After Negroponte commented that Windows could be coming to the Eee PC within 60 days, OLPC News published an article titled “This is The End My Friend: Negroponte Says XP on the XO in 60 days.” I think the article has a good point in that putting XP on the XO would ruin the vision of this educational laptop, but I do not see XP being an option on the XO as “the end.”

Certainly Microsoft will try very hard to make buyers of the XO choose Windows, instead of Linux, but, as demonstrated with Intel’s Classmate PCs going to Nigeria, they may not succeed. In the case of the Classmate PCs going to Nigeria, the computers were originally supposed run Linux, but, for an unknown reason, they were all about to have Windows installed on them. Luckily, however, Nigeria intervened and prevented the installation of Windows. As demonstrated in this incident, whatever Microsoft does, they may not be able to change the minds of countries that choose Linux, and, as pointed out by the article, there are plenty of reasons to choose Linux.

Asus has not always gotten it just right on the Eee PC’s software the the first time, but at least they do fix the problems the arise. Just recently, Asus issued a set of updates to the Eee PC’s software that should fix the out-of-the-box vulnerabilities that have been a point of concern for security conscious Eee PC users, according to CLUMPC.

The update also includes newer versions of some of the default software, although no major new features have been reported so far. Although I certainly think that any updates to the Eee PC’s software are good, I will be curious to see if any major new features are introduced in future updates or in the upcoming Eee PC 900. Right now it seems like the main attraction of the Eee PC is the hardware and, while that may never change, a lot more could be done to make the software a selling point as well. Even just making the interface look slicker (see Ubuntu Mobile) could help make the software a major attraction. Changes like this seem quite likely in the future, since Asus’s CEO has mentioned that style will become more of a focus in future Eee PCs.

After around 5 months of stocking the gPC in stores, Wal-Mart has decided to stop stocking Linux-based computers in their stores, although they will continue to sell them on their website, according to the AP. Although I can see how a decision like this would be made, if you ask me, they jumped out too early and did not really give Linux a fair chance.

The Linux-based computer Wal-Mart experimented with was the gPC. Although the gPC was one of the first Linux computers to receive a lot of attention, it was not, by far, the best received. Many negative reviews were written and, although the price was low, the hardware was somewhat lacking in many people’s opinion. While based on this I can see choosing to stop selling the gPC in stores, I think it is too soon for Wal-Mart to give up on Linux. Look at how well the Eee PC is already doing, and Asus’s CEO just said they could sell 300,000 to 400,000 per month if battery shortages were resolved.

While Wal-Marts decision is somewhat justified in that not all Linux-based PCs have done well at all, giving up on Linux before even trying to sell what is almost certainly the most popular Linux computer, the Eee PC, seems like giving up on something good without trying it.

Laptop Mag recently posted an interview with Asus’s CEO about the Eee PC. Although they already did a list of the interesting parts they found, I found that they missed a few interesting points, so here is my list of the interesting points from the interview they posted:

• According to Asus, if battery supply problems were fixed, they could sell 300,000 to 400,000 Eee PCs each month!
• As pointed out by many other places, the Eee PC with Linux will have a 12GB to 20GB SSD, while the XP version will only have 8GB. (I have no clue why.) Additionally, the XP version will have 1GB of RAM, but no mention was made of the RAM size for the Linux version.
• Hard drives (not flash) could be available in May or sometime later.
• $500 will be the US pricing on this new model. (No distinction was made between Linux and XP. Could they be equal price, but the Linux version would have more storage space?)
• Fashion will become a big part of the Eee PC.
• Sometime in May, Asus may introduce web storage as part of the Eee PC (to supplement the local storage, presumably.)
• New Eee PCs will have much shorter charging time and, possibly around May, Asus is aiming to get 8 hours of battery life out of the Eee PC.

This looks like a sneak peak into the coming months and it certainly looks like some very cool features will be coming to the Eee PC. I would hold off until June or July before buying an Eee PC, if I were planning on getting one, based on what was said in this interview.

Ever since the success of the Eee PC*, it seems like there has been a new Linux-based UMPC every day, so I decided to compile a list of them. After reading this list, if anyone still doubts that the Linux UMPC market is expanding, I will be very surprised.

Many of these I have written about before, but others I was not even aware of. I just found them from a Google search, so if you know of any more that I did not include, please let me know!

* = Actually, in doing some Googling, I found quite a few that came before the Eee PC.

