Recently Best Buy posted a price for the upcoming Windows XP Eee PC on their website. The price is $399, the same as an Eee PC with Linux and the same hardware. What is wrong with that? Lots! You can read my full post on this subject for more details, but the very short summary of what is wrong with pricing the Windows Eee PC the same as the Linux one is that either Asus or Microsoft is absorbing the cost of Windows. If Asus is absorbing the cost, it is not their business to determine the pricing of other operating systems or if Microsoft is pressuring Asus to absorb the cost, that is almost certainly anti-competitive,  and if Microsoft is absorbing the cost itself, that too is almost certainly anti-competitive. (Not that I am a lawyer.)

So basically, if the otherwise identical Windows version and Linux version cost the same, I will be furious and you will almost certainly be seeing more about it here in the future.

You may be wondering why I am not already furious. After all, hasn’t Best Buy confirmed the price is the same? (Best Buy’s page for the Windows version, Linux version) The reason is that I do not trust the numbers on the Best Buy site for two reasons.

First, the picture on the Windows page shows the Linux interface and the Linux page shows a blue screen of death. (Really just a blue screen without the death part.) Second, and much less significantly, the Linux version has an offer for a deal to save $10 on Norton 360, a security product for Windows.

For these two reasons, it is possibly nothing more than a mistake made by Best Buy. So until the pricing is confirmed, I will withold judgment.

Update: Dell appears to have added 2 new laptops to their lineup since I wrote this article. The Google cache (dated April 5) shows only two machines, as there were when I wrote this. Now, there are four! Strangely, I cannot find any announcement, leading me to believe this could have been some sort of a bug??? That would make sense, but everything was still working on the page, so I am confused.

I do appreciate Dell trying to sell Ubuntu machines, but frankly I am surprised they are selling any at all. Here is why:

Lets take a look at Dell’s huge (sarcastic) selection of two (yes, two) Ubuntu machines. One is a desktop the other is a laptop. That alone is bad enough, but if you look even further, it only gets worse.

Perhaps the most noticeable option missing is on the desktop side. You can’t even get a Core 2 Duo processor. The only processor option on the desktop is an Pentium dual-core. Come on, Dell.

Most of the rest of the configuration on the ONE desktop seems reasonable, except for the lack of an option to get a wireless keyboard and mouse. I don’t have any idea why that option is left out.

The notebook Dell offers is barely better, if that. First of all, you had better want a 13″ notebook, because that is your only choice. Plus, in order to figure out that the notebook has a 13″ screen, you have to click on the notebook and then look at the tech specs tab and you better hope you don’t click on the customize button before looking at the tech specs, or else you will never know how big the screen is.

If you do figure out how big the screen is and don’t give up trying, you had better also like black, because that is the only color choice, despite Dell’s massive number of banner ads advertising all the colors you can get. Introducing Dell’s new advertising slogan: “Dell. You can get a custom color laptop, as long as it runs Windows.”

Basically, you should buy from Dell if you (1) want an underpowered desktop with wire clutter all over your desk or if you (2) want a black 13″ laptop and don’t mind digging around the product details to find out the most obvious spec about your new laptop: the size. Otherwise, may I direct you to System 76 or ZaReason.

We already knew Asus was planning on releasing a new Eee PC, but today Digitimes is reporting on a few more rather important details of the upcoming Eee PC - it will have a touchscreen and possibly GPS support too. (The price is supposed to be $500 with 1GB of RAM and probably around an 8GB SSD.) Apart from this being a cool feature, though, how is this really important?

In the past, the Eee PC has mostly been about the hardware. Yes it is cool that it runs Linux, but there is nothing amazing about the software. Now that there is going to be a touchscreen on the Eee PC, software will be much more important.

If the touchscreen is only used as an alternative mouse, it may well become the kind of feature that gets old after 10 minutes. On the other hand, if Asus creates software the fully takes advantage of the touchscreen, it could make the touchscreen the main selling point of the device. I don’t think Asus will pass up an opportunity like this. Chances are there will be much more attention put into the software in the second generation Eee PC, which is good.

