Linux And Unix Devices Popular On Amazon's 'Best of '07' List

christian.einfeldt writes "Computers and handheld devices running default GNU Linux or Unix OSes have swept Amazon's 'best of' list for 2007, according BusinessWire.com for 28 December 2007. Best selling computer? The Nokia Internet Tablet PC, running Linux. Best reviewed computer? The Apple MacBook Pro notebook PC. Most wished for computer? Asus Eee 4G-Galaxy 7-inch PC mobile Internet device, which comes with Xandros Linux pre-installed. And last, but not least, the most frequently gifted computer: The Apple MacBook notebook PC."

Im Linux

[canuck57 (662392)]

Linux is cute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aufL76bXLAg

Asus Eee very popular in Australia

[MichaelSmith (789609)]

It sold out in Myer stores (the only retailer) within a couple of days of the initial release. I read reports of schools buying them by the dozen and families buying one for each member of the family.

The last I heard they were getting more in just before Christmas but a lot of those had been pre-sold in December. I don't think Linux is a negative for the people who buy this product. They like the fact that it has open office out of the box, which is a bigger money saver than the OS.

Re:Asus Eee to equal Mac sales in 2008

[abigor (540274)]

Unfortunately, everyone I know who has bought one (around five people) has installed XP on it. I'd guess lots of others are doing the same.

Re:Asus Eee to equal Mac sales in 2008

[MichaelSmith (789609)]

Unfortunately, everyone I know who has bought one (around five people) has installed XP on it. I'd guess lots of others are doing the same.

Have a look at the post count on eeeuser [eeeuser.com]. Posts about windows installs are significant but not overwhelming.

Re:

[AJWM (19027)]

Shrug. That probably doesn't begin to balance the number of sold-with-Windows computers (or for that matter, Macs) that have had Linux installed on them.

Re:

[bberens (965711)]

I'm not too worried about this. As the Core 2 Duo vs (what is AMD pushing these days?) and the gaming console wars have taught me, when it comes to consumer products the loyalty isn't that great, the better product usually wins. Of course how you and I define better and how the average consumer defines better might be totally different. Sort of like the PS3 is WAY technically superior to the Wii, but the Wii is kicking its ass in sales. *shrug*

filtered view

[daniel23 (605413)]

reading the list myself I think it needs some filtered perception to summarize it like it was done for this entry. This is /. after all and I'm not new here and in soviet russia the news invent you...

EEEPC...

[larry bagina (561269)]

Currently, the first review of the EEE PC [amazon.com] is from someone who installed windows XP on it. (A great little Windows computer!!).

Re:

[flyingfsck (986395)]

Poor sod. Windows on an Eee PC must really suck. Mine works great with the default Debian Etch. I just made a few small tweaks to IceWM and also fixed KDE so it can run as well. At the moment, the Eeep is hooked to my HiFi playing music streamed from my server in the basement.

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[petermgreen (876956)]

half a gig of ram is easilly enough for XP to run pretty smoothly provided it is not loaded down with crap. The CPU is slow by todays standards but not that slow by the standards of when XP came out.

The impression I get is that the big name linux desktops (kde and gnome) are just as bloated if not more so than XP.

Re:

[jlarocco (851450)]

The impression I get is that the big name linux desktops (kde and gnome) are just as bloated if not more so than XP.

Except nobody's forced to use a "big name linux desktop", and in this case they're not, so that doesn't really matter.

Using Windows on a device like that just doesn't make sense. Linux can be trimmed down *way* more than Windows when you know exactly what kind of machine it'll be running on.

Re:

[smoker2 (750216)]

I wonder if that was a fully licenced copy of XP ?
If not, then I guess that shows who is more guilty of IP "theft" then. The ones who pay for an OS are more likely to "steal" software than the ones who don't pay for the OS.

Swept != Won most of.

[corsec67 (627446)]

Do all of these run Linux or Unix:

• Apple 4 GB iPod nano (3rd Generation)
• Nintendo Wii
• Suunto T6 Wristop personal trainer with heart rate monitor
• Accutire MS-4350B programmable digital tire gauge
• Garmin nüvi 350 3.5-inch portable GPS navigator
• Actron PocketScan diagnostic code reader
• Jakks EyeClops Bionic Eye
• Canon PowerShot A570IS 7.1MP digital camera
  

If you take the definition of "electronics" to be anything that has a microprocessor, ram, program storage, and I/O, then all of these would be "electronics", but I don't think any of them run Linux. I might be wrong, and some of them might run Linux, but I am sure that at least one of them doesn't.

