Installing OSX on it

[Charbax]

avoid the 70% Asus eeePC 701 returns,

You have some kind of credible source for this claim?

It doesn't sound a completely unreasonable figure,

It is a _completely_ unreasonable figure. Anyone with a degree should be able to see that right away.

The actual return rates that were reported at 4x more Linux returns then Windows XP returns for netbooks.

http://notebooks.com/2008/10/06/linux-n ... -netbooks/

This has got absolutely nothing to do with 70% return rates. It's still a small return rate, but it's higher than the Windows XP version.

In any ways, thanks to OLPC and Netbooks, for the first time ever, Linux is in millions of shipped consumer computers. And as soon as Asus and Acer make a little effort to ship better versions of Linux it'll be in even constantly higher amount of consumer laptops.

So Linux in shipped consumer laptops went from close to 0% in 2007 to close to 5% in 2008 thanks to the netbooks coming from nowhere to rule about 15% of the laptop market. That is a huge fenomenal revolution for Linux no matter the few single digit % of these that are returned by confused consumers.

[Charbax]

I already have an XP license. If the netbook could be sold without XP (or any software) and sell for $100USD less retail, then the 10 would then be attractively priced (even in the USA!).

A Windows XP netbook edition licence is $32. Thanks to free Linux, Microsoft had to lower the license cost significantly to remain be competitive with free.

[Charbax]

And Microsoft's aggressive pricing for XP has really made it difficult to make an economic argument for selling a Linux version.

Linux netbooks can still be $100 cheaper than Windows XP netbooks. For the simple fact that you can use a small cheaper SSD drive on the Linux netbook and you can avoid Microsoft restrictions on the reference design to lower costs even further, such as using an ARM Cortex processor in there.

Thing is not everyone in this industry is very enthusiastic about lower prices, since lower and lower prices means lower and lower profit margins.

But you can be sure, thanks to our free market capitalistic system, eventually one, then two, then everybody will have to provide the cheapest prices if they want to sell at all.

Which in plain and logical sense means Intel and Microsoft are going to be removed from this market. Just look at the Intel profits. Thanks to Netbooks and the fantastic Bush economy, Intel profits have fallen 90% in 2008 compared to 2007: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/new ... ll-90-cent

[kb]

It is a _completely_ unreasonable figure. Anyone with a degree should be able to see that right away.

The actual return rates that were reported at 4x more Linux returns then Windows XP returns for netbooks.

I never said it was an accurate figure, merely a reasonable (in the sense of `not too difficult to believe') one. And it's based on my experience of hanging around Acer support forums, which I do not claim to be a representative sample of anything.

The actual number of returns isn't important, anyway; what is important is whether vendors can make money from selling Linux-equipped laptops that they could not make if they sold only Windows. And looking at the most recent models from Acer and Asus -- all of which are Windows models -- it seems to me that vendors are not sure they can make money this way.

If you can put Windows on a netbook for $32 (as somebody else suggested -- I suspect in bulk it might be even cheaper in the USA), then you haven't got to have many Linux ones returned before it starts to get more cost-effective for the vendor to stop supplying Linux models.

I agree that the use of Linux opens up the possibility of selling SSD, low-RAM units which would not be able to run (or crawl, as it might be) Windows. I suspect (but this is guesswork) that this will lead to vendors doing as Archos is doing -- simply not selling SSD, low-RAM units at all. It's possible that these could become a speciality item, of interest to people (like me) who actually want the SSD for school-rucksack-proofness. These could end up more expensive than the Windows, HD models because they sell fewer.

Don't get me wrong: I'm as pleased as anyone to see Linux laptops on retail shelves. My preference would be for them to run a full, supported version of an enterprise-class Linux, rather than a mass-market lame version. They should have a big sticker on top saying ``This is much better than anything you're used to, but you have to learn how to use it'' so people know what they're getting.

