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Linux And Unix Devices Popular On Amazon's 'Best of '07' List 106

Posted by Zonk from the penguins-out-and-about dept.
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."
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Linux And Unix Devices Popular On Amazon's 'Best of '07' List More

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

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  • Im Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by canuck57 ( 662392 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @03:48PM (#21851080)

    Linux is cute.

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

  • I got one a couple of weeks ago and I am more than happy with it.
    However it is not a slick device like an iphone.

    Does anyone have any information about a Windows based development toolchain?
    Currently I am starting with Python+gtk but on the device I am finding performance limited (even compared to the old pocket pc .net code which I thought crawled along). It appears as though its main problem is refreshing the 800*480 screen quickly.

  • Asus Eee very popular in Australia (Score:3, Informative)

    by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @03:53PM (#21851110) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Asus Eee to equal Mac sales in 2008 (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Asus is now planning to build 5 million Eee PCs in 2008. That is equal to Apple's Mac production.

      Together with Linux server sales, this will push the Linux X86 market share far above that of Apple.

      • Re:Asus Eee to equal Mac sales in 2008 (Score:4, Informative)

        by abigor ( 540274 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @05:06PM (#21851564)
        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 (Score:4, Interesting)

          by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @05:37PM (#21851794) Homepage Journal

          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: (Score:2)

          by 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: (Score:1)

          by xra ( 1021817 )
          And it appears they will be coming pre-installed with a Microsoft OS soon.. http://eeepc.asus.com/global/news10192007.htm [asus.com]
        • Where did they buy their legal copy of XP for the EEE from? I thought Microsoft wasn't selling it at retail any more. I know I can still get it OEM but most people don't have the connections for that nor do they have the resources to install XP onto a machine without a DVD/CD-ROM drive.

          • Where did they buy their legal copy of XP for the EEE from? I thought Microsoft wasn't selling it at retail any more. I know I can still get it OEM but most people don't have the connections for that nor do they have the resources to install XP onto a machine without a DVD/CD-ROM drive.

            You can still pick up a copy of XP at your local big box store.

        • 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.
          So what do they use them for that they couldn't have done with the Linux install? Genuinely curious.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by slyn ( 1111419 )
        I hate to break it to you (i'd love to see linux hit the mainstream too), but Apple sales are probably going to be at or near 2 million Mac's a quarter [arstechnica.com] next year, putting their total sales at maybe 7-8 million.

        That being said, I got an EEE PC for my father, and he (and my sister, surprisingly to me) love it. He spent something like 2 or 3 hours playing with it christmas night after we got back from all the festivities. I was glad he enjoyed it because I was worried at first it's small size would be hard for

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's the ideal combination of small, light, affordable, silent. Finally we have a true 'notebook' computer, not the luggable laptops that people are used to.

      Having linux makes it very easy to use (much better than the iBook). No wonder it's sold out everywhere. Everyone who sees the device instantly wants one.

      Especially after they learn it's half the cost of a 'big white iBox'

  • 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...

  • From this, it seems like there is a growing demand for small scale tablet PC's, like Nokia's model. I wonder how Apple's new oft-rumored ultra-portable will do in this market.

    I doubt Vista can thrive on such devices in the near future, because it is such a resource hog, and will thus tend to drain small batteries too quickly. Flexible Unix OS's seem more suitable for these devices. Windows mobile is simply horrendous, and I doubt Microsoft is quick footed enough to adapt its newer generation OS's in

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 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.

    • Flexible Unix OS's seem more suitable for these devices.

      For that to happen, we need much better continuous-recognition handwriting software, and quick. I've attempted to run Linux on my Thinkpad x60 Tablet PC, but the stylus is all but useless because there is no decent software that takes advantage of it.

  • EEEPC... (Score:3, Funny)

    by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @03:59PM (#21851150) Journal
    Currently, the first review of the EEE PC [amazon.com] is from someone who installed windows XP on it. (A great little Windows computer!!).
    • 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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 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.

        • 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.

          • Using Windows on a device like that just doesn't make sense.
            I strongly disagree with you there. Having your normal software on a machine that is almost getting down into the large PDA size range (amazon say 2lbs which is less than a kilo) is IMO worth a lot. Wine is still far from perfect and running a full VM on a machine with theese specs is likely a bad idea.

            I very much doubt XP will be unacceptably slow on this thing (unless you load it down with crap like norton) it's CPU is THREE TIMES microsofts recc

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by BobPaul ( 710574 ) *
          I've run Gnome on various distributions on my home computer for the past couple of years. My computer is now aging, but it's still less painful to use than a WinXP machine on any hardware. From what I can tell, the problem is more to do with how Windows handles memory, and it's propensity to use the page file even when there is plenty of free ram.

          With 1GB ram on my desktop, I never touch the page file. Back when I had WinXP on it, it had 200+MB on the page file even though it had over 700MB free ram.

          So, the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 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.

      • 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.

        Errr... are you saying that if that person is using a Windows XP that isn't fully licensed, that they "stole" Windows, and are therefore less likely to steal software? But if they bought a retail version of XP for the EEEPC, then they are more likely to steal software? I think you should try rephrasing your comment. It doesn't make much sense like that.

  • Swept != Won most of. (Score:5, Informative)

    by corsec67 ( 627446 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @04:02PM (#21851170) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by downix ( 84795 )
      Well, it wasn't OSS, it was "Linux and UNIX". Of this list here:

      # Apple 4 GB iPod nano (3rd Generation)

      Very stripped down OSX, hence a UNIX

      # Nintendo Wii

      Unconfirmed which OS it runs, but a persistant rumor remains that it is Linux based.