If the Canon A570IS ran a GPLd OS, that would be awesome to modify that so that I can do things that Canon hadn't thought of or doesn't want users to be able to do, like time-lapse, recording RAW, changing the menu system, etc...

Yes, there are a lot of devices running Linux or Unix on the Amazon "Best-Of" list, but it isn't a sweep unless you mean "computers", but even then the line gets fuzzy.

Alternative firmware gives you RAW support

[dracvl (541254)]

If the Canon A570IS ran a GPLd OS, that would be awesome to modify that so that I can do things that Canon hadn't thought of or doesn't want users to be able to do, like time-lapse, recording RAW, changing the menu system, etc...

Not GPL, but the CHDK alternative firmware [wikia.com] (for the A570 and most other mid/high-end "prosumer" Canon cameras such as the S3) that enable RAW mode and other enhancements for these cameras.

Re:

[corsec67 (627446)]

# Apple 4 GB iPod nano (3rd Generation)
Very stripped down OSX, hence a UNIX

Actually the iPods run a "commercial microkernel embedded operating system," made by PortalPlayer [wikipedia.org]. From Wikipedia/iPod [wikipedia.org]

I agree with you on the rest.

I didn't look too hard at the smaller items, but I would still consider them "electronics," just not "computers." As you said there isn't much of an OS on those, and definitely nothing the size of even a stripped down version of Linux.

Re:

[abigor (540274)]

Didn't the earlier iPods also run something by a company called Pixo? I seem to recall that. Perhaps the very latest iPods run some kind of stripped-down OS X.

Also, the Wii does NOT run on Linux.

Re:

[Darby (84953)]

Perhaps the very latest iPods run some kind of stripped-down OS X.

Here's what the iPhone runs:

# uname -a
Darwin Darby's iPhone 9.0.0d1 Darwin Kernel Version 9.0.0d1: Fri Jun 22 00:38:56 PDT 2007; root:xnu-933.0.1.178.obj~1/RELEASE_ARM_S5L8900XRB iPhone1,1 Darwin

The iPod touch runs the same, and I don't have a clue what other iPods run.

At last, and end to "Year of the Linux Desktop"

[rbrander (73222)]

Now, the "Linux Desktop" fantasists can finally let it go. There will be no "year of the Linux desktop", just as there will be no "year of the Linux mainframe".

Like the $1,000,000 "mainframe", the DEC $100,000 "minicomputer", and the Sun $10,000 Unix "workstation", each major generation had its most-popular software environment, the one with highest network effects.

Pushing for a change in the desktop from Windows to Mac or Linux is, in 10 years, going to seem like striving to continue the VMS vs Unix wars on the VAX platform.

What 2008, 2009, and 2010 are going to be are the "years where appliances took over half the desktop functions" - you still want a big monitor and ergo keyboard to Photoshop, do development of web pages and code, and so on. But people sitting right at their desktop will whip out their paperback-sized appliance to do E-mail and chat, because that's where their communication apps live.

And, yes, those new appliances will mostly run Linux. What else?

All the hot new developers and innovative companies are not going to hogtie themselves to proprietary platforms like Windows and Mac; they've tossed themselves out of the running by their lack of freedom. They can put out their own product entries, sure -- but as Bill Joy said, most of the smart people in the world don't work for you.

Re:

[MichaelSmith (789609)]

And, yes, those new appliances will mostly run Linux. What else?

The funny bit is that even the openmoko makes it a pain to run a different OS. On a PC you just set the BIOS to boot from an external device and off you go. On all handheld devices you have to take a punt on re-flashing the bootstrap in eprom. Get it wrong and the device is bricked.

I don't see why these devices should not support pc-like behaviour.

Re:

[gad_zuki! (70830)]

>And, yes, those new appliances will mostly run Linux. What else?

Oh i dont know everything else in the mobile world? If linux on the desktop is dead, and it surely is compared to the predictions Ive read here and elsewhere, then linux on the mobile is even more dead. Windows mobile, blackberry os, osx, android, etc. Companies dont want to hand out their code and they have enough resources to build their own OSs. FOSS isnt as attractive as you think it is for these financial behemoths. THey can easily

Re:At last, and end to "Year of the Linux Desktop"

[MichaelSmith (789609)]

linux on the mobile is even more dead. Windows mobile, blackberry os, osx, android

Android is Linux. OSX is BSD. Apple hardware is locked down, not the OS.