This is already happening to some extent with vendors like Dell that tend to supply the corporate market. But, although I would be pleased to see it, I just don't think the economics favour this sort of thing in the mass market

[Charbax]

Only using Linux can you make a $250 Atom based netbook or a $150 ARM Cortex based laptop today. Pricing being the most important factor that the mass market take into account when buying a laptop, there is definitely going to be more and more laptops being shipped with Linux pre-installed.

They should just ship them with Ubuntu and a nice and clean "Add and Remove Software" icon on the desktop that has the full range of available stable Ubuntu applications in its default repository file. This should be enough for most people to see that they will have no problems using this.

Also Linux is actually going to be used in more than half of laptops starting this year because it costs nearly nothing to include an instant-boot Linux version that loads from a cheap $3 rom memory chip that all the manufacturers of laptops motherboards are now going to include in all laptops.

The great thing about those instant-on Linux OS is that most people are actually going to be using their instant-on Linux more than Windows XP, which will be a perfect transition for people to buy cheaper ARM Cortex laptops which will only have that instant-on Linux OS and will have none of Windows or Intel.

[Jaffar]

I'm a strong non windows user. But even if 70% returns or 700% more returns are a fantasy, Windows XP sticker on the packaging is more appealing to the average consumer than Linux inside even if I don't like this idea. The best example if it can be is that on the shelves of the retailers, Best Buy I visited lately in Chicago, the supermarkets I have around home in France have only netbooks running windows. In one of them I could see an Asus 901 with Linux on the box but I had to ask to get the box from underneath the counter. The displayed version of the 901 being with Windows. It is a fact, we/I like it or not.

[Jaffar]

Only using Linux can you make a $250 Atom based netbook or a $150 ARM Cortex based laptop today. Pricing being the most important factor that the mass market take into account when buying a laptop, there is definitely going to be more and more laptops being shipped with Linux pre-installed.

They should just ship them with Ubuntu and a nice and clean "Add and Remove Software" icon on the desktop that has the full range of available stable Ubuntu applications in its default repository file. This should be enough for most people to see that they will have no problems using this.

Also Linux is actually going to be used in more than half of laptops starting this year because it costs nearly nothing to include an instant-boot Linux version that loads from a cheap $3 rom memory chip that all the manufacturers of laptops motherboards are now going to include in all laptops.

The great thing about those instant-on Linux OS is that most people are actually going to be using their instant-on Linux more than Windows XP, which will be a perfect transition for people to buy cheaper ARM Cortex laptops which will only have that instant-on Linux OS and will have none of Windows or Intel.

This is very interesting my friend, however last time we saw each other, you had windows on your laptop. It is nice to be the advocate of Linux in general but if not already done, install it first on your laptop. AND please, no dual boot, you go completely Linux or you don't.

[Charbax]

Jaffar, last time we met in Paris, I had with me my OLPC XO-1 B4 unit runing Sugar Linux based on Fedora. You told me though that you didn't have time to see it, you had already seen it or something. I run Ubuntu on my main desktop here in Copenhagen, I do have Windows XP though on one laptop, that is cause I need Google Chrome to surf on AJAX sites effectively, and that one is not yet available for Linux.

Sure Linux netbooks have a higher return rate. Though if Archos could get the manufacturer to make a 8GB SSD with SDHC main memory expansion slot to sell it $100 cheaper and call it clearly Archos 10 Linux edition on the box with a big sticker on the box that says "This laptop is not using Microsoft Windows XP", then I guess you could keep returns to a minimum cause most customers would know what they are getting. And interest for your pricing advantage since no other company makes 10.2" 8GB SSD Linux options, that extra demand for the cheaper model would exceed problems with the returns. But, I guess the main problem would be to find a manufacturer that can make a 10.2" 4GB or 8GB SSD + SDHC lower cost Linux model. Until you release your own ARM Cortex Linux version.

[Jaffar]

Jaffar, last time we met in Paris, I had with me my OLPC XO-1 B4 unit runing Sugar Linux based on Fedora. You told me though that you didn't have time to see it, you had already seen it or something. I run Ubuntu on my main desktop here in Copenhagen, I do have Windows XP though on one laptop, that is cause I need Google Chrome to surf on AJAX sites effectively, and that one is not yet available for Linux.

