Those who believe Windows is the best netbook operating system are plain wrong, because Linux is a much better fit, says Jack Wallen.
I have read countless Microsoft-funded studies that try to persuade me Windows is already dominant for netbooks. According to these studies, Linux might as well just take a curtain call because its netbook act is over.
But that picture is simply not true. If it were, Asus would not be selling netbooks with Linux preinstalled.
Linux is not going anywhere but up in the netbook market. Here are 10 reasons that justify my position.
1. Netbook hardware is the perfect match for Linux
One of the biggest arguments people use for preferring Windows to Linux is: "You can't play games with Linux." But you cannot play games on a netbook either — apart from web-based games.
There are many other types of software you cannot or will not use on a netbook. No Photoshop, no QuarkXPress, and none of those proprietary apps that people seem to need to do their day-to-day business. Netbooks serve a small purpose — to let you get online — and they do it well.
Linux is the perfect networking operating system. It plays well with other operating systems, it is secure and fast. But one thing any purchaser of a netbook should know is that space is prime.
Although a fresh installation of Eeebuntu might take up nearly 2.8GB, you can quickly reduce its size by removing applications you do need using the Synaptic package manager. Windows XP with SP2 takes up 2.5GB so the difference is minimal.
2. Netbooks require a secure operating system
If you are using Windows XP on an ultra-portable piece of hardware, you are a target for viruses. And you will not be installing Norton or McAfee on your netbook — especially if you are using a flash-based storage netbook.
With Linux, you will not need those tools in the first place. Your Linux-based netbook can travel anywhere you want and you will not have to worry about picking up viruses or spyware as you would with a Windows-based netbook.
3. The interface is key
If you have limited screen size, why not use a desktop interface designed for it?
Instead of using the standard desktop metaphor, the Eeebuntu Netbook Remix desktop introduces an interface that is perfectly suited for the desktop size offered by netbooks. This interface makes the netbook experience far more efficient than Windows.
Read this
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It may not be what you are used to. But it is cleaner, faster, and more user-friendly, and will soon become familiar to you.
This interface is not different just for the sake of being different. It is obvious it was well thought-out and aimed at the new PC user as well as at the new netbook user.
4. Your netbook can be more than just a slow laptop
When I bought my last netbook, one of the first things I did was install Eeebuntu over the purchased Xandros Linux. Why did I do this? Because Xandros is a limited operating system, whereas Eeebuntu is a full-blown Linux distro that happens to install on an Eee PC.
When using Eeebuntu on a netbook, you really feel like you have the power of a full laptop at your fingertips. You can even install a full-blown Lamp — Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP — server on your netbook if you like.
5. Linux will keep costs down
One of the reasons why netbooks are so popular is that they are cheap. Where, other than eBay, can you find a PC for near or under $300 (£200)? And soon, the magical $200 (£120) price tag will be reached when Freescale releases its Linux-only ARM-based netbook.
Remember, Linux is open source, so any software you are installing will be free. Because of the cost of the Linux operating system, the cost of netbooks can continue to fall.
If Microsoft were to attempt to use Vista or Windows 7, the cost of your average netbook would not fall. What about any extra software...
Talkback
I have heard that Win7 will only upgrade from Vista. That means that if one has a netbook with WinXP, they will not be able to upgrade to Win7.
Of course any netbook can be upgraded to a Linux distro. I have Ubuntu Netbook Remix on mine, and it is just perfect for it. Which is what the above article is stating.
Using extlinux to convert a liveCD iso to bootable SD card
-------------------------------------------------------------
Converting an ISO file to a bootable USB stick or a bootable
SD Card for EEE is easy.
Without being able to convert a distro into a bootable USB flash /SD Card,
that distro can't be easily loaded into netbook like EEE
and stand to miss out on users installing it into netbooks.
So I would recommend all distro mainters look at their netbook
boot strategy and offer something to boot their distros
from USB flash and SD cards or miss out on users installing it into
netbooks.
Having done a few conversions, a pattern emerges that works well for
most syslinux / isolinux / extlinux based distros.
1. Put your SD card or USB flash drive into your desktop Linux PC and
then open a console and type dmesg
You should see some line indicating your flash drive as
being picked up and allocated with a comment like sdc / sdc1 etc..
Remember both names - the first is /dev/sdc which is your
device name, and the second is /dev/sdc1 which is your partition name.
(Don't get confused between drive /dev/sdc and partition /dev/sdc1
or your drive could become scrambled eggs later on. Also remember
it may be called sdg or sdh etc depending what you see when you
plug in device and type dmesg)
2. Install gparted on your machine using synaptic.
To run it you can type
sudo gparted
in a console window and select on the right side the drive name allocated
in step 1. Right click on the bar that represents the partition
and click on manage flags.
