Sub $200 Android tablets arrives: is the iPad doomed?

When the $499 iPad tablet was announced last month, many journalists commented that the device was surprisingly affordable for an Apple product. This may not actually be the case however, as several sub $200 competitors running the Android operating system have appeared. Will the iPad be able to gain major market share when it costs more than twice the price of other tablets or is the iPad doomed to be a "high-end only" product like the Mac?

The $179 Archos 7 vs the $ 499 iPad

The Archos 5 inch tablet has never really been a competitor to the iPad, as the screen size did put it more in the MID / media player category than the tablet category. The new 7 Inch Archos tablet running Android on the other hand is clearly aiming at the iPad crowd. Its major selling point: the price, with some models going for as low as $179 (for the 2GB version), less than half the price of the iPad. Spec-wize the Archos tablet is somewhat inferior to the iPad: it uses an older ARM 9 processor (but then the iPad A4 processor is not very fast either), has less storage (but allows for an SD card to be used), has a lower resolution screen and a more limited choice of application, but on the other hand it has a better media player (more formats are supported), do offer a browsing experience on par with the iPad and may support flash lite (flash 10.1 won't be possible however). You probably will not get an integration as good as between the iPad and iTunes, but then you won't have to deal with Apple censorship (you can install ANY working application just by downloading the apk file) and Linux is officially supported as your desktop OS.

Can the iPad survive?

The big problem for Apple is that for most common tasks such as surfing, reading eBooks or playing audio and video the Archos tablet will will perform as well as the iPad for less than half the price. The only usage scenarios where Apple dominate is mobile gaming, will that be enough to justify the price? For some people most certainly, and you can expect a lot of Apple fans to be ready to pony up the cash too, but I am afraid that the average user won't see it that way and that the iPad will stay an high end device with limited market share. When Apple launched the iPhone they were miles ahead of the competition and thus could justify the premium price, but with the iPad they will have to face aggressive competition from day one, and not only from Archos. When you add to that the recent shenanigans concerning "sexy apps" (not so much a problem in the US, but much more here in Europe where we are not used to that kind of censorship) I can see Android tablets winning the tablet war on the long term.

What is wrong with Android

I recently purchased an HTC Magic, my first device running Android, Google's Linux-based mobile operating system. Although there are a lot of things I like about Android, I also quickly realized that there are also a lot of things that either require urgent improvement or are going wrong altogether. Below is my not-so-small list of Android issues. A lot of them are related to the Android market because it is in my opinion the part of Android that requires the most urgent efforts.

The Android Market must be available internationally

Currently the paid apps are only available to a very few countries outside of the US, and the market itself is not available at all in many places. Google must urgently set up a worldwide market for free apps and bring paid apps to at least as many countries as the iPhone app store (currently they are FAR behind). The problem is that even in Brussels (which is one of the 2 capitals of the European Union, the second largest developed economy after the US) I can not purchase a paid application on the Android market. This makes the Android ecosystem look bad when compared to the iPhone and iPod Touch which do not face such issues. My only option is to install an alternative market like Slideme, but for most people finding the alternative market and installing client on their phone is a daunting task.

Create a computer interface for Android

The second issue is that they should really provide a computer based interface for the Android Market and for music management. It can be a website, an application or even a Songbird plug-in, but it is just not convenient for many people to browse the apps on their phone small screen and to manage their music by "mounting" the SD card. This would also allow Google to create a better front end for application promotion and maybe even to create an Open Source section in the market.

Force manufacturer to clearly state if the Android market is enabled

Another major problem with the Android Market is that some device manufacturers or operators do not include the market on their handsets or devices. This is very problematic because the main reason most people want to buy an Android device is to be able to install third party applications and games (otherwise they would buy a much cheaper feature phone). Google should reserve the term "Android" to devices that actually include the Android market and have devices that just use Android as an OS called "Android Lite" or "Android Powered". Currently when you buy an Android device you don't know what you will be able to run unless you scour the web for reviews.

Do not rely on OTA upgrades

Although OTA (Over The Air) upgrades of Android may be an acceptable solution in the US, it is not the case internationally. Some countries (like Belgium, where I live) require by law that the handset selling business is separate from the mobile operator business. This means that the operator that sells an Android handset has to sell it equally to user of all mobile networks, not only its own. This means that OTA upgrades are not possible because they would have to convince that other operators to upgrade also the devices on their network. Even in other countries, to allow an OTA upgrade to be deployed not only must the handset manufacturer accept to create the upgrade, but the operator must agree to distribute it. This means that a lot of devices won't be updated that way. This leads me to my next concern: fragmentation.

Do something about Android fragmentation

Currently the Android landscape is something like 20% Android 2, 25% Android 1.5 and 55% Android 1.6. This is obviously cause for concern for developers and users alike as it means that applications and games need not only to be coded for several screen resolutions, but also for different operating system versions. This makes it difficult for an user to know if he will be able to install the latest games and applications, and games and applications are what many people buy a smartphone for.

Fix Android 3D performance issues

As pointed out by Ars Technica, current versions of Android and of the Android NDK are not correctly optimized for 3D gaming. Nowadays a smartphone or tablet OS must also be a gaming platform, so these things are really important. Another issues is that versions of Android prior to 2.0 only support the mobile equivalent OpenGL 1.3. This may make it impossible for gaming companies to bring their OpenGL 2.0 iPhones titles to Android handset. What it looks like now is that Android handsets usually get ports of the phone versions of games rather than the more polished iPhone version. Look for example at the game Farm Frenzy on Android and on the iPhone, the difference is clear.

Android is still a good platform

Despite all this, Android is still my smartphone OS of choice because of the openess of the platform (at least compared to Apple offerings). I would however like to see all these issues sorted quickly so that Android has a chance to truly rival the iPhone and create real competition in the mobile and tablet market.

The death of Flash has been greatly exaggerated

Following the news that the iPad would not support the Flash plugin, some people have been clamoring for the death of Flash. Not so fast cowboy, that horse ain't dead yet!. Although it is true that Flash is far from perfect it is currently a necessary evil because so many web games and web application are written in Flash.

It is a fact that the performance and stability of the Flash plugin on OSX and Linux are not as good as on Windows, they still mostly work and are kept up to date by Adobe. Don't forget that Flash is also supported on the Wii browser (even if that plugin is outdated) and should soon be available for Android and Linux devices running on ARM processors. Expecting the plugin to deliver the same level of performance and reliability on all these platforms is overly optimistic. Of course the performance and stability situation would probably be better if Flash was an open source standard like HTML5 or Canvas, but I don't see these technologies replacing Flash anytime soon.

As stupid as it sounds, I couldn't have my wife use a device that can't play Farmville to access the internet because these kind of games are a huge percentage of her web experience, and it is the same for more than 100 millions other users. Farmville not working is THE reason I won't buy her an iPad.

