program.” So get off Bob’s back, some of you come off as a arrogant… tragically typical.
Edited 2009-12-08 17:13 UTC
Eeebuntu was not renamed to Easy Peasy. Eeebuntu is Eeebuntu and Easy Peasy is Easy Peasy.
Another thing:
The battery runs an hour longer with Windows. That is the killer feature.
I like Linux a lot and use it. But on the netbook it just doesn’t cut it for me.
Run KDE. It has proper power management for netbooks.
Your netbook battery will run for an hour longer in KDE4 than in Windows 7.
I have to question this, KDE does nothing for your power management, it is handled by the ACPI subsystem, the Xorg driver, and the kernel.
If you are implying that KDE uses less power because it is less resource hungry, well I question that too.
KDE4 has improved power management performance since KDE 4.2.
http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.2/desktop.php
My bold. Note: “improved all throughout KDE”.
Ok, they made their apps behave better.
That’s their job. A side effect is better battery life because they sleep when idle, and idle when not busy. The only thing you can compare this to is their previous versions.
If you look at any of the other desktops GNOME included you’ll find the same “features”.
It’s not super awesome new methods to save power, it’s OMFG our code sucks less now how can we talk this up!
See:
“The frequent wakeups from the core applications like Plasma and KWin have been eliminated, making sure you get the most from your battery.”
Well written software already does this. XP and Win 7 excel at this too. Would you like a powertop report from my GNOME install? If you think only KDE is that awesome, it’ll shock you.
Edited 2009-12-08 23:32 UTC
Windows 7 doesn’t. It uses a netbook battery at a faster rate than KDE4.
Edited 2009-12-08 23:32 UTC
PEBCAK..
It depends on the (net|note)book, *AND* the user.
I get 10 hours out of XP, and 10 hours out of my Linux distribution.
If I were to install XP and not install any of the vendor drivers, I’d get as little time as I would from Linux without spending 10 minutes on power management tuning.
Edited 2009-12-08 23:12 UTC
The only one of those that holds any real truth is Firefox being faster. What crappy distro does all the others?
Because they can.
Not all geeks work with gnulux. Some are windows geeks (whatever that means).
Because Windows XP makes a great little O/S to run on a netbook….
Don’t run as Admin, turn the FW, don’t use IE. Done. Safe from Malware and with the benefit of having access to an absolute plethora of Win32 apps you can stuff around with on the bus. Beats playing with a Xterm session, or being forced to simply ‘surf the internet’ because lets face it, other than that, there’s not a great ecosystem of DECENT applications under Linux.
… an oft-repeated but never-supported claim.
Some application “features” pages for your enjoyment:
http://why.openoffice.org/
http://userbase.kde.org/Applications/Desktop
http://userbase.kde.org/Applications/Office
http://userbase.kde.org/Applications/Graphics
http://www.koffice.org/krita/
http://userbase.kde.org/Digikam
http://www.digikam.org/drupal/about?q=about/overview
http://www.digikam.org/drupal/about?q=about/features
http://amarok.kde.org/de/node/214
http://userbase.kde.org/Applications/Multimedia
http://userbase.kde.org/Applications/Internet
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/features/
Some fun for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3ID2CbtnKk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76twSw5oNss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJnZ49ekdBQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOI0DmGppLw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PamMOKxcYU0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQHG_30PeX4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqWd4fNRy8Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmMdm9liMn4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSwX7WMYCH4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvqj4QA9AHs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rwsqKLEU6c&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5h7wtkg4Bc
Well, I bought version of AA1 which ships with Windows, because it was 30€ cheaper then the version with Linux (same hardware!!!). And I just DIY Linux install 😉
Am i g33k then? 😀
True Geeks don’t use windows. Semi-geeks will do a dual boot (windows only to play games) or install windows in a virtual machine.
Why not?
That’s because True Geeks would die of boredom in their basements using Windows or OSX.
With linux at least they get to tinker with half-assed/broken stuff in the os for days in order to kinda-sorta-almost get it to work like it should
Given that most Netbook offerings which give you a choice between Linux and Windows offer the Linux netbook with less disk space (especially the SSD netbooks) and/or with smaller RAM, I know several guys who bought the Windows version (because of better hardware) and either made a dual boot setup or wiped the disk and put Linux on it.
