I firmly believe that many, many of the Linux netbooks are in fact turned into Windows XP netbooks. In other words, it is hard to say just how many netbooks are out there running Linux.

Interesting.
Are you aware of the emerging evidence that Linux versions of these netbooks are out-selling Windows versions?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/pc

In some recent news about netbooks it transpired that one model (I think it was an EEEPC) had been produced 50% Linux and 50% Windows, and the Linux versions had sold out but there were still plenty of Windows machines available.

For the significant majority of machines sold the OS will not be changed for the life of the machine. Most people do not have the ability or the confidence to install a different OS.

PS: As far as more general machines go, this is an interesting development:

http://www.linuxloop.com/news/2008/08/11/select-dell-notebooks-now-...

Will Vista be installable on these machines?

specifically, its exsposing the younger ones.

something like the aspire one is perfect for bringing to class and take notes. its so small that it do not hide the user and do not become to much of a burden, yet loaded with enough software to cope with the days tasks.

only problem i can see is that it cant do itunes (even tho most linux media players can handle the ipod).

As long as i see people installing XP over those Linux distributions, living with default error messages on *every* boot and suffering through non resizable Windows Dialogs which are too big for the Netbook screens, because of "crucial" Apps that won't run on Linux (and which you don't run on a netbook anyway because they are unusable on such devices) i will remain pessimistic.

lately i have found me wondering about using webforum traffic to track anything.

its the classical case of the silent majority again.

also, the impression i get is that those that install windows on xp are those that want to use the specific software that they are used to, that they are a more demanding set of user.

its the same kind of user thats messing about installing and updating the default apps of the linux distro. replacing firefox 2.x with 3.x and so on.

basically people that have been using computer so much for so long that they have created a work habit of apps and interfaces. kinda like living in the same place for a long time, you know where everything is.

heh, that reminds me of the ending of the web geek vs sales guy video, where after his desktop got sorted the sales guy complains that he will not be able to find anything anymore.

all in all these are people that do more then surf the web, use mail and watch youtube videos. its people that have been eying ultra-portables but could not justify the cost.

if one look at the number of apps that a aspire one provide out of the box, its similar to a winxp laptop with ms office bundled, and maybe then some. at the very least it probably supports more media formats then the windows laptop do unless the company have added some extra sauce.

If people are installing XP because they want to run some Windows-only application like Photoshop or AutoCAD or some high-end recent 3D game ... then what do they think they are doing buying one of these netbook mini-machines?

Talk about barking up the wrong tree.

what im trying to say is that when you show up at school and unfold the laptop, and itunes is not your default media player, your not part of the "in" kids...

I firmly believe that many, many of the Linux netbooks are in fact turned into Windows XP netbooks.

Exactly, the ones that detail how to install Windows XP on netbooks that ship with Linux (and threads that detail with issues concerning XP after installation). Like this one. Or this one. Or this one. Oh, and over here. And so on, and so forth.

I disagree - these netbooks are powerful. A GB of RAM. GBs of storage. CPU cycling at over 1Ghz. these things run XP easily. Linux would only have had a chance if these things were truly underpowered. Turns out power management works better in XP too so adding to the portability.

My biggest problem with these mini-notebooks is the battery life. I'm sorry but a three hours charge doesn't seem very good to me.

I think the moment one of these is offered with integrated 3g wireless I'll unfold my wallet. I intensely dislike broadband USB modems for Windows. I'd be overjoyed if they came pre installed with Linux AND broadband.

If people still have to type command lines the answer is NO.

I can configure and detect my network HW without any pain and troubles in Windows XP/Vista... Well, I've tried to do so with either Mandriva One and OpenSUSE without results and with lot of wasted time. Although I dislike Microsoft but Linux is waaaayyy too crappy to catch on on the desktop... Sorry, no big future. It's better if Linux people threw there efforts behind ReactOS since I think it's the only real threat to Microsoft and the only real (viable) alternative.

Does Suspend to Ram and Hibernate to Disk work reliably now with typical mobile device drivers? Just curious.

I installed vista on my MSI Wind (advent 4211) to see how it faired, the answer... fine no real complaints, seemed about as responsive as xp was I was running vista Biz btw, nothing stripped out. It behaved on my work network also. You can buy a xp pro licence and install it legally, as with any other PC, please dont talk rubbish

"I can configure and detect my network HW without any pain and troubles in Windows XP/Vista... Well, I've tried to do so with either Mandriva One and OpenSUSE without results and with lot of wasted time. Although I dislike Microsoft but Linux is waaaayyy too crappy to catch on on the desktop... Sorry, no big future. It's better if Linux people threw there efforts behind ReactOS since I think it's the only real threat to Microsoft and the only real (viable) alternative.