Before we can do away with Flash there needs not only to be good support for an alternative (HTML 5, Canvas etc...) on multiple platforms, but also good development tools for that alternative that can rival Adobe Flash CS4 and a large ecosystem of web games and applications. That's the chicken and egg problem: you need a good ecosystem to be present before you can profitably use the new technology, but you need to use the new technology to develop a good ecosystem. It think that we'll get there eventually, but not before several years.

So, until Farmville is available in HTML5 and Canvas, we're stuck with Flash. In fact, I think that the Flash support present in Linux and soon in Android will allow competing tablets from MSI and others not only to compete with the iPad on an equal footing, but even to gain a significant market share in the tablet space. I'll concede that the iPad do benefit from a large library of games and applications inherited from the iPhone and iPod touch, but they are competing with pretty much the whole online games phenomenon, and tablets based on Android, Linux and Windows will also benefit from these platform's respective software libraries.

I can be satisfied by games from the App store and a limited version of the web for a phone or PDA, but for a tablet I want the full web experience and currently that means Farmville and Flash, so for now it sounds to me like Apple does not want my business...

Why you should not pay for extended warranty if you use Linux

I have read a rather sad story today. Apparently the Best Buy Geeks squad refused to service the machine of someone who had purchased an $80 extended warranty for its netbook just because he had installed Ubuntu Linux. This story not only shows how best Best Buy's Geeks squad is far from having anything even close to the technical knowledge of a geek, but also raises 2 other questions: are extended warranties worth it, and are Linux consumers correctly protected in the US? Let's dig into these two rather important questions.

Extended warranties for netbooks: are they worth it?

Nowadays many electronics shops such as Best Buy will offer you a 2 or 3 year extended warranty if you pay them a little more money, usually around 20% of the price of the purchased item. In my opinion for a netbook this is not worth the money, especially if you are using Linux. First, the Best Buy accountants can do the maths: if they ask about 20% of the price of the computer for the protection plan this means that the probability of the computer failing between the end of the "free" warranty and the end of the extended warranty is lower than that, meaning that the odds are against you from the start. Second, if you use Linux you are probably knowledgeable enough to fix software issues yourself and are protected from most virus damage, leaving only hardware faults to cover. Now it is very likely that most hardware defects would appear during the legal warranty, so the extended one is not very useful. Finally, if you run the risk of having service denied to you because you use Linux or any piece of software that the store owner does not like it is simply not worth the hassle. If your netbook breaks after the legal warranty, you are probably better to buy a new one anyway. The only case where these extended warranties may make sense is if you purchase an expensive computer that you would have trouble replacing if it failed, or if you don't know anything about computers and expect to go back to the store for every little issue (and I don't know if that is even covered).

Are Linux consumers correctly protected in the US?

What is more worrying to me is the concept that changing your OS to Linux could constitute an unauthorized modification of your computer. This would mean that the manufacturer are selling the software and hardware as "one unit". This is very worrying because if that kind of bundling was accepted the consumers would actually lose the freedom of installing and running the software they like on their own computers. This is very bad because not only would that remove consumer choice from the equation when it comes to software (never a good thing) but it would create a virtual monopoly. If Microsoft and Corel got a deal with Asus to have windows and WinDVD as the only "authorized" software on their computers anybody wanting to buy an Asus computer would have to use that to avoid losing their warranty, even if Linux and PowerDVD are far better. We would go from a situation where the best software is selling to a situation where the cheapest or most common software is selling. If this kind of situation start to emerge it is important that consumer laws are adapted to prevent that kind of bundling like it is in other countries outside of the US. A good example is France where consumer law considers Hardware and software as two different items that can't be bundled and force OEMs to reimburse Windows at the consumer request if it is not possible to purchase a computer "naked". Furthermore the amount of money reimbursed as well as the procedure to follow must be published beforehand (usually the "price list" and reimbursement forms are available on the OEM website). Add to that the fact that in Europe the minimum legal (aka "free") warranty on computers is 2 years and you can see that consumer protection laws in the US are far from being the best in the world, especially for Linux users, and should be revised to protect the consumer better.

Why ChromeOS is a Smartbook OS

Now that Google's Linux based ChromeOS has been fully revealed and is actually available for some machines, one thing appears clearly: ChromeOS is more like a Smartbook OS than a Netbook OS. Let's sum up what ChromeOS is about: it is the Chrome Browser as an operating system. Remember a few years ago when people said that the browser would become the OS? That's what Google did!

Like Smatbooks ChromeOS is all about the web

ChromeOS is designed for one thing: let you surf the web quickly and cheaply. ChromeOS is designed to work with SSDs (and only SSDs) from the start. Since the objective is to get you online fast local storage does not need to be abundant: it needs to be fast and cheap. Nowadays 4 or 8 GBs of fast flash memory will be faster AND cheaper than almost any HDD, so Google choose to impose flash memory. Software-wise ChromeOS is little more than a Linux kernel, X , Clutter and the Chrome Browser, which is probably the fastest route to starting a browser. So thanks to it's minimalistic software stack and focus on local storage speed over capacity ChromeOS gets you online fast on inexpensive hardware. There are however some drawbacks.

Where ChromeOS fails

There is one huge drawback to this approach: if you can't get online, what you can do with the machine is severely limited. Of course the machine is not completely useless when offline: thanks to Google Gears you will still be able to write in Gmail or Google Docs, but that's pretty much it. That's where you see that this was not designed for netbooks, because netbooks are supposed to be able to still perform acceptably when offline, while with ChromeOS offline is an afterthought. Another difference is that a netbooks can run some pretty heavy applications: the GIMP works fine on an Atom processor and playing local video is OK as long as it is not in HD. ChromeOS on the other hand relies on Youtube and lightweight online apps to do pretty much everything, meaning you will not get the same level of functionality as a netbook, even when online.

The future of mobile computing?

ChromeOS is not the future of mobile computing, but a part of it. The way I see it mobile computing is branching in 3 main categories:

- Full laptops: These run mostly Windows (or in some cases Linux or OSX), have powerful processors, DVD drives etc... They only run for about 3 hours on batteries and weight 4 pounds or more but have a lot of local storage and are functional even without an internet connection.

- Netbooks: These run Moblin, Ubuntu netbook remix or Windows starter edition. They are lightweight multi-purpose computing devices that feature an Atom, Neo or CULV processor. battery life is up to 8 hours, local storage in up to 250 GBs. They can still work fairly well when not on the network.

- Smartbooks: These run ChromeOS or Windows CE. They are cheap single putpose devices that have one main function: get you on the web. They very portable and have exceptional battery life, but have little local storage and thus are not very useful when disconnected for long period of time (like when you travel).