Below is the list of the 18 18+ (thanks to commenters) Linux-based UMPCs I found/knew about. See how many of them you can name before you look! (more…)

Compiz Fusion is one of the best things about the Linux desktop and it is really the kind of eye candy feature Linux needs to succeed, but until now there has always been one problem. The default settings manager was way too hard to use (even if you knew what you were doing) and the one Ubuntu Gutsy includes gives almost no customization options. Now, this problem is finally fixed.

Along with the release of Compiz Fusion 0.7.2, a new configuration manager, simple-ccsm, was released. The new configuration manager is designed to have a much simpler interface, compared to the previous configuration manager, which was amazingly complicated. Phoronix has already posted detailed screenshots of the new configuration manager in action and it looks quite good.

Although I am sure further improvements can still be made, this new configuration manager is a big step towards making Compiz Fusion more friendly to everyone.

A recent article that has gotten a lot of attention argues that the upcoming release of Ubuntu, Hardy Heron, could be “the release that either makes or breaks the project.” I disagree that Hardy Heron could either make or break the project, or, for that matter, that any release will “make or break” the project.

While each release brings new features, improvements, and bugfixes, new major “wow” (no, not “Vista wow”) features are rare (but not unheard of) and even if a particular release introduced many “wow” features, users would not just suddenly flock to the project.

Because of the short length of time between releases, only six months, there is simply not enough time for any single release to make or break the project. Instead of Ubuntu being “made” by a single release, it would be “made” by a stream of steady improvements.

Asus announced it before and we all knew it was coming, so when Asus announced they will offer Windows XP on the new Eee PC 900 when it ships it was no surprise. Still, a comment made at the announcement, which ZDNet covered, by a Microsoft employee was both interesting and very funny. The Microsoft employee, whose name was Thomas Bauer, said, referring to the Eee PC, that “We couldn’t go the Vista route” and that “We are in close discussions with Asus [regarding] how to take that forward… in regards to the Windows 7 Europe timeframe,” according to ZDNet.

Unless I very much misinterpreted that, the translation of that quote would be something like: We could not use Vista, but we will think about using Windows 7. In other words, even Microsoft admits Vista does not work well on the Eee PC, presumably because of its resource requirements.

Beyond the funniness (is that a word?) of the comment, it is actually quite interesting. If what he said does, in fact, represent Microsoft’s view of Vista, it means that perhaps Microsoft has realized that Vista is not better than XP for everything. Additionally it suggests that Microsoft plans to target lower specification devices, but not with Vista. Unless Microsoft suddenly starts making new additions to XP, which seems unlikely, it seems like Linux may corner the Eee PC-like market before Microsoft really even introduces a serious competitor (in 5 years.)

Asus has announced the already much-expected Eee PC 900 with a 9″ screen, 1GB of memory, and “larger storage of up to 12GB,” according to an Asus press release. Engadget was able to take a look at the new Eee PC and discovered that the new Eee does, in fact, have a better resolution, contrary to previous information. It will be interesting to see if this new 9″ model is more or less popular, since each model has its own appeal.

Another interesting detail from the press release is the price, which is $399 Euros or about $600. The current most expensive model is the Eee PC 8G, which costs around $550 from Amazon and has a 7″ screen, 1GB of memory, and 8GB of storage. Although we do not yet know how much storage will be in the lowest priced 9″ model, it seems unlikely it will be less than 8GB and only $50 more for an extra 2″ of screen and possibly more storage seems very cheap, especially considering the only difference between the 4G and the 4G surf, which have a cost difference of $50, is the webcam. Because of this, we could see a price drop for existing Eee PC models when the new ones come out.

Ubuntu Brainstorm was only launched a few days ago and the first of the ideas have been acted upon. Although we may not see many changes to Ubuntu itself until Hardy Heron or Intrepid Ibex, the Brainstorm team is already at work implementing some of the ideas that have been suggested for Brainstorm itself. Based on a number of Brainstorm suggestions, the Brainstorm site now offers a view of the most popular in a day/week/month as well as a view of random ideas and the ability to look at only ideas in a particular category. These changes are significant for two reasons.

First, these changes are the first visible result of Brainstorm. Although, as I said, we may not see changes to Ubuntu itself until a future release, it is good to see that at least Brainstorm is being updated to reflect proposed ideas.

Second, the changes made are really very helpful towards bringing new, innovative ideas to the attention of more people. Prior to these changes I only voted on a few ideas and many of the ideas I saw did not seem innovative, meaning they were either an idea taken from another operating system or they were just a bug fix. Now I find myself voting on many ideas and finding that there are really a lot of ideas that really are innovative. In my view, while seeing what bugs are really annoying users is important too, the real point of a site like this is to promote truly innovative features that can give Ubuntu a serious edge over the competition. These recent changes will certainly help with that.