NetbookTech

Maximum PC reports that HP UK is discontinuing the HP Mini 2133 netbook – which means an HP Linux netbook is no longer available for purchase in the UK. The only HP netbook now available is the Mini 1000 which comes with Windows pre-installed.

In fact a quick look at the HP UK website shows only the HP Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam edition available. One has to wonder if HP will roll out the Mini 1000 Mi to the UK or if this is simply another indication that vendors are shying away from Linux in favor of what consumers are used to – Windows.

[Check it out]

Is Linux on netbooks doomed? That’s the question posed by two new articles hitting the net – one over at the Industry Standard entitled “Netbooks: An opportunity for Windows, and a threat to Linux” and the other over at InformationWeek entitled “Linux on Netbooks: Doomed Already?”.  The basic argument isn’t exactly new here. Consumer demand and familiarity with Windows is helping to drive the platform’s popularity over Linux – despite the fact that Linux offers flexibility and of course, a free/low cost platform.

Ian Lamont of the Industry Standard also points out that Microsoft is making a concerted effort to ensure Windows 7 runs well on netbooks. The company might not be able to sell Vista on netbooks but they’ll be damned if they’re not going to make Windows 7 work well for these systems. 

All of this points to a possible decreasing demand for Linux enabled netbooks (notice we’re not saying that Linux itself will become unpopular – just for netbook systems). Sure, Linux will certainly remain popular with computing enthusiasts and do-it-yourselfers but the average Joe will likely opt for a Windows equipped netbook than a Linux variant.

Yet Serdar Yegulalp points out an important aspect of Linux – the OS provides “a far greater degree of malleability than with Windows.” Unfortunately we’ve yet to see the “malleability” fully realized on the netbook platform. Most vendors have have failed to add the extra oomph to the table – instead opting for simple user interface enhancements such as a simplified launch-pad UI or large visual icons on top of an otherwise complex OS.

There is hope though – one company that seems to have slowly paved the way for innovations with Linux is HP with their recently announced Mini 1000 MIE. The company announced that they not only created a new user interface on top of Linux, but they’re focused their efforts around digital content – making it easier for users to readily access music, videos, photos, email, the web, etc.

That’s a step in the right direction.

What we need now is innovation from the Linux front. In order for Linux to stand out ahead of Windows on the netbook platform, hardware vendors need to think outside of the box. Linux provides many unique opportunities that are simply not addressable with Windows. As Mr. Yegulalp points out, you could make “instant-on” a real possibility with Linux and netbooks. This would certainly be out of the question with Windows. How cool would it be for you to simply flip open your netbook and be up and running in 2-3 seconds?

Companies can also rethink how they shape netbook systems. Why stick with a clamshell design? How about creating inexpensive netbooks using a slider design? How about adding extensive touch capabilities into Linux – turning it into an awesome touch platform for vertical markets.

The ultimate goal here is for IHVs would be to play up to Linux’s strengths and not expose its weaknesses through poor user interfaces and difficult setups. Linux is certainly not dead on netbooks although it is possibly facing a decline in popularity. If there’s ever a time to think outside of the box for Linux, it would be now.

So you’re in the market for a new netbook and you’re considering your operating system choices for said netbook system. Do you go with option #1? Tried and true Windows XP (albeit Windows XP Home?) or do you go with option #2 Linux?  According to Matthew McKenzie of bMighty.com, you should really consider Linux over Windows for your netbook. His reasons boil down to the following:

• OpenOffice is a great and workable free alternative to Microsoft Office which means there’s no dependency on Windows
• There’s no upgrade path for Windows XP Home – whereas Linux is well supported by the developer community
• SSD performance is better on Linux than on Windows

Certainly all very good arguments to consider Linux. Yet for my needs, I’ll probably stay with Windows simply because it works wonderfully for my needs.

One final note, Matthew makes the following statement in his article:

“It’s safe to say that no sane human being wants to run Windows Vista on a netbook — if such a feat is even possible.”

I hate to disagree but Windows Vista on an Atom powered netbook is 1) very possible and 2) performs quite nicely – with some caveats. Vista out of the box will run on an Atom system though yes – it consumes more memory than Windows XP. So if you’re limited to 512MB or 1GB of memory, as is fairly standard with most netbooks, you’re better off with Windows XP. However, if you have 1.5 to 2GB of memory, Vista works quite nicely. You can also help speed things along by applying some tweaks to the OS such as disabling Aero and turning off some visual effects etc.  I’ll write more about this later on but do check out the bMighty.com article for additional info on Linux vs. Windows for netbooks.

[Check it out]

Here’s some news that I missed from a few weeks back. Two Linux developers from Intel demonstrated at the Linux Plumbers Conference, an Eee PC booting a Linux OS in five seconds. The Eee PC netbook (which had a solid state drive) booted the OS faster than the time it took for the conference projector to sync up with the system! According to this article at LWN.net, “done booting” meant “CPU and disk idle” – which is pretty darn impressive! The developers took a look at all the different operations that were performed during boot time and either optimized them or removed them completely to yield these incredible boot times. You can read more about how this task was done over at LWN.net. Now if someone would only release a distribution for a netbook that actually booted the system this quickly!!

[Check it out via SlashGear, Ubergizmo]

Mandriva introduced on Friday a new version of their Linux OS called the Mandriva Mini. The Mini, which is targeted towards hardware manufacturers, is optimized for netbook systems and features:

• Faster boot times
• Comprehensive connectivity support including Wi-Fi, 3G cellular data, and widgets
• Multimedia support with major codecs included
• Small size
• Efficient power management
• Optimized for flash memory management
• VGU (Very Graphical User) interface adapted for small screens

[Check it out via ZDNet UK]

If there’s been one overwhelming complaint about the Acer Aspire One, it would have to be the somewhat noisy internal fan. The problem is usually seen in hard drive versions of the Aspire One where the fan runs continuously on the netbook resulting in an annoying whine which undoubtedly helps drain the battery.

While Acer has yet to provide a fix for this problem, users on the Net have already devised solutions for both Linux and Windows. On the Linux side, you can read about a fix here at n00.be’s website. The fix was originally posted at the aspireone.net Wiki but the page got spammed recently. Here are the basic steps listed in the article:

• download the acerfand daemon script
• download the acer_ec.pl script (download from GoogleCode)
• Copy both files to /usr/local/bin
• make acerfand executable using chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/acerfand
• open /etc/rc.local as root (or use sudo) and add /usr/local/bin/acerfand at the end of the file

Now on the Windows side, you can download this excellent application over at computentsystems.

It’s a tiny widget like application that can be used to control the fan on the netbook. Simply set the temperature thresholds for when you want to turn on and off the fan, and watch the app do its thing. I’ve been using the app for a week or so now and it’s absolutely excellent.

If you can’t stand that fan, then we hope these tweaks help your Acer Aspire one experience.