I wonder why the manufacturers resort to dumbing down the Linux hardware, as the savings on 1 GB RAM and 4 GB flash memory can’t be high. Especially since the demand for equally performant hardware as for Windows is definitely there. Maybe Microsoft still has contracts in place which forbid manufacturers offering the same hardware for Linux AND Windows.
Taking into account how popular netbooks are and how many units have been sold, I don’t think there’s so many geeks in this planet.
This is admittedly somewhat tangential to the current topic. But remember back when Transmeta was about to release their processor product, which used amazingly less power than current Intel mobile processors?
We’d been focused upon the importance of processor efficiency for a while. But then this new meme… something that “everyone knew”, started making the rounds: The processor doesn’t really make a significant difference to battery life. Since “we all know” that it’s the display that uses most of the power.
Even spokes-persons for the major notebook vendors made statements espousing that view.
But soon after Transmeta faded away, the meme spontaneously just faded away, and we started obsessing, again, on things like what percentage of time that the processor spends in various C-states. Because… as we all know… processor efficiency is crucial to battery life.
Where could such a meme have come from? Who could have promoted it?
And if ARM machines did threaten to really become popular… could the meme return?
Edited 2009-12-08 01:22 UTC
Not crucial, no, but important part of the complex puzzle.
Funny though that processor power efficiency is a big thing for Intel, which is to be partly blamed for the ACPI specifications, which is behind the C-states, which is largely developed by Intel people in the Linux world.
Liked your irony.
Not that complex. Just note the component in the laptop that requires a fan, and the area of the laptop’s bottom surface which burns your privates off if you sit it in the wrong place.
Guess what? It’s not the screen. And it’s not the memory. And it’s not the MB chipset. The HD used to be siginificant. But they got a lot better. And newer SSD drives just sit there, cool as can be, laptop mode or no.
It’s that little thingy with the loud fan, and that has a billion transistors in it, does the actual “computing”, and slow roasts your drumsticks on the plane, that drains your batteries.
Edited 2009-12-08 17:48 UTC
It depends, if you want to run a fullscreen video on your netbook and you don’t have ARM’s offloading to a seperate chip for that and do the decoding on the CPU instead. You will use a lot more CPU and power.
And that’s just an example of how ARM should in theory work better for these things.
Quite seriously, I prefer a combination of Linux with a Solid State Drive, rather than XP with a normal laptop hard drive. I upgraded my original eee 701 to Ubuntu 9.10 and with no RAM upgrade (still the original 512Mb) and just a 4Gb SSD, 9.10 is still fast and responsive. Try emulating *that* with XP or Windows 7.
Generally speaking, XP on netbooks with an Atom CPU, 1Gb of RAM and an ordinary drive is pretty slow, whereas Linux on the same machine is faster and much more responsive.
Now I’m not a Linux fanboy per se. I use Windows on my desktop PCs, for the applications and games. However, as my netbook is only used for simple tasks I really don’t see the point in paying for Windows+Office+antivirus when Linux+OpenOffice works well enough that you can get by. All I want to do is browse the web over 3G, edit a few Word and Excel documents, and maybe play the occasional movie file.
I’ve seen Windows 7 on a netbook and it is better than XP speed-wise. However, the Starter edition doesn’t do much for me, and the cost of upgrading to Professional is excessive considering the total cost of the original package (A$500 or so).
Edited 2009-12-08 01:56 UTC
I have a Netbook, and it came to me without an OS. So I decided for kicks to put on Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Quite impressive actually.
What has me impressed:
1) Suspend works! Windows 7 to this day cannot get it right. I close the lid, system goes on standby, I open the lid system starts up again. I want this to work in a couple of seconds not MINUTES…
2) Battery power. Linux just uses the CPU much more efficiently. It was told me that the netbook could get max about an hour. I regularly get three to four. And when I wanted to install Windows 7 I heard the fan for the first time.
Not to say that I don’t like Windows 7. I use it on my desktop all the time and an quite happy. But for a netbook Microsoft f***d up, and remains f****d up.