The idea behind ChromeOS is really that consumers should have a full laptop or desktop as their main computers and purchase a ChromeOS device as a companion to use when on the road. This is close to the idea of the original EEPC 701. The problem is that in places where mobile bandwidth is still selling at premium prices and access points are rare ChromeOS devices may end up being either very expensive to keep connected or very useless as soon as the user's leave the range of their home's wifi network. Add to that the fact that a lot of online video content (like Hulu) is only available in the US and the usefulness of the machine as a source of multimedia is very compromised when you consider the international market. ChromeOS is a good idea in places where you have the network infrastructure and online media content to support the model. Unfortunately this is not the case in most countries beside the US.

Linux mint 8 is here

Just a small post to inform you that Linux Mint 8 (aka Helena) is here. Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu 9.10 (aka Karmic Koala), but includes DVD, java and flash support in the default installation, meaning that most users won't have to install any extra packages after the initial setup. For those that want the extras though a graphical software manager is available. The update system has been revamped: not only does it gives you a rating for the impact of most updates, but you can now configure the system to ignore updates completely, as well as configure what information appears in the update manager. It is also easier to perform OEM installs, a good thing if you are installing Mint for someone else. As usual the Linux Mint theme is very polished and looks very elegant. New user can rely on an updated user guide in pdf format to help get them started. On the technical side, you get the kernel 2.6.31 and Gnome 2.28 which include quite a few improvement if their own. You can download Linux Mint 8 from here!

Silverlight multi-platform support is falling apart.

I had previously pointed out that the lack of supported platforms was a serious problem for Silverlight, especially when compared to Flash. The root of the problem was that Moonlight, the Linux version of Silverlight, is usually at least one release behind the Windows and mac versions of Silverlight. This caused confusion for developers as it was not clear which features would work on Linux. Rather than working to fix the problem it seems that Microsoft is making it worse by introducing Windows only features in Silverlight 4.

The need for COM

One of the most widely used api in Windows is COM. With it you can access almost anything on a Windows machine and that makes it a very powerful tool for developers. The problem is that it is a technology that only exists on Windows and that you can't easily retrofit it in OSX or Linux. Here comes a choice for Microsoft: either they give Silverlight developers access to COM, which will strongly increase the usefulness of Silverlight on Windows but will fragment the Silverlight market even more, or they don't and try to unify their supported base to compete with Flash. They choose the first option.

Silverlight gives the multi-platform market to flash

What I get from this decision is that the objectives Microsoft had with Silverlight have changed. It looks like competing with flash in the wider, multi-platform market is taking a back seat to the introduction of new functionality. What Microsoft is pushing is Silverlight as the default web based development platform for Windows, with some limited compatibility with non Windows platforms. This goes in the opposite direction to Adobe Flash which seems to favor a consistent set of functionality and compatibility across all platforms. Flash is not only available on Windows, Mac and Linux, but also on the Wii, and soon an ARM version should be released for smartbooks. And that does not even cover gnash, the open source version of flash that is more or less to Flash what Moonlight is to Silverlight. In short, Microsoft is giving up the multi-platform market to Adobe.

The impact for the developers

With many Linux based web devices based on ChromeOS in the works for next year and OSX market share on the rise, choosing Silverlight as a web development platform need to be carefully considered. The developer needs to be fully aware that some Silverlight 4 functionality will not be available if cross platform support is required (and on the web it is almost always required). If Linux support is to be assured the situation is even worse, as targeting anything above Silverlight 2 level could possibly break compatibility with Moonlight until late next year. This makes Adobe Flash the safer choice for Web development.

Is Silverlight COM support useless?

There are however cases where the COM support in Silverlight 4 will be useful: for enterprise development. If your company is a Windows shop you can use Silverlight 4 to develop very powerful web applications that run straight from the company intranet. You need of course to be sure that the application will not have to be made available to external customers that may use other clients. In these 'intranet' scenarios the addition of COM to Silverlight 4 is clearly a benefit and is indicative of the will of Microsoft to reposition Silverlight as an "enterprise" technology as well as a "web" technology.

Is Ubuntu broken?

There seems to be quite a few concerns and complains about recent Ubuntu releases. Are there really that many regressions and instabilities with the latest releases of Ubuntu? Probably! Should we accept that in a production OS? No, but there is something that a many people tend to forget: the primary objective of these interim releases is not stability. I think that a lot of people tend to dismiss the Ubuntu release cycle, and for a good reason: that cycle is not a perfect solution. Lets look at the problem in detail:

Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 regressions

No one can argue that the two most recent releases of Ubuntu have been full of problems. The 9.04 release brought a lot of regressions and instabilities with the Intel video driver, which unfortunately is the most common graphic adapter in use. The 9.10 version seems to have it's own share of problems with a lot of people reporting troubles after upgrading in the Ubuntu forums. This certainly discredit Ubuntu as a consumer ready OS, but the problem is that Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 do not aim to be consumer ready but merely a rehearsal for the next LTS version of Ubuntu!

Ubuntu's misunderstood release cycle

Let's look in more detail at the Ubuntu release cycle. Every two year we get a Long term support (or LTS) release. That release is supposed to be stable, consumer ready and widely used. Currently the LTS release is version 8.04 and there are very little issues with it as long as you install it on supported hardware. In addition every 6 month you get an interim Ubuntu release. That release is not intended for mainstream users but rather for people who want (or need) the bleeding edge in Linux packages, drivers and kernel. They are not meant to used for extended period of time, so they have a short support cycle of only 18 months. The long term releases on the other hand is supported for a much more comfortable 3 years, and you can upgrade from LTS to LTS without ever having to touch an interim release.

LTS releases are the true consumer Ubuntu

If you take the time to think about it the message is clear: if you just want to use your Ubuntu computer without having to muck around too much with the OS, just install the LTS release and skip the interims! My MSI wind running Ubuntu 8.04 is still working fine, but Ubuntu 9.10 would not work with it. Interim releases don't focus on stability and reliability, that's the job of the LTS release, they focus on new features. You are probably wondering then why so many people install interim releases and complain about stability then? Well, it is part ignorance, but also part of a far more sinister issue with LTS.

The problem of Long Term Support releases

There is a major problem with LTS though: If you just bought a brand new computer, there are chances that some of the hardware won't work with Ubuntu 8.04. After all, the OS was released more than 18 months ago, in the meantime new hardware has appeared, and it was not possible at the time to included drivers for devices that did not even exist. As an example I recently purchased an Acer Aspire One for my wife and wanted to replace Linpus Linux by a newer version of Ubuntu or Linux Mint. In the end I used Linux Mint 7 (based on Ubuntu 9.04) because there were too many driver issues with Ubuntu 8.04. In the end it was easier to fix the problems with the Intel display driver in 9.04 than to sort out all the other issues with 8.04. Note that I won't upgrade the machine OS anytime soon, maybe I will reinstall when the next LTS release is available if it solves the few remaining issues.

