OStatic

I was never one for cryptozoological taxidermic creations -- you won't find mermonkeys or crocoducks on display in my home. I have, however, for the last few weeks, been hiding a jackalope in my laptop bag. He was an experimental little guy, but the folks at Canonical and the vast community behind Ubuntu have completed the necessary gene splicing and DNA alterations and soon -- very soon -- the final, stable release of Ubuntu 9.04 (the Jaunty Jackalope) will be let loose into the wild.

What's new this time around? How does it all work? And for the wilder types, where locally can you attend a Jaunty Jackalope release party?

Over at ComputerWorld, Seth Weintraub waxes poetic about Microsoft's decision to offer a Windows 7 Starter edition to keep its presence strong in the netbook arena, and why this is a huge advantage for Google's Linux-based Android.

Windows 7 Starter edition is designed to run no more than three applications simultaneously -- purchasing an upgrade allows users to run, presumably, as many apps as their netbooks can handle at one time. Now, three concurrent applications at a shot might be sufficient for a number of users; it might be all that some netbooks can handle, depending on the applications and system resources running in the background. Microsoft isn't hiding the fact it is experimenting with a limited Starter, and hopefully netbook manufacturers will also make buyers aware of this. But awareness and being almost sufficient in even most cases is irrelevant. It's the concept that there is a limit, and purchasing an upgrade for functionality that most won't need every day (but when it's needed, it's really needed) that will make netbooks running alternative operating systems increasingly attractive. It's an advantage not only for Android, but any Linux distribution netbook builders optimize for their hardware.

A short piece on Xbit Labs directed me to an interesting post by Chris Kenyon, Canonical's Director of Business Development. In this piece, Kenyon tackles another absolutely critical factor in marketing Linux netbooks (I discussed a few of the others on Tuesday) -- offering quality engineered hardware and carefully configured software that's ready to go, right out of the box.

Kenyon's post offers advice and points to consider to OEMs, consumers, and yes, even Microsoft. It's sound, it's reasoned -- perhaps to the point one wonders why it needed to be said -- and it paints an encouraging picture of the future for Linux netbooks.

David Coursey at PCWorld knew full well he'd opened a can of worms when he asked why anyone would want an Android netbook. Personally, I'd rather have an Ubuntu Netbook Remix powered one, or one with an operating system tailored with the latest Moblin Image Creator utility, but I'm sort of one of those types anyway.

I love and use open source software, nearly exclusively. I think the last time I really sat down to run Windows was when I transferred Windows XP on to my husband's newly built mostly playtime machine. As much as I love open source software, however, I am a stronger advocate for having the right tool for the job, and using the software that works best for the user and the task at hand. The right tool can vary greatly between users, tasks and even hardware. I have a few qualms about Coursey's statement that nobody could possibly ever want an Android netbook, unless the price was signficantly lower. I just don't believe it, and the nature of netbooks, people's expectations of what they can (or can't) do, and hardware disparities between Linux and Windows models further complicates the netbook operating system war.

I purchased my ASUS EeePC 701 just over a year ago, when the Eee was just about the only netbook on the market, and netbooks came with Windows XP drivers, but not with Windows pre-installed. As I live in an urban area that boasts a techie population (near Cambridge, Massachusetts), I was, even a year ago, able to walk into a retail store to look at, try, and purchase the little machine. It was inexpensive, it ran Linux, and that was more than enough for me.

At Tectonic, Nic Ludick wonders if this isn't actually a bad thing in the long run for boosting Linux adoption. I can't say as I agree with his implication that retailers using Linux netbooks for their personal financial gain is terribly horrific -- retailers are in the business of selling things for a profit. He does, however, make some valid points on Linux in a retail sales environment.

The present economy has the technology industry in an interesting position. Computer manufacturers and system builders (such as Dell, ASUS, and MSI) have focused on using full desktop chips (Intel and VIA) and components, and shrinking them down into small, inexpensive devices that are capable of performing basic computing tasks. It's been difficult, however, to fully break from the full desktop school of thought -- and these small machines, for many, are a little too expensive for what they deliver.

Embedded chip manufacturers feel they have something to offer, and that using their processors in these settings will be both cost-effective and a better computing experience. The embedded chips are quite powerful, and a few embedded chip companies are firm in the belief that open source operating systems are the best way to bring out the best in their processors, and the devices they power.

MIPS Technologies, a producer of embedded processors, analog IP products and software tools, announced this morning that it has joined the Linux Foundation. MIPS vice president of software engineering, Udi Kalekin, says that the majority of MIPS developers use Linux for product development, so membership in the Foundation seemed a natural way to support their efforts as well as contribute to the larger Linux community.

On Monday, Freescale Semiconductor announced its further plans to forge ahead into the netbook market. Freescale, a major manufacturer of embedded semiconductors, entered the netbook arena in January with its i.MX515 chip and a comprehensive netbook reference design featuring the new-to-ARM Ubuntu Linux platform.

Ubuntu isn't the only open source option for Freescale, however. The company has announced it will also support the Android platform, Xandros Linux, and HyperSpace, an instant-on Linux-based environment.

I like hardware. When I say this, I don't mean gadgets (although I don't turn those away either), I mean hardware. I like to build desktops, from chassis to power supply to motherboard to peripheral cards. I like desktops because I feel I have control over what goes in them, as well as what I run on them. They're easy to upgrade -- and they seem far more durable than their lap-sized peers. I understand this is in no small part due to desktops not being portable.

I made a vow a few years back I would never use a laptop as my primary machine. This was before the advent of solid state disks and netbooks. But because portability has its appeal, Linux is my operating system of choice, and because it fit both the hardware and gadget criteria, I picked up an EeePC a year ago. It works well as a quick way to get online and do basic tasks. Who needs a full-sized notebook?

I do. I've found I need to break my vow, even, and use it as my primary work machine. It needs to run Linux, and what's more -- it needs to be pre-installed. Fortunately, I have options.

One of the most appealing aspects of open source software is its ability to be almost everything to everyone. Fine, it's hyperbole, but flexibility and access to the source code means a wide array of needs can be met for diverse groups of people -- and the shared efforts benefit developers as much as those who've never written (or seen) a line of code. I've been enamored of the Moblin Project for some time, simply because it so clearly demonstrates that open source can be as hands-on (or off) as you'd like.

On Monday, the Moblin team announced its Moblin V2 Core alpha release was available for testing. Tariq Shureih, Moblin Linux Engineering Manager, says that this alpha release is the first chance the wider community has to really kick the tires on a number of new features, including package and core interactions, the Fastboot feature, new user interface development and connectivity tools, and a new iteration of the Moblin Image Creator.

In October, MSI's Director of US Sales delivered an interesting statistic that Linux netbooks were returned four times more often than Windows versions. It didn't seem, perhaps, an unreasonable number, but it was a bit ambiguous what data it was pulled from. I had speculated it was perhaps a market-wide number, pulled from other netbook manufacturers (and incorporating MSI's sales data on Linux netbooks internationally, as a Linux version of the Wind has not yet been released in the US).

Apparently that wasn't the case. I just came across a Laptop Magazine interview from late last month with ASUS CEO Jerry Shen. Shen says four million EeePC netbooks have been sold this year, with models offering pre-installed Windows versions rolling out in the later quarters. He says ASUS has found the return rates for the Linux and Windows models are similar. He also said that Linux has been quite popular in the European market.