Who killed the netbook?

Almost exactly 5 years ago on this blog, I asked whether Asus's Eee PC netbook was a Toshiba Libretto for the 2000s. And it turns out that it was for the late 2000s, but not for much longer in the  - 2010s - the Guardian reports that most manufacturers have now stopped making netbooks. 

I've always liked the netbook format - as long as it's running an operating system that's suitable for the relatively feeble Intel Atom processor inside the hardware. The original Asus Eee ran Linux, mainly because the processor wasn't fast enough to run Microsoft's Vista OS. This led to a period of approximately 3 months where Linux was taking over the bottom end of the PC market and Microsoft was basically shitting bricks that this was the thin end of the wedge. 

But Microsoft are canny buggers and they hit back with that perennial favourite, Windows XP - brought back from the dead specifically for OEM release on netbooks. This led to a decline in Linux netbook sales and also raised the average retail price of the format (because of the need to pay licensing royalties to Microsoft for each copy of Windows sold pre-installed). Neither of these were a killer blow to the format, however. For me, that was Windows 7 "Starter" version, which replaced XP on netbooks  from late 2009 onwards. 

I'm writing this blogpost on a netbook (Toshiba NB500). It's dual-boot, running Linux Mint 11 LXDE and Windows 7. In general I use Linux 95% of the time and Windows 7 maybe 5%. Windows 7 is just a dog running on the Atom processor - it's as simple as that. Something like opening Google Chrome can take 30 seconds in Windows compared with maybe half a second in Linux (that's with a lightweight Linux window manager like LXDE, mind you - I've not tried the netbook with e.g. KDE, nor do I much intend to). 

So I think it was the sheer crapness of Windows 7 running on an Atom that killed the netbook. The tablet revolution of the iPad and Android which started in 2010 has also played a role, but I think it was a dying format even before that. I like Android tablets for web-browsing, but for writing blogposts I always choose the netbook over a tablet because of the real keyboard. (I know you can get a bluetooth keyboard to go with a tablet but I haven't found a keyboard I like yet). 

Weirdly, Microsoft's recent Surface tablet is more like a tablet/netbook cross as it has a keyboard built into the case. But I think that one is DOA... It runs an ARM processor rather than the Atom (which I think everyone has decided was the shittest processor in decades), but because of this it has to run a special version of Windows called "Windows RT" which isn't compatible with all the existing Windows applications. So it's Windows, but it isn't Windows. Now I'm confused about this and I follow computers pretty closely, so what chance have the general public got? 

So, RIP netbooks. But they won't be dead in this house, not for a long time yet. With lightweight versions of Linux still being released and maintained, there's no real reason for me to want to change to anything else. So f*** Microsoft and f*** touchscreens... I'm happy with this computer just the way it is. 

Into February with a new laptop - PC all the way.

Blogging at the end of January just fizzled out due to sheer volume of work and the fact that my main desktop computer simply gave up the ghost after only 3 years of (admittedly high intensity) use. I think the motherboard has issues.

Anyway I am getting by with the back-up computer which we normally use for iPlayer on the downstairs TV - it's actually not much worse than the main desktop PC in terms of spec and is notably less cluttered in terms of registry, etc. So it's going quite well.

But I want to get it back to doing iPlayer asap, so I've ordered a Samsung Q330 laptop (less than £500 - nice) online - should be delivered later this week. Laptops are now so cheap/powerful that my previous strategy of "build your own desktop" doesn't make economic sense anymore (although I might still do my next dedicated Digital Audio Workstation PC that way - I'm not sure). I think, on reflection, I will use the old iPlayer PC with the good quality soundcard from the fried PC as a DAW, and use yet another backup PC as the iPlayer downstairs PC. Now this is starting to get confusing.

The new Samsung laptop will be used with full size monitor, mouse and keyboard at home (a bespoke docking station arrangement) but will also be fully mobile for client work in London or elsewhere. It's a big advance on my mobile functionality at the moment which involves lugging an ageing Dell laptop around running Linux.

So that's my IT, 2011 remix. And notice that Apple didn't feature once. Many people are getting MacBooks. I'm not one of them. And unless the whole PC industry goes belly-up, I never will be.

In a slight remix of Bryan Adams... PC 'till I die.

My favourite Linux flavour at the moment...

...is Linux Mint.

I've been running dual boot Windows XP/Linux systems on a couple of the computers at home for several years now and have tended to flit from distro to distro as the mood took me. Five years or so ago, SuSE seemed best to me - after a brief flirtation with MEPIS, I then got into Ubuntu only to be rather turned off by certain aspects of the user interface.

On some of the lower powered PCs at home I've been using Xubuntu for quite a while - basically Ubuntu running the lightweight xfce desktop. Fast and slim, but perhaps a bit skeletal for some users.

I read an article in Linux Format magazine about Mint that made it sound pretty good so I gave it a shot as a dual boot on my ageing Dell Latitude laptop. 2006 vintage, Intel Core Solo CPU, and running Win XP at an increasingly slow crawl. I'd uninstalled non-essential software, changed the anti-virus, checked for malware... all in vain. It takes about 5 minutes to go from power-on to a usable Windows desktop. On a good day.

So, on went Mint. Basically it's similar to Ubuntu but just slightly more user friendly. It looks a bit nicer too - not that that's in any way really important but it just tips the balance. A very well-designed green colour scheme. It recognised the wireless chip in the laptop immediately and configured it correctly, which has been a real bugbear of previous Linux laptop installations for me. Total time from boot-up to a functioning desktop? Less than a minute. No obvious bugs, package update and installation very smooth (as is Ubuntu's, to be fair)... everything in its right place.

I was so impressed with Mint I'm now using it as my Linux distribution of choice across my network. Great work, guys.

A Toshiba Libretto for the 00s?

And so to technology... I was flicking through Linux Format magazine today (somebody has to) and read a very positive review of the Asus Eee laptop.

For those who don't keep up with this sort of thing, the Eee is a very cheap, small and light laptop which runs Linux as the default operating system (although it is capable of running Windows), has a 4 Gb flash drive instead of a hard drive, a 7 inch 800x600 display, a built in webcam, and weighs only about 900 grams. As a concept it reminds me a bit of the Toshiba Libretto which was a 'sub-notebook' PC of similar size and weight from just over a decade ago; the main selling point of the Libretto was that, unlike the other sub-notebooks of the time, which were jumped-up PDAs, it was fully capable of running Windows 95. A good mate of mine who was very active in the IT industry at the time, bought a Libretto in about 1997 and says that it 'saved his ass' on more than one occasion. The Eee has much of the feel of the Libretto about it - except that, at £220, it is MUCH cheaper than the Libretto, even relative to current laptop prices (if I remember correctly the Libretto was about the same price as an average-spec full size laptop of the time.)

Anyway these things seem to be flying off the shelves - they're out of stock at most of the main online stockists (scan, dabs etc.) Given that you're effectively getting full PC functionality for not much more than a well-specified iPod, it's starting to look very tempting... certainly more exciting than an iPhone IMHO.