This increased attention to the software could be a way for Linux to stay the main operating system on the Eee PC, not just a secondary choice for geeks, when Windows is added as an option. Because Linux, and most of the applications that run on it, are open-source, Asus can modify them to work really well with the touchscreen, whereas with Windows, Asus will not be able to modify the software as easily. In this way, the Linux version of the Eee PC could have a significant advantage over the Windows version.

If you have been watching the Linux UMPC space, you may have noticed a new trend: style. Asus said fashion would be more important in future Eee PCs, HP has a rumored Linux UMPC that is very sleek, and, most recently, ECS announced a Linux UMPC that is designed to be very sleek. Apart from, obviously, just making Linux UMPCs look cooler, this new trend could also expand the market for Linux UMPCs.

Before the Eee PC, the few Eee PC-ish laptops were generally very high end, very expensive, and targeted at business executives. Although the Eee PC is a similar form factor and it is only $400, compared to over $2000, the Eee PC was not targeted at business executives at all. Now with the increasing attention being paid to making Linux UMPCs sleek, a Linux UMPC might be a reasonable consideration for business executives, not only expanding the Linux UMPC market, but also potentially making people more comfortable with using Linux in the office.

Although there are, of course, many other factors involved, Linux UMPCs with attention paid to style seem likely to expand the market considerably, not just for Linux UMPCs, but potentially for Linux in general.

A recent Computer World article suggested that the iPhone’s biggest competition might be the Eee PC. While I disagree that a device the size of an Eee PC could ever compete with a cell phone, it turns out there is a way that in the future a Linux UMPC could become a serious iPhone (or <insert name of smartphone>) competitor.

A company called Miu has created a concept phone/UMPC that would mix the two groups into one smartphone-sized device, according to Linux Devices. With many smartphones already moving towards being a small computer, it seems almost obvious that UMPCs will mix with smart phones to create serious competitors to devices like the iPhone. You could even argue that the iPhone itself is already a UMPCphone, but with it’s limited productivity features, it does not quite seem to be a full UMPC.

So how is this related to Linux? Linux already has a hold in the UMPC market and it is starting to become more important in smartphones, so Linux may well be the first choice for a UMPCphone. Apple’s OS X has very little hold in the UMPC world, if you even consider the Air a UMPC. Microsoft has had little success so far in the UMPC market and their smartphones have not be, lets just say, great. Although Linux’s smartphone territory is not yet established, Linux has a solid position in UMPCs and a growing presence in smartphones, making a likely choice for a UMPCphone.

Everex is bringing the CloudBook to Japan with one interesting addition - a touchscreen (and bluetooth,) according to Engadget and Impress. While this version does run XP, I see this as a minor thing. If you look at the history of the CloudBook hardware, it was originally running Windows. I suspect that when the touchscreen CloudBook is brought to other countries, it will more than likely run Linux again.

Adding a touchscreen will give the CloudBook a significant differentiating factor between it and the Eee PC. Although I am not convinced the touchscreen will offset the increased price (personally I do not see the appeal of a touchscreen on a UMPC), it will at least be interesting to see a real competitor to the Eee PC that stands a chance.

Just like with the Eee PC, ever since the gPC started the low-cost Linux desktop market (yeah, yeah I am sure there is some cheap Linux PC that came before it), many, many companies have rushed to essentially copy the design and call it their own. This is understandable in the case of the Eee PC, since it has done so well, but it makes a lot less sense in the case of the gPC, since the gPC and all the copies so far have basically failed. I can even understand some early rip-offs thinking they could do better, but after every product in the market flops, you would think the flow of these cheap Linux PCs would stop, but it has not. Shuttle just set a launch date of mid-April for their “KPC.” (Even the name is a rip-off.)

While I am saying that companies should stop copying a tried and failed idea, I am not saying that no one should try to enter this cheap Linux PC market. Just don’t do the same thing as everyone else. To figure out how to make a better cheap Linux PC, look at the Eee PC. One major factor, at least in my opinion, in the Eee PC’s success is that it has appeal to both geeks and regular people. On the other hand, the gPC has almost no appeal to a geek (why would they want another underpowered computer even if it were free?)

