Acer Bets Big On Linux

Stony Stevenson writes to tell us IT News is reporting that Acer is betting big on Linux, looking to push Tux on many of their upcoming laptops and netbooks. "The company is already heavily promoting Linux for its low cost ultra-portable netbook range out later this year, but senior staff have said that Acer will also push Linux on its laptops. [...] Acer sees two killer apps with Linux on computers: operation and cost. Its flavour of Linux will boot in 15 seconds compared to minutes for Windows, and the open source operating system can extend battery life from five to seven hours."

Operation and Cost?

Operation and cost are killer apps?

Re:Operation and Cost?

When I moved to mostly use Linux, cost of the distro I chose was not an issue. Linux for me gave me things that Windows does not. It's more secure (having to be super user to install or run certain things) means nobody else can run things that can harm the system, it runs on lower spec machines (even though mine is up-to-date), and is more flexible in setup (ie. I an not restricted to a certain typeface or size for for example tool bars).

Linux for me does not yet have a killer app, K3B (CD/DVD burner) and Amarok are better than anything in Windows, but for a start, there is nothing like Photoshop, and no killer video capture and editing software, and for some, games are important too.

Re:Operation and Cost?

What's killer for me is that mplayer is on there in full working order.

I've found that I can throw ANY format I want at it, and it can always create OGM's, MPG's, or AVI's. No if's and's or but's from it. It just works.

Since there's multiple video decoders and renderers, I can play everything even if some video (like... video from the bad div3 hacked up codec) doesnt play on one player.

In windows world, if it crashes on 1 program, it will crash on another (since they almost all use the windows codec system).

Re:Operation and Cost?

Dont get me wrong. I use Windows and Linux and know about cross compatibility of each and ported programs.

VLC's nice for handling horribly mangled video and audio frames, but mplayer is super speedy. They both have their pluses and minuses.

In Linux, I can process VLC on one machine and port the visualization to another machine (we have 1Gbps wired network here at home). I can also set up rendering jobs when the machine comes live (or from a DVB card ^_^ ).

From my knowledge, scripting Windows to do those sort of operations would be hard, if not nigh impossible. One would need a full scripting language, like bash, to do such. It would require Interix (?) to get that kind of compatibility, not to mentrion being set back by a 100$ or so... And I get that already from Linux.

Re:Operation and Cost?

News from the Web...

Oct. 12, 2004

MSN announces the first official U.S. release of MSN Music. Microsoft also announces that MSN Music will be available in eight additional countries, creating the world's largest network of legal online music download services.

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August 31, 2008
Microsoft is ceasing support for its MSN Music service. After August 31, 2008, people who have bought music from the service will no longer be able to move that music to different computers, or even change the operating system on their current computers.

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So play's for sure... lasted slightly under 4 years. Then you have to buy it all again. And this is from an enormous multi-billion dollar corporation that is still in good financial health. Apparently Microsoft is no Sears when it comes to this kind of support.

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And our other example of DRM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX [wikipedia.org]
The DIVX rental system was created in 1998 in time for the holiday season and was discontinued on June 16, 1999 due to the costs of introducing the format, as well as its very limited acceptance by the general public. Over the next two years the DIVX system was phased out. Customers could still view all their DIVX discs and were given a $100 refund for every player that was purchased before June 16, 1999. All discs that were unsold at the end of the summer of 1999 were destroyed. The program officially cut off access to accounts on July 7, 2001.

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How can consumers be so bloody stupid? They have two clear examples of perfectly good product being killed in less than 5 years by DRM so they had to buy it again. And yet they are letting governments and the entertainment industry stick it to them and even contemplate prison and unreasonable fines for trying to avoid being screwed.

Re:Operation and Cost?

The 'news' value is that a huge, major OEM of Windows is drifting towards Linux support, which means that driver availability, support, integration, and application components get a new protagonist, and a powerful one at that.

Ideological reasons aside, it's a major deal for such a huge OEM of Microsoft to have committed to the 'enemy' camp. And as Acer is very influential in Asia, it also means that others will likely follow suit in a 'herd' effect.

Re:Operation and Cost?

Agreed. Unless something better comes along, I'll definitely be rewarding them with my business the next time I need a laptop -- even if I planned to reinstall a different distro. At the very least, it lets you know that there's going to be good hardware support and shows that there's a market. Ooh, I hope they make some models with solid state drives...

Re:Operation and Cost?

Photoshop CS2 installs perfectly under Wine and they are working on CS3.

Re:Operation and Cost?

Yes there is. [gimpshop.com] However, from what I understand the bigger problem is that GIMP doesnt understand CMYK color formats.. though I could be wrong there.

Re:Operation and Cost?

*sigh*

I gave both Photoshop 6 running very stable under Wine and The GIMP (sans Gimpshop) to my wife, who is a semi-professional photographer but has never used any photo editing applications and is a complete computer n00b.

I said pick the one that looks the easiest to you.

She picked The GIMP.

She's still had some learning curve, but she's also tried learning Photoshop, and that one seems just as hard to her.

Photoshop only seems easier to use because you've used it for a long time. Photoshop is difficult to work with, especially for a n00b.

Re:Operation and Cost?

Apparently the word "Application" has been broadened to mean "quality attributes" on a relative level when abbreviated, meaning that "low cost" and "ease of operation" (both being high quality) are "Killer Applications". I guess you could *see* how this word slip happened, being that "killer applications" are often considered "quality attributes" when marketing operating systems, mobile devices, or software/hardware packages.

[/logic]

Oh, woe is you, English Language, woe is you. Torn to shreds by marketers and businessmen. Somewhere, George Orwell is crying.