Just this past weekend, my frustrated sister decided to ditch her EeePC 900, which had an Atom processor, 1 GB of RAM, a 16 GB SSD hard disk, and…Windows XP Home! She was experiencing major slowdowns and frequent bouts of non-responsiveness with the system. Apparently the system would go on coffee break every few moments which was hella annoying! I took in this discarded machine, wiped it clean of Windows, and installed eeebuntu 3.0 from scratch using EXT2 (non-journaling filesystem.) Eeebuntu 3.0 is an Ubuntu 9.04 variant designed for EeePC netbooks and ships with either traditional Gnome or Netbook remix interfaces. The result of a half hours work is a highly responsive, lightening fast system that sports Compiz-Fusion, Firefox 3.5, Openoffice 3.1 and myriad of free OSS software right out of the box. I’m donating this machine to another sister who has no computer at the moment and I’m sure she’ll be thrilled. Netbooks function very well with Linux but no so well with Windows. I can’t say if Windows 7 Starter improves the situation but the difference in performance between Windows XP and eeebuntu on the EeePC 900 is like night and day! I have faith that my (mostly computer illiterate) sister will easily browse the Internet, check her e-mail and do light office chores just fine on this computer; without knowing that Linux is at the heart of it. Do people really insist on using Windows on an underpowered netbook, and willingly put up with it’s many inherent problems, just to get access to a desktop environment they’re used to seeing and also their precious Office and other proprietary apps? It seems to me the trade-offs of running Windows on netbooks simply isn’t worth it.
Edited 2009-12-08 02:47 UTC
I’m almost afraid to ask this… but why?
Journalling filesystems write journals to disk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalling_filesystem
That doesn’t fit well for an SSD, which uses flash, which in turn has a constraint (limitation) on the number of writes.
SSD disks should be mounted “noatime” for the same reason (a desire to reduce the number of writes to SSD).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fstab
I can see that you are parroting what you’ve heard. Yes, ext3 journals metadata by default. Yes, current flash can “wear out” after some 100,000 write cycles or so. But have you ever actually worked out an estimate as to just what the practical implications of that are over the expected lifetime of a mobile device? I have. Taking into account wear leveling, the SSD will likely outlast the rest of the hardware, and/or your desire to keep the device rather than moving to something less ancient in the future… whether or not you use journaling. And in typical use, swap. Keep in mind that a typical 40GB SSD is good for about 4 million gigabytes (4,000 terabytes, or 4 petabytes) of total writes. That’s one hell of a lot of journalled *metadata*.
There is no need for people to eschew the last 10+ years of Linux filesystem development by using ext2 in order to “save their SSDs”.
Now, the whole atime issue has always been ridiculous. By that, I don’t mean turning it off is ridiculous. I mean that atime was an amazingly brain-dead idea to start with, no matter what back end storage you are using for your fs. This was fixed a couple of years ago when “relatime” replaced atime as the default in ext3. (Note that noatime will break programs like Mutt, but that relatime won’t, while still eliminating most of the inanity and inefficiency of atime.) So in relatively modern distros, mucking about with atime doesn’t make much difference.
Enjoy modern filesystems, people! And stop sagely passing all this alarmist misinformation back and forth.
Do I practice what I preach? My SSD-equipped netbook runs ext4, set to “data=journal” mode and with barriers turned on. When I save a document on my mobile devices… I mean I want it saved now.
Edited 2009-12-08 14:47 UTC
Ted T’so did some actual testing, BTW. (What a concept!) Comparing ext2 and ext3 on a write intensive workload of git clone, make, make clean, results in only about a 9% higher write load for ext3:
http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2009/03/01/ssds-journaling-and-noatimer…
Edited 2009-12-08 15:23 UTC
Solid state drive. I figured, why not minimize the amount of writing in any little way I can.
“…their precious Office and other proprietary apps?”
This seems a bit condescending to users and also manages to miss the point of an OS all together. The OS is supposed to provide a platform for the user to run the applications they wish to run. Would you switch to a platform that did not allow you to run the applications you wished to run?
The implication you seem to be making is that people are too ignorant to know that superior programs exist to the programs they are already using. There is just a chance, you know, that people may be using programs they find suit their needs best, just as you are presumably using the software you find suits your own needs best. You might presume the same for them.
That does not insist that they _are_ using the software that best suits them, as that is very difficult to determine objectively. It is quite possible that other, better software exists for them. The same is possible for anyone, however, no matter their level of experience. There is a simply a lot of software out there, and it is constantly changing, as are the requirements which any user has of it.
You might pause to consider for a moment that you may have this backwards.
Isn’t an application or service supposed to run on the platforms on which customers may wish to run it?
