XP Takes Babystep Into The Abyss
Linked by David Adams on Fri 22nd Oct 2010 16:36 UTC, submitted by Amy Bennett
Windows As of today, Microsoft won't allow manufacturers to install XP on new netbooks," says blogger Kevin Fogarty. "That doesn't mean corporate customers who special-order hardware with XP won't be able to get it, or even that its market share ( 60 percent!) will drop any time soon.... It just means XP has taken the first babystep toward obsolescence and the long (really long, considering its market share) slide down toward the pit of minor operating systems like the MacOS X (4.39 percent) , Java ME (.95 percent) and "Other" (which I think is an alternative spelling for "Linux" (.85 percent).
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RE[4]: Maybe an overdue step
by bornagainenguin on Sat 23rd Oct 2010 15:32 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Maybe an overdue step"
bornagainenguin
Member since:
2005-08-07

darknexus responded...

Actually, I have an Eee PC... and Eee PC 1005PE to be prcise. So what's that again about the specs of the Eee not allowing 7?


As do I, a second generation eeepc 901 with Linux to be exact.

Let's do a bit of a minor comparison shall we? My eeepc 901 came with two SSDs, a 4GB system disk and a 16GB disk for misc mp3s, movies and pictures. While you could conceivably install Windows on it with the help of tools like nLite it was difficult to do so and an incredibly slow experience despite all sorts of tweaks.

Your Eee PC 1005PE comes with a 250GB SATA Hard Drive according to reviews and the Intel N450 Atom is 64bit. Do you not see the difference here?

darknexus responded...
Look, I like Linux as much as you obviously do, but these kinds of comparisons don't help. I still think that Linux failed not because of any inherent deficiencies in the experience of the major desktops, but due to serious deficiencies in what the OEMs like Asus provided. Had they gone with something better, something like Ubuntu or Debian or Mandriva that was still supported by its own developers and would have worked, the outcome might have been very different.


On this we can both agree. The vendor supplied Linuxes on most netbooks was a joke. Then again the Unity and the "netbook remix" desktops many distros ship with for netbooks seems awfully familiar...

I'd say the biggest issues with Linux on these things was A) lack of easy upgrades and application installation, and B) advertising and interface choices that made the operating system installed look like something it wasn't. Lost of these things shipped with ads and GUIs that made people think they were getting Windows. Of course people would return the devices when it didn't work the way they were expecting them to work!

darknexus responded...
Now however, we might as well face facts. Windows 7 runs fine on current netbooks (and I consider anything with a low power processor such as an Atom to be a netbook). New netbook buyers will be buying current, not older, models. Windows has won in this space because the OEMs fscked up their Linux installations even worse than they usually fsck up their windows installations.


And I'm saying that you are not comparing apples to apples here. The devices that are being offered with Windows Seven are not the same sorts of devices being offered with Linux in the past. The category has shifted to be more supportive of Windows' shortcomings to the point it can no longer be considered the same category any longer.

The processor is different, the hard disks are different, the screen sizes are different and they ship not with Windows but with Windows Starter Edition.

No, this not an apples to apples comparison at all.

--bornagainpenguin

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