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It all began with the Fedora/AMD OLPC, which had Intel offer considerable discounts to Asustek and also started this wave of products where the price was not *fixed*. It's very disruptive to Microsoft and Intel just could not afford to stay out because it wishes to continue its all-or-nothing kickbacks/dumping crusade to eliminate competition in x86.

Crap. What was that computer from Terminator 2 called that could hack into ATMS? I want!

I was hoping the eeePC would be the cheap Linux computer I always wanted to own just to play around with, then they made the only model worth owning $600.

Yay Linux !

http://distrowatch.com/

So many choices, or get Linux preinstalled.

If only the PC companies would stop forcing you to pay Microsoft
for Vista Home Basic, that you end up formatting over anyway...

I'm waiting for Ubuntu to come out with its mobile platform for Nokia's N800

this is the year linux goes mainstream, again, for the 10th year, in a row.

This is a decent article. Unfortunately, it misses the key point that will help drive Linux adoption on cheap ultraportables- the disappearance of XP. Vista will in no way be able to compete with Linux on the slower, less capable hardware of these ultraportables. If Microsoft really stops shipping a version of their OS that can actually run on these devices, then Linux will suddenly become the default standard.

The trouble is still the "normal" folk haven't got a clue... a computer is supposed to say Microsoft when you start it up. Unfortunately for us, their branding has been one of the best successes rivalling that of Coca Cola and Harley Davidson.

did they just say that andriod is linux?

"grandparents keeping MSN tv alive"

YUP

i had respect for the author up to
"but even somewhat tailored standard desktop Linux operating systems can't match Windows for ease of use or application support."

I ordered an Eee PC like two months ago from Amazon and they keep pushing the delivery date back. Is there something I don't know or can ASUS just not keep up with demand?

Right now i feel the ultraportable market is on hold for the atom. True, its not as fast as some of the procs out, but the battery life will be worth it. So i am personally waiting, i hope the msi wind comes out cheap , it is on my watch list. As soon as Asus goes to the atom, then i will buy if they can keep it less than $500.00

I just got an email from Tigerdirect selling a $349 UMPC with a linux distro I've never heard of... Zonbu ? Any of you used it before?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtool ...

Love my eeePC 701 with smPlayer for Video!

This is one place Linux can be really useful. If the device is well designed it doesn't matter if it lacks 3rd party support. Just like my Palm OS handheld. I love it. Doesn't run Windows apps, but does what I need to to do (Email, Schedule, Notes) with little fuss. Linux is god awful mess on the desktop, and will never be mainstream for home PC use, but it can do well on devices outside the PC or dedicated server arena were less power and versatility is needed.

'God awful on desktop'...

I disagree. It has a lot of advantages over windows. For one the package manager (Debian's one) is so much better than window's non existent one. You can install many programs without having to hunt down the file on the Internet ( although you can do it like this if you wish) ,on Ubuntu its in add/remove. Also all programs installed using the package manager are updated automatically on system update.

The desktop can be configured much more easily with themes readily available. There are multiple work spaces so you can have more windows open. This can increase productivity a lot. When i go back to windows this is one feature I miss greatly. Linux has much more fancy effects with compiz fusion. Also Linux is much less resource hungry then windows (Especially vista) you can run fancy effects with a much lower spec computer.

I do except it does have some shortcomings. It is not well tested with all hardware since hardware vendors rarely release drivers for Linux. So you may find a few bugs on your system unless you have researched the best components to get or bought a pre-built Linux machine (such as the laptops in the article or the Dell ones). But these can usually be solved quite easily. Also most games can not be run natively in Linux (although they can be run by jumping through a few hoops in wine or buying commercial software to help)