The problem with interim releases

Interim releases have the opposite problem: they include bleeding edges software and drivers, but these have not been tested by a large amount of users, and as a result regressions and breakages are fairly common. Canonical started working on Ubuntu 9.10 six months ago, while Ubuntu 8.04 probably has 2 years worth of troubleshooting and patching behind it. It is not difficult to guess which release will be the best as far as stability is concerned. In 3 to 6 months Ubuntu 9.10 will be a lot better as the biggest issues are fixed by patches, but when that happens people will only talk about Ubuntu 10.04, and most of them will say that it is not as stable as 9.10. In my opinion it takes 3 to 6 months after initial release for an Ubuntu version to be ready for mainstream users. The problem is that by that date most users consider it outdated.

So is Ubuntu broken

I don't think so, at least not more than most other Linux distributions. The problem is that we have two kinds of Linux desktops with their own problems. On one side you have the sedate LTS releases that are stable and ready for the average user, but may be incompatible with newer hardware and software. On the other side you have the bleeding edge interim releases with all the their problems and breakneck 6 month release cycles. Most problems arise when someone wanting a long term solution (a LTS) is forced to use an interim release instead because of hardware compatibility. Is there a solution to this? Ubuntu could make LTS releases every year, reducing the problem. They could invest more in backporting drivers and applications to the current LTS (although this can be problematic since drivers are part of the kernel). Better driver support from hardware manufacturers could probably help too. In the end there is probably no perfect solution.

Desktop Linux needs salesmen!

Many Linux enthusiast are despairing of the low uptake of desktop Linux and its poor availability in high street shops. This is especially frustrating because most of the people using desktop Linux would consider it to be a superior solution to the Windows based machines on offer (and it probably is). I think I have fingered one of the causes for this problem though: desktop Linux needs salesmen!

To illustrate this principle I'll use the following anecdote from Rich Dad, Poor Dad:
One day a Journalist was interviewing the author of that best-seller. The journalist being a writer herself asked the successful author what she should do to produce a best seller like he did. Much to her surprise he told her: 'You should follow some sales training!' The Journalist was shocked and said: 'I want to be a writer, not a saleswoman, why would I lower myself by studying sales techniques?' The successful author took his book, turned it around and said: 'Here it says that I am a best selling author, not a best writing author!'

Now let's transpose that to the world of operating systems: there are many talented developers and programmers that are working on desktop Linux but there are very few talented salesmen that are working on selling desktop Linux. The result: desktop Linux doesn't sell! Of course, it sells to some people, the people "in the known", but it doesn't sell well to the mass market. It doesn't sell in high street shops because no one is selling desktop Linux to the big electronic retail chains. There is no advertising of desktop Linux so there is not an overwhelming demand for it, so the retailers won't stock Linux machines.

Let's try to see this from the point of view of the retailer. What he wants to do is sell as many computers as possible. He can do this 2 ways: either he sells a product that many people want, or convince people to buy what he has. Now predicting what people want is easy for heavily marketed items like iPods and iPhones, but it is much more tricky for computers. When it comes to computer operating systems a retailer is much more likely to stock something fairly generic and to convince its customers to purchase what he has, even if that is not the best product for that customer, or not exactly what that customer wants.

If we follow the reasoning above what desktop Linux needs is either:

- Salesmen who go "sell" desktop Linux to OEMs first, then to retailers and to a lesser extend consumers. This is the "top to bottom", sell what you have approach. The problem is that you need to have a very efficient selling structure and organization to do that. Ubuntu had some success selling Desktop Linux to Dell and Google seems to be gaining some traction with ChromeOS but beyond that there is currently not much progress being done.

- A lot of very visible advertising to consumers to generate a lot of consumer demand for desktop Linux. This is the "bottom to top", sell what the customer wants approach. The main problem is that this require not only a good marketing organization but also a large advertising budget, things that desktop Linux lacks right now.

The fact is that there are many projects and organizations devoted to maintaining and improving Linux, there are a few organizations devoted to the promotion of Desktop Linux, but there are almost no organizations devoted to the sales and advertising of desktop Linux. I think that one of the reasons why the Firefox browser is much more successful than desktop Linux is because the Mozilla foundation invested much more time and energy in advertising and promoting of Firefox as a product than most Linux distribution have. As long as Linux distributions focused on the desktop do not put much more effort in their sales and adverting desktop Linux will remain a "best writing" operating system rather than the "best selling" OS it deserves to be.

Android begins to gain wider acceptance

There are many Linux based mobile platforms available today: Maemo, Openmoko and Android. Of these, it is probably Android that has created the most noise in and out of open sources circles. Until now however there have not been many successful devices running Google's mobile OS, and the ones that exist didn't present much of a challenge to the iPhone. Things are starting to change however.

HTC: finally some decent hardware.

The first manufacturer to release an Android powered smartphone was HTC with the Dream G1 (pictured up left, picture cc by pandemia). This was far from being a success: the operating system felt unfinished and the hardware was clunky. The lack of a virtual keyboard and an headphone jack were inadmissible sins on something supposed to go head-to-head with the iPhone. Google and HTC quickly learned from their mistakes and released Android 1.5 with virtual keyboard support and the new HTC Hero with a standard 3.5 headphone jack (pictured right, picture cc by laihiu). This better model was followed by the HTC Magic, a slightly cheaper version without the headphone jack. HTC's offer is now completed by the HTC Tatoo, a cheaper model with Android 1.6 and an headphone jack, but with a lower resolution screen. This allow HTC to cover the full gamut of smartphones: an expensive all-rounder, an affordable surfing machine and a cheaper, music oriented phone.

The carriers are interested

Up until now carrier enthusiasm for Android was tepid at best. It looks like this changed yesterday when Verizon declared war on the iPhone in a commercial aired during the NFL football games. To my knowledge this is the first time that I see a wireless carrier make such a push for an open smartphone platform. It is true that there have been massive campaigns for closed platforms like the iPhone, but never for Linux based systems. I am pretty sure that the people in Redmond and Cuppertino are not happy right now!

Other manufacturers are joining HTC

If currently all Android phones are made by HTC, this is quickly changing. Motorola, one of the biggest global cellphone manufactures is fully commited to Android and is preparing to launch 2 models this year. The first one, the Cliq should be available soon. The second model, codenamed "shole" is more of a prototype, but could still be released this year. Motorola actually dumped its own 'in house' Linux based OS to join the Android cause. This is important because Motorola has a lot of experience with mass market phones and already released very successful models like the Razr. We should also soon see devices that are Android powered but are not phones, like the future "dual booting" Acer netbook.

Conclusion

With only 3 million devices sold and much critiscism over its app store, Google's Android platform failed to make a major splash this year. I think that this was because Android was a new untested and immature system. This year however the OS has matured tremendously, more devices have been released at attractive price points and carriers are finally getting on board. If 2008 was the year of the iPhone, 2010 will be the year of the Android.