How is it acceptable to allow Microsoft to tie the purchase of one product (Office) to the purchase of another (Windows)? Isn’t that product tying?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_tying
“Some kinds of tying, especially by contract, have historically been regarded as anti-competitive practices. The basic idea is that consumers are harmed by being forced to buy an undesired good (the tied good) in order to purchase a good they actually want (the tying good), and so would prefer that the goods be sold separately. The company doing this bundling may have a significantly large market share so that it may impose the tie on consumers, despite the forces of market competition. The tie may also harm other companies in the market for the tied good, or who sell only single components.”
Would you switch to an application that tried to dictate the platform(s) on which you were allowed to run it?
That is all fair enough, however, once you divorce it from the initial assumption.
Would you switch to an application that tried to dictate the platform(s) on which you were allowed to run it?
If the application did what I need it to do and the alternatives weren’t good enough, then yes.
OK, can you name something valid for which this is the case for a typical users use cases on netbooks?
Netbook use cases: surf the web, email, IM, take some notes, listen to music, manage/display your photos from your camera or phone … where is the problem?
You can do all that and much more out of the box with a Linux netbook. Not so with a Windows netbook, half of that would require additional software (and if you don’t watch it with commercial applications, you can very easily end up spending the entire cost of the netbook over again).
Edited 2009-12-08 04:49 UTC
This is the big problem.
You can not go and tell people what the use cases of their computers are supposed to be!
No-one wants to do that … but the machines themselves dictate to some extent what they can be reasonably used for.
For example: it just doesn’t make sense to buy a netbook if your purpose for having a machine is to run Autocad or Photoshop.
However, if your purpose for a machine just happens to be to have a cheap ultra-portable small lightweight device with which you can “surf the web, email, IM, take some notes, listen to music, manage/display your photos from your camera or phone” … then you could well be looking at a netbook machine.
In that case … then Linux on a netbook fits the bill for you. Admirably. Inexpensively.
Completely and utterly wrong. Even XP includes software to do all of the tasks that you mentioned.
Surf the web for rich media content? Nope, need a plugin (and even then javascript performance will suck). Photo editor (e.g. with red-eye reduction and colour balance filters)? Nope, need an extra application. Phone integration? Nope, need a driver (oops, the driver is on a CD, and it was an XP driver so doesn’t work with Windows 7 anyway). iPod integration? Nope, need an itunes download. Listen to Music? Maybe, but not if it encoded as Vorbis or flac. Play a video? Maybe, if it is not theora. Open an ODF file or create a PDF file from your Office suite? Nope, not without third-party extras.
Vector graphics application? Nope, you have to find one and download it. Web site creation application? Nope, same story.
IM Client? AFAIK, not installed by default. Office suite? Nope, you have to get one and install it yourself as an extra (it will cost you heaps if you choose one from Microsoft). PIM, with email? Nope, extra.
Desktop widgets? Nope, not with XP Home. Join a Windows domain? Nope, not with XP Home. Set the background picture? Nope, not with Windows 7 starter on a netbook. Multiple desktops? Nope. Clipboard history? Nope. Install/Remove applications (package manager) with thousands of applications? Nope.
So your main point is that IF I know the name of the application I look for (synaptic descriptions are sometimes just awful btw), I have to type it in apt instead of googling it.
Cool. That gained me 10 minutes. Now I can spend 2 days trying to run double screen reliably
Or write a script to connect to my complex WPA2 work network.
The funniest thing though, is you using “I can join windows domains” as an argument. And how does that even fit in your precious “netbook use cases”? In between casual emailing and facebooking by the profane?
Edited 2009-12-08 22:53 UTC
Package managers all have search by package name, by description or by “section” (e.g. Office apps are in a section).
Want a video player for your Linux desktop? Open the package manager, hit the search button, type in “video player” … you will be shown four or five to choose from, all with descriptions, (and end user rankings for some package managers).
Choose one, select it for installation, click “apply”.
Done in 30 seconds.
It works for the easy things tbh. Specific apps can barely be found that way if you don’t know their names, which brings us right back to Google. You focus on “app finding” which imo is very secondary to app upgrade in a package manager environment, but hey, not the first time you’d be a lil’ bit lost in your bashing. To find an app, a package manager is really not much faster than google.