Re:

[raddan (519638)]

Actually, you've got that backward. Apple's operating system is far more locked down than their hardware. Their current batch of computers are essentially generic x86 machines with EFI. Nothing really special there. And even in their PowerPC days, those machines were wonderfully hackable. Open Firmware, which was a Sun innovation and which was borrowed by Apple, allowed for all kinds of cool tricks. Most of the PowerPC hardware was still generic PC stuff; some of it required special firmware if it nee

Re:

[swillden (191260)]

> Android is Linux. OSX is BSD. Apple hardware is locked down, not the OS.

Then why can't I run the OS on a PC?

You can.

How is this insightful?

[Rob Simpson (533360)]

Which mobile sold the most units? The one running this [maemo.org].

Re:

[wytcld (179112)]

Yup. And even for the long-time Linux desktop user, the Eee is seductively useful. I've no use for full-sized laptops, which are big and heavy enough that I still end up sitting as if at a desktop. The Eee, by contrast, handles like a paperback book, which allows getting much more comfortable - a comfort that for many uses makes up for the loss of a large desktop screen. I'd been using a Zaurus clamshell (pocket sized) for a couple of years for note taking and remote sysadmin in a pinch. But it wasn't quite

Re:

[rbrander (73222)]

Oh, I know that Linux does run on mainframes (and digital picture frames and supercomputers, and...) but I don't think it ever came within two country miles of dominating over installs of VM and MVS.

The "Year of the Linux Desktop" generally referred, IMHO, to Linux attaining if not dominance (yeah, right) then a respectable enough market share to be in the news, like Mac. For which 10% is minimal and 20% better.

As to mobiles having many non-Linux OS's, true enough, and my apologies for not writing "mostly

A matter of time

[bmartin (1181965)]

It's simply a matter of time before Unix-based operating systems become the de-facto standard in portable electronics. Companies may be able to leverage their skills in their native markets (i.e., MS on the PC), but the portability of Linux makes it a no-brainer for royalty-free devices. FOSS's agnostic approach to interfacing with other technologies makes it ideal in attaining the interoperability desired by consumers. Let's share our good ideas so that others may benefit from them.

I, for one, welcome our new agnostic overlords.

What? No Vista?

[flyingfsck (986395)]

Amazing. There is not a single mention of MS Vista anywhere on those Amazon lists.

Re:

[LinuxGeek (6139)]

You just have to look in the right places. I imagine the top of the wish list at bondage.com is a Vista laptop with 512MB of ram. The sadomasicists must be eager to buy themselves this beautifully painful gift.

How about the OLPC?

[by Anonymous Coward]

As far as I can tell, the olpc blows the Nokia internet tablet pc out of the water.

The trouble with Amazon is that it will naturally focus on stuff you can buy. Here is Groklaw's review of the olpc. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071223132431291 [groklaw.net]

My gripe with the Nokia is battery life. My wife's Blackberry goes for days without charging. It has a keyboard (sort of). The Nokia is reported as getting only a couple of hours under heavy use.

Apparently the buy one, give one, program for the olpc

Re:

[jlarocco (851450)]

The trouble with Amazon is that it will naturally focus on stuff you can buy.

If wouldn't be very useful if it focused on stuff you couldn't buy.

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[Bloater (12932)]

> As far as I can tell, the olpc blows the Nokia internet tablet pc out of the water.

But it doesn't blow the Nokia IT out of my pocket where it very neatly fits.

love my Nokia N800!!! w00t!

[bball99 (232214)]

- interesting device using Deb-like app management... found some Fink scripts on board after installing ssh...

- what's not to like?

FM receiver built in w/automagic polling of station lists based on zipcode!
web cam/camera built in
video playback (nearly any codec - dunno about QT though)
mp3 playback
pdf, MS .doc, text reading
web browsing
touch screen
two SDHC slots
USB (albeit non-powered)
bluetooth keyboard support (nearly any model AFAIK - i'm getting an Apple!)
GPS support for external BT GPS units
Skype (don't u

Re:

[dfj225 (587560)]

++ for the Nokia N800. I'm enjoying mine as well. But you are right, the state of the Nokia and Maemo repositories is a sad one. It's too bad that releasing an OS update brought everything down to its knees. The disregard for the infrastructure takes away from the device as a whole and makes it seem rather unprofessional. Hopefully this will be resolved soon after people have some time to sort out the mess that occurred over the past few weeks.

Giving vs. gifting

[by Anonymous Coward]

Re: "...the most frequently gifted computer: The Apple MacBook notebook PC."

Is it just me, or is the use of "to gift" a recent development of holiday commercialization? I could swear I never heard that as a kid; now everything is about "gifting" rather than "giving". I suppose "giving in the spirit of Christmas" is too non-specific: it could mean giving to charity, or giving one's time at a senior center. No, it has to be "gifting", because that can mean only one thing: a piece of merchandise that one must purchase. It's hard to find an ad with the word "giving" anymore.

