Why is windows 7 installed on so many netbooks?

[Dustin2128]

Just a curiosity question that's in the title. My school has *ahem* "invested" in some netbooks to place in the library for web browsing. The things have intel atom processors that are clocked somewhere close to 1GHz, and aero in its sickening glory is turned all the way on. Things take 15 minutes to boot, and work unreliably and slowly afterwards, can't turn aero off due to permissions, but I've learned to just bring a knoppix flash drive to do any work on them. That said: who's idea was it to start putting something as huge as windows 7 on underspec'd mini-laptops? XP was barley tolerable, but this is unbearable. Weren't most netbooks a few years ago installed with xandros or something?

[Alwimo]

This might explain things. http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3822996/Asus-Eee-and-the-Its-Better-with-Windows-Campaign.htm

[Dustin2128]

This might explain things. http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3822996/Asus-Eee-and-the-Its-Better-with-Windows-Campaign.htm
Bleh, typical OEM pandering to microsoft case then? Why, oh why would they do that when it destroys their business model? No netbooks I've used with windows 7 have been anything near what I would call usable, and that's all that microsoft offers. (for the record, win7 is alright on a normal 3 gig laptop) It seems the netbook has been declining in general since the trend of putting windows vista/7 on them has started.

[Bandit]

Well with XP being out of the picture and Vista being a less then optimal Win7 is not such a bad choice. I have a Dell Mini with single core atom that was slow at first, but I upgraded it to 2GB of RAM and its SOOOOO much better. Boot ups are like 45-50secs. Pretty livable. Of course I have Win7 32bit on it also.

[Dustin2128]

Well with XP being out of the picture and Vista being a less then optimal Win7 is not such a bad choice. I have a Dell Mini with single core atom that was slow at first, but I upgraded it to 2GB of RAM and its SOOOOO much better. Boot ups are like 45-50secs. Pretty livable. Of course I have Win7 32bit on it also.
90% of people won't upgrade memory. The netbooks in question have 1GB, and are barley usable. Is the normal person going to say "Oh, running slowly, must buy more ram and install it"? No, he's going to say "Oh, running slowly, must need a better computer" *returns netbook and buys laptop*.

[Bandit]

90% of people won't upgrade memory. The netbooks in question have 1GB, and are barley usable. Is the normal person going to say "Oh, running slowly, must buy more ram and install it"? No, he's going to say "Oh, running slowly, must need a better computer" *returns netbook and buys laptop*.

True that..

[mastablasta]

netbooks - they say they failed and were a onetime deal being now replaced by pads. that's sort of true. they did fail but not because of pads, but because of Windows.

first netbooks had 4GB disk and 512MB ram. OK that seems a bit low. but then again the cost was low and it was pšlanned to get it LOWER (not higher). but then they started sticking windows on it and of course this ment increasing disk size to at least 120GB and ramping up the memorry to 1 or 2GB ram. followed by increased processor power. all this increased the manufacturing cost of it and this came close to normal sized notebooks. except that with a notebook you get so much more. you can get a descent (albeit a bit older HW) notebook for 300, 350 EUR. so why owuld oyu want to buy netbook as a second device to check out the web and all? it's just silly.

to make netbooks attractiva all they had to do is keep the specs low (maybe 30 GB disk with 1 GB ram or less), stick a decent linux distro on one and sell them at 150 EUR. now that is a good second device one could use and buy.


Google tries something similar now (only their cloud way is quesitonable), but again their price is just too high.

EDIT: also as the latest fashion they started putting Android next to win7 on netbooks here.

[1clue]

You're right. Windows 7 is totally inappropriate. They should install Vista instead.

Sorry, couldn't help it.

[Dustin2128]

netbooks - they say they failed and were a onetime deal being now replaced by pads. that's sort of true. they did fail but not because of pads, but because of Windows.

first netbooks had 4GB disk and 512MB ram. OK that seems a bit low. but then again the cost was low and it was pšlanned to get it LOWER (not higher). but then they started sticking windows on it and of course this ment increasing disk size to at least 120GB and ramping up the memorry to 1 or 2GB ram. followed by increased processor power. all this increased the manufacturing cost of it and this came close to normal sized notebooks. except that with a notebook you get so much more. you can get a descent (albeit a bit older HW) notebook for 300, 350 EUR. so why owuld oyu want to buy netbook as a second device to check out the web and all? it's just silly.

to make netbooks attractiva all they had to do is keep the specs low (maybe 30 GB disk with 1 GB ram or less), stick a decent linux distro on one and sell them at 150 EUR. now that is a good second device one could use and buy.


Google tries something similar now (only their cloud way is quesitonable), but again their price is just too high.

EDIT: also as the latest fashion they started putting Android next to win7 on netbooks here.
Exactly. Once they started giving them laptop specs, spinning drives, they made netbooks pointless and extraneous. On the other hand, I could, right now, buy an older, SSD Asus eee on ebay for 100$, giving it a nice niche in the market of people who normally couldn't afford computers. I'm thinking microsoft killed netbooks (win7 is why most are so slow/overpriced) is because they were a huge inroad for linux adoption about 2 years ago. Today? Not so much.