Why Microsoft won't fight moblin

There have been quite a few Moblin related announcements these last weeks: The release of the final version of Moblin 2.0, the Moblin Garage and the preview release of Moblin 2.1. More interesting is the news released by Microsoft's Silverlight team that they will develop Silverlight 3 for Moblin. Unlike Moonlight that is a Novel sponsored open source rewrite of Silverlight available for all Linux distribution, this looks like a binary only package that will be developed directly by Microsoft and made available only for Moblin. Microsoft porting it's technologies to Linux, WTF... Well it doesn't look that far fetched once you think a little bit further.

Intel has a problem

For the past 20 years Microsoft and Intel have been the best of friends: Intel was releasing more and more powerful chips and Microsoft released more and more powerful operating systems to use them. This worked well until a problem cropped up: Intel was not able to increase a processor's frequency anymore. To get out of the the problem Intel tried to put several processor cores on one chip. This only worked to some extent in the consumer market, as most users don't benefit much from having more than 2 cores in their computers. Intel management quickly realized that if they wanted to continue selling CPUs to consumers they would have to sell more chips for less money.

The rise of the Atom

To reach that goal they created the Atom processor, a chip that would propel the Netbook category to the forefront of personal computing and sell countless millions of devices. The chip could also be scaled to Nettops and in the future smartphones, set-top boxes and consumer electronics. Intel is on the verge of attaining its goal: selling a lot of cheap devices with it's processors inside. A problem appeared on the horizon however: Microsoft did not want to play ball!

The price of Windows

Most of these cheap new netbooks and nettop are breaking the relationship that kept Microsoft and Intel happy for so many years: the chips can't support new advances in operating systems (like Windows Vista). Worse, because of the low price of the machines Microsoft can't charge much for Windows on these machines, opening a market for Linux. Linux on netbooks is not much of a problem for Microsoft as long as the interface makes it clear that the netbook is a "device" and not a multi-purpose computer with a start menu and applications able to rival Windows. Once that consumers started to install Windows XP on netbooks and that Linux manufacturers started to release distributions that featured the same interface and capabilities as a Windows computer, Microsoft had no choice but to enter the marked with a very discounted version of Windows.

Moblin: the return to the computing device

Microsoft does not like the current situation, what they want is for the price and capabilities of netbooks to increase so that they can sell more expensive versions of Windows (such as Windows 7). What Intel wants is to continue to sell more and more cheaper chips, meaning that they want the price of netbooks to go down. For this they need an operating system that is not only cheap (or free) but also one that doesn't look like a traditional computer. Why? Because they don't want consumer to purchase these device to replace their computers but in addition of their current desktops or laptops. Because of this Moblin is designed with most of the capabilities of a full computer, but with an interface that is more suited to a mobile use than a desktop use.

What is in for Microsoft?

This is actually a win for Microsoft too as this clearly differentiates Moblin "devices" from Windows "all purpose" computers. Microsoft can continue to sell more expensive versions of Windows on more expensive computers with a traditional desktop interface without fearing too much the competition from the cheap Moblin powered netbooks: these don't look like Windows computers and are clearly for a different purpose. When an OEM complains about the price of Windows 7, now it can be told: use Moblin on your line of cheap netbooks that are companion devices and install an expensive version of Windows on higher end models that can replace a "full" computer. It is in Microsoft's interest to insure that Moblin is a good platform for basic tasks like surfing the web (hence the Silverlight port) to ensure that users don't install Windows in its place as long as the most advanced computing tasks are more intuitively done in Windows.

Moblin vs Windows?

Moblin is a Linux that is very different from Windows: the emphasis is clearly on web based applications, social networks, contacts etc... It is half way between a computer and a smartphone or PDA. It can of course run powerful Linux applications (otherwise users may replace it with Windows or a more desktop-like Linux distribution), but it is not the focus. Windows on the other hand is designed for desktop computing and powerful applications. The web takes a back seat to what is installed locally on the machine. Of course it can run web applications, just like Moblin can run local applications, but that is not the focus.

Conclusion

Moblin is the solution to the problem of Intel: providing a free, lightweight and powerful OS to sell cheaper netbooks and devices. This allows Microsoft to get out of the "bargain basement OS" market and to focus on a more expensive, higher end market with Windows 7. The differentiation between both OS is large enough to ensure that most people won't buy a Moblin device to replace their computer but to complement it. It suits Microsoft better if consumer purchase a Windows 7 desktop AND a Moblin netbook than if their purchase only a cheap Windows XP netbook.

Why Linux does not look like Windows

One interesting remark I read in some comments is that Linux distributions are not successful because they don't look enough like Windows. Apparently if someone completely copied the interface of Windows and slapped that on top of Linux, Windows users would migrate in droves and Microsoft would be bankrupt. Well, not really. Let me explain.

We can nor plagiarize the Windows interface.

A lot of people agree on the fact that Microsoft copied the MacOS interface when creating Windows. Does Windows look exactly like MacOS? Absolutely not, if it did you can bet that Apple's lawyers would quickly have sent cease and desist letters to Redmond. The same is true for Linux: if a distribution copied the Windows interface to the point that users could be confused in believing that the Linux distribution actually was Windows, that distribution would quickly be taken to court. Remember the story of Lindows? In that case it was only a name!

We should not copy the Windows interface.

There are two major reasons why Linux distributions should not blindly copy the Windows interface. First because it not the best interface for everybody. Most people switched to Linux for a reason, usually because they didn't like something with Windows. That may very well be the interface! Even if the Windows interface is very familiar to a lot of people that does not make it the best interface there is!

The second reason is that Linux is different from Windows, so the interface should reflect that. For example in Windows the "Add / Remove program" applet is not very important as it is only used to remove programs. Many people may never bother with it and it is OK to bury it somewhere in the control panel. In Ubuntu the "add / remove program" applet is much more important as it is needed to install new applications and customize your computer to your purpose. As a result it should have a much more important place in the interface.

Delivering a familiar interface.

Some distributions like Linux Mint manage to deliver a very Windows-like interface while remaining true to Linux. The start menu, system tray and windows switchers stay where they are in Windows, but the theme and colors are very different from Windows. This way new Linux users will find their bearings easily, but will never be unaware that they don't use Windows. The start menu has been customized so that the "Add / remove program" applet is much easier to reach to reflect it's bigger role on a Linux system.

The future

There is no doubt that the user interface is one of the most important part of a desktop operating system, and it is one that has been somewhat neglected up to now. Desktop distributions like SUSE and Ubuntu are starting to change this by making usability studies and polishing the look of their desktops. Soon people will maybe not want Linux to copy the Windows interface but the other way around.

Does an upgrade to Windows 7 kill a netbook battery life?

One of the most touted advantage of Windows 7 over Windows XP and Linux is improved battery life. This may be true for future netbooks that would be optimized for Microsoft new operating system, but don't expect any gains from installing Microsoft's latest release on your current netbook! Many people have actually reported reduced battery life on their netbooks after an upgrade to Windows 7.

