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Re: [News] GNU/Linux Sub-notebooks in the News Again, Good Year Ahead



Homer wrote:
Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
____/ Megabyte on Tuesday 30 December 2008 23:53 : \____
Roy Schestowitz wrote:

[snip Ubuntu Netbooks deal]

Isn't this similar to what someone else advocated here recently and
was labeled a troll? ;-)
How so?

He was arguing that Linux Netbooks need (in his opinion) to be preloaded
with "full" distros, rather than "locked down" interfaces, and also that
they were disadvantaged compared to XP Netbooks, because of the PDA-like
perception people have of them, and the use of SSDs instead of HDDs.

My argument was that more Linux Netbooks could be sold by OEM's if they had full Linux distributions and were offered on the same hardware as the Netbooks with XP. The SSD vs HDD issue is one of personal preference, there are advantages and disadvantages to both, my point was that to my knowledge you can't presently buy a Netbook from most OEM's with a HDD and Linux. Therefore anyone needing the higher storage capacity of a HDD can not presently buy a Linux model. If you would like to argue this puts Linux at an advantage because it is usually only offered on the lower capacity SSD models, okay. If you would like to argue that a Linux interface that someone can, albeit inaccurately, perceive to limit their ability to add or remove applications as an advantage, okay.

IIRC he was "labeled[sic] a troll" because every one of those assertions
is false, and so his rants on the subject were considered FUD.

I showed several comments from Amazon that supported the perception people had with the factory installed version of Linux which in many cases was replaced with full Ubuntu or another distribution. If folks familiar enough with Linux that they could install another distribution have the perception that the factory installed distribution offers less than a full distribution what is Joe Consumer who has no previous knowledge of Linux going to perceive? In contrast, the version of XP Home on a Netbook is the same version of XP Home on their home computer so they perceive no difference. While I agree that the factory installed interface makes the Linux Netbooks simple for a novice to use, that simplification can also give the perception, arguably falsely, that you can't add programs as easy as you can with a full distribution or with XP. That perception, accurate or inaccurate, can result in fewer sales.

I think the whole issue here is that you and Terry seem to have viewed my criticism of how OEM's are marketing Linux as a slam against Linux. It was never intended as one.

What Megabyte fails to realise is that this Ubuntu deal will not produce
Netbooks preinstalled with a "full distro", but just yet another "locked
down" interface called "Ubuntu Netbook Remix", which is just Canonical's
proprietary (codecs) version of Ubuntu customised for small displays (or
what Megabyte calls "locked-down").

The article which was the basis of this thread spoke of "Ubuntu" *not* "Ubuntu Netbook Remix." Having not used Ubuntu Netbook Remix, does it initially hide the user from the ability to install or remove apps or does it have the same add\remove options that exist in Ubuntu?

Certainly those /codecs/ are "locked down", as they are proprietary, but
the GUI is just a Window Manager, not entirely dissimilar to any other -
except smaller, and ultimately replaceable by the user (as is everything
else in GNU/Linux, including those proprietary Fluendo codecs).


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