Microsoft cries netbook victory against Linux

OSX again!

Like someone else up here I bought a Dell Mini 9 with only one idea: to get OSX on it. I ran into some trouble installing it at first, but now it works like a dream. With some rough edges, but still quite dreamy. Now I have a small light portable and affordable Mac (in addition to my iMac at home) for on the go. If you look at the MyDellMini forums you can see a LOT of people installing OSX on it, so if 16% of the people buy a Linux netbook, then I would posit that at least another 20% go to OSX netbooks. As soon as Apple comes out with an ARM based OSX laptop, complete with app store, they will demolish any marketshare that Windows now might enjoy.

Lockin

I would have loved a quick booting, long battery life, cheap linux eeePC, however one of the main considerations was to run my memorymap 3d mapping and walk planning software on it while sat in a tent. Unfortunatly this software only runs on windows. So I had to get a windows one.

That is why MS worries so much about obtaining an over 90% market share. They need to ensure developers never see market sense in developing drivers/software for linux. As soon as a windows competitor gets say a 10% market share it may be econmically viable for a software house to build two versions. Then it is a slippery slope as a wave of people itching to leave the horrible buggy world of windoze but are locked in by apps or drivers finally can.

@jay019

"I also see they have changed the EULA so we couldnt even get a refund for the crud we didnt want."

Huh, what? You can't claim a refund from the retailer for an unused MS license?

Reg! We need this investigated!

RE: Pocket sized netbook

It's called a BlackBerry. It's already fully compatible by design with M$ Office, it is secure and employs the best encrypted push email solution available, and is a decent phone too. For years I have used a BlackBerry with a number of external keyboards (via mini-USB) to complete real MS documents out on the road. I've tried BB-compatible mini keyboards, a folding keyboard, a roll-up keyboard, even tried an inflatible keyboard (not a success!). The iBone is just playing catch-up.

If I have the space or desire to carry a netbook then it is only slightly more effort to carry around a proper laptop, which offers a better screen (nice for DVDs) and much better performance, with much larger drives allowing dual- or even triple-boot options. With a BlackBerry available for when the laptop has been left at home, I still see no reason to buy a netbook.

tmobile eee 904hd

I got my Asus EEEPC 904HD "free" for signing up for another 18 months with tmobile. It only came with Windows XP; but I just installed fedora 10 and it works out the box with the tmobile dongley things.

+1 sale for MS, +1 user for Linux, +1 for monopolistic behaviour

Linux is great - but not the ones on Natbooks

I bought an Acer Aspire One, with Linpus Linux. It was awful. I did not get the administrator password, when I created one (using Terminal) I could not download Firefox 3, searched for hours how I could upgrade to Openoffice 3, and used the Terminal for everything. In the end, I wiped it, put Xubuntu on - still had to change one driver for the wireless - and it worked.

Why do Netbook producers believe that buyers cannot be trusted with a normal version of Linux? I do not need big buttons that compartmentalise my life into "Work" and "Play" - and if they want to do that, market research would show that a specialised "Porn" button would be just as much appreciated.

Dell is right selling their Netbook with Ubuntu. That system is much, much better. If Dell wasn't so expensive.

Refunds for unused Windoze? You're having a laugh.

The hardware seller will say "The description said it included windows, if you didn't want windows you should have asked for a non-windows machine."

M$ will say "talk to your hardware seller."

Count me in with the "bought windows machine, wiped it, installed Linux" crowd.

The Power

Oh the power of effective marketing. It's not a matter of which is better, Windows or Linux, it's a matter of which is "marketed" properly to the target population. And MS is very, very good at this.

On the "home turf" of corporate marketing, Linux is at best a distant second and always will be until all the fanboys and hacks get truly organized and learn how to properly "sell" their product.

I think that's all the cliches aired now...

Linux is for geeks?

Well, yes and no. What many folk who say this sort of thing tend to forget is that, in order to run a computer properly, they need to know what they are doing. Windows is no different in this respect to Linux. I spend most of my days sorting out problems for Windows users and, believe me, the sort of questions being raised there are no different from those folks I see griping about the mysteries of Linux. Certainly, Linux was once a pretty unfriendly beast if you didn't have a solid lump of shell and admin training behind you at the very least, but there are now various distros out there that can be used by any oik. Ubuntu has already been mentioned, and I'd add a few to that, including Puppy, for example.

Linux machines being returned?

Well, I think El Reg already debunked that myth. The Microsoft pundits really need to do their homework.

Windows 7 for netbooks?

Maybe. However, I have a few niggles about that. I've been giving this "new" OS a going over and find that, although it seems to work, it is still more power/memory hungry than XP. Enough to make it unusable on a netbook? Not too sure about that. If it will run on my PIII test kit, then it may well do it, but it will be a matter of how much it can do.

Netbook is dead?

This is the clincher, though I'm not convinced that it will be the OS that kills it. One of the ideas behind the netbook originally was that it was supposed to be cheap, yet I notice that the price of so many new machines coming onto the market are such that you could go and buy a low spec laptop for close to the same money. This is what could, IMHO, kill the market.

Oh, and for the folks that are touting the ARM as a possible contender, may I just remind you of a little machine called the Acorn A4? I still have mine. It doesn't get any use these days since the PSU needs replacing. Yes, it's possible to put an ARM based machine together, but is there a will to do it?

What has he gots in his pockets, then, precious?

@Peter Day

Try using your Epson printer on Windows *WITHOUT* using the supplied CD or downloaded driver from Epson. I think you would probably have more problems than on any mainstream Linux.

Badger the printer providers to give you either an install CD for Linux, or instructions to configure the excellent built-in Linux printer subsystem (like CUPS) to work with a new printer.