[Paqman]

WHy? Because Microsoft completely failed to spot the emergence of the netbook market ahead of time, and didn't have a modern OS ready for them. Their stopgap measure was to slash the price of XP and extend the date they sold licenses for it to get their foot in the door. Microsoft don't want XP to linger forever though, so they're pushing Win 7 even though the hardware isn't quite up to snuff yet. Partly that's their own fault, as they enforced some pretty low hardware specs on the OEMs to be eligible for the cheap XP licenses.

Decent Linux distros like Ubuntu and Fedora are by far the best OSes to run on netbooks, but people were scared off the idea of selling Linux netbooks by Asus putting Xandros on their early PCs and getting a lot of negative feedback.

[RoflHaxBbq]

If you want to make a useful netbook, install Linux.
If you want to make money, install Windows.

[Zlatan]

If you want to make a useful netbook, install Linux.
If you want to make money, install Windows.

seems so true

[babybean]

I cant see what all the fuss is about. I am running an atom 450 netbook on windows 7 without any bother what so ever. It is as snappy as ubuntu on a much higher speked laptop. I did have areo disabled for a good while, but you really dont need to. It is most likely heavier than the original idea of a netbook but it is still tiny in comparison and pretty much a complete replacement.

[Merk42]

Because people didn't like Linux. It didn't work how they expected/couldn't run the software they wanted/needed.

Pretty much the same reason as Linux's pitiful desktop marketshare

[SeijiSensei]

I wrote about this over on Slashdot some months ago. Rather than repeat what I wrote there, I'll just link to it: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2061316&cid=35670200.

tl;dr - It's all about industry politics.

[Legendary_Bibo]

I have a laptop that's the size of a netbook. Screw netbooks.

[johnnybelfast]

Netbooks normally come with a cut down version of Windows 7, not the Premium version with all the bells and whistles. Any netbook with a generation 2 atom chip should run W7 Basic just fine.

Ubuntu runs well on most netbooks, as does XP... Oh and don't go by ghz when measuring how powerful a computer is. Ghz is just how quickly a cycle can be carried out, it doesn't measure how many instructions are being carried out in each cycle nor does it measure bottlenecks or bus speeds ;-)

A 1.2ghz netbook could actually be alot more powerful than a 1.2ghz computer that was out 10 years ago as it can do many more things in one cycle.

[Dustin2128]

I cant see what all the fuss is about. I am running an atom 450 netbook on windows 7 without any bother what so ever. It is as snappy as ubuntu on a much higher speked laptop. I did have areo disabled for a good while, but you really dont need to. It is most likely heavier than the original idea of a netbook but it is still tiny in comparison and pretty much a complete replacement.
That's the point- it's heavier than the original netbook. The originals were ubercheap, price has risen and risen as they've had to include better and better hardware until they're as expensive as normal laptops, more so in some cases. Now they're just pointless- a laptop with the same price as a netbook doesn't need an atom- it can rock a quad core i5 instead.

[Copper Bezel]

The upper limit for the chip has to do with battery life and cooling. A cheap netbook is a cheap netbook in the same sense that a cheap notebook is a cheap notebook.

Windows on netbooks is a silly proposition, sure, and it happens for reasons we already know about.

[Roasted]

I have always wondered this, but I could never grasp the entire point behind it. I find *any* computer more usable once I put Linux on it. Since I'm always cheap when it comes to hardware, it's super nice not having to get a more loaded system to run something like Ubuntu. It runs on minimal netbook hardware without issue. Vista? Hell no. 7? Ehh. Sorta kinda.

Netbooks aren't going anywhere. They'll be part of the array of available tech choices for many years to come. Likewise, I think the sales of tablets will eventually drop, then flatline and be steady, just like netbooks did. Whenever I use a tablet, I feel limited. I want a device that can do anything I need it to. I'd sure love to have a tablet, but at their expensive price point, it just makes no sense when I would still need a netbook/laptop to accompany it in its tasks anyway.

I think the world is beginning to catch on though. I just spoke to someone the other night who went as far as installing Ubuntu on their netbook when I merely mentioned I was using it on my netbook. I was pretty astonished.

That said, it'll be interesting to see how the future pans out. Atom processors and the like are getting more powerful, yet cheaper, so netbook prices may continue to dip, making them very attractive pieces. Likewise, that would help out W7 on netbooks too since it's just a bit too clunky yet. For those of us fortunate enough to know about Linux and be running it on our netbooks or laptops, well, we're already happy users. :)

[Nyromith]

As a computer science student, my netbook is the most valuable tool for me. I have on it:
Windows 2000
Windows 7
FreeBSD
Ubuntu
Ubuntu Server
Arch Linux
Slackware
Fedora
OpenSUSE
Backtrack

When I studied for MSCE I connected my netbook to the desktop and practiced on a real client-server and server-server environment. Now it serves me for programming.