May we see your suspend/resume windows 7 issue crap too? The only reference I have is on an RC. I don’t know the state of ACPI in Linux nowadays, but it was pretty crappy even recently.
S3 (RAM) works good, and has for some time. S4 (disk) is still…eh, mostly there, if you get the right kernel, but not many dev types make it a priority.
I guess you could if you like, but most other people would just spend 2 minutes in Network Manager. If you have complex things like cisco VPNs Network Manager will be much easier to use than the equivalent winddows VPN client.
Well, perhaps you want to save that file you got in a mail from your boss on your company network.
Nice attempt at shifting the goal posts, since you didn’t say anything about rich media content originally.
Wrong again, unless you’re going to try to claim that Windows Media isn’t “rich media content.”
Another backpedal: all you wrote before was “manage/display your photos.”
And you didn’t mention ANY of those previously. Is there any relevance, or are you just flailing around to distract from the fact that you can’t backup your original claims?
You’re really starting to grasp at straws. Thankfully, Microsoft has a little more sense than to waste time and money on supporting obscure, barely-used formats.
Wow, look at those goalposts go!
I love the way that whenever someone points out reasons to use Windows, your “alternatives” are almost always less-convenient and less-usable (sorry to break it to you, but not everyone wants to bend over backwards just for the “privilege” of using Linux). And yet you apparently think that the 2 minutes it takes to download and install something like CutePDF is some sort of unbearable hardship.
At this point, the only way you could move the goal posts any further is to launch them into orbit.
Wrong yet again, Windows messenger has been included since XP was first released.
Buwahahaha! Are you kidding? If Microsoft were to include Outlook and the rest of Office with Windows, we all know that it would take about 2 seconds for the Anything-But-Microsoft drones to start whining and crying about antitrust and anti-competitive practices.
Hell, you were one who was recently trying to claim that Office is illegally “tied” to Windows because that’s the OS it’s designed to run on (which is wrong). Make up your mind!
And you’ve now moved the goalposts beyond the orbit of Pluto, maybe you should have just attached them to the Voyager probes.
Deflection. Surfing the modern web with XP Home’s default browser (IE6) is an exercise in frustration.
Windows Media needs a plugin (that being Windows Media Player) to play in IE6.
What did you imagine that “managing” your photos meant?
I said “listen to music”. A lot of people do that on a device like an iPod. I said “manage/display your photos from your camera or phone” … which means integration (typically via USB, but it could be via bluetooth) with your camera and/or phone.
Sure there is. The things, relevant to using a netbook, that XP Home cannot do by default could fill a book. Maybe a whole library.
Pffft.
I’d venture to suggest that there is more Vorbis and Flac in use than wma. Theora is now playable without a plugin in Firefox, and sites like these are taking advantage of it (in conjunction with HTML5, which is yet another thing that XP Home cannot do by default):
http://openvideo.dailymotion.com/en
http://tinyvid.tv/
making Theora more relevant to the modern web than wmv.
There is more ODF on the net than OOXML (because there is no OOXML) and .docx.
Yes, sorry about that. “Things that XP Home cannot do by default” is such a rich and wide field that I got carried away.
Not the point. If one had to download software for a Linux netbook, you would be the first to point it out.
It is therefore perfectly valid for me to point out that you gett all of these things installed for you if you get a netbook with a proper Linux pre-installed, say from here:
http://www.zareason.com/shop/product.php?productid=16216
(my recommendation would be to change the default OS from Ubuntu 9.10 to Kubuntu 9.10)
http://www.zareason.com/shop/pages.php?pageid=4
Perfect. Just what you want.
So are you claiming that having capable software ready to use out of the box on their new netbook would not be a good thing for a consumer?
Sounds like a very, very self-serving concept to me, Mr BallmerKnowsBest.
Aside: If you can bring in strawman arguments, why can’t I?
Not much help if your IM buddies are on another protocol, such as any of most of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopete#Protocols
Kopete is quite the communicator:
http://kopete.kde.org/
Windows ships with a lock-in IM application. Typical.
Strawman. Not the point.
It doesn’t matter one whit to the average Joe/Jo consumer who is buying a netbook. What matters to the purchase is that this one:
http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2009/05/07/U…
comes with a good Office Suite and heaps of other great netbook-suitable desktop applications included (pre-installed for him/her) and that this one doesn’t:
http://www1.ap.dell.com/au/en/home/notebooks/laptop-inspiron-10/pd….