There are plenty of ways to increase the geek appeal of a cheap Linux PC, you just have to think of it as a little more than your average Dell PC. As one commenter named Robert Pogson pointed out in a comment on “Will Asus’s UMPC Success Carry into Linux Desktops?,” Asus could make their new cheap Linux desktop PC a “base station for the eee (backup, software repository, home files, printing…).” Or how about an inexpensive media center/home server computer? All of this could be done.

The cheap Linux desktop PC market is not hopeless, it just needs some products that are not copies of failed ideas.

Instead of buying OLPCs or Classmate PCs, one community in Brazil is looking at their own solution to bring technology into their schools (using Linux of course). Their solution is a touchscreen desktop computer, according to CNet. At around $550 and lacking the mobility of the OLPC, it is not, however, clear if this new solution is really better.

The only real advantage this solution has over the OLPC (or similar inexpensive UMPCs) is the screen, which is both bigger and a touch screen. On the other hand, the OLPC is much cheaper and is very mobile, so children can take it home and use it there, allowing a student to continue to learn, explore, and figure out how the technology works. Given the benefits and disadvantages of each, which one is the best?

First of all, in some situations the touchscreen solution may not be an option at all, due to the price. If you have over a million kids to provide with a computer, spending $350 more per kid is a big deal.

Even if the touchscreen solution is an option, is it really the best option? At first the touchscreen seems like a real advantage, but what can a touchscreen do that a regular mouse and keyboard cannot (other than look cool?) (It appears there is also a keyboard, so typing is not an issue.)

Overall, allowing students to continue their learning and exploration at home at their own pace seems to be more important than providing a touchscreen at school and saving $350 just makes UMPCs like the OLPC even more attractive.

To be fair, the CNet article does make it clear that the people behind the touchscreen idea do not think this would work anywhere and there is also the advantage that most of the money goes into the Brazilian economy. Still, I am a little skeptical of this idea.

Apparently in all the coverage of Windows on the Eee PC, one Asus announcement was almost missed: the EP20, Asus’s entrance into the cheap Linux desktop market, according to Eeextra. Although the (very few) details about it that are known do not seem to indicate there’s much here to get excited about, one thing does make it note-worthy.

So far, despite all the companies who’ve tried, no one has created a successful inexpensive desktop computer running Linux. The same is true of the Linux UMPC market, with the exception of Asus’s incredibly successful Eee PC. So what makes the EP20 notable is simply that it is Asus’s first attempt at the inexpensive Linux desktop market.

As I said, there is no indication that the EP20 itself is anything more than another variation on the same design for a cheap Linux PC that so many others have tried. However, at the same time, I am not sure I would have been able to tell that the Eee PC was any better than the CloudBook, or any other Linux UMPC.  Of course, Asus was first into the UMPC market,  which is an advantage that it will not have in the desktop market.

The real question with the EP20 is will Asus succeed again as they did with the Eee PC, or will the EP20 go nowhere and die, as so many similar cheap Linux PCs have?

Brilliant Brainstorms will be a weekly-ish summary of some of the best brainstorms from the Ubuntu Brainstorm site. In the beginning it may not always come exactly once a week or on the same day, but, if it becomes popular, it should become more regular.

There are many automated tasks that people have their computers doing all the time such as downloading a big file, doing a backup, installing updates, and other similar tasks.  But when a task like this starts while you are working on something, especially on older computers, it can bog down the computer and make it hard for you to do anything. If this idea were implemented, these sorts of tasks would take place while the screensaver was running, so your work would never be interrupted.

If you have ever been to a Linux support forum, you have seen the numerous threads asking “why does my <name of hardware> not work?” This idea would make it so that users would be told up front before installation that some of their hardware would not work, or that it would all work, which is much better than having them waste their time installing Linux, only to find it does not work. At least if they are told up front that their hardware is incompatible they will not come away thinking Linux does not work at all.

While guides for people interested in getting involved in open-source projects exist, they are usually not as newbie-friendly as they should be and often link to multiple long tutorials, leaving the possible volunteer confused as to what they should do. Improving a new developer’s experience could dramatically increase the number of people willing to help out with Ubuntu. This would be particularly helpful for non-professional programmers, such as high school and collage students who have taken courses, but never programmed professionally.