

No One Wants Linux Netbooks. Can Google Do Better? - Anon84
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/chrome-linux/

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mbenjaminsmith
That's just it - it's not a new flavor of linux as much as it's a kernel++ to
support Chrome. No one will know or care if it's linux or not. The question is
will people gel to the idea of just having a browser and nothing else.

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jacquesm
I think the biggest pushers of tech like this are going to be the 'family
nerds' that right now have an extra dayjob in keeping the windows systems of
their family malware clean.

The thin-terminal concept has been tried a number of times, with varying
success and this is simply googles take on it.

text terminals, VideoText, Viditel, Minitel, X terminals and now a web centric
terminal called chrome.

What's under the hood has always been less important than what it does.

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abalashov
As a very happy owner of a Xandros Linux-based eeePC who has numerous other
Linux netbook users in his acquaintance, I am very surprised to learn that "no
one wants Linux netbooks," at least on an anecdotal level, even though I'm
sure the sales data doesn't lie.

I got my first-generation 7" eeePC in early 2008, before XP was avaliable for
it, although that would have had absolutely no impact on my purchase anyhow.
The embedded Linux environment they built with Xandros is sleek, user-friendly
and very self-explanatory.

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jacquesm
Well, I guess with a title like that one counterexample will do, I just
'upgraded' my windows based ACER netbook to Ubuntu nbr.

The distinction between OS and brand is getting weirder by the day, I thought
that the google chrome OS was in fact the Linux OS with a custom windowing
system running the chrome browser.

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noonespecial
I just found out about nbr 2 days ago. Ran it for about 20 minutes from the
stick before ditching xp for a permanent install.

I think what they mean by "no one wants linux netbooks" is really, "no one can
find a place to buy linux netbooks anymore."

~~~
jacquesm
To be honest though I was absolutely surprised when I found out that the 3G
modem in the ACER works without any tinkering whatsoever (easier than in the
windows distro that came with the machine).

In the not-so-distant past that would have taken the better part of a day and
a whole bunch of fiddling. It's getting there.

