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"not interested in desktops""not interested in desktops"Posted Sep 24, 2009 4:26 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753)Parent article: LinuxCon: Some advice from Uncle Dirk People who are buying computers now are not interested in desktops, and they do not really care about the operating system they are running. What they want is to join communities. That pretty well describes many nontechnical users I know: The browser is practically the only app they use. All the other junk in the computer is there only for supporting the browser. Given that, it is a bit mysterious why Linux failed to take off on netbooks. Maybe the unpolished bits (like clumsy network manager UIs mentioned in other responses) really mattered. Another is the fact that the "net" is not just HTML and JavaScript, but also proprietary codecs and plugins, and nontechnical users expect all these to Just Work, and have no patience for explanations about closed formats, patents and licenses.
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Microsoft threats killed the Linux netbook, not a lack of quality Posted Sep 24, 2009 4:51 UTC (Thu) by JesseW (guest, #41816) [Link]
It's not a big mystery why Linux didn't take off on netbooks. It didn't take off because Microsoft threatened the OEMs with loss of access to Micrsoft's products if they continued to offer alternatives. And the OEMs caved, because no matter how many non-MS machines they sold, they were not in a position to go cold turkey and drop all their sales of Windows. It had little to do with the quality or lack thereof of Linux, and all to do with Microsoft's market power.
I should clarify though -- the "three-click-problem" likely did play a role in the degree of sales the OEMs got, and how people liked their laptops when they got them. But without Microsoft's threats, the OEMs would have been quite willing to sell both Linux and Windows netbooks (with the Linux ones going for a significantly cheaper price, due to the lack of license fees to Microsoft). The disappearance of the Linux netbooks is due to threats, not quality issues.
Microsoft threats killed the Linux netbook, not a lack of quality Posted Sep 24, 2009 9:20 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
The also dropped Windows' price to one fourth of the original, for netbooks. Which is actually something of an advancement in its own right. Of course, the actual value of their software might be described as less than zero, but still.
Microsoft threats killed the Linux netbook, not a lack of quality Posted Sep 24, 2009 14:10 UTC (Thu) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
Except now that they've killed Linux on the netbook, they've jacked up the prices for Windows 7 "Starter" (ugh) http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/06/microsoft-c...
ARM netbooks and places like System76 continue to be our friends. Maybe we can yet keep this genie out of the bottle.
Microsoft threats killed the Linux netbook, not a lack of quality Posted Sep 24, 2009 10:39 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
Is there any hard evidence to back these allegations up? If proven, the allegations sound like the kind of thing that the US and EU antitrust regulators should be interested in.
Microsoft threats killed the Linux netbook, not a lack of quality Posted Sep 25, 2009 5:44 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] Pretty unlikely there would ever be very much hard evidence. MS probably would want to avoid that, in order not to make things too easy for antitrust officials any more. Anyway, for more allegations I found @ Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090619161307529Wondering if contacting a MEP from my country would be any good for alerting EU?
Microsoft threats killed the Linux netbook, not a lack of quality Posted Oct 2, 2009 3:44 UTC (Fri) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] It was a more complicated picture than that. Say you are a importing distributor. Do you import the Windows machine or the Linux machine? You probably don't want to import both, since that doubles the SKUs. What it really needed was a sales person to visit the distributor and make the pitch. Microsoft sent its sales people in, the Linux distribution didn't. And yeah, partly that's Asus's fault for choosing a distribution which lacks that sort of resources. The real shame is that Ubuntu 9.10 UNR on my EeePc 901 and Aspire One kicks butt. They are the best truly portable computer I've used since the Tandy Model 100, and a illustration that free software *can* do fine design and 100%-complete polish. The experience leaves Windows Xp and 7 in the dust. Canonical should be at Asus now, pitching them a change of distribution. But given the poor history of Linux sales promotion...
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