Enable the boot flag and click OK. This makes the SD Card / USB
stick bootable.
3. Format the partition /dev/sdc1 to ext2 linux format.
This format is not directly readable under WINDUMMY Osen, but there
are free drivers for it - try for example www.fs-driver.org
The ext2 format is many times faster than windummy FAT so
ditching WINDUMMY file formats is advised.
4. Identify that you have syslinux or isolinux in your liveCD by
opening the .ISO file in archive manager and checking that it has
isolinux or syslinux directory somewhere in the liveCD.
In ubuntu, the root directory of /dev/sdc1 will not be writeable
unless you are in super user mode.
You can run
sudo file-roller
to open iso files like xubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso in super user
mode and extract all the files in the iso file
to the /dev/sdc1 partition.
5. Go to the flash drive and locate the syslinux (or isolinux) directory.
rename it to extlinux. Inside the now renamed extlinux directory will
a file such as syslinux.cfg or isolinux.cfg. Rename that to
extlinux.conf
6. Get syslinux - this is a boot loader and menu system for FAT based
file systems. Download the latest version from here...
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/
Unzip it and go to the extlinux directory.
On my machine path is something like this....../syslinux/extlinux
Run the program there by typing this - (note this command is updating
the partition /dev/sdc1)
./extlinux --install /dev/sdc1/extlinux
This puts a new file into your SD card / USB flash disk
7. from the extlinux directory change to the mbr directory
cd ../mbr
and then run this - again note this time its updating the device by
writing data to the first sector as opposed to the first partition.
sudo cat mbr.bin > /dev/sdc
(Note at this stage you may need to do some of the sudo commands after
entering super user mode to make it work properly.
So the above command would have been done as follows in Ubuntu.
sudo -s
cat mbr.bin > /dev/sdc
)
This makes the card bootable and useable in an Asus EEE and many other
PCs with SD card or USB flash disk boot facility.
After booting, you can install Linux on to local disk or an external
pocket drive. The pocket drive can be 7200 RPM giving you near desktop
speed.
This method tested and works for
1. Ubuntu
2. Slax
3. Knoppix
4. Puppy
5. DSL
6. GParted
7. gOS
8. Dynabolic
9. MoonOS Kachana
10. Xubuntu
11. TinyOS (incredible distro!)
(Note the method does not work for .ISO files built with grub bootloader -
need a different install method with grub boot loader instead of syslinux.)
Try installing something powerful like Ubuntu on to a netbook
and see it take netbooks to new heights.
3D Translucent Cube Desktop
---------------------------
The latest EEE1000 has fast enough graphics for translucent
3D desktops. An easy way to do all this with Ubuntu is:
Install Ubuntu on EEE (compiz itself
appears to be installed by default in the default install),
then install compiz settings manager using Synaptic
which allows compiz to be fully 'exercised'.
And then do the following to get the 3D cube desktop
working...
Go to General > Display Settings > Lighting and turned it off
Enable Desktop Cube and then Desktop Cube > Transparent Cube and set the
two opacity settings to 30%
then Desktop Cube > Skydome and check the skydome check mark
Enable Rotate Cube
Enable Enhanced Zoom Desktop
Right click the virtual workspaces panel and increase the number
of colums to 16.
And hey presto - 100% 3D translucent desktop with 16 screens!!!!!!!!!!
[Some shortcuts for the 3D screen
ctrl + alt + left or right arrow to spin cube
ctrl + alt + down arrow and then left or right arrow for a ring switcher
super + E for yet another switcher
super + mouse wheel scroll to zoom in and out of the 3D desktop.
]
You can run many applications simultaneously on netbook like a
real Linux desktop. You can open many browser tabs, run Open Office, video,
and developer stuff like MySQL server, Apache, PHP, Gambas, sqlite3
ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY while on a train for example, and rotate the
cube to switch between tasks instantly. Gone are the days when netbooks
were mis-represented as toys. They are fully functional Linux
Desktops on the move. Try it! It works!
Reducing Font Sizes And Turning ON Sub Pixel Rendering
------------------------------------------------------
The EEE can be astonishingly good to look at once the
font size is reduced to about 8 and sub pixel rendering
is turned ON. It is still absolutely
readable and everything appeared like a 'full screen' miniature
desktop equivalent of a big desktop PC.
System > Appearance > Fonts get to the font settings
in Ubuntu. On software like firefox and some other applications,
need to also to set local use of fonts ( Edit > Preferences > Content
will have font settings for firefox that also need to be changed).
VirtualBox
----------
Yes! VirtualBox can run on Ubutu set up with 3D translucent desktop.
http://www.virtualbox.org
Install virtual box and then install programs like windopws XP and run
it pretty much at it would run on a normal netbook. Its hard to tell
if the netbook is running Linux or the WINDUMMY OSen when the software
is run full screen becaue the speed and responsiveness is about
the same between a real windummy OSen install and a virtual box
virtual machine running it all in Linux.