Do consumers know?

[T-Bone-T (1048702)]

Those devices may run unix or Linux, but how many people even know that? Wouldn't a typical consumer see that a device does what they want and looks good without regard to the OS? I doubt that many Nokia owners know their tablet runs Linux.

Re:Do consumers know?

[dfj225 (587560)]

What you said about typical consumers is probably true, but is that a bad thing? Personally, I think its a great achievement that you can hand a device to someone and it doesn't matter that its running linux. All that matters is that it is intuitive and useful in their hands.

The geeks get a device with open software that they are free to modify, and normal users get something that is easy to use and enables them to access the internet and information in a new and convenient way. I don't see any losers here, except Microsoft, and since I am not a shareholder, this doesn't bother me one bit :)

Re:

[T-Bone-T (1048702)]

It isn't a bad thing that Linux is popular, it just seems like people are celebrating its popularity for a reason that doesn't exist. It seems like it isn't much more popular than before, just running more things than before. It would be fine to celebrate if those devices were popular because they ran Linux, but running Linux is just a footnote that few seem to appreciate.

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[dfj225 (587560)]

I think you are right when you say that these devices aren't popular *because* they run linux. For what its worth, I don't think the iPhone is popular because it runs OS X. For all users care, it could be Windows on there as long as it provided the same interface.

It seems that it's enough to celebrate that many large companies have found linux to be the right solution for their mass market, consumer oriented devices. This seems to be a win for the linux community. After all, a few years ago it was very rare

ouch!

[DingerX (847589)]

yeah, updating that screen with any speed is the achilles heel of the n8x0. These things are super-cool though, and turn out to be more useful than I thought.
 
They also seem to spread virally. I know of 2 people who bought n800s after seeing mine, and they aren't IT professionals either.

Re:

[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

From what I know the screen can be updated reasonably quickly (because movies can play smoothly) but from what I can also gather is that this only occurs once the device clocks itself to 400mhz and talks directly to the lower graphics driver.

I am not afraid of direct hardware knocking but think I need to get lower than python+gtk to get there.

http://maemo.org/development/documentation/how-tos/4-x/maemo_architecture.html#SWDecomposition [maemo.org]

Re:

[darjen (879890)]

I had an n800 for awhile, but was forced to return it after getting very spotty wifi connections with it. Seemed like half the time I would get this "link local" problem that is mentioned here:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8689
I always got this at work. I really wanted to be able to use it as a portable skype phone, as I have skype out and in. But the connection issues really got me... I don't have an n810 yet, but I'm hoping it doesn't have this problem.

Mod parent down, -1 bullshit

[Winckle (870180)]

Apple have 3 models of Macbook, and 3 of Pro, each of which have a separate amazon listing.

Re:Mod parent down, -1 bullshit

[Winckle (870180)]

He lies, I point out the lie, and I get modded down, he gets modded up. Wtf.

Re:

[snl2587 (1177409)]

Plus MS pays people to troll.

Let me call you out for a second: do you have proof of this?

Re:

[CommunistHamster (949406)]

Let me tell you this: they don't pay us very much.

Re:

[TheVelvetFlamebait (986083)]

Plus MS pays people to troll

... on their macbooks!

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[tknd (979052)]

Apple have 3 models of Macbook, and 3 of Pro, each of which have a separate amazon listing.

The only word he chose incorrectly was "model" but I think he meant "line". So a product line of macbooks. A product line of macbook pros.

And his point still remains. There is only one manufacturer for Apple while there are multiple manufacturers of PCs (Toshiba, Sony, HP, Lenovo). If each of these manufacturers only had two models of notebooks each, they would still have more models than Apple (4 * 2 = 8). Bu

Re:

[kupekhaize (220804)]

The poster below is correct; Apple has several models of both computers:

13" 2.0 Ghz White Macbook
13" 2.2 Ghz White Macbook
13" 2.2 Ghz Black Macbook

15" 2.2 Ghz Macbook Pro
15" 2.4 Ghz Macbook Pro
17" 2.4 Ghz Macbook Pro

Each one has a separate marketing part number and get recorded separately during sales. The thing to keep in mind is that there are still probably a lot less models available then Dell or Acer or Hp machines, and so the numbers are still likely to be artificially inflated but not as much as the

Re:

[Bert64 (520050)]

Windows mobile is also a completely different beast to desktop windows...
Linux on the N810 is however normal linux, and pretty much anything you can compile on desktop linux can be recompiled to run on the N810.
The fact that most apps come with source code just makes the process simpler.