Differing trends for Linux on netbooks [LWN.net]

There appear to be some opposing trends involving Linux on Netbooks. PC World's article Netbooks Will Boost Adoption of Linux, Says Novell CTO notes: "A surge in demand for netbooks is helping drive business for Linux, as the devices are designed to be low-cost with smaller storage, according to Novell's chief technology and strategy officer for Linux. " People typically don't care what operating system is on the netbooks, because they don't buy them to run a suite of applications like Microsoft Office, but to be on the Web using a Web browser," Nat Friedman said in an interview with IDG News Service."

Laptop Mag's article Ubuntu Confirms Linux Netbook Returns Higher than Anticipated quotes Canonical's marketing manager Gerry Carr: "We dont know what the XP return rates are. But I will say that the return rate is above normal for netbooks that offer open-source operating systems, Carr echoed. Carr highlighted a few reasons why Ubuntu-running netbooks are returned more often. Unclear selling is happening, typically online. The customer will get their netbook sent to their home and they imagine to find something like a Microsoft desktop, but they see a brown Ubuntu version. They are unwilling to learn it and they were expecting to have Windows."

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Unlikely to be opposing trends

Posted Oct 9, 2008 20:53 UTC (Thu) by ayeomans (guest, #1848) [Link] (2 responses)

The return rates only measure the people who didn't like it. But even if the return rate is as high as 10%, that means that 90% liked it. Leading to the headline "Nine times more people like Linux than dislike it".

Pinch of salt is needed with the original comments - Andy Tung should have come out with the absolute return rate. And there was no examination of root cause - was it just poor or misleading marketing by the manufacturer?

Unlikely to be opposing trends

Posted Oct 10, 2008 8:48 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

The real numbers are probably commercial secrets. Particularly if they're significantly different to the numbers vendors in other sectors are used to. They're not the "secret sauce" but they are valuable information.

It would be interesting to see what figures looked like for Zeta, a BeOS derivative (which subsequently turned out to be unlicensed, but that's not the story we're interested in here) which was sold into the general consumer market via TV shopping channels. Initially high sales figures were quoted for Zeta but that didn't translate into money to keep the company behind it alive. Obviously there could be lots of reasons for that, but a high return rate would certainly help explain it. I've heard rumours that many customers felt it hadn't been clear enough what they were getting. Unlike these "netbooks" the Zeta OS was mostly sold as a pure software package, so presumably no-one was expecting Windows.

Of course it could just be that other characteristics are different in either the Linux-wanting community (e.g. Linux users expect hardware to feel well-built, find the netbook cheap-feeling and return it, or Linux users are more likely to take advantage of "no questions asked" return policies to try out products from a bricks and mortar store) or among people who emphasise price and might thus buy a Linux netbook because it was $10 cheaper than the Windows version. But in a commercial sense this doesn't matter - this is an unexpected cost and if the number crunchers decide that it's too high, no more Linux on netbooks.

Coca-Cola knew from blind testing that New Coke was better than Classic. But once it became apparent that the same customers who chose New Coke in taste tests were demanding Classic from retailers that's what Coca-Cola had to make. In this sense it's true what they say, "the customer is always right".

Unlikely to be opposing trends

Posted Oct 16, 2008 9:03 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]

By your logic, 99% of people like Windows, so there is no real need for an alternative.

How much is from closed source drivers?

Posted Oct 10, 2008 21:03 UTC (Fri) by kh (guest, #19413) [Link]

I wonder how much of the return rate is because of cheap hardware that does not have opensource drivers. I just purchased a Dell netbook for my son (still waiting on it actually) but did not purchase the Acer or earlier models because they came with odd versions of Linux (the Aspire One comes with Linpus Lite?!?) and from my research it was a days work to try to get the mic and WiFi working if you installed Ubuntu, and then I read conflicting reports about how well the mic worked. My son records simple things for band projects with Audacity, so a non working mic would have resulted in a return. So how much money did they save by going with hardware that only has closed source drivers?

Differing trends all right

Posted Oct 13, 2008 4:58 UTC (Mon) by ldo (guest, #40946) [Link]

Asus was specifically asked about this, and said no, they hadn't noticed any higher return rates for Linux.

Given that they're the biggest netbook supplier, and 40% of their little beasties ship with Linux, I'd say MSI's return rate is entirely MSI's fault, and if it doesn't do something about that, it'll be pushed aside by competitors that will.

Differing trends for Linux on netbooks

Posted Oct 15, 2008 7:39 UTC (Wed) by wawjohn (guest, #509) [Link]

Well, I finally got my MSI Wind with a French keyboard, which I had to
order from France. I didn't want to get an XP version here in Belgium, so
I ordered a SuSE Linux version online from a French supplier.

Well, even though I used SuSE since version 5 something, I was
disappointed with the SuSE Linux Enterprise desktop 10 version installed
on the Wind. First of all, it screwed up the keyboard layout on setup (I
want the French keyboard with
English main language), but hey, I wanted a non-standard setup, and I can
deal with it. But the kicker was that the built-in wireless (RTL8199)
isn't supported for WPA, and the webcam doesn't work.

In other words, the SuSE version on the Wind is a slapped-on
afterthought, not a linux version prepared specifically for the MSI Wind.
To make things worse, the installed SusE Entreprise 10 only comes with 60
days update support.

It was no big deal for me to install Kubuntu 8.10 beta, and hack things
up the way I like them. I've ordered an Intel wireless card, and I've not
had time to set up the webcam yet. As a Linux geek, I think the MSI Wind
is great value for money for my needs.

But for a normal user, buying the MSI Wind to be directly usable, the
choice of an old, non-customized, non-appliance oriented, "demoware"
60-day trial SuSE Linux distribution is pretty useless, and I can easily
see why returns are higher than for the eeePC with a customized appliance
interface, ready to work out of the box.

So in this particular case, it seems that the underlying problem is the
effort that the manufacturer is willing to make to get a linux version
properly adapted to the hardware they're selling. For MSI, the effort is
insufficient.