Speeding up netbook to near Desktop speed
-----------------------------------------
With the EEE, you can speed up the netbook into a desktop PC able to handle
giant applications. Just fit USB 7200 RPM external pocket drive. Install
and boot Linux from the external drive. Data transfer rate is about 28
Megabytes per second so video and other stuff work at near desktop speeds.
Obviously it uses up a lot more energy and 2 USB sockets and so
drains battery very fast. Need to be plugged into a charger to
get best performance. You don't want to fit the 7200RPM drive
inside the netbook - it will heat up a lot. If you want 7 to 8 hours of
battery life from your netbooks you need to limit yourself to slowish SSDs
for now. As the pocket drives cost only 40 pounds, another advantage
is that you can have several to switch between tasks.
If netbooks start shipping with e-Sata, then that would be even better
option to get as the e-Sata and 7200 RPM pocket drives
desktop drive are common and cheap.
http://www.livecdlist.com
http://www.distrowatch.com
Already left a comment on here saying this was a good read and thanks, but for some bloody bizarre reason its gone, some one's power mad in the staff.
I have an HP mini, 8.9" screen, 1.6 atom processor, 1 gig memory, 16 gig SSD, 16 gig thumb drive, and an external powered CD/DVD writer. I installed Mandriva 2009 on the SSD, and it runs almost twice as fast as XP did. I have used the compiz -fusion for show off. It plays the KDE games, plus foo-billards. It is used mainly for internet and mail while my wife is in the hospital, so it serves the purpose it was intended for and I am so happy I removed XP and put Linux on. Much faster, and more secure.
1. Space seems to be the main point. How many ORDINARY users are going to mess around with their OS making decisions about what they do and don't need.
2. Just like with Apple, once the number of ordinary users goes up the hackers will follow. It appears secure now because it isn't worth the hackers effort with such a relatively low number of techie users. Who are also more savvy than ORDINARY users, so less of a target.
3. The interface IS key and pretty much everybody is familiar with the Windows interface so find it easy to use.
4. People buy the netbook they like the look of, they don't want to subsequently mess about working out which would be a better version of the OS and then fagging about installing it and breaking the warranty etc etc.
And how many ORDINARY users want a full-blown LAMP even if they knew what to do with it if they had it ?
5. Fine, it's a bit cheaper. That's your first valid reason, though there's even a debate about just how cost effective it is.
6. The choice people want is what it looks like, what colour is it and how big the screen and disk is. They just wont have the knowledge for all this "there's a Linux distribution for everyone" nonsense.
7. So how did the worst Linux version do compared to Windows XP ? That would have made this point more balanced. I don't suppose I get Eeebuntu on my Samsung or Compaq Netbook so we're back to point 6. And you fail to mention that there are plenty of tests out there that show Windows 7 is faster than XP.
8. Yes. But then Windows 7 is aimed at a broad spectrum of user types. The corporate manager wouldn't thank you for rushing out a fix that breaks something else because it wasn't thoroughly tested. Things get fixed every month by MS via MS Update and if it's urgent, quicker than that. And I want ONE point to go to to fix my problem.
9. Not even worth commenting on this one. Everyone issues a poor release that they back track on later. XP was good, Vista not, Windows 7 looks great in our tests.
10. Don't we go back to the Warranty problem again. If I do something to my Netbook that someone out there suggests or I change the OS and my Netbook goes belly up, I don't think the support guys at Samsung, Compaq, Wind, Dell etc are going to be too sympathetic. ORDINARY users want their Netbooks to be commodities. If it goes wrong they call a support number or raise an on-line ticket with the supplier.
So, in fact, it's just the ONE reason then - cost. I think the other 9 are more important.
There's a process with MS tools to help.
See my main post on the main article.
Thanks. This just confirms my point that Linux isn't for ORDINARY people.
the capitols were deliberate because linux/ubuntu and all the gnu o/s are small compared to m/s.,
but microsoft is paying the price for being the biggest ass holes on the earth i own a gen copy of vista its crap i own a gen copy of xp its good but it crashes once a month [i,m also downloading] now i,ve been bragging to all i,ve had ubuntu for years 1/2 crashes but my new super ubuntu 0.04. its brill 1 crash back up and running in 3/4 hours try it free ubuntu.com or contact me i,ll send you a copy postpaid lezlow@hackersclub.net
Tried several distros but Ubuntu Netbook Remix was the best. This netbook sits in my rucksack when not used, acting as an iPod with 2 weeks music in it. When asked to run mp3s the first time, UNR just loaded the correct codec, no sweat.
Nicely atmospheric. However, I operate in a different slice of the musical spectrum.
Best wishes,
Ken
cheers