
The Asus Eee: How Close Did the World Come to a Linux Desktop - mariuz
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/asus-eee-how-close-did-world-come-linux-desktop
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gcb0
the eeepc netbook from 2007(?) is still my distraction free coding machine. it
was the first cheap portable with ssd and sold with linux ($350 vs $450 with
windows)

sadly Microsoft deathgrip made it shortlived, as the article describes so
well.

and if you want a modern example: blackberry Priv! an android phone with
flagship specs, and a freaking physical keyboard + gesture trackpad combo
hidden under the OLED curved screen. it is my ssh and vim machine on the go!
and you know where you could buy it? on freaking craigslist! even amazon never
carried it. verizon and bestbuy? they only ever only had ONE unit, so you
couldn't pick up color/storage. or see it in action because apple and google
forbade any store from showing those phones.

its the retail death grip now, instead of the OEM deathgrip from the 90s the
article mentions.

~~~
dTal
Alas, no root on any of the Blackberry machines, beautiful though they are,
due to a 'trusted' boot chain to which nobody except Blackberry has the key.
This is a dealbreaker to anyone who wants to do any non-trivial hacking, such
as a chroot - a group which I imagine has some considerable overlap with those
who insist upon the ever-rare physical keyboard. Such a pity.

~~~
gcb0
this is _exactly_ the same with all other devices. just because you chose to
use a leaked version of odin to root your samsung, with a leaked version of
the firmware, built with a leaked version of the kernel and a leaked version
of the binary drivers' firmware blobs... doesn't make either case better.

one you don't have root, but already gives you the hability to filter each app
permission (which was the only thing I did with root) via a system app they
provide, the other you are pretty much doing the same as running a pirated
version of windows.

not defending either btw. android sucks in this regard. my point before was
mostly to highlight how google and others now have the same invisible hand
that Microsoft had before.

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simonblack
I've had a Linux Desktop since 2001. [And a Unix Desktop before that since
1991.] What the world chooses to do on its desktop is the world's business.

Incidentally, I had a EEE-PC 901 Linux laptop in 2011, upgraded to 128 MB SSD.
I found it was very handy and light, but it wasn't anywhere near as pleasant
to use as my Lenovo ThinkPad.

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xacky
I had a 2G surf back in 2008. The main flaw was there was no easy way to
update Firefox so you were stuck with version 2.0. And soon XP netbooks came
out and took the momentum out of Linux ones.

------
uuuuuu
I had one of these, and installed Linux on it (it came with Windows). But the
hard drive was so noisy I couldn't stand to use it. That was the fatal flaw.

