[PLUG] Best Selling Laptop on Amazon runs ... Linux

Tue Jan 8 13:12:32 UTC 2013

I bought one of those, from Amazon.  It doesn't feel much like any Linux
distro I've ever used, but I guess that's one of the advantages of a
Linux/BSD ecosystem -- it can be tailored to lots of purposes.  The
Chromebook delivers exactly what it promises out of the box and comes with
100 GB of Gdrive cloud storage, free for 2 years (oh, and 12 free GoGo
in-flight Internet passes).  All in all, it seemed like a better option for
me than a tablet or those netbooks that are still around, but I think the
promising news is that there are seemingly an increasing number of less
spendy options that are gaining a foothold.

On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 3:41 PM, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at gate.kl-ic.com>wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 07, 2013 at 06:15:47AM -0800, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> > And it's not Ubuntu either.
> > A Samsung Chromebook
> >
> http://www.zdnet.com/amazons-top-selling-laptop-doesnt-run-windows-or-mac-os-it-runs-linux-7000009433/
>
> The mudslinging in the replies is more interesting.  Here's
> my bit of wet brown prolixity:
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Expanding the landscape
>
> 40 years ago, computing meant IBM and DEC.  Now it means Windows,
> games consoles and POSIX/Open (Unix, BSD, Linux, Apache, embedded,
>  ...).  Windows still dominates its niche, but that niche is an
> ever-smaller part of a rapidly diversifying computing landscape.
> Microsoft needs huge revenue to survive.  Even if Linux and BSD and
> all their many variants are smaller in total size (they aren't), they
> are starving the giants by reducing both market share and margins.
>
> Microsoft can make lucrative marketing deals and produce "vending
> machine" OSes like Windows 8, but the web is flat, and those deals
> will only last as long as Microsoft's partners lack the skills to
> reach their customers directly without sending money to Redmond.
>
> Linux is a platform, a way of doing business, a way to add a little
> frosting on top and deliver a whole cake.  For the 90% of companies
> that are not software or content, it can be a less expensive, lower
> risk, and more agile way to achieve business goals.
>
> Granted, there is much to learn before the open software approach
> is best for everyone, but the learning accumulates as the number of
> interactions (the square of the number of participants) in an open
> system, while it accumulates as the logarithm of the number of
> participants in a hierarchical system.  Metcalfe's law.
>
> Google and IBM(!) may be the most public faces of free and open source
> software, but the real strength is the range of sizes the platform
> permits.  I'm an electrical engineer, not a programmer, but I have
> found small bugs and patched my own kernel, and much better programmers
> than I have improved those patches and shared them with the world.
> Very small companies can rapidly become very big companies (like
> Google), and very big companies can rapidly become very different big
> companies (like IBM).  Small companies can focus on tiny market niches
> (small office medical informatics, for example) and provide services
> and create worldwide communities of fanatically loyal customers.
> As long as you can abide by "potluck rules" - take something,
> bring something - you can take a lot more than you bring, given
> the multiplying effect of the web and the easy customization of
> open systems.  Million dollar problems become ten thousand dollar
> problems.  Four person shops can serve a half a million users.
>
> So the big surprise is that in spite of optimizing to serve niche
> markets, Linux-based Chrome enables a product that can win in a
> traditionally "big software" niche like consumer notebooks.  In time,
> some of the purchasers of the ChromeBooks will learn that they can
> hack and customize their devices, and add their skills and insights
> to the N-squared open network, adding far more value than their
> dollar spending would at logarithmic/hierarchical Microsoft or Apple.
> Perhaps some of you have only seen a few pebbles move so far,
> but deep forces are stirring, and the landslide is inevitable.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Keith
>
> --
> Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
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> PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
> http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
>

-- 
Michael M. Moore <moore.michael.m at gmail.com>
cell (503) 707-1239
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