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."

Re:do what now?

[clampolo]

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?

[cp.tar]

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:Operation and Cost?

[postbigbang]

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:do what now?

[Trashman]

Since you didn't mention it, based on your account, I'm guessing that are running with with 512MB of RAM (or less.) or you have Spyware loading up somewhere.

My AthlonXP 3200 2.2Ghz w/ 1GB of ram boots XP in a little over 1 minute, from a cold boot.

Re:do what now?

[Shados]

Even more so, why even boot a computer at all anymore? My 5 years old lap-top can stay 2-3 days in sleep mode, and wakes up from it in 5 seconds. My desktop machine can wake up from -hibernating- in about 15 seconds (though I prefer sleep mode, especially since Vista's implementation is pretty cool).

The only time I see a reboot is when windows update requires it... (and even then I don't really feel it, since I reboot the machine when I'm going to bed)

Re:do what now?

[badboy_tw2002]

Exactly. Of course, most of that seems like the fault of the 5000 other programs that feel they need to run at startup. Antivirus stuff seems like the worst offender, but hey, its Windows so you can't boot without it!

Re:Operation and Cost?

[Firehed]

The lack of CMYK color is the least of GIMP's problems. I applaud the effort, but I still find it unusable (and that's all that I care about; if you can work with it then you've just saved $600++ but I can't).

Re:do what now?

[mlwmohawk]

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.

Re:Operation and Cost?

[morgan_greywolf]

One would need a full scripting language, like bash, to do such.

Not that I'm trying to argue for the Windows crowd, mind you, but you have two options:

1. Cygwin [cygwin.com], which includes bash and it won't cost you a single pennny.
2. Python [python.org], which can do almost anything you can imagine. It also runs on Windows and will cost you $0.

Re:Operation and Cost?

[Creepy Crawler]

I know about the scripting offerings that is available for Windows. All of them have their major fallouts for being on the Windows platform.

These problems go to Windows to its core. How do we change the Registry in text format so that we can guarantee that we do not corrupt it? I'm sure there's a commandline regedit somewhere, but I'd like to edit it as flat files ala /etc.

I'd like to use a Microsoft system that does not require graphical support. Where's a rich commandline for those that need no graphics (samba server, calendar/mail server..)?

I'd like a full update of nearly every program at once. Debian, RH, and many others who are much smaller than Microsoft can manage to do this very well. Considering MS's clout, why cant they make a unified updater like RPM or Dpackage? They could already do this with all the "free license" projects, so the only group left is COTS. I'd also like the ability to back up these updates on a local server like SAS (or ANY distro with Linux) but have the same cost as Linux.

Windows has file locking. Linux doesnt. I can save a MP3 in linux and play it at the same time. I can also delete it WHILE playing and nothing bad happens (until I hit the beginning again). Windows has the annoying "feature" 'its currently in use. do something different'.

There's tons of things here and there that will lessen the usability of ported BASH and python on Windows. WSH is also a answer, but still does not enough compared to bash and linux. I cant find many things that Windows is better at than Linux.

Re:It makes a lot of sense, surprised people notic

[JeremyGNJ]

Why WOULDN'T a company put this OS on a laptop?

It might have something to do with ..... their customers not wanting it.

Re:Operation and Cost?

[Dystopian Rebel]

Linux for me does not yet have a killer app,

Linux IS the killer app. Guess whom it is killing.

Re:It makes a lot of sense, surprised people notic

[mlwmohawk]

It might have something to do with ..... their customers not wanting it.

I haven't seen any credible study or statistic that indicates that people want windows.

People may be used to it, but they don't *choose* it, per se' People *choose* Macintosh, but since Microsoft has a monopoly, one can only view a windows purchase as acceptance of the default.

When we have real competition in the market place, we can start studying what people really want.

Re:Operation and Cost?

[Rei]

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

These problems go to Windows to its core. How do we change the Registry in text format so that we can guarantee that we do not corrupt it? I'm sure there's a commandline regedit somewhere, but I'd like to edit it as flat files ala /etc.

That is a stupid argument. Just because you can not doit as it is done in whatever other system does not mean you can not do it, or that it is more difficult. At least that is what we are always saying when trying to make people migrate from Windows to Linux.

So, just because the design of the OS configuration fo Windows is not as in Linux, it does not mean that it is better or worse. Just that it is different. It is like trying to use a foreach statement in C and stating that C is broken because it does not have a foreach statement.


There's tons of things here and there that will lessen the usability of ported BASH and python on Windows. WSH is also a answer, but still does not enough compared to bash and linux. I cant find many things that Windows is better at than Linux.

In my experience, everything you can do on Linux can be done in Windows one way or another (I can't think of an open source app which hasn't been run on Windows... and if it hasn't, as people always put it, it is open source, just compile it for Windows), there are even precompiled versions of bash, gawk, etc for Windows).

However, I can not say the same of going Win -> Linux. As people already pointed, there are full blown applications like Photoshop, Guitar Rig, Guitar Pro, Pro Tools, Adobe Premier, for which there are not real (as in complete, production ready) alternatives in Linux. The most you can do is try to run it in Wine to half-run it.

Re:It's Inevitable!

[HW_Hack]

""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.""

Making more money, or with a lower price point tapping into a new market of buyers ? At $150 - $250 it can temp folks to buy their first mobile PC --- for techies its a chance to pickup an additional mobile device for work - travel - hacking ... at a low cost.

I see this as about financial and new opportunity ... the standard price point markets are also nearing saturation

Re:Two generations behind. . .

[meringuoid]

Acer now? Sheesh; they might just sell a few to the rubes based on the similarity in their company name.

The Aspire One is similar in spec to the Eee 900, and costs less than the Eee 701. SOLD.

Re:It makes a lot of sense, surprised people notic

[mlwmohawk]

I don't care that they've been legally found guilty of being a monopoly. They aren't.

It is not a useful use of anyone's time to debate an issue long decided with a person who does not accept facts.

Re:do what now?

[Dolda2000]

It may not be something you would like to do to your servers at work, but I installed coreboot (formerly LinuxBIOS) on my server at home, and it takes 6 seconds to hand over to the operating system (the bootloader is in ROM).