anon (anon@anons.com) on 9/17/09 wrote:
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>Cooper (coop@example.com) on 9/17/09 wrote:
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>>slacker (s@lack.er) on 9/17/09 wrote:
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>>
>>>Both parties want to run Windows. It's not as though Linux wasn't presented as
>>>an option to the consumers. Netbooks debuted with Linux, and now everything is back to the Redmond hegemony.
>>
>>I think that's less to do with customer demand and a lot more to do with Microsoft
>>demand: noticing the thin end of a possible wedge and getting very aggressive with
>>both the carrot ("we'll drop the price to nearly nothing") and stick ("we'll screw
>>you on licensing for your higher-margin machines") to drive Linux out of the mass market.
>
>that's a bit too cynical.

I don't think so. Microsoft has been known to be that paranoid and underhanded even in areas where it is much better able to compete.

>people buy netbooks because they want a smaller and
>easier-to-carry notebook. if the same apps are available on
>both linux and windows, e.g. office suite, photo editing etc,
>users wouldn't really care what's the OS.
>
>the problem is that oss version of the commons apps are too
>resource hungry, and looks/feels too different from those
>avaliable on windows.

firefox, tick. OpenOffice, would be fine for a large percentage of people I suspect. So too email, although exchange compatibility I don't know if that's there yet. For _basic_ photo editing -- the kind most people do -- it's pretty easy, and professional phto editing is not going to be done on a netbook regardless if photoshop is available or not.

As for resource hungry, I don't think that's very founded. Power saving problems are probably more to do with the kernel and device drivers than the apps, but I think that is improving and getting close to windows. With an ARM CPU (where power saving has been a high priority on Linux for much longer than x86), Linux would very likely have better perf/power than x86 windows.

>although there was a flurry of ISV activites to port to linux
>a few years back, those all failed. the linux ecosystem did a
>good job at undermining ISVs who wanted to port to linux.
>
>what happened in netbooks market is merely the windows
>*ecosystem* has displaced linux ecosystem.
>not windows OS displayed linux OS.

Chicken and egg problem. MS is paranoid about replacing the OS so that the Linux ecosystem does not become established. ISVs won't bother porting if nobody will make use of it.

Linux is growing up from mobile and handheld devices though, so it will be hard to keep it at bay forever.