      # Suunto T6 Wristop personal trainer with heart rate monitor

      Likely TRON or similar embedded OS.

      # Accutire MS-4350B programmable digital tire gauge

      If you need an OS for a tire gauge you're doing something wrong.

      # Garmin nüvi 350 3.5-inch portable GPS navigator

      Proprietor

      • # 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: (Score:2)

          by 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.
          • The iPhone and the iPod touch are (stripped) OS-X based. The others are not.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by 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.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • 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: (Score:1)

      by cylcyl ( 144755 )
      It doesn't really matter whether it won the categories you listed. The focus is on linux as consumer OS instead of embedded OS, where the OS is distinctly recognizable branded component of the product.

      All the ones you've listed have embedded OS/firmware. C'mon, the eyeclops? Tire gauge? Why not just add the Harry Potter book to your list and complain that linux did not sweep all categories unless it was embedded there too.

      • Yes, I agree that Linux or Unix swept the computer operating systems on that list, in that all of the computers on those lists run either Linux or Unix.

        From the summary:

        Computers and handheld devices running default GNU Linux or Unix OSes have swept Amazon's 'best of' list for 2007...

        How is the Garmin Nuvi not a "handheld device"?
        Or the Canon A570IS?

        That is my point, those are handheld devices that don't run linux.

        If the author had said instead "Computers running default GNU Linux or Unix OSes have swept Am

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by cylcyl ( 144755 )
          I contend that Harry Potter is also a handheld device. I distinctly recall holding it in my hands to read and turned the pages by hand.

          Linux won all categories where devices ran consumer OS's. Firmware/embedded is not the same.

    • Yes (Score:2)

      by BobPaul ( 710574 ) *
      Posted this comment from my tire gauge.

    • 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...

      I think you're looking for this: CHDK [wikia.com]

  • At last, and end to "Year of the Linux Desktop" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @04:06PM (#21851200) Homepage
    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: (Score:3, Informative)

      by 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: (Score:1)

        by xdotx ( 966421 )

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

        Because they are not designed with that functionality in mind. Modern handhelds are designed for relatively short term, specific use. Also, unlike a pc, these devices are marketed with software-based features. It simply wouldn't be worth the effort on the designer's part to make something as esoteric as switching the OS easy. Much less can I imagine someone wanting to attempt to boot from an external devices - you're talking about a handheld after all.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 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" (Score:5, Informative)

        by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @04:45PM (#21851444) Homepage Journal

        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: (Score:2)

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

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Hymer ( 856453 )
      "year of the Linux mainframe"
      Someone obviously forgot to tell it to the leading mainframe manufacturer in the world... IBM happily sells and supports Linux on their mainframes.
      The fact that something has happened will first be obvious in the future, in 50 years time or so someone will identify which year was "the year of Linux on desktop", which year was "the year of Linux on the mainframe" and which year was "the year of Microsofts death sentence".
      Appliances do already mostly run Linux... and has done it

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 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: (Score:2)

      by 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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bmartin ( 1181965 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @04:13PM (#21851260)
    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? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @04:23PM (#21851316)
    Amazing. There is not a single mention of MS Vista anywhere on those Amazon lists.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 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? (Score:2, Interesting)

    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
    • Did you not see the Asus Eee on the list?

    • 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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 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.
  • - 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

    • > video playback (nearly any codec - dunno about QT though)

      Does it play Theora?

    • I'll second (or third or whatever) that. I just got this for Christmas, and this thing is awesome. I've got all my network utils (OpenSSH, vnc viewer, rdesktop, nmap, tcpdump, dsniff, ping, traceroute, wget, etc.), an ebook reader (FBReader, excellent), multimedia capabilities (800x480 resolution). I'm transcoding [maemo.org] some movies to copy to my SDHC card as we speak and just found some scripts [maemopeople.org] to transcode video on-the-fly and stream it from my desktop PC. Abso-friggin-lutely the coolest thing I've ever had.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 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 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29, 2007 @05:40PM (#21851830)
    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.

    • People who use "gift" as a verb need to be force-fed their own warm, still-bleeding testicles and/or ovaries. It's not a verb. "Give" is the verb. This shit is just stupid.
    • Two points to make here: (a) slashdot always use funny words to sound smart. I don't hear the word 'gifting' in my normal day-to-day life, but if you want to talk about electronics and 'giving', you're talking about 'gifting'. (b) speaking as someone who gifted two Macbooks last year to people who should probably have gotten coal in their stockings, the gift of knowledge is not quite the same as an expensive sweater. I really hope that the people I bought computers for use them to find a clue.

  • Do consumers know? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by T-Bone-T ( 1048702 ) on Saturday December 29, 2007 @05:58PM (#21851954)
    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? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dfj225 ( 587560 ) on Sunday December 30, 2007 @02:02AM (#21854436) Homepage Journal
      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 :)
      • 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.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 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

    • 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.
      Well.. until they go on the net to find stuff to install. If they only use it for the pre installed apps, then they are missing out on a lot of the fun. I'm still a Linux noob, but I'm finding mine very easy to use.
  • ...Mac OS X. Three Apple products at the top of the list. Not bad!
  • Choosing Xandros was the closer for success. Anyone using the Xandros version of Linux has a truly transparent OS without and special Linus knowledge. As it has been pointed out most users are concerned with what the product will do without having a advanced knowledge of how it does it.
  • ... that Linux tries to distinguish itself from Unix as being its own identity, but when it comes to comparisons they are deemed one and the same. They are not one and the same, they are different branches of the same seed. It's like saying DOS and Vista are the same and comparing the two... they are cut from the same cloth, yes, but completely different.
     

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