More linux woes

[allix]

http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/Carphone_t ... ptops.html
http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-co ... s&attr=all

So there is not much success , this reminds me very much of politics where its always one or two dominant parties in this case Microsoft and apple .
In one of my lectures at school a teacher was going over Intellectual property and he added that one of the biggest obstacles to open source was installers. I know this topic has been to hell and back but its not going to go away. Its not a easy game of course when there are too many to count on ones fingers and toes the amount of linux distros out there that a package has to be made for. Whereas as on the bigger operating systems there is only one windows and one osx but its still a major stumble. He in particular mentioned some software for a palm and that some it was not straight forward , tracking the dependences and all that.

[eddie]

Obviously the retailers not only had no intention of supporting what they sold and did not even take the time to know what they were selling. Obviously, they are/were not real retailers/merchants. I am glad they lost the sales. We need to contact vendors of computer equipment that uses linux and impale upon the vendors the need for Linux authorized dealers. We also need to get linux in the schools. Education Education Education. Via public service announcements/commercials we need to educate consumers about linux. We do not need a one size fits all apple/mcirosoft mentality linux. I remember all the grief I had for converting people from dos to windows in the business environment. I see the same kind of challenge here. Be patient and share knowledge!!!!! One of the things that attracted me to linux was there was so much diversity in what can be done with linux. Sure there were new things to learn, but that is what makes it so powerful and exciting. Our educational systems teaches memorization, but not transferable practical knowledge. An educated user usually spends more money and returns items less often. Salesmanship has to be more than the four f's.........

The brain. It is a terrible thing to waste.

[dann]

First off, there is conflicting information between the articles. One says the laptops were recalled the other, later article states they were not. So where is the information coming from and how could the first article get it so wrong? Are we seeing fud in this marketplace?

I think we have also heard that this is a new market for both Linux and Netbooks. How do the return rates of netbooks compare to all other sales on computers? Of those returned we are told the return rate is 4 times higher for Linux based netbooks. But how does that figure compare to the sales rates? Are the sales 4 times higher than windows? Four times lower?

As for installers; here is my opinion. First, it would be nice if the product was Free so that I could compile it myself if need be. Second, I think it is clear that there are a handful of standouts in the Linux community companies can provide binaries for: RedHat, SuSE and Ubuntu. Maybe Mandriva.