Ray (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} pallmalls) wrote in bethlynn, |
The problem with this comparison is, Android or Ubuntu Eee aren't "Linux" any more than they are general-purpose OSes like Windows. They are Linux-based OSes that have a corporation behind them, paying someone to develop and support a specific hardware platform. The companies selling netbooks and smartphones have a vested interest in making the OS work flawlessly on their hardware, and don't care about supporting random beige-box PCs.
You can't swap the video card out of your Asus Eee and then find out no one has written drivers to support hardware 3D acceleration on your card. You can't change the motherboard in your Android-based phone only to discover that the ACPI quirks of your new BIOS break hibernate functionality. The companies selling netbooks and smartphones have a vested interest in making the OS work flawlessly on their hardware, and their hardware only.
BSD became SunOS, but SunOS was not BSD. You couldn't run SunOS on your 386 cobbled together from spare parts. BSD and Mach became NeXTStep and then OS X, but you can't run OS X on your Dell Inspiron without a lot of hacking and license violations, and even then it runs like crap.
Ubuntu Eee and Android are the same thing as SunOS and OS X: Vendor UNIX. It's a concept that has been around for decades, and is the only smart way to support an OS. And it took more than 20 years for someone (Apple) to finally do it right, by making it easy and functional enough to appeal to the masses. Android and Ubuntu Eee may be based on Linux, but neither one of them are going to make running Debian on a Compaq or Fedora on your custom-built gaming rig any less of a nightmare.
In order to increase the install base of Linux, you have to give up choice. Choice of window manager, choice of network management subsystem, choice of Web browser, choice of email client, choice of audio subsystem, and, most importantly, choice of hardware. And then it's no longer Linux in the true spirit of GNU/Linux. It's a Linux-based Vendor UNIX. And I'm perfectly fine with that.
Just don't delude yourself into thinking it means that Grandma will be installing Fedora 11 on her shiny new Dell laptop, and live-upgrading it to Fedora 15 in two years when Fedora 11 becomes unsupported.
You can't swap the video card out of your Asus Eee and then find out no one has written drivers to support hardware 3D acceleration on your card. You can't change the motherboard in your Android-based phone only to discover that the ACPI quirks of your new BIOS break hibernate functionality. The companies selling netbooks and smartphones have a vested interest in making the OS work flawlessly on their hardware, and their hardware only.
BSD became SunOS, but SunOS was not BSD. You couldn't run SunOS on your 386 cobbled together from spare parts. BSD and Mach became NeXTStep and then OS X, but you can't run OS X on your Dell Inspiron without a lot of hacking and license violations, and even then it runs like crap.
Ubuntu Eee and Android are the same thing as SunOS and OS X: Vendor UNIX. It's a concept that has been around for decades, and is the only smart way to support an OS. And it took more than 20 years for someone (Apple) to finally do it right, by making it easy and functional enough to appeal to the masses. Android and Ubuntu Eee may be based on Linux, but neither one of them are going to make running Debian on a Compaq or Fedora on your custom-built gaming rig any less of a nightmare.
In order to increase the install base of Linux, you have to give up choice. Choice of window manager, choice of network management subsystem, choice of Web browser, choice of email client, choice of audio subsystem, and, most importantly, choice of hardware. And then it's no longer Linux in the true spirit of GNU/Linux. It's a Linux-based Vendor UNIX. And I'm perfectly fine with that.
Just don't delude yourself into thinking it means that Grandma will be installing Fedora 11 on her shiny new Dell laptop, and live-upgrading it to Fedora 15 in two years when Fedora 11 becomes unsupported.