What is it with you and strawman arguments? There is no conflict in anything I actually said. I am pointing out here what one (as a consumer) gets included in the price when one buys a Linux netbook vs a XP Home netbook.
I don’t see anyone offering Windows netbooks with full Office Suite included in the price … and that is because the price would be horrendous.
So I am just helping people to compare apples with apples … to consider what they get when they buy, and what extra it might cost them.
It is all still valid when you are comparing what one gets with one’s netbook purchase. For people considering purchasing an XP Home netbook and then investing a lot of their time trying to find and download free applications (including OpenOffice) from the net in order try to bring it up to the standard of a Linux netbook at the same price, they will find that the things in my text which you have quoted above will still be missing (after much effort on their part) on an XP Home netbook.
Sucks to be you, Mr BallmerKnowsSquat.
Edited 2009-12-11 11:13 UTC
“Isn’t an application or service supposed to run on the platforms on which customers may wish to run it?â€
Not really. It is supposed to provide the functionality that the customer needs or wants. The platform is largely irrelevant except in so far as it facilitates providing that functionality. The two naturally have overlap. For example, I may need some kind of internal site which uses NIS authentication. Well, the extent to which the platform works with NIS may influence how useful it is to me, but at the end of the day it is still the functionality of the site that I want, not the platform. Or, perhaps I have many servers of a certain type, and I need another server to do perform a new task. Introducing a new, unrelated OS to my network may raise the costs to provide that new functionality so much that it is less attractive than it otherwise would be, so I may prefer it to have it run on my existing platform. I may even pay someone to make it run on my platform if I find that more efficient than maintaining the two platforms side by side. Again, it isn’t the platform that I care about; it is about providing the functionality I want in the most effective manner.
Taking your argument that it is “supposed†to run where customers “may wish to run it†to its conclusion, doesn’t that mean that all software must run on all OSs and all architectures, and the cross product of the two? And at that not just all OSs, but all versions of all OSs that any person might conceivably wish to use? If the application I want to use does not run on Haiku and Windows 7, for example, that is the application maker’s fault, and it is a bad application, because I, as a customer, may like to use it both places?
“How is it acceptable to allow Microsoft to tie the purchase of one product (Office) to the purchase of another (Windows)? Isn’t that product tying?â€
I suppose if one admits as a condition of acceptableness that every application must run everywhere, then it would be unacceptable. If it is OK that an application is able to run only on a subset of everywhere, then it may very well be acceptable. If your complaint is narrow, and that the problem is software that only runs on a single “where†(eg, only on Windows), it does not even apply to your example, as Office runs on at least two: Windows and Mac. Some people do argue it runs better on Windows than Mac, but if that is an objection, you’ve made the “everywhere†argument even stronger than simply running everywhere. Now, to be acceptable, software must not only run everywhere, but provide an equal experience everywhere that it runs.
Following these criteria strictly, I think you will have a very difficult time finding “acceptable†software.
That’s not product tying. They sell Office for Mac as well.
LOL! Whatever you’re smoking, I’ll take $50 worth.
Too bad you didn’t bother to read the first paragraph of the wikipedia link, the part where it says:
Or the next sentence, that says:
No, you have this backwards. OS is (mostly) irrelevant. It’s all about the needed apps. Period.
An OS is useless without apps, and a lousy OS is useful if it’s got that important app you need to run.
All this “My OS is bigger than your OS! WHIP IT OUT AND SHOW ME!” BS is by people who don’t do anything important on their computer.
The problem is the SSD. They use cheap SSDs in those netbooks and XP has to be tweaked for them.
But yes Office is precious to some people since for some their job depends on it. OpenOffice is a decent alternative for the price but can’t be trusted to provide 100% compatibility.
There also isn’t a full replacement for itunes in Linux. So yes people will choose a platform simply for the applications. That’s why I prefer the iphone to everything else.
Amarok will manage your music collection on your netbook better than itunes, and it will work with your ipod (mp3 files). The only thing it won’t let you do is spend money at an itunes store online … so buy a CD online (and then rip it to mp3) instead. That is perfectly legal in my country … I am allowed to format shift and play my legally purchased music wherever I wish.
Problem solved.
Want to play the latest military shooter?