Sure Linux netbooks have a higher return rate. Though if Archos could get the manufacturer to make a 8GB SSD with SDHC main memory expansion slot to sell it $100 cheaper and call it clearly Archos 10 Linux edition on the box with a big sticker on the box that says "This laptop is not using Microsoft Windows XP", then I guess you could keep returns to a minimum cause most customers would know what they are getting. And interest for your pricing advantage since no other company makes 10.2" 8GB SSD Linux options, that extra demand for the cheaper model would exceed problems with the returns. But, I guess the main problem would be to find a manufacturer that can make a 10.2" 4GB or 8GB SSD + SDHC lower cost Linux model. Until you release your own ARM Cortex Linux version.

The first one is not a laptop, the second one you don't need XP to run Chrome. But that was just a friendly advise, nothing else.

[kb]

Sure Linux netbooks have a higher return rate. Though if Archos could get the manufacturer to make a 8GB SSD with SDHC main memory expansion slot to sell it $100 cheaper and call it clearly Archos 10 Linux edition on the box with a big sticker on the box that says "This laptop is not using Microsoft Windows XP", then I guess you could keep returns to a minimum cause most customers would know what they are getting.

I think you overestimate the knowledge, and common sense, of the typical home computer buyer. On the Acer Linux support forums, we have people asking how to install Microsoft Office and even Windows raw binaries (.exe files) on their Linux laptops. We have people asking where the Windows Start Menu is. We have people with printer driver CDs for Windows trying to install them (goodness knows how) on Linux.

These people, for the most part, knew what they were getting. That is, they knew in the academic sense. But they had not thought through the implications of that knowledge.

As for dual-booting, I use Windows to run PhotoShop (which I paid a great deal of money for). Until there is a really good Linux equivalent, and it doesn't cost me any additional money, I'm stuck with dual-boot. Sadly.

[Charbax]

There isn't an easy to use "Add or Remove Software" feature on either the Acer Aspire One Linux nor the Asus Linux versions. The only way to install more applications on those are by using terminal or some other weird stuff. That's simply cause Acer and Asus were too lazy to use a better implementation of Linux. They were kind of also in a hurry to release those. I spoke with some Acer and Asus representatives, and they said they are going to release better versions of their Linux.

[Jaffar]

Instead of releasing a "better" version of their desktop interface on what the heck is going to be their chosen distro, if they want to play the game from the beginning properly, there is nothing more friendly user than Ubuntu 8.10 for the ease of handling something none windows with the netbook-remix interface. Clean and not closed desktop, with Gnome of course.

[kb]

There isn't an easy to use "Add or Remove Software" feature on either the Acer Aspire One Linux nor the Asus Linux versions. The only way to install more applications on those are by using terminal or some other weird stuff. That's simply cause Acer and Asus were too lazy to use a better implementation of Linux. They were kind of also in a hurry to release those. I spoke with some Acer and Asus representatives, and they said they are going to release better versions of their Linux.

Don't know about the Asus; the AA1 certainly has a GUI packager. And I should know, since I've got one. And it's hooked up to some repository somewhere, but I'm not sure what. It doesn't necessarily help, for various reasons, but it's there.

The problem with installing software exposes a deep, conceptual difference between the way mainstream Linux distro work and the way Windows works. Linux software is a widespread, collaborative effort, and most Linux software has dependencies on other software written by different authors. Look at mplayer, for example -- it has about fifty such dependencies. If you download mplayer from a mainstream repository, then you hope that the installer you use will take care of the dependencies, and obtain and install all those bits too. But if you download mplayer from some other place outside a repo -- as a .rpm or a .deb or whatever, even if you run the GUI install on it's, it's still like to fail. It will fail because it has dependencies on bits you don't have.

