What is Digg?71 Comments
- klick37, on 02/21/2009, -1/+29That title had a remarkable number of Digg buzzwords.
ASUS using ANDROID to bring LINUX back to NETBOOKS - Disfnord, on 02/21/2009, -0/+25I think you're confusing Asus with Acer. Asus has been using Xandros.
- smacksaw, on 02/21/2009, -0/+24That thing about XP on the Atom really is the understatement of the year. The two Aspire One's I got were the XP version. I keep it on there for emergencies, but the Atom-optimised Ubuntu really is a lot better. I think Microsoft is at a loss here simply because they are using the wrong answer to the question. They need a new version of XP for Atom, but why develop it? If they make no money doing this and XP is supposed to be dead? They're really caught flat-footed on this one. And as the article mentions...the thing that makes me say "yup"...is the fact Android is optimised for ARM processors. There ain't no XP for ARM. Right there, MS is powerless because there's a whole class of ARM-based netbooks they can't put an OS on if they wanted to. It negates a lot of MS' argument and power. What, we're gonna run Windows Mobile on a netbook? I don't think so.
- Kingoftherings, on 02/21/2009, -0/+19Which is also horribly out of date. They still ship with Firefox 2.
- OrangeTide, on 02/21/2009, -0/+18OBAMA should buy an ANDROID LINUX NETBOOK to promote NET NEUTRALITY.
- Daimwn, on 02/21/2009, -0/+18I love ASUS. I love Google I like Linux and I love giving people options. This is all around awesome.
- inactive, on 02/21/2009, -2/+17These are the future. One thing MS still does not understand is that every computer running windows doesn't have to do everything a desktop computer does. They failed to learn this with Win Mobile and they have failed to learn this with netbooks. MS products are too bloated, period.
- plr4ever, on 02/21/2009, -4/+18From what i've noticed, windows "netbooks" cost as much as low end full-sized laptops. If i am going to by a netbook, i want it to be cheap because of it's general lack of power. I don't want a $400 atom-powered windows netbook when i can get a full sized for $50 more.
- bigbangbuddha, on 02/21/2009, -4/+16Sign me up. If they can get the price to the $100 range I'd by one today (mabye two).
- smacksaw, on 02/21/2009, -0/+10But as the article says, it's ARM-based laptops. An Atom-based motherboard with it's integrated processor is a good $50-$75. I am not sure what ARM costs, but I would imagine it's significantly less. If you can shave off $25 here and another $25 there, I think it eliminates your objection that they are close to the cost of a 15.4" laptop. They're $249-$299 for very basic netbooks. Seems to me (at least in my psychology) that the magic number for price is $199. If you can offer these for less than $199, I think that's the number people will just say "screw it, let's buy one for the bathroom when I'm taking a crap."
- TritonX, on 02/21/2009, -2/+12Good thing, because Linpus is not really up to date and as well maintained as what I'm used to with Ubuntu.
- katrayun, on 02/21/2009, -0/+9Windows netbooks begin at $300, so you're exaggerating a bit there. Perhaps lower, I just glanced at Newegg, where I recently bought one of those $400+ netbooks. (It's not for everyone, but for me it was worth every penny, and I prefer it to the cheap but more powerful laptops.)
I was disappointed at how few of the netbooks out there currently ship with Linux. I was wanting to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu, and really had no need for the OEM Windows XP Home license. In the end I just had to pay that extra cost to get the netbook I wanted. - KAMiKAZOW, on 02/22/2009, -0/+9I'm a bit sceptical about how that will work out. AFAIK Android is not "another GUI toolkit" for X11, but claims the whole GUI. That's fine for phones, but also for notebooks? There's a lesser amount of apps for Androind than for GNOME or KDE.
