[NCLUG] Re: Eee PC Xandros

[Chad Perrin]

On Wed, Dec 03, 2008 at 08:55:01PM -0700, bwood at beww.org wrote:
> On Wednesday 03 December 2008 17:05:07 Chad Perrin wrote:
> >
> > No, I don't think there's a Linux version available.  Before I got one,
> > I'd just check into its support for open source OSes.  Since it's just
> > idle speculation at this point, though, I don't know that I'll get around
> > to even finding out how well it's supported by anything in particular;
> > I'm just not likely to buy one any time soon.
> 
> It's more that I just hate sending Bill more money for something I do not want 
> and will not use. I don't see a price difference between the Linux and 
> Windows netbooks, which seems odd, either MS is giving it away cheap or the 
> makers are pocketing the difference.

It's more likely that they've made a deal whereby they give Microsoft a
certain amount of money per unit that can run MS Windows, regardless of
whether it's installed, in part to boost Microsoft's sales figures
(because each machine is then associated with an MS Windows license even
if MS Windows isn't installed).  In exchange, the hardware vendor gets a
significant discount on licenses, so that it saves money overall.  This
sort of thing has been going on for a long time, I think.


> >
> > This is true.  It can probably be upgraded, but that's additional
> > investment, of course.
> 
> DDR2 SODIMMS are getting almost cheap, but when your competitors are selling 
> 1GB units for a similar price it's time to look at your marketing policy.

Yes and no . . .

If I prefer the IdeaPad, I might be willing to take a very small hit in
price to get equivalent specs.  If the IdeaPad can handle 2GB of RAM
after upgrade without the same problems you've seen for the EeePC, that
might be another reason for the additional cost to be worth it.

On the other hand, the customer base usually doesn't think that way.
Most of them probably see that it has less RAM and think "Well, that
sucks," without thinking about other factors such as those I brought up.


> >
> > I'm sure Ubuntu is an improvement -- as would be FreeBSD (and I hear
> > FreeBSD is working pretty well on the Eee).
> >
> > What hardware doesn't work with ASUS' modified Xandros?
> 
> The camera did not work with Skype (an included app), though it was easy to 
> find instructions to correct this on the net. The audio was goofy as well, 
> and there was an issue with WiFi not waking up from a suspend. Nothing fatal, 
> but annoying, included apps and hardware should work, at least minimally.

Hmm.  Yeah, that's pretty sketchy.  I wonder why ASUS doesn't have this
stuff ironed out before sale.


> 
> Selling these machines to nonLinux-savvy buyers will likely lead to "Linux 
> doesn't work" thinking, and I really couldn't blame a Linux-naive purchaser 
> for thinking that.

I'd say it's more a "computer-naive" person that should be excused for
thinking that.  There are a lot of long-time computer users who still
don't understand that when someone ships you broken gear, it's the person
who ships it to you that is (at least partly) at fault, and not the
hardware and software.  The same thing could easily happen with MS
Windows, Apple MacOS X, and so on -- a vendor can sell you a
misconfigured unit, and it's the vendor's fault, not Apple's or the
Taiwanese modem manufacturer or anything like that.  One need not know
anything in particular about Linux to understand that fact.

The problem is that most Linux-naive users are also probably
computer-naive in that sense (and vice-versa).


> 
> Most of the problems could be solved, and are basically software or setup 
> issues. It's not like this machine just came out, the Eees have been around 
> for a  while. I don't think they are putting enough effort into testing and 
> de-bugging.

I think they still regard it, on some level, as an experiment -- and to
the extent they *don't* regard it as a marketing experiment still, they
figure it has been selling well, so they don't have to put any more
effort into it.  Of course, that probably means that in the long run
they'll start losing out to the competition, either because the
competition sells machines with MS Windows that are comparably sized and
priced, or because the competition sells similar non-Microsoft machines
that work better.


> 
> Maybe PC makers are just too used to being able to lay off this sort of thing 
> on MS or the hardware vendor's (Windows) driver.

The amount of work that goes into getting a basic, working setup with MS
Windows is typically far greater than what I suspect is being put into
these Linux machines.  Laptop vendors often sell machines made from very
nonstandard hardware setups, and need to arrange for driver support and
software support that didn't exist before they put together a new
hardware configuration.  In theory, then, MS Windows and a Linux
distribution should be about the same initial configuration setup and
testing cost.

On the other hand, there are a couple of complicating factors for the
cost of initial configuration costs:

  1. Thus far, they can still accurately assume that for each given piece
  of hardware that needs to be supported, they will almost certainly sell
  more MS Windows systems than Linux-based systems that have that piece
  of hardware in it -- so the importance of MS Windows support is
  greater, in terms of pure numbers, for most if not all individual
  components of a system.

  2. They often have to work with manufacturers on driver development,
  and a manufacturer may simply not have anyone on-staff that knows
  anything about Linux driver development.  While this isn't *much* of a
  hurdle, and much of the work is done at the computer vendor level on a
  lot of drivers anyway (e.g., Lenovo might have people on staff that
  have to help out with driver development on a Taiwanese modem
  component, and Lenovo definitely has Linux developers on its staff), it
  probably makes the negotiation phase of buying into a new component
  line a bit less smooth at times.

It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, though, letting these two things
stand in one's way; as long as hardware support isn't perfect on units
sold, there will be a downward pressure on sales of Linux-based units,
and as long as the vendors don't put pressure on manufacturers to get
with the program when it comes to supporting the software the vendor
wants to use, the manufacturers won't feel doing so to be particularly
worthwhile.


> >
> > There is an "advanced" interface on the Eee, as well.  Basically, it just
> > has a proper window manager hidden on it.  I don't remember off the top
> > of my head how to get to it, but I found it via Google when I was helping
> > a friend get to a better interface than that very limited clueless luser
> > style interface.
> 
> The "advanced" interface is really KDE (Which I like, and use on my home 
> desktop). I found several different sets of instructions on the net to get 
> this running, some were mutually exclusive, and I think dpendent on the 
> precise version of the machine/software you happened to get.

Yes -- that's what I meant by "basically, it just has a proper window
manager hidden on it."


> 
> I finally just decided to just give Ubuntu Eee a try, so far it seems better 
> than the included Xandros. Everything works except I had to tweak the audio 
> setup.

Good to know.  A friend of mine is thinking about replacing the mutant
Xandros distribution installed on his Eee, and he's interested in
FreeBSD.  If that doesn't work out to his satisfaction, it's good to know
there's Ubuntu as a fall-back option.


> 
> Might give FreeBSD a try, it's certainly easy enough to change OSes. I have a 
> USB DVD drive that makes that easier.

Let me know how that goes, please, if you get around to it before my
friend.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ]
print substr('Just another Perl hacker', 0, -2);
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