Asus Slaps Linux In the Face

#1 29th May 2009, 12:20 AM

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl.../05/28/0321251 read it all there

Iron_Mike · #2 29th May 2009, 03:48 AM

No big deal, I was never a fan of Asus but can you type "format c:"

Mike

scottro · #3 29th May 2009, 04:16 AM

I bought my Asus with Windows. Never even booted it, just grabbed a USB stick and installed Fedora.

Same with my Aspire One. In the US at least, the WIndows version had far better specs than the Linux version and the price difference was minimal. I bought it with Windows and never booted WIndows, just took a USB and installed Fedora.

WIth the one other laptop I owned, once again, it came with Windows. It's too bad they don't sell them more cheaply here with no O/S at all. I'm sure they're available somewhere, but I don't know where.

It is too bad in a way, but from what I hear, a lot of people considered the Asus version, like, unfortunately, the majority of the Linux versions on these netbooks, to not be all that great. In many cases, such as Acer's Linpus, it's a pretty crippled version and most Linux users who buy wind up wiping LInpus and installing their distribution of choice.

creeping death · #4 29th May 2009, 05:30 AM

i dont know how the economics of the eee pc works but i conject that the sales of those laptops would dip ... because now the customers will have to pay for windows ...

strange but i see no such thing in the eee pc site... and moreover eee pc is already offered with ms-windows and linux .

rpstitz · #5 29th May 2009, 05:45 AM

I use ASUS motherboards and love them. Everything is very much compatible with Linux (the ones I chose, anyway) and I have had much luck with their products.

Also, they have a feature on some of thier mobos called ASUS Express Gate – an optional Linux OS bootup for access to the Internet in 5 seconds (so they claim). I'm going to try it out, I'll let you all know how it works.

This thing with M$ is just proof that they are scared to death of Linux. I think this will help more than it hurts Linux because they used a crappy version of Linux and made the rest of us look bad. This is the main reason they had such a high return rate...if they used Mint it would have been much better for ASUS and Linux. And I don't hold it against ASUS because M$=$$$$$ and that's hard for anyone to resist.

Silpheed2K · #6 29th May 2009, 06:55 AM

and who's paying Asus and helping fund their business needs?

That's right. (not GNU/Linux)

I don't have any problem with that. It's just business and doesn't interfere with my OS installations.

Loki1950 · #7 29th May 2009, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Also, they have a feature on some of thier mobos called ASUS Express Gate – an optional Linux OS bootup for access to the Internet in 5 seconds (so they claim). I'm going to try it out, I'll let you all know how it works.

Works great my Mobo has it's a rebranded Splashtop and it's faster than 5 secs boots to a screen with four big buttons Web,Photos,Chat,Skype and three more on the bottom right OS,BIOS,OFF

the desktop is Xfce nice theme took me about four minutes to configure everything to my liking including the net connection.And there is mouse support on the initial splashscreen. Even posted here at one point after a wee fedora moment of no boot

The web browser is FF 2.x sometime as it does have limited memory for is use and FF 3.0's database might get out of hand.

Enjoy the Choice

stevea · #8 30th May 2009, 07:18 PM

Not sure this is a slap in the face, more of a business decision based on the product preferences of the technical illiterati. Of course one may suspect MS had an unhealthy hand in the decision making, but that's pure speculation. MS has all of the peripheral and chip mfgrs making compatible drivers for them, gratis. Linux doesn't. Sorry but I know ppl who have had to muck around with Linux driver transplants on these UMPCs and it's not something your avg PC user wants to do. I can't fault Asus in that particular case, but it takes real effort to make a clean fully functional Linux install on any hardware, not so much Windows.

Then the end-luser plugs his favorite xyzzy brand usb audio/radio interface into the Linux system and .. no joy. What do we tell him ? Go to some website, find some beta-app, compile it, cross his fingers and ...

That is NOT the experience most PC users want. It's also the reason I don't think Fedora is a good choice for Linux noobs. If Fedora isn't giving you a rough-ride in terms of software problems, then you aren't using it's features.

scottro · #9 31st May 2009, 05:31 AM

There was an interesting blog on this subject mentioned somewhere.

Ah, here it is.

http://www.itsbetterwithoutwindows.com/

One point was certainly valid--just about all the manufacturers who offered Linux offered a really screwed up version of it. The only one with which I had any experience was the Aspire One's Linpus Lite, which was horrible.

Implied in the article above is that many of the netbook folks just wanted to scare MS into dropping the licensing price. If so, it might have worked, at least judging from the price difference between Linux and Windows versions in the US.

It was certainly true, as he said, that the version of Linux usually supplied with netbooks isn't very good--there are exceptions, Dell and Sylvannia (though they don't make them, I think, they just rebrand them) were shipping with Ubuntu. Whether or not Ubuntu is a good Linux or not isn't the issue here, the issue is that things like Linpus, and apparently Asus' version of LInux were simply lacking in many basic features.

scottro · #10 31st May 2009, 05:36 AM

Despite what I just wrote above, I think stevea also hit it on the head--they plug something in and it doesn't work. It might be easy to get it to work, but it's not really fair to ask the user who simply sees the computer as a tool, a means to an end, to start googling to get something relatively basic to work properly.

Loki1950 · #11 31st May 2009, 08:36 AM

Just as an aside Asus do provide a driver for there on-board Intel HD sound it's a source tarbal for alsa 1.0.16 but fedora 10 comes with alsa 1.0.20-1 so it works OTB

Enjoy the Choice

Silpheed2K · #12 31st May 2009, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loki1950

Just as an aside Asus do provide a driver for there on-board Intel HD sound it's a source tarbal for alsa 1.0.16 but fedora 10 comes with alsa 1.0.20-1 so it works OTB

Enjoy the Choice

why do you always end with that phrase? I've noticed it in everything from your support posts to ordinary comments.

#13 31st May 2009, 09:28 AM

put it in your Signature dude ( forum Signature )

Loki1950 · #14 31st May 2009, 11:39 AM

Been doing that way for about five years now since i installed Fc3 but Demz is right it really belongs in my sig so that where it will be from now on at least on this forum

As to it's meaning is it not the essence of FOSS.

scottro · #15 31st May 2009, 12:38 PM

For what it's worth, regardless of Asus' decision, F11 Rawhide works almost perfectly on the Asus 1000HE, including the function key to enable/disable wireless, which doesn't work with Ubuntu, at least for me, nor Arch (though according to the Arch Wiki, it should).

It's not working (yet) with koji, but regardless....