Bet hey... we'll see, right? - mrsteveman1, on 02/21/2009, -0/+8Where did you get a YodaBook? I want one
- tusseyd, on 02/21/2009, -2/+10I don't understand why a normal Linux release, say Ubuntu, isn't an acceptable solution. What does Android do that Ubuntu does not -- for this product? Is it that Android is optimized for the low powered ARM processors and normal Linux releases are not? Thx
- freefm, on 02/21/2009, -1/+8Ya, try running Ubuntu on a 200 mhz ARM. Using an ARM would bring the priced down considerably. I bet the most expensive part would be the screen at that point.
- pHr34kY, on 02/22/2009, -0/+7TOP 10 AMAZING ASUS LINUX NETBOOKS running GOOGLE ANDROID
- VyRuZ, on 02/21/2009, -5/+12A netbook not a laptop it is.
- Elranzer, on 02/21/2009, -1/+7Is it possible to install Android to our netbooks ourselves? I mean, it's nice that a vendor (ASUS) is going to bring out on their OEM products, but isn't Android already available for tech enthusiasts to download it and install it on any compatible machine? If I'm not mistaken, Android is also compiled for X86.
- HonoredMule, on 02/21/2009, -1/+7So far I've not seen indication that any of the OEMs can maintain their own distribution with any semblance of polish AND packaging of reasonably recent software...never mind breadth of supported repository contents.
Running a good Linux distribution isn't a side job. - OrangeTide, on 02/21/2009, -0/+6You would have to use portable C code and compile it for ARM. I run pretty much everything on my ARM linux machine that is available on my x86/x86-64 systems (Xorg, gnome, openoffice, etc). I even have a special version of flash player for ARM working on it.
- cheeseron, on 02/21/2009, -1/+6RON PAULLLLLLLL
- Elranzer, on 02/21/2009, -0/+5The Google name-recognition? ASUS knows how many netbooks they could sell to tech enthusiasts who want a Google laptop (and not have to get a phone tied to a carrier they don't use).
- OrangeTide, on 02/21/2009, -2/+7$100 is way too expensive. I'm going to wait until computers are under $20. And hopefully by then flying cars will be under $500 so I can put my $20 computer in it.
- nuclearwasted, on 02/21/2009, -0/+5It's easy... really ***** easy.
- mooninite, on 02/21/2009, -0/+5There's plenty of ARM Linux distributions that are fully featured. Maemo (made by Nokia) is one such distribution.
http://maemo.org/
Android != Linux - paulsmith288, on 02/21/2009, -0/+4small form factor does have its benefits. Netbook + powerful desktop replacement is a nice pairing.
- bigteebo, on 02/21/2009, -0/+3How hard is it to repartition an Xp-running Aspire one to have dual boot for Linux? I repartitioned my all-linux EEE PC to get more space, but how hard is it with an existing XP install? If it's easy enough, I'll give Ubuntu a try.
- cwg1960, on 02/21/2009, -1/+4wow a touch screen netbook ??!!!
- FxChiP, on 02/21/2009, -0/+3C code isn't necessarily unportable unless you depend on endianness. The compiler converts it to the machine language anyway -- but again, depending on endianness is a common problem with that. e.g. if you want to read from a file and you are expecting a value of 0x01020304 on a big-endian machine, but a little-endian machine wrote the file (exact same code), your big-endian version of the code would read 0x04030201 when it expected the other one -- which is totally different.
There are probably other issues I'm forgetting (inline assembly!), but that's the one that most readily springs to mind. However the good news is that most of the time those things are few and far between, and don't apply too much when you're mostly doing string parsing anyway.
Now, something that's already been COMPILED for x86... - MagickCrafter, on 02/21/2009, -1/+4Hopefully they aren't way overpriced like Apple computers (considering you can get the same computer for much less). If they are decently priced I may even pick me up one (I need a laptop)!
- mrsteveman1, on 02/21/2009, -0/+3Thats because none of them care about building and maintaining a platform. They just want to use cheap software and shove crap out the door.
- ThantiK, on 02/21/2009, -0/+3Yeah, it's called Android Market.
- Elranzer, on 02/21/2009, -0/+3Where do you get ARM Linux machines? Is it an old Zaurus?