[/poetic]

I'm fine with some marketing terminology abstraction, but I'd like to say , "Hey Guy! Get a dictionary!". He could have just said "killer selling points".

Acer. Uh uhuh.

I was looking for a laptop about a year ago (I ended up getting a Thinkpad after a nasty return process).

I went to the Circuit City cause I had a cc from them and I get points and all. I started looking at the brands offered: Gateway, IBM, Sony, Toshiba, some noname brand I didnt recognize, and acer.

Gateway looked nice but wasnt feature laden for what I wanted (only had 1g ram).
I saw what the current IBM's looked like, but couldnt afford it at the time.. but I wanted it.
Sony: Root-kit fiasco. Hell no.
Toshiba looked nice but was a little too flimsy for my taste. It felt the cowling on the lip of the base was going to pop off.
Nonames: Had little lights in the laptop you could turn on and off in the bios. They were bargain basement cause they had as low as 512MB ram. Pass.
HP. I got suckered in buying a dv9660us because it was sleek, seemed to run nice, and had most of the ports I needed. In the end, the nice sensor bar failed for the second time and I demanded my money back. I used this money to buy a T61 decked out ;D I'm happy now along with my 8-10 hr battery life

Acer: Looked decent and clean. There were a lot of switches on the body turning on and off components via ACPI calls (like turn on and off wifi). There was one though... The bluetooth switch. It was on all the models but NONE HAD BLUETOOTH. How shoddy was that? The switch just sort-of glided back and forth like when a mechanical microswitch fails. This thing felt cheaper than the cheapest no-namer.

If their new line is under 300, I'd consider it. Because thats I can afford to lose.

Battery Life

the open source operating system can extend battery life from five to seven hours

Here I sit, typing on my Ubuntu running Acer TravelMate 4674WLMi that won't last two hours unplugged. I really hope the above quoted sentence is true.

It's Inevitable!

I'm glad to see this type of product coming to consumers with a marketing force behind them (Acer, ASUS, Dell etc...)This product is perfect for my parents, grandmother and myself!

Before the M$ bash fest starts let's make this clear. These companies are not using Linux distros because they hate Microsoft or any of that other nonsense. It is purely a financial decision. They can make more money with Linux while at the same time offer the consumers a product that can be judged by its functionality and other merits. Not by a third party having their branding all over it.

If these companies could make more money using M$ operating systems, they would in a hearbeat.

Ok... now that we are clear, The Ubuntu fan boi in me wants say. Sweet it's finally the year of the Linux DeskTo... Lapto... NetBook?

hmm.

At the same time, the company expects that the price differential of Linux will make the offering attractive for consumers at the low-cost end of the market.

"Microsoft's operating system typically costs around £50 per unit," said David Drummond, UK managing director at Acer. "On a £1,000 PC that is peanuts, but on a £200 computer it is a major issue."

that is until MS reduces the price of windows (OPLC) send in the big guns (Ballmer, Gates) or tries a underhand tactic like target the large corporate buyers. with a sack full of cash and a lot to use expect them to utilise every dirty drink in the book.

though, on balance, I think the winds are turning on this issue, and frankly - its about bloody time.

disclaimer? me & linux - eight years and counting.

Tux?

looking to push Tux on many of their upcoming laptops and netbooks.

That's GNU/Tux to you, freedom hater!

Will Acer change directions and reap the cash?

Two Scenarios

1. Acer will stay the course, and refuse incentives from MS.
2. MS will give Acer such a good deal that they will announce "it turns out that Linux was a bad fit for most of our product line".

We will now see what kink of company Acer is.

Re:do what now?

Ubuntu takes ~1.75 minutes to boot on my laptop and Vista a little longer.

Re:do what now?

I wouldn't just count the time it takes to get a login prompt in vista. After you enter your login and password I'd say it takes at least another 30s before the hard drive stops rattling and you can get firefox up and running.

Re:do what now?

Well, perhaps these notebooks won't have hardware powerful enough to boot Vista in less than a few minutes.

Besides, Linux can be tweaked. Acer may tweak both the kernel and the userland to optimize it just for their hardware; they would not be able to do that with Windows of any flavor.

Re:do what now?

I beg to differ. I have a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz (I still consider that modern hardware) and it takes me over five minutes from I turn the computer on 'till everything is up and running in XP, and I'm not a typical user. I've disabled many bloated services and my taskbar do not have the 20+ icons you usually see novice users having. In comparison, I'm dual booting and it takes less than a minute for me to boot Ubuntu (not that I'm trying to troll here but it was mentioned in the topic).

Re:do what now?

My HP desktop takes 30 seconds just to get through the BIOS startup.

Re:do what now?

My HP desktop takes 30 seconds just to get through the BIOS startup.

My at home Dell does the same thing. I don't know what the grandparent is smoking, but when I boot up my work machine in the morning, I go get a cup of coffee and come back to it still loading. It's a Dual processor dual core Xenon with 8GB RAM running XP-64.

Re:do what now?

You forget that we are talking about low-end notebooks: the article specifically mentions the perceived market advantage Acer will incur in the $200 price range, since a Windows license adds about $50, which is a large percentage of that cost.

Since the notebooks are low-end, we expect them to have relatively poorer specs. So, Windows (and everything) will take longer to boot--a minute seems reasonable. They are arguing that because they custom-tailored Linux to the hardware specifications, and because of inherent advantages in the Linux model, it boots more quickly. Sounds fine to me!

Re:do what now?

It's been years since **any** OS has taken minutes to boot up on modern hardware. My Vista notebook, XP x64 desktop, both are up and running in under 30 seconds.

The thing I notice about Windows is that it *looks* like it is up and running, but it takes another minute or two before it actually does anything.