Just join the Army. Problem solved.
Anyways people use itunes for more than music. With a single account you can buy music, watch tv and rent movies.
Did you get booted from Slashdot or something?
On a netbook? No.
My ISP has a service called “unmetered content”. I can watch tv-on-demand from that service for free, out of the box, on my Linux netbook machine.
There is a video store two blocks from where I live. It is far faster for me to walk to the video store and rent a DVD if I want to legally watch a movie on demand. I won’t mention k9copy in this context, either.
Did you swallow a lemon or something?
Edited 2009-12-08 05:45 UTC
Oh I thought we were talking about netbooks which is what people take when they are away from home.
So when you are on vacation do you just spend your time trying to convert the natives?
Anyways I have my own alternative to itunes.
I have a VHS collection that I just take with me in a duffle bag. I hacked a portable VCR and though it sucks power I hooked up a generator to my bike so I can get exercise while watching the breakfast club. Try doing that with Windoze.
Linux4Eva.
What the hell are you on about?
There is no advantage in respect of portability when using itunes.
Edited 2009-12-08 05:56 UTC
Right, no advantage in being able to rent the latest movies for 24 hours with the same account that you buy music with.
People don’t actually like watching movies on planes.
YouDon’tNeedThat(tm).
You know, iTunes isn’t the only way to watch videos on a lap-top or netbook. I have something like four seasons of Dr. Who and all of MST3K’s ten seasons — and a bunch of other stuff I’ve forgotten — as simple AVIs. That play just fine on my Ubuntu lap-top. This may be something of a shock, but it’s entirely possible for me to “watch those movies on the plane” without iTunes! I just take an AVI, copy it over to my Linux lap-top (or just take the external USB drive that those movies live on with me), and watch that video on that lap-top at any later time.
If you have a lot of Office documents that OO.o can’t open correctly, or if you have a lot of media purchased through iTunes, that you need iTunes in order to play, then by all means, use Windows or OS X on your lap-top. But not everybody has those constraints.
Linux can play AVI files? I guess I somehow missed learning about that when I ran it as a server OS. Amazing.
So where do you get *legal* avi files of the latest movies and TV shows?
You guys can downplay itunes all you want but every person I know under 35 uses it and would be more than willing to pay extra for a netbook that comes with it. College students get ipods for Christmas which then hooks them on itunes. I’d rather the #1 content provider be independent of Apple and MS but that is not the reality that we live in. Google is already making a huge mistake by underestimating its importance.
Format shift from a rented DVD would be the easiest way to get such a file. Perfectly legal here to watch a legally obtained copy of a movie in any way that I please. It is also quicker to get hold of than downloading, and less expensive (for lots of movies) than the Internet bandwidth.
But, if you can access the DVD, then why not just play it directly? VLC will do that for you just fine. This does require a DVD drive, however, so if you want to watch the movie later while you are on the go, format shifting it could be the best option.
Handbrake or DVD::rip should be able to do it for you just fine.
If you have the spare storage sapce, however, why not just copy the entire DVD to an .iso file? VLC will play that .iso for you later as well.
PS: we are talking here about format shifting and timeshifiting a legally obtained movie. Don’t offer such files to anyone else … that isn’t legal.
Edited 2009-12-09 02:24 UTC
The longer we can keep that crowd out of Linux, the better ;-).
That’s a very valid point. And yeah, I see the winkie. But “Who do we want to use Linux?” is a very valid question. Too often, people just gloss over it, assuming that it is resolved. And that other Linux folks agree with them that ‘everybody should be using it’, or ‘only people who are willing to RTFM should be using it’, or ‘only grey-beards who had written at least one terminfo entry before 1985 should be using it’. (Some might further require that the terminfo entry in question handle magic-cookie glitches.)
I think I would gladly accept those who have used iTunes who are willing to repent. But those who insist upon continuing to use it, I’d have to think about. 😉
Edited 2009-12-09 22:10 UTC
I’m thinking more of ethical, rather than technical sophistication. Even if those often go hand-in-hand.
Linux should be “for everyone” in a good sense (regardless of income, color, geography blah blah), but I’d gladly go without “my dad bought me ipod i can haz music on it lol” crowd. Let them stick with windows 7 please.
Do they? Anyway, that’s another valid dimension that I didn’t include. Many (most?) people arrived in our OSS community via an ethical vector. They used to use Windows but were attracted to OSS for ethical reasons.
