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The Linux distillery 2008: A year of the Linux Distillery in review
The Linux distillery 2008: A year of the Linux Distillery in review | 2008: A year of the Linux Distillery in review |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Wednesday, 31 December 2008 | |
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Looking back it’s interesting – even sad – to see how some things didn’t work out as they could have. At the end of 2007 ASUS had released the ASUS Eee Linux PC. This diminutive subnotebook was cheap – ok, not cheap as in “dirt” but cheap as in “a laptop for just a couple of hundred dollars.” The punters loved it, the competition envied it, an entire new market (dubbed “netbooks”) emerged and it looked like ASUS had pulled off what Ubuntu and Red Hat had not been able to do – namely entrench Linux in the homes of ordinary folk who use computers to send e-mail, manage their photo collection and write letters. I finished 2007 with a story that hit the front page of SlashDot, “So, just what can you do with this ASUS Eee Linux PC thing anyway?” talking about the remarkable and even crazy things dedicated hardware hackers had achieved. By June I was spruiking that hardware manufacturers were turning Linux into a household commodity with the rise of netbook and the invention of the Atom processor specifically for low-powered portable units like them. They gave new strength to Linux advocacy. Previously you might turn on a computer and say, “See, this is GNOME” and it meant little to your friend. Now you can say, “See this notebook? It cost me $300” and that was compelling. Canonical, the brains behind Ubuntu, declared their Atom-using mobile-device optimised version called Ubuntu Netbook Remix and I said we were on the tip of a revolution. By October it was a different story. MSI observed that Linux netbooks were returned four times as often as ones running Windows XP. Trends were turning. While it was Linux who made the netbook market come to life, it was Microsoft that was now reaping the gains because although consumers wanted something cheap it transpired they also wanted something familiar. The Windows tax wasn’t a sufficient impetus to brave a new Linux world. I put forth the argument that netbooks just can’t be treated like “another” laptop. Consumers buying netbooks thinking they will go home and load on Microsoft Office and Symantec antivirus and World of Warcraft are being, well, dumbasses. Consider the netbook a different animal. It will get you online wherever you are, with a minimum of travelling weight and with a nice battery lifetime. Google believe the future of computing is in the cloud, not on the desktop, and Linux-based netbooks can get you there. Nevertheless, at this time, it appears 2008 wasn’t the year of the Linux desktop that looked so real this time twelve months ago. Still, I wasn’t alone; luminaries like Linus Torvalds also saw the Eee as being the beginning of a strong movement towards Linux-based software stacks embedded within increasingly-commoditised hardware. Please use the following to navigate through my reflection on 2008. Netbooks – page 1 Software releases, Windows Vista and open source advocacy – page 2 The war against Microsoft’s war against Linux – pages 3 and 4 Why Small Business Server sucks and Linux alternatives – page 4 Education, why open source makes sense – page 5 Hard-core tech, festive fun and 2009! - page 6 |
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