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____/ bbgruff on Friday 29 August 2008 15:03 : \____
> Dale Harris wrote:
>
>> I personally don't believe much will come of it until all hardware
>> manufacturers rally behind a single Linux distribution, namely Ubuntu. It's
>> too damn hard for ISV's to support all the different Linux distros out there
>> and software is what Linux needs. Sure, you can get any Linux package to
>> work on any Linux distro but it's not an option for non-technical users, of
>> which there are quite a number.
>
> I get the impression that the manufacturers are concentration on a very small
> number of distros, ubuntu, gOS and SUSE probably being the most obvious.
>
> Also though, I get the impression that any given manufacturer is going for
> one distro, and then starting to do a great deal of customisation on it.
> This is something that they can do with Linux, of course.
> For instance, one can have what amounts to a "Dell Linux" which is actually
> just a ubuntu derivative, but looks to be a very disinctive Dell system.
>
> I agree that there are a large number (perhaps over 90%!) of computer users
> who are non-technical, as you say. This is exactly where MS has scored to
> date by pre-installing, is it not?
> Nowadays I see Linux pre-installs coming along quite nicely....:-)
>
> From "our" point of view, of course, the fact that a given machine *can* be
> purchased with a Linux OS installed and working, pretty-well guarantees
> the "we" could install almost any other Linux distro on it. A "Linux
> friendly" sign, in fact.
>
>> Secondly, I've noticed that most manufacturers refuse to cut off the
>> Windows-road and all of these cheap laptops can still run XP if need be.
>> They could save themselves a couple of bucks by not using a BIOS, which
>> would make it nigh impossible to install Windows XP on it, yet they don't.
>
> Alternatively, they could *spend* an extra few bucks, and install an "instant
> on" Linux, which would be very secure and sufficient for most of the time
> (browsing, e-mail etc.) without even booting up the main O/S.
> I'm surprised that nobody has thought of that.........:-)
Microsoft had a similar idea for Vista, but it never took off (neither has
Vista). It's about a small display in Vista laptops. Utterly useless. Unless
your average customer is willing to buy a $2000 PC for kitsch...
- --
"There's a lot of Linux out there -- much more than Microsoft generally signals
publicly -- and their customers are using it..." --Paul DeGroot, a Directions
On Microsoft analyst.
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