SPOTTED: Linux notebooks with ARM CPUs

Aubrey (Advanced member):

Shane - is "With the much higher return rate of netbooks running Linux compared to netbooks running Windows, it’s hard to see a huge market for smartbooks." your take or a quote from a reliable source? This seems to be an internet meme generated on the back of one self-serving report from Asus about six months ago. Do you have figures from other companies? Asus, and a few other earlier netbook vendors, did an appalling technical job with their Linux offerings, gave no support to resellers or customers and then seemed to blame Linux itself for these failings and the fact that people who bought them unawares didn't like them (Hey, I bought a Linux Acer One and hated it). My understanding is that vendors who actually put some effort in, reaped the rewards.

Asus clearly used the Linux offering as leverage with MS to get a better licencing deal and have since dropped any pretence at being FOSS-friendly. That's fine with me; its just business. But I think all the IT journos who quote this stuff as fact need to do a bit more googling before they post an article.

petert (Senior member):

Quoting Aubrey:
But I think all the IT journos who quote this stuff as fact need to do a bit more googling before they post an article.

My comment that follow are not directly at APC nor the author of this article. However, I do take Aubrey to task. Aubrey, the whole problem with some journalists (and Uni students!) is that they overuse Google, Wikipedia and similar resources. Too often, an article is written and then varies summaries of it appear across the web, written often, but not always, by other journalists. This 'force of repetition adds unwarranted credulity to the information in the original article. Have a look at this article as it demonstrates the point I make:
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/06/2237244

My point is that what really needs to be done is for journalists, Uni students and others to make LESS use of Google, Wikipedia etc when they want up-to-date, factual information!

Aubrey (Advanced member):

Quoting petert:
However, I do take Aubrey to task.

duly noted (and agreed!). The propagation of misinformation in journalism is truly amazing. My reference to Google was simply based on there being a lot of online debate about this particular meme.

Raindog (Senior Forumologist):

Quoting petert:
My point is that what really needs to be done is for journalists, Uni students and others to make LESS use of Google, Wikipedia etc when they want up-to-date, factual information!

I don't believe that less use of the popular online resources is required, what is required is less reliance on these resources as any sole source of information. Research based on a single printed resource or article can be just as unreliable.

The problems are two fold the first problem is laziness the second problem is the ever increasing request for immediacy.

Whilst i am critical of the ad-infinitum copies of any new article, I do have some sympathy for journalist trying to satiate the public's want for instant delivery. If as users we request endless quantities of new release information then the onus will be with us to discern fact from fable, rumour and corporate press release.

Bernie S (New user):

Actually, it was MSI that was responsible for this "higher Linux return rate" meme; of course, their Linux offering -- as shipped -- didn't work properly, and in the end the famous quote about Linux returns being 4 times that of Windows netbooks was made during an interview that turned out to have been conducted before the MSI Wind even shipped.

You're right about Asus in a way -- they explicitly made it clear on releasing the first EeePC, that the EeePC was meant as a simple appliance targeted for (in their words) "housewives and school-children" rather than computer geeks and sophisticated users. And more recently, despite the breakaway success of their Linux notebooks (despite a distinctly mediocre Linux adaptation) they've been releasing netbooks in Windows-only models -- justifying this by claiming that consumers just don't want Linux, even as Dell and HP have been reporting that one-third of their netbook sales are Linux models.

I may be mistaken, but I think that Acer has been doing well with their Linux models, as well.

The big problem now is that both Microsoft and Intel are putting restrictions on what hardware is "allowed" for netebook-type computers (screensize, CPU, RAM and storage, etc) which must be part of the impetus behind these non-Intel/Non-Windows "smartbooks" -- I guess this is truly the "smart" way for both OEMs and consumers to go.

Bernie S (New user):

Duplicate post

zelrik (New user):

People need to think about more before writting crap :

"With the much higher return rate of netbooks running Linux compared to netbooks running Windows, it’s hard to see a huge market for smartbooks."

Not knowing anything about why it failed (if it failed at all actually), how arrogant is it to pretend it will obviously fail again??

Dell didnt drop Linux. Qualcomm even less so, Google used it for Android (which actually is doing ok). If there were strong evidence of failure, they wouldnt do that.

Things failing for a while does not mean they will always fail. Some technologies take a long time to take off. People are just impatient (on both sides).

abcapc (New user):

"Dell didnt drop Linux. Qualcomm even less so, Google used it for Android (which actually is doing ok). If there were strong evidence of failure, they wouldnt do that."

Problem is, Linux is poised to be a big player in the smartbook market. This is something which I think Dell is regretting since they want to get more involved in the netbook market. We'll see how things pan out between them though. Found some news through http://www.smartbook.asia which was pretty interesting, thought i'd share the link

abcapc (New user):

"Dell didnt drop Linux. Qualcomm even less so, Google used it for Android (which actually is doing ok). If there were strong evidence of failure, they wouldnt do that."

Problem is, Linux is poised to be a big player in the smartbook market. This is something which I think Dell is regretting since they want to get more involved in the netbook market. We'll see how things pan out between them though. Found some news through http://www.smartbook.asia which was pretty interesting, thought i'd share the link