I’m a Unix guy first and foremost. I believe in the Unix philosophy, and didn’t really discover OSS and Linux until about 1996. I knew about them a couple of years earlier, but it wasn’t until 1996 that it was really ready enough for me to use and promote. I arrived via the ‘Love of Unix’ vector, seeing that Linux was going to be the big winner because it was doing so many things right traditional Unixes never had. And I came to appreciate the ethical outlook of OSS from ‘the other direction’, so to speak.
I wonder if that doesn’t sometimes put me at odds with some others in the community, who arrived here via the other vector.
Edited 2009-12-09 22:25 UTC
Me too. And while it was this love that brought me to Linux, it is precisely also this love that pushed me away from Linux.
Every passing day Linux is more and more like Windows, replicating all the mistakes Microsoft did in its way.
I find myself thinking somewhat differently. Although I would selfishly prefer to keep Linux as I like it… I know, in my heart of hearts, that I must sacrifice my only son in order to save the sinful and unwashed masses. Which is a really weird feeling to have when one is an Atheist. The Humanist in me, I guess…
Edited 2009-12-09 22:46 UTC
If people have tied themselves to iTunes and the iTunes store, then so be it, and there is no alternative to that on Linux.
You are arguing that “well then, people should change the way they do things so they CAN use linux instead of Windows or Mac OS X,” perhaps without knowing it.
How do they obtain their figures? Call retail stores and ask for their sales data? Manufacturers? Some sort of industry-wide nightly feeds?
Things I noticed on their site: Of all their management and analyst employees, only 1/5 are female – none of them in management positions. There is also very little (apparent) racial diversity.
They do not mention any of their customers, neither do they (as far as I can see) offer even a brief explanation of how they obtain their data for their quantitative trend analysis.
http://www.abiresearch.com/about.jsp
Sounds like the Motortrend of consulting firms, the newest and flashiest gets the “car of the year” award even if it is not deserving.
“ABI did not publicly break out sales by specific segment or operating system, but a ComputerWorld story by Eric Lai quotes ABI analyst Jeff Orr as saying that the study shows that 32 percent (about 11 million netbooks) of this year’s netbook shipments will be used with a Linux-based operating system.”
I don’t know, this all sounds bogus.
How well does desktop Linux ARM work? I bet not as good as x86….
Why would you say that? It’s not as though you’ll have to give up much, if any, of the Linux software you’re used to. It would depend greatly on the particular ARM chip used and any accelerator chips included with it. Linux running on, say, an iPhone for example wouldn’t run nearly as well as it would on an ARM Cortex A8. With the right setup, it would sure blow Atom out of the water. ARM and X86 are both architectures, so you can’t compare one to the other without comparing specific chips or chip families.
The iPhone 3GS is using a Cortex-A8
GCC supports ARM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Compiler_Collection#Architectures
FOSS packages are, for the most part, written to be compiled by GCC.
FOSS packages (including Linux itself) are OPEN SOURCE … and therefore the source code is available. To anyone. There are perhaps as many as a hundred thousand or so such packages. Most of them will run on ARM with just a re-compile, but some might require a bit more effort than that to port.
The best ARM specification AFAIK is a 2GHz dual core part, that uses about 1 watt.
http://www.arm.com/news/25922.html
http://www.desinformado.com/2009/09/arm-launched-the-2ghz-cortex-a9…
For a netbook, this part should blow Atom out of the water.
Edited 2009-12-08 10:53 UTC
In that regard I would say: It depends.
It will depend on the application selected for comparison, which peripheral chips are used (northbridge, RAM, GPU).
OOo for example still is sensitive to upstart time, so it depends on processor power during random hard disk read access. If the ARM platform can handle such a scenario well, it will be good, if not, Atom will still be faster even at far lower clock speeds.
Nice to see MS isn’t totally dominating a computer platform somewhere. Anything to start getting people away from being forced to pay the MS tax (which anti trust should have dealt with decisively) is IMHO a very good thing.
Linux distros have really gotten a kick in the pants to make something real starting with this netbook revolution.
or at least a hide lemur2 thread.
You have to wonder what a person like that achieves in a day when they spend so much time squatting on a thread on a personal crusade to browbeat any Linux detractors into submission.
And with fud too.