I suspect that the so-called improved battery life of Windows 7 has much to do with better communication between the OS and the hardware, especially the BIOS and graphic chip. This would allow the OS to take better advantage of the hardware's energy saving features. The problem is that you would only get these advantages if the BIOS and the hardware drivers were optimized for Windows 7. When this is not the case (such as with current netbooks designed for Windows XP and Linux) Windows 7 actually has a reduced battery life.

We should keep in mind that even if Windows 7 is more optimized than Vista, it still uses much more resources than Windows XP or even Linux. That it consumes more power than these operating systems should not be a surprise. Some netbook manufacturers have well understood this and intend to stick with Windows XP until the release of the next generation of netbook processors from Intel.

To conclude I would say that installing Windows 7 on current netbooks is a risky proposition: on some machines the newer OS will run fine, on some it will run but with a reduced battery life, and on some it will slow to a crawl once you open a few applications. In my opinion it is not worth the trouble.

Not too soon: Moonlight 2 finally reaches beta

The team of Miguel De Icaza has released the first feature complete beta release of Moonlight 2.0.

I must say: it is about time! Silverlight 3.0 for Windows has been released last month. Although I really admire the work of Miguel and his team, Linux is still the poor child when it comes to Silverlight support.

My opinion is the following: if Microsoft wants to compete with Adobe Flash they need to offer at least the same level of service as Adobe. Since Adobe releases Flash runtimes simultaneously on Windows, Mac and Linux, the minimum that Microsoft needs to offer to be credible is the same simultaneous release schedule. This is obviously still not the case!

The only silver lining that I see here is that contrary to Flash, Moonlight is open source. This may allow the runtime to be easily ported to other computing platforms such as ARM. Also it is possible to replace the video decoders provided by Microsoft by your own if you compile Moonlight yourself. This means that someone could create a version of Moonlight that takes advantage of video decoding acceleration protocols, like Nvidia VDPAU.

That said, the delay between Windows and Linux version releases is still too much of an issue for me to accept Moonlight / Silverlight as a credible alternative to Flash. If Microsoft was serious about competing with Adobe these delays would not exists. As it is now Silverlight looks more like a attempt by Microsoft to draw the developers attention away from Flash than to create a true multi-platform runtime.

I do think that if Microsoft really wanted they could make a success out of Silverlight, but that would require them to stop favoring their own platforms and become really agnostic: support all desktop and most mobile operating system, as well as most consoles! Granted, they support the Mac, but Macs only compete with Windows in the high end consumer computing segment. Where is Silverlight for the Wii browser? What about the PS3s? What about Symbian and Android smartphones? What about the iPhone, are they even working on it? As long as Microsoft does not solve these issues Silverlight will stay an also-ran.

Net Applications Changes Methodology: Windows & Linux Market Share Rises

I have always claimed that the widely used Operating System market share statistics from Net applications were not really accurate when it came to MacOS and Linux market share. In my opinion there were two factors that prevented an accurate worldwide market share to be produced: Linux browsers potentially ignoring the counter and improper geographical distribution. The second problem has been fixed and it does impact the market share numbers significantly.

The problem was that a large portion of the website visitors that are counted come from the USA and other English speaking countries. This means that worldwide data was more representative of the USA than of the rest of the world. The problem is that the OS market share is currently very different in the USA than the rest of the world: the Mac OSX market share is much higher, but the Windows and Linux market share are lower. Now that the data has been adjusted MacOSX market share has fallen from 10% to around 5%, and Linux market share has increased slightly to 1.05% (with a peak at 1.17% in may). This is much more consistent with the data provided by other firms such as XiTi Monitor which recently placed the Linux market share at 1.2% and MacOSX at 4.6%

Astute readers will notice that the Linux market share numbers are still much lower than the ones provided by W3Counter which place Linux around the 2% mark. The explanation advanced by some would be that it is in fact Firefox's market share that is not correct. It is feared that some Firefox plug-ins like adblock and noscript would prevent a visitor from being counted. Since these are widely used by Firefox and Linux users their market share would be underestimated, and this would account for the difference. Personally I would trust the numbers from W3counter the most, but if you don't know what to do you can always try to count the Linux market share by Twibbons.

Read more in the Linux category

Open Source: many advantages beyond price

When people think about adopting an Open Source solution, the first factor that comes to mind is the price: it is usually cheaper than proprietary alternatives. What a lot of people fail to consider is that there are a lot of other advantages to Open Source that can be much more important than the price factor. Let's have a look at a few of them:

No forced end of life

One of the most overlooked advantage of Open Source is that there is no real end of life for any project. If a driver is released as Open Source and part of the Linux kernel your hardware will probably work out of the box for as long as you care to use that piece of equipment. In the proprietary world it is common for hardware manufacturers not to release a decent driver to run older hardware on newer operating systems to drive sales of newer models. When Windows Vista was released Creative Labs released a Vista driver that did not support all the features present in the XP driver for its older hardware, thus consumer were forced to buy the newer models just to have on Vista the same features as their old hardware on XP. This could not have happened if the drivers were Open Source, as any developer would have been able to port the XP driver to Vista or to modify the Vista driver to support all of the old hardware features. The same is true for software: even if the company that built your software does not support it anymore as long as a developer is willing to maintain it you are good, and if you really need that software nothing prevents you to hire that developer.

True competition rather than lock in

One of the easiest way for any software company to make long term money is software 'lock in'. The idea is to sell you a piece of software without telling you its inner workings or how to convert the files it produces to other formats. This means that the original vendor is the only one that can sell you upgrades or maintenance on that piece of software since he is the only one that know how it was built. That exclusivity often comes at a premium price since the software vendor has virtually no competition for your custom. In the case of Open Source the inner working of your software and the files it produces are known, meaning that several companies can offer support and maintenance for it, as well as develop and sell compatible alternatives. This creates real competition, encourages innovation and brings prices down for the consumer.

Security transparency

Do you know if Windows is secure? Do you know if it has any back-doors? No you don't, only Microsoft knows that. With closed source software you have no way to know if the software was properly tested for security holes or if unwanted code has been added to the software. With Open Source everything is transparent: you know exactly what you are running and anybody can easily look for security vulnerabilities.

The right to fork

What do you have to say about the direction that Windows has taken in the recent years? Not , much! If you do not like what Microsoft did with Vista and Windows 7 too bad, it's that or nothing. With Open Source software you can Fork. This means that if you do not like the direction that a piece of software is taking you can always create your own version and push it in the direction you like. Of course this comes with some problems: it causes fragmentation and reduces the resources that can be invested in each fork, but often forking is actually not necessary. When the developers or maintainers of an Open Source software project realize that a significant part of their users are unhappy with what they are doing and are ready to fork they sometimes change their plans to make everyone happy. Sometimes forks also merge after some time, or sometimes the less popular fork dies. This means that users actually have much more control on the direction in which the Open Source software they use evolves than with closed source software.

