Canonical Talks Netbook Remix Details

geekinchief points to a just-posted interview at Laptop Magazine "with Canonical's market manager, Gerry Carr, where he talks about Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Some interesting details: Canonical does not plan to make the Netbook remix available for download or sale. It will only come pre-installed on new systems. It will boot in 5-10 seconds."

not a big fan

[debatem1]

Ubuntu built its base on the ability to easily, cleanly displace the dominant OS. Now that they've got some traction they reverse directions in a market that provides next to no freedom for users? Color me unimpressed- if they really want software to be free, the first step is giving people the ability to choose between the codebases that already exist.

Re:Not available?

[kernowyon]

Whilst an iso would be useful, it isn't too hard to install a normal Ubuntu/whatever distro onto a laptop - or even an EeePC (my Eee runs Kubuntu).
Once installed, it is relatively easy to customise to your own tastes/needs. For example, I removed all the Bluetooth gubbins, as much printer related stuff as possible and a whole host of odds and ends (various fonts for languages I don't use saved me 70+ mb)

I haven't looked at the Notebook Remix specs, but I imagine the various tweaks are all going to be easy enough to replicate on your own machine.

Bearing in mind that the pre-installed Windows OEM versions are virtually free to manufacturers (costs are low plus recouping any cash via all the pre-installed bloatware trial versions etc), I suspect that Linux pre-installed machines will be no cheaper than Windows ones - and maybe even more expensive. Hopefully any machines which come onto the market will be decent spec - not the usual "hey, Linux is free, therefore lets give the purchaser the bottom end processor/amount of ram/graphics/hard drive....." . That really pisses me off.
I don't use Windows and would buy a Linux laptop if they were easily available at the same (or slightly less) cost as the Windows equivalent machines (I already have two EeePCs) - I hate paying the Windows Tax on laptops which I format the second I get them out of the packaging!

Re:Not available?

[lupis42]

That is the one part of the MSI Wind that bothers me, actually: the Windows model is the one with more RAM and Bluetooth, and since integrated Bluetooth is important to me, I'm going to buy that one. OTOH, I will probably leave WinXP on there, for Diablo II related purposes, so it isn't that bad. If my hand's were a bit smaller, and it were more available and less expensive, I would be getting a EEE 901 Linux. We'll just have to see what the launch price is.