Don't use different rules to compare Linux with Windows.

Mind you, I do agree on other peoples comments about Xandros. My (very early) Eeepc 701 is running Ubuntu Hardy (I've standardised on an LTS release), because I got tired of re-installing Xandros each time the UnionFS filled up. Don't think it's a generic UnionFS problem, more a problem with the way it was configured.

distro

i'm not alone in buying XP version and dual booting - the linux implementation was very poor with ubuntu eee being much better.

Bring on the touch screens and we'll see how the cheap edition of XP does.

@By Mike Kamermans

It's Steve Jobs, not Ballmer's face, that was removed as it made children cry, caused calves to be still born, bread to go mouldy and your wallet suddenly get pilfered by some bit fat bloke from Redmond with a bald head.

@The BigYin

I know what the EULA _says_.

I also know that _some_ people have managed to claw back refunds through the courts.

But frankly, although my refund claim is currently "being processed" I'm not holding my breath.

AA1 & Linpus - OK With My Kids

"I bought an Acer Aspire One, with Linpus Linux. It was awful. I did not get the administrator password, when I created one (using Terminal) I could not download Firefox 3, searched for hours how I could upgrade to Openoffice 3, and used the Terminal for everything. In the end, I wiped it, put Xubuntu on - still had to change one driver for the wireless - and it worked."

I bought the AA1, followed the tweaks given here last December, referenced sites like Macles to install other apps & left the 4 original windows.

Then bought a second AA1 & cloned it from the above.

Result:

2 AA1's configured for kids both with learning difficulties to use without problems.

No waste of printer paper\toner with them constantly printing every 5 minutes, forced them to e-mail it to me before I would print it.

Able to connect & access schools server for homework.

Skype for their friends.

Media playback.

Minimal requests for tech support from dad (see below) initially - None since January.

No pratting about with updates for AV, M$, firewalls or complaints about speed\lockups.

Administrator password is set up at initial setup & IIRC easily changed with sudo.

I do wonder how many Linux machines were reformatted with ahem illegal copies of XP.

Another

Here' s another user who was "forced" to buy XP, only to install Ubuntu (Easy Peasy 1.0, more specifically) soon after. Very pleasantly surprised by it, actually. The UI is quite nice, and I can always use the Desktop Switcher to use it as a regular desktop. But I found out there's little reason to have all that empty screen on such a small device. On the other hand, some apps (GIMP) behave a bit weirdly out of the traditional desktop mode.

Interesting, I had no clue people were installing OSX on these little beasts! That's cool.

When I got the mini-laptop, I did let it boot XP. First, I wanted to make sure the hardware had no problem, which it didn't, before I tried installing Linux (also used Asus utility for updating the BIOS). So, if the Linux install borked at some level, I would know it was not a hardware problem. Then, a quick download of Easy Peasy 1.0, install it to a USB stick and install the the Eee 1000HE. Worked perfectly, wireless, camera, everything (so it seemed at first). Later I discovered the sound was very low, but that was documented on the website for the distro, and it was easily (for me) fixed. Just in case, I let it be a dual boot option, with 10 GB for XP and the rest for Linux. You know, just in case. I'm getting about 6 hours use out of it, with WiFi on all the time. Maybe Ubuntu is not as efficient, or maybe I must lower the screen brightness to ridiculous levels, but I can't see this machine doing the 9.5 hours advertised. That said, for me 6 h is more than good enough.

Yes, as I ranted in another thread a while ago, I believe netbooks don't exist anymore. What I am typing on right now from Chicago airport is a mini-laptop. The 701 was a netbook; this is not. I'm sure both MS and the manufacturers want the netbook to disappear and the good ole days of selling fat-margin, overspecced (for most people) machines to be back. This because, as I've noticed, as many must have, a mini-laptop is enough for almost all the computer time.

Numbers Game

I still have my original Eee 701 4G around somewhere, sadly it sees nowhere near as much use as my N800. Aside from issues it has with certain websites (BBC, I'm looking at you) a version of the N800/N810 with twice the battery capacity and an 8.4" screen would be ideal. Funnily enough, that's Linux on ARM with proper industrial design and it basically 'just works'.

If only Linux had a marketing department

Most people say they want windows because they have no idea what Linux involves. Everyone I've showed the GUI on my eee pc 901 has had no problems using it at all.

@ J

The OS X on EEE PC guide. Vanilla kernel from a stock install disk, everything supported, no issues at all.

http://eeemac.blogspot.com/2009/03/install-os-x-on-eee-pc-900a-901-1000.html

BSD

Actually, I think if anything is going to take over from XP on netbooks, it will be some sort of BSD-derived OS.

NetBSD, OpenBSD and FreeBSD all have the "BSD loophole" in their licencing agreements (which pre-date the GPL): anyone is free to take the software, modify it just enough to make it thoroughly incompatible with the original and treat it as closed-source. (Back in the days, that wouldn't have been such a problem as it is today, because almost no two computers could run code compiled for each others -- so you pretty much needed the Source Code.)

Once a company is building cheap clones of first-generation ARM processors (now patent-free; and since memory has become cheap, thanks to Windows, it doesn't matter anymore about a simple MOV instruction taking 4 bytes) they can simply compile a customised BSD variant with a few applications, burn it into a non-replaceable one-time PROM and not have to worry about their competitors ripping them off. Even better, from their point of view, they can ensure *in hardware* that future versions are incompatible -- past versions of your own products are always a greatest threat than other people's products.

Just upgraded my kids eeepc701...

...to ubuntu "easypeasy" (intrepid), and it's deadly. Well done to the creators, everything works flawlessly. I never used the xandros installed distro coz it was crap.

Now I'm mosning when she asks for it bck -- stupid small keyboard...

Conor