- Theli, on 02/22/2009, -0/+2A "fully featured" Linux distribution also begs for a fully featured computer. You still need enough resources, screen real estate, keyboard keys, ports and other nick nacks to support the kind of software people will expect to run on that device.
"Android != Linux"
Android is no less Linux than Maemo or Ubuntu is. - lemur, on 02/21/2009, -0/+2I've been hoping for Android on the netbook for quite some time now. I'd definitely be interested in acquiring such a netbook as this. Does anyone know if Android have some type of package manager?
- zdiggler, on 02/21/2009, -0/+2I bought a acer laptop for work and only cost me $500, its sligly bigger then netbook and heavier but more powerful.
- MrViklund, on 02/23/2009, -0/+2Must be the most stupid over-hyped thing ever. Why on earth would you want to use this crippled nerd OS for Smartphones as the OS for a real computer when you can use a real linux distro or for that matter the coming Windows 7? So stop hype up Android. I don't think anyone cares except the real nerds... I will probably get buried fast as h**l by the all the fanboys because I speak my mind but I don't care! It just shows who you are. This will go no where! Mark my words. NO WHERE!
Buried. - cutchyacokov, on 02/21/2009, -1/+3Gigabyte has had a full tablet netbook for the better part of a year now. I wouldn't care so much about the touchscreen but the thought of 1280x768 resolution on an 8.9in screen still makes me drool.
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Notebook/Produ ... - TritonX, on 02/21/2009, -0/+2Oups your right, lol I fail. Nonetheless it would be cool if they could all go with a common more up to date netbook distro, or at least with compatible repertories.
- Elranzer, on 02/21/2009, -0/+2Google something called GParted, use this as a Live CD (or Google UNetbootin to install it to a USB drive if yoiu don't have a CD drive on your netbook).
GParted can resize your partitions non-destructively and has a rather easy interface. I believe Partition Magic is not only too expensive, but also about 5 years too outdated for this. - flyingclutchman, on 02/23/2009, -0/+1you can pick up 500-600 dollar laptops at best buy, so i'm sure if you look around enough you can get that a bit lower
- KAMiKAZOW, on 02/22/2009, -0/+1You make it sound as reimplementing GTK and Qt was so easy.
- MrViklund, on 02/23/2009, -0/+1No.
- smacksaw, on 02/22/2009, -0/+1Well, I wasn't able to use GParted to do it because of the way Acer hides the restore partition. It would not commit the changes You also don't get restore media, so you need to call them. They do send it for free.
After that it's really easy. You just get unetbootin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unetbootin
I can't recall what the partition numbers are for Acer, but you re-create them, just smaller and leave them be. You install Ubuntu on higher-numbered partitions you create.
Then, when you install XP back onto it, it has no idea it's using a smaller partition.
I was never able to find out how to resize the partitions using GParted with XP on there to begin with. - Myztry, on 02/22/2009, -0/+1Victorian (Australia) primary schools are about to roll out 10,000 subsidized notebooks for students. Pay AU$52 per year over three years for a lease. The details are very vague but two things give it away.
Firstly the claimed worth of the netbooks are AU$900 which is about twice what a notebook actually costs, and secondly their is a disclaimer that every will have to agree to a EULA. Microsoft is slying it's way in.
For a market of such size, it would be worthwhile to spend that extra AU$450 x 10,000 (AU$4.5 Million) on a custom distribution specifically aimed at education rather than something generic like Windows.
Schooling is meant to involve concepts. Anything specific taught will be out of date by the time children come to use that knowledge. - smacksaw, on 02/22/2009, -0/+1All they need is to add Qt/Gtk emulation...and you're 99% of the way there.
- aaron.dunlap, on 02/23/2009, -0/+1*glares at his iPod running Apache/PHP*
:-( - WhiteRaven, on 02/22/2009, -0/+1What does the article mean when it talks about Windows being required? That made no sense.
- int19h, on 02/23/2009, -0/+1So much love, but where is the love for Linux. :'(
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