Since a netbook marketing campaign started all this, we’ll start with a netbook article as well: getting Windows off and Ubuntu on your netbook. This advice works just as well in case you have one of those netbooks that shipped with a butchered Linux release, such as the Xandros variation that ASUS used to ship.
There are two good candidates for netbook Linux distributions that are easy to install, easy to use but still full-featured operating systems:
The systems might seem very similar on the surface (and they are), but you’ll soon discover that Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) is the official netbook distribution made by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. As such, you can be sure that every time there is a new Ubuntu release, there will also be an UNR one. Additionally, you can be certain that any package available for Ubuntu is also available for UNR, and that’s tens of thousands of software packages.
Easy Peasy on the other hands strives for simplicity. It’s not officially supported by Canonical but by a group of volunteers. It follows a slightly different philosophy as well. For example, you will find proprietary software on Easy Peasy (such as Skype) that is not preinstalled with Ubuntu, because Canonical believes in supporting open standards (like SIP) instead of proprietary, closed systems (like Skype). This doesn’t mean that Skype can’t be used on UNR, by the way! It just means that Easy Peasy comes with Skype and other proprietary software preinstalled whereas on UNR, you will have to add that software after installation, if you are so inclined.
For both distributions, you will need a USB stick (2 GB or larger) that doesn’t contain any data you want to hang on to. You can then use the provided Windows or Linux applications to copy the installation files to the USB stick and then boot your netbook from there. Once you’re done with the installation, you’ll no longer need the USB stick, since the system will be installed on the netbook hard drive itself.
Like with any operating system installation, be sure to back up any data you want to keep! 
There aren’t any USB 3.0 devices available yet, but Linux already supports the standard, being the first operating system to do so. This should soothe you in case you thought Linux is slow to support new hardware.
If you’re wondering how Linux hardware support works: It’s all in the kernel, and the kernel is already included with the system. So usually, you will never need to download any drivers or fiddle with them, you just plug in the device and it’s recognized automatically by the kernel. This is because on Linux, kernel developers, not individual hardware vendors, develop almost all of the drivers.
This of course means that in order for a driver to be written, the vendor in question (in this case Intel) has to release specifications for their hardware. Many big-name manufacturers do, while some smaller ones didn’t quite catch up with the times yet. Some vendors also have other reasons why they can’t disclose specifications, perhaps because the hardware they are selling was never actually built by them, they simply buy and relabel someone else’s and thus have never seen the specification themselves.
But it’s getting better and better, with many companies providing their own source code for their devices directly to the Linux kernel, or sponsoring people to write Linux drivers full-time (like Intel, Wacom and HP). Also, keep in mind that hardware and drivers can be reverse engineered, giving the community free and open drivers.
I’ll start off this series of articles of things that are actually better on Windows. This can be for several reasons; political ones, market powers (supply/demand), lack of time on the developer’s part etc. There’s no reason to hide these things, but I see them as a challenge to developers on other platforms. Since I don’t have much experience with accessibility tools, I’ll forward this request to you.
Reader Kevin D. writes:
Greetings. I am writing this to inform, and not to flame/troll/etc.
An EEEPC 900 seemed like a useful device for carrying around and taking notes, so I purchased one. I am a visually impaired user who uses a software magnifier and screen reader to access the device. I run Ubuntu on my normal monster machine with 4 gigs of ram 90% of the time. Ubuntu does have accessibility aids like Orca for screen reading and magnification, but the magnifier runs at about 10 frames/second on the Atom CPU in the netbook. This is obviously not a workable solution for me.
Under Ubuntu, we do also have the Ezoom plugin for Compiz, which runs extremely fast on a netbook, but it is unable to track typing (only mouse movement). This means that if we want to sit and type a document, we must move the mouse over after every few words to avoid typing off of the screen.
I have an accessibility program for Windows that runs quickly on low spec machines and tracks typing just fine. I would like to get off the proprietary tredmill just as much (if not more than) anyone else. This accessibility program for Windows was $600, and the new versions are sold defective, requiring product activation that I bet won’t be around 8 years from now.
If we had an open-source accessibility solution that performed well on modest hardware, I would be able to use netbooks without Windows.
So, are there any accessibility experts out there who know of a solution on Linux, free, open and/or reasonably priced? A quick glance at Google revelaed nothing, but that’s not to say that it isn’t out there. Perhaps one of you wants to add keyboard tracking to Ezoom or hardware acceleration to Orca?
Update: Kevin writes:
A week or so ago, I e-mailed the author rof Ezoom. [...] In the Wiki entry for Ezoom, it says that one can use DBus to instruct the magnifier to move.
So people familiar with Dbus could perhaps try to track the keyboard caret (through plain X11? A bit nasty but certainly possible?) and then control EZoom via Dbus. Any takers?
Here’s some random bits of information:
- ASUS still hasn’t confirmed that their campaign is real. The only source that claims that is VUnet. I fired off an e-mail to ASUS press dept., but haven’t heard anything yet.
- We will transition this site to a blog with general advice about what’s better without Windows (you guys decided that via poll). The future plans page has some information about the kind of article that I feel you might like most — they’re ideas I’ve discussed with readers via e-mail in the last few days.
- The first post I suggest is a video for installing Easy Peasy on an EeePC, since that’s a direct answer to the ASUS campaign. So far I haven’t found decently filmed video guides, they’re all shaky, horrible sound etc. I don’t think that’s a good image to project, so I’d rather show nice-looking stuff. Failing that, a guide with screenshots would be great, so that an average home user who wants to ditch Windows on their EeePC can follow the steps.
- Please join our Google Group if you want to be “on staff” and decide what happens here.
That’s all for now
I’ve started a Google Group (instead of a forum) where we can discuss what goes on this site:
http://groups.google.com/group/its-better-without-windows
If you have any ideas for articles, feel free to share! The next thing I’ll probably do is replace the current static front page with the current postings. As soon as ASUS makes an official statement.
Bruce Byfield at IT Management concludes his article about ASUS campaign with:
Perhaps Asus was too hasty in acknowledging the site. Letting the hoax rumors continue unchecked might have saved the company from an embarrassing association.
By now it seems that ASUS confirms it is really their campaign, and leaves us puzzling about what their motivation might be, while the blogosphere snickers.