An invaluable, cheap and powerful tool. I hope it won't disappear just because of a stupid passing trend - tablets.

[Bandit]

An invaluable, cheap and powerful tool. I hope it won't disappear just because of a stupid passing trend - tablets.

Hehe.. So whats this a Netbook or a Tablet (http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/landing/en/inspiron?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&ST=dell%20duo&dgc=ST&cid=61543&lid=1545737&acd=setBINhmn,12719646705,901pdb6671).. Either way I want one..

[Roasted]

Hehe.. So whats this a Netbook or a Tablet (http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/landing/en/inspiron?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&ST=dell%20duo&dgc=ST&cid=61543&lid=1545737&acd=setBINhmn,12719646705,901pdb6671).. Either way I want one..

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lolololol

[jerenept]

As a computer science student, my netbook is the most valuable tool for me. I have on it:
Windows 2000
Windows 7
FreeBSD
Ubuntu
Ubuntu Server
Arch Linux
Slackware
Fedora
OpenSUSE
Backtrack

When I studied for MSCE I connected my netbook to the desktop and practiced on a real client-server and server-server environment. Now it serves me for programming.

An invaluable, cheap and powerful tool. I hope it won't disappear just because of a stupid passing trend - tablets.

Ubuntu and Ubuntu server? Why not install apache2, pure-ftpd and openssh-server on Ubuntu?

[Dustin2128]

Ubuntu and Ubuntu server? Why not install apache2, pure-ftpd and openssh-server on Ubuntu?
Or ubuntu-desktop from ubuntu server.

[Nyromith]

Ubuntu desktop is for primitive tasks (web, mail, solitaire), and Ubuntu server because I learn it now. It's totally useless to convert a desktop into a server environment and vice versa when you can have two native environments, each for its task.

[MooPi]

Because people didn't like Linux. It didn't work how they expected/couldn't run the software they wanted/needed.

Pretty much the same reason as Linux's pitiful desktop marketshare

This argument is shallow and pitiful at best. Let us consider the most used Linux distro on the planet and the platform it runs on, Android on tablets and smart phones. Tablets and android are a good fit and a better Linux distro and proper development would have kept the netbook current instead of the faltering platform that is it's current state. The netbook was sunk by shortsided thinking and pathetic marketing. Windows should never be used on this platform when a custom Linux environment can scream on lower specs. The advent of Windows on the netbook was just making a laptop smaller and nothing more. I have one the early asus netbooks that came with Xandros. I wiped the drive and it is currently loaded with Ubuntu 10.10 and an Openbox DE.The specs are 900 Mhz cpu , 1 gig ram (upgraded) and the 4 gigabyte ssd. I also have an 8 gig sd card in the slot for media storage. This unit really fly's and anyone that see's it in action can't believe it is only 900 MHz single core cpu. That is how netbooks should work !

[MooPi]

Ubuntu desktop is for primitive tasks (web, mail, solitaire), and Ubuntu server because I learn it now. It's totally useless to convert a desktop into a server environment and vice versa when you can have two native environments, each for its task.

That says a TROLL.:(
This is a forum of Ubuntu Linux users that use it for every task thinkable for computers. I find that statement demeaning and trollish.

[Copper Bezel]

Hehe.. So whats this a Netbook or a Tablet (http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/landing/en/inspiron?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&ST=dell%20duo&dgc=ST&cid=61543&lid=1545737&acd=setBINhmn,12719646705,901pdb6671).. Either way I want one..

Asus Eee Transformer II, for me. (Same idea, but the keyboard comes off instead of folding under.) Netbooks and slates are distinctions that will be become irrelevant with time, but the larger category of lightweight computers with 10.1" screens seems likely to stick around for a while.

[Roasted]

Asus Eee Transformer II, for me. (Same idea, but the keyboard comes off instead of folding under.) Netbooks and slates are distinctions that will be become irrelevant with time, but the larger category of lightweight computers with 10.1" screens seems likely to stick around for a while.

Oh my gosh that thing is beautiful. And it's Asus. So it's even more beautiful. Makes more sense than the Lenovo Ideapad U1. Don't get me wrong, the Ideapad U1 is gorgeous, but it's a little strange to be running W7 and Android side by side. Not to mention their 1300 dollar price tag is about 550 dollars too high.

This thing here makes more sense. It gives you the ability to turn a tablet into a more functional device. Still not convinced it would be perfect for everyone, as I believe my trusty netbook would still give greater functionality. But it's nice to see a tablet that is intelligently designed from all angles.

[RoflHaxBbq]

Windows 2000
Windows 7
FreeBSD
Ubuntu
Ubuntu Server
Arch Linux
Slackware
Fedora
OpenSUSE
Backtrack

You need to install more operating systems.