5 ms·
where have all the Linux netbooks gone? my requirements for a Laptop are: - it must be cheap, $300 is fine, because a Laptop can easily be stolen, or damaged.
by kephra 14y ago
where have all the Linux netbooks gone?
my requirements for a Laptop are:
- it must be cheap, $300 is fine, because a Laptop can easily be stolen, or damaged.
- it must be light, less than 2lbs, because I don't own a car, and still want to carry my laptop around
- it must boot Linux from network to boot into backup cycle.
- the hardware must be 100% supported by free drivers.
- it should not bundle a Microsoft tax.
I don't care much about the preinstalled OS. I'll replace it anyway. I see no sense in bundling a spyware Ubuntu, and even less in some cloud service crapware on a developers laptop. I don't know if other developers think similar, but I fear that the hyped Sputnik will just give Dell the excuse to abandon Linux laptops again, because of low sales.
The class of $300, 2lbs Linux laptops created fear for Intel and Microsoft instead. Thats why they are no longer sold.
- hdevalence 14y ago> The class of $300, 2lbs Linux laptops created fear for Intel and Microsoft instead. Thats why they are no longer sold. No, the reason they generally aren't sold is because consumers don't want them -- most consumers would rather have a tablet, as evidenced by sales. It's not some massive conspiracy, it's just that your needs are not the needs of most consumers.
- illicium 14y agoChromebook?
- jdboyd 14y agoThe Samsung Chromebook is $249 and doesn't include MS tax. Alas, it is 2.5 pounds rather than 2. I don't know about the boot into backup cycle.
- kephra 14y agooops "boot into backup cycle" is my method of installing new systems. I create them in a chroot/lxc on a NFS server, and boot the real system or laptop by PXE, rsync it on the disk and make it bootable. The real system will also rsync itself to this master, and the master is doing incremental backup. So every system has a backup before it even exists on its own disk, and installation is just a normal restore of a backup. Also on Chromebook, specs tells some funny CPU, and only 2+16GB of SSD. Thats much lower than an old eeepc1000. Especially as it likely ships some funny crippleware, and not a minimal Debian, Arch or Gentoo.