These are only some of the advantages of Open Source. This is why I would always prefer to purchase hardware for which there is an Open Source driver, or application that are Open Source. It is not only a question of price!

Friday Fun: Linux OS Market Share by Twibbon

One of the big problem of Linux is that it is difficult to estimate its market share. Web metrics give vastly different numbers based on the methodology used: from 2.11% for W3counter to 0.99% for Netstats. I thus propose a fun way to gauge the relative importance of Operating Systems: by Twibbon.

What the hell is a Twibbon?

A Twibbon is a little logo that you can add to your Twitter profile image to show your support to a cause, country, browser or operating system? You can have a look at my Twitter profile for an example. On the Twibbon website you can see how many Twitter users support the same cause as you, and thus conclude how important it is. Why only count Twitter users? Because Twitter is in with the hip people, anybody who is or will be somebody is on Twitter. These are the influencers, the people that matter! So without further ado let's see how the Twibbon numbers compare:

As of 23 July 2009 the Twibbon score for each operating system are:

I'm Linux: 94 supporters
I'm a PC: 124 supporters
I'm a Mac: 476 supporters
I use iPhone: 16 supporters

As you can see the most popular operating system is by far MacOSX followed by Microsoft Windows and Linux. The iPhone does not yet have many supporters, but I expect this to grow. Just for fun let's translate this into percentages and compare with the Netstat numbers:

Linux: 13% Twibbon market share, 1% Netstat market share
Windows: 17% Twibbon market share, 88% Netstat market share
MacOS: 67% Twibbon market share, 10% Netstat market share
iPhone: 2% Twibbon market share, 0.6% Netstat market share

This is absolutely not scientific of course, but it indicative of something: despite it's huge market share Windows does not seems to have lot of fans. If Netstats's numbers were actually correct (I doubt they are) and Windows was generating has much enthusiasm as MacOS it should have 4189 supporters. It should have 8272 supporters if it had the same level of support as Linux.

What this shows is that Windows is currently coasting on its past market share gains and on its dominance in the enterprise and the retail channel. If the young hip Twitter generation of today had shaped the computing landscape it would be vastly different from the one we know. Most of these don't seem to find Windows very interesting, but are willing to support MacOS or Linux.

In the end this is not much more that a bit of Friday fun, but maybe it is cause for a bit worry at Microsoft's headquarters and a bit of rejoicing in Cupertino and in Linux Land.

The Linux Kernel and Open Source Drivers

There has been a lot of talk about the Linux kernel and Open Source drivers this week. Most of it was about Microsoft that released drivers under the GPL V2 for inclusion in the Linux kernel. As pointed out by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols this was planned for a long time and will benefit Microsoft as much (if not more) than Linux. The only important thing this shows is that Microsoft is ready to embrace the GPL if it serves it's business interests.

Much more interesting is the discussion on Phoronix about the case of the new VIA Chrome 9 DRM (Direct Rendering Manager). The gist of the story is this: VIA has a binary 3D driver for it's Chrome 9 IGP, but they want that some of the code (the DRM) is entered into the Linux kernel. The DRM code is open source, but not the driver itself. Now without the driver the DRM is useless, meaning that if it is accepted the kernel would contain some code whose only purpose would be to run VIA's binary driver.

This raises a lot of issues: how would this code be maintained? What if the kernel part of the code needs to evolve and updates to the driver are required? What about security? VIA could solve some of these issues by providing a complete documentation of the binary Chrome 9 driver, but currently this documentation is not available: critical pieces are missing.

Not designed for Open Source

The problem is that VIA did not design their product with Open Source in mind. What happened is that instead of developing their own technology from scratch they actually licensed another company's technology for use in their product. At the time they did not plan for open source drivers and agreed that the third party's code would have to remain secret. This probably did not matter a lot a few years ago, but since then the market share of Linux has grown a lot, and now VIA is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

If they can't release their drivers as Open Source they can't include it into the kernel, but to open source their driver they need the permission of the company that own the technology that they licensed. That company probably has no interest in Open Sourcing its technology, so VIA is stuck. They could probably rewrite some of the driver themselves, but it would cost a lot of resources. Intel is experiencing the same issue with their Poulsbo (mobile) driver: they used third party technologies that they can currently not release as open source. AMD encountered similar issues with their documentation efforts: some information licensed from third parties has to be cleared before it can be released.

Back to the kernel and the Microsoft

This bring us back to the kernel and Microsoft. Any Open Source driver that is incorporated in the kernel enjoy several advantage in the Linux world: it works out of the box and it is maintained pretty much forever. This is why Intel 's integrated graphics are so popular with Linux users. The chips do not offer great performance but a "full feature" open source Intel driver is shipped with all distributions, while AMD and Nvidia Open Source drivers are currently much more limited. If you want to get full performance and all features with these graphic chips you need to install a binary driver that may or may not work with your specific distribution and hardware.

So Open Source drivers are better and will help sell hardware to the Linux community, but Open Source is not something that you can add as an afterthought. You need to ensure from the start that all the technology that you intend to use can be released. This needs to be specified in contracts with all third-party technology providers and needs to be taken into consideration at all stages of product development. This requires some effort on the part of the hardware manufacturer. Now ask yourself this question: would Microsoft have released their virtualization drivers as Open Source if they could have been included in the kernel as binary drivers? Probably not! (especially if as some suggest Microsoft had little choice)

By requesting an open source driver (or the documentation to build one) as a prerequisite for the inclusion of the VIA DRM in the kernel the Linux community not only ensures that the kernel remains portable and secure but also encourages device manufacturers to ensure that their products are "Open Source compatible" and to eliminate third party technology that can't be released. It is possible that rejecting VIA's DRM would cause some pain to current VIA users, but it would give a strong message to device manufacturers: Plan Open Source support in your products and you will gain access to the kernel, remain closed and you will be at a disadvantage. This does not mean that all binary drivers are bad, sometime there is no other way to make hardware work, only they should not expect to be considered as first class citizens in the Linux world.

For more posts like this subscribe to Tech-no-Media (rss) or Follow me on Twitter.

Image cc by Henrique Vicente

Glassbuntu: design a dark crystal Gnome theme for Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

SlicknessX, Glass Icons and Debian Glass

The Gnome user interface used by Ubuntu and Linux Mint allows a huge amount of graphical customization, but these features are rarely used. Part of the problem is that to make an aesthetically appealing theme you need to blend various elements: windows decorations, widgets, icons, backgrounds. Although many of these are available online, it is not easy to find some that work well together to deliver a consistent look.