Windows, for the most part, doesn't work this way. People of distribute Windows app, whether open source or proprietary, tend to distribute them as self-contained bundles. If you can install it, it will probably work. Sadly, installing it may cause a load of other things to stop working including, in some cases, the OS itself. But that's the trade-off you get with that mode of installation.

To use a software installer on any Linux distro requires at least one of the following to be true:

1. You know a bit about software management, and what dependencies are and why they matter
2. Your distro is compatible with, and taps into, one of the mainstream repos like Fedora
3. Your distro is connected to a well-managed repo maintained by the vendor.

Acer has gone for (3), essentially. But the software available via the installer is pretty limited, because it is maintained by a small bunch of folks with a lot of other work to do. Actually, the Acer Linux is broadly based on Fedora 8, and you can hook up to the Fedora repo and get a successful install about 50% of the time.

Now (1) and (3) will suit the casual Windows user. He/she won't understand (1) at all, most likely, and will find (3) very limiting (that's certainly what I here from Acer users). And (2) won't suit netbook vendors because the only way to make a distro fully compatible with, say, Ubuntu is if it actually is Ubuntu. And if it is that will require a level of user sophistication that does not exist.

[kb]

Instead of releasing a "better" version of their desktop interface on what the heck is going to be their chosen distro, if they want to play the game from the beginning properly, there is nothing more friendly user than Ubuntu 8.10 for the ease of handling something none windows with the netbook-remix interface. Clean and not closed desktop, with Gnome of course.

Spoken like a true geek Sadly, the Earth-people don't see it that way. Most casual computer users are terrified by their computers, and cannot tolerate even tiny deviations from what they have worked so hard to become familiar with.

I remember, a few years ago, my wife trying to introduce OpenOffice (free) to her workplace as a replacement for the ageing Microsoft Office (about 1990 vintage) stuff they were using. Doing this would have saved the organization -- which was a charity -- tens of thousands of pounds. But it didn't work. Although to a geek the functionality of MS Office and OO are pretty equivalent, ordinary people could not cope with the fact that (for example) the `insert table' menu command was on a different menu. The immediate reaction was `does not compute'.

I wish people were a bit more flexible, but people are what they are.

[strikeback03]

Has Ubuntu 8.10 actually gotten wireless networking working properly? Last time I checked they had not, which is why I'm still using 8.04 on both my machines.

And until Adobe releases Photoshop and Lightroom (I use both for business) native for Linux, I have to keep Windows around.

[lateralusman]

I've been a member of the OSX86 community and so I've read the only way to legally put osx on a pc is to become a OS X developer by buying the developer dvd.

But If your going to put it on something Apple didn't make it for at least buy the regular OS X disc.

[lateralusman]

You may have answered your own question.

"Why should Apple be allowed to decide which hardware can run its OS?"

The key word is "its". It's Apple's OS. It's Microsoft's OS. We just purchase a license to use it. It's been that way for decades.

That practice is actually illegal in western countries.

You cannot decide which Mp3 player your music can play on, just as you should not be allowed to decide which netbook your OS can run on.

That is anti-competitive behavior, that kind of behavior is regulated against in civilized societies.

Nice comment, so the US isn't "civilized"?

[Jaffar]

For sure not, it is the most civilized country in this rotten world.

[Archos5Fan]

The world is rotten, one would be wise not to become too attached to it. Do your best to serve others and offer faith, hope and charity.

[Budwzr]

Yes, that's why opensource is our only hope for the future, and our kids future. MS already controls a lot of the internet with IIS. Servers like Apache are our only hope.

You may have answered your own question.

"Why should Apple be allowed to decide which hardware can run its OS?"

The key word is "its". It's Apple's OS. It's Microsoft's OS. We just purchase a license to use it. It's been that way for decades.

That practice is actually illegal in western countries.

You cannot decide which Mp3 player your music can play on, just as you should not be allowed to decide which netbook your OS can run on.

That is anti-competitive behavior, that kind of behavior is regulated against in civilized societies.