Anybody who thinks that Microsoft is going to cede the ultra-mobile market to Linux is crazy. Nope, Microsoft will give steep price cuts -- just like they made price cuts for the XO (XP on XO costs approx $3) -- and price won't be a differentiator at all. And doing this won't be a stretch for Microsoft, since the ultra-mobile segment is a new market category, and Microsoft has already done the work to downsize XP to fit on XO.

It has been very beneficial to have Linux place competitive pressure on Microsoft, though. That said, I don't believe that the ultra-mobile market is really that sizable. Please don't mistake my comments as disparaging the ultra-mobile concept. I think it's an interesting concept, it fills a definite niche, and I do expect it to grow. BUT ... given the fact that an ultra-mobile machine costs essentially the same amount as a low-end notebook, I have a hard time believing that the sweet-spot of the market is going to move to ultra-mobile machines. After all, ultra-mobile machines can't link to iTunes, they lack a DVD+/-R drive, the screen is comparatively tiny and not really suited for long use, etc. In my estimation, they're more of a geek toy for corporate execs and IT guys, not a broad-market thing. I won't be buying one, personally, but it will appeal to early-adopting toy-buyers.

Does it work properly, though? There is some doubt

... for a very different view (coming from Intel themselves).

I don't believe you. When I installed Mandriva or OpenSuSe or Ubuntu ... each one of them finds the network on boot up to a LiveCD without any configuration whatsoever. In fact they find the network and can use it before they are even installed on the machine.

It doesn't address the main reasons Linux is being chosen which is price

Final result? XO is shipping with XP, not Linux. Want to know why? MS reportedly dropped the price tag for XP on the XO down to $3. Never underestimate MS.

"I don't believe you. When I installed Mandriva or OpenSuSe or Ubuntu ... each one of them finds the network on boot up to a LiveCD without any configuration whatsoever. In fact they find the network and can use it before they are even installed on the machine.

"Final result? XO is shipping with XP, not Linux. Want to know why? MS reportedly dropped the price tag for XP on the XO down to $3. Never underestimate MS.

I'm pretty sure that BIOS doesn't play that large of a role in the Windows suspend story. I was under the impression that the Linux suspend problems were on the driver/kernel interface level: http://kerneltrap.org/Linux/Separating_Suspend_and_Hibernation.

If some of the really small guys came out with insanely great support for Netbook hardware, say SkyOS or Syllable - that would make waves in the press and might get people curious enoguh to try it out.

Who knows, they might like it?

I *HOPE* that Linux does make some in roads on UMPC/netbooks/whatever they are called. I have an Asus EEE 900 (too impatient to wait for the 901) and quite honestly, the built in Xandros is a total disaster. Its slow, its got security holes as its such an old release of Xandros and Firefox etc. The driver support is bare minimum with no updates. It just kinda works, but not very elegantly. Ubuntu-eee and eeebuntu kind-of improve things, but neither works properly. Time will tell but its not looking good right now. To be fair, most of it is due to Asus and the hardware manufacturers (ie Atheros) not releasing the sources and specs. Fingers crossed...

Even if Bill Gates asked the kernel team to develop ACPI in a Windows-specific manner, it's pretty much impossible to do something like that for the type of thing ACPI is.

The XO is NOT shipping with XP; what has happenned is that now, XP is an option. t's cost is higher than $3, too, because it absolutely needs to come installed in a sizeable SD card.

AND you don't get standard XP, but a version doctored (butchered?) to run in the limited environment of the XO.

I have not tried XOXP, but I'm sure its performance when running any standard XP package will be far less than stellar.

And never forget that most or all of that software that makes XP unsubstitutable costs money, often much more than the XO itself.

So, I'm sure the XOXP is pretty much DOA. It may be initially required by some goverments, but any poor government that is going to shell out for hundreds of thousands of XOXPs will test first, and there is no way XP will pass. A butchered XP that will only be used to slowly run free apps at a higher cost than the alternative is an absurd proposition.

... don't believe for a moment that XP will provide the lift...

"The whole point of XOXP is to kill the OLPC, not to actually run and do anything useful."