To allow you to easily design a kick-ass theme for your Gnome, Ubuntu or Mint desktop I started this series of posts. in each I will suggest various windows decorations, widgets icons and background that follow one unique theme and blend well together. I will then suggest a few ways to combine them to make an aesthetically pleasing desktop. This weeks them is Glassbuntu: design a dark crystal theme.

Dark glass window decorations and widgets

SlicknessX: This gtk theme comes with one interesting feature: the glass effect actually spans both the windows title and menu bars. The effect is quite interesting on large windows but can sometimes look strange on narrow ones. the drop down menus also benefit from the glass effect, making this theme very slick indeed.

Smoked Glass: If you would prefer to have your title bar and menu bar clearly separate, this gtk theme is for you. The title bars only have a slight glossy effect, but this is more than made up by the superb tealish effects on the menu bar, which clearly stands out. In this theme the title bar is very much overshadowed by the menu bar, so I would recommend it if you use your menus a lot.

Wii Black: The Wii console menus are a superb example of a crystal / glass theme, so it is no surprise that it would become the inspiration source for a gtk theme. What has been changed here is that the theme is much darker, with aqua highlights. The glass effect is more subtle than on the two previous themes, so this is easier to fit into any desktop.


Dark glass icon sets

Glass icons: This gnome icon theme is designed to make it look like your icons are made of transparent glass. The advantage is that this icon set blends itself with almost any color. The inconvenient is that if the rest of the theme is not very colored the desktop may look too monochromatic.

Darkglass icons: these stylized, colorful icons may not be to everyone's taste, but they succeed at one thing: adding a dash of color to a dark theme.

Wallpaper suggestions

There are too many wallpapers that would fit this theme to make any kind of exhaustive list, but here are two suggestions to get you started:

The Debian glass wallpaper will complement nicely any dark glass theme for which you may want a lighter background. It also adds a dash of red to the desktop, something that may bring some balance to a lightly colored theme.

If you would prefer a dark background I would suggest Gnome machine. The exterior of the wallpaper is dark to allow colored icons to stand out, but the center will give the desktop nice blue highlights. This brings balance to the desktop and avoid that the center of the screen become too dark compared to the edge where the icons are.

Blending it all together

SlicknessX, Glassicons and Debian glass: this combinations give a very classy, black, white and gray desktop. The Glass icons complement well the gray of the slicknessX widgets. The lighter Debian glass wallpaper allows the nice window decorations of SlicknessX while bringing a touch of color to the desktop.

Smoked Glass, Oxygen refit and Gnome machine

Smoked Glass, Oxygen refit and Gnome machine: The theme is really built around Smoked glass. To complement the teal menu bar and widgets I chose to combine a greenish icon set, Oxygen refit with the blue of the Gnome machine wallpaper. Since this theme is very dark the colors of the menu bar and icons really stand out, ensuring that this theme is still very readable.

These are of course only a few of the possible combinations: part of the fun of theming your Gnome, Mint or Ubuntu desktop is playing with all the elements to design a combination that works for you. In the next installment we will look into the Apple universe with Macbuntu: design an OSX inspired Gnome theme for Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

Linux is not an Operating System

Last week Google announced their intention to release an operating system based on Linux. The reaction of some people on reddit was: "No, another neutered, watered-down, crapitized "linux". Linux will once again be viewed as a sub par, 'specialized' OS." Well, this is not possible because Linux is not really an operating system, it is a kernel. And it is actually very successful as a specialized operating system's kernel. Let me explain.

Linux is not a operating system

The term Linux actually refers to the Linux kernel. This is not in itself a full blown computer operating system but a bunch of drivers an code to make other programs run. The beauty of the Linux kernel is that most of those drivers are modules that can be added or removed from the kernel as required. This means that you can use the Linux kernel as the foundation for a lot of very different operating systems: You can build full blown desktop operating systems with advanced graphical user interfaces and immense packages repositories that give access to an ecosystem of thousand of applications. You can also strip it down to a very specialized kernel with only a few module that is suitable to run a home router or file server. Incidentally Linux has been way more successful in the later function.

Linux success in devices

Linux has been very successful in devices, as it is very easy to build a specialized operating system based on the Linux kernel. My Dlink home router runs a Linux based operating system designed by Dlink. My Emtec Movie Cube runs a Linux based operating system designed by Emtec. If you have an Android phone you run a Linux based operating system designed by Google. When you search on the Google search engine the processing happen on another Linux based operating system designed by Google for an entirely different purpose. The objective of Linux is not to be an operating system, it is to be a kernel that everyone can freely use and customize to create it's own operating system. It would not have been possible to release many of the devices I mention above at a reasonable price if their operating system had to be purchased or built from scratch. Linux's usefulness goes way beyond the desktop or even the server.

Ubuntu and Fedora are Linux based Operating Systems

Since anyone can create it's own operating system based on the Linux kernel, why not create a full blown desktop operating system that we can use instead of Windows or OSX? This is where distributions like Ubuntu or Fedora come into play. These take the Linux kernel and add the elements that will make desktop operating system like a windows manager to create a GUI or a package manager to install and update applications. Even if both these operating systems are based on the Linux kernel they can be very different in the end: One may use the KDE window manager and one may use Gnome. One can use RPM packages while the other use DEB packages. Ubuntu and Fedora are actually two different operating systems and are not fully compatible, even if both are based on the Linux kernel. Linux is not the operating system, Ubuntu (or Fedora) is.

The case of Mint and Ubuntu

Since the source code for an operating system based on Linux must be released, it is actually possible to create an operating system not directly based on Linux but based on another distribution. Ubuntu is based on the Debian Linux-based operating system, and Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. This helps maintain some compatibility as most Debian packages will work on Ubuntu and Mint. In this case it could be argued that the operating system is Debian, and that Ubuntu and Mint are just derivatives. If you see it that way there are only a few successful Linux based desktop operating system: Debian, Fedora, SUSE and maybe Slackware, Mandriva and Android.

Back to Google ChromeOS

ChromeOS will be an operating system that will use the Linux kernel, but not be based on any existing Linux distribution. This will be a new Linux distribution, a new operating system. Will it be more Limited than Ubuntu or Fedora? Probably at first, but Like all Linux based operating system users will be able to create their own versions, their own derivative operating systems. Developers will probably be able to adapt and recompile open source programs to run on ChromeOS and soon it will be another member of the big family of Linux based operating systems. Will it be the same as Ubuntu? probably not, why create a new operating system if it is to reproduce the functionality of an existing one?

ChromeOS will use Linux for what it is the best: be the kernel of an operating system customized and optimized to a specific function. For ChromeOS it means being the best possible Netbook operating system. For Ubuntu it means being the best desktop operating system. For Red Hat it means being the best server operating system. For Android it means being the best Smartphone operating system etc... That is probably the greatest strength of Linux compared to closed source operating system, when fighting Linux you don't fight one operating system, you fight a dozen.

Read more in the Linux category