Bonum Certa Men Certa

Is ASUS Deliberately Discouraging GNU/Linux Now?

For a little bit of background, see:



Here is a portion of the IRC conversation that took place some minutes ago (some typos were manually corrected):

kentmaTalking about eee, I'm looking at eee and acer aspire in GuelphDec 21 15:35
schestowitzMicrosoft EEEed the EEE tooDec 21 15:35
schestowitzNow they push for up-speccingDec 21 15:35
schestowitzASUS said they were closely tied up with MicrosoftDec 21 15:36
kentmaThere're EEEs at a local store, but 678 for win XP version, and 778 for linux versionDec 21 15:36
schestowitzFirst they put Windows (like with the OLPC), then extend to pull out the 'Linux;Dec 21 15:36
kentmaThat's Cnd$Dec 21 15:36
schestowitzWhy the price difference?Dec 21 15:36
kentmaBut there's an aspire for 378 which looks goodDec 21 15:36
schestowitzThat's the leading one.Dec 21 15:37
kentmaI don't know, the Windows version has a bigger SSD as wellDec 21 15:37
kentma80g versus 40gDec 21 15:37
kentmaStill, I'm in on my N800 this morning.. With pidgin.Dec 21 15:38
kentmaI'm amazed at home much the maemo repository has grown.Dec 21 15:39
kentmaThere're so many apps for the N800 and n810, it's extraordinaryDec 21 15:39
schestowitzWait, but why is the Linux version more expensive?Dec 21 15:40
schestowitzIt's worth investigating because Microsoft is playing  dirtyDec 21 15:40
schestowitzThis is not exactly new.Dec 21 15:40
kentmaI don't know, and worse, it even has the smaller drive, too.Dec 21 15:40
[...]
schestowitzSo ASUS may then say that people don't want Linux.Dec 21 15:40
schestowitz[maybe cause it's made more expensive and hobbled]Dec 21 15:41
kentmaYou have to pay a premium for the linux version, now.   It stinks of corruption.Dec 21 15:41
schestowitzMicrosoft pressured ASUS a while ago and if they totally sold out, then it needs to be said.Dec 21 15:41
schestowitzThe corruption occurred a while ago.. a form of kickbacks, IMHO.Dec 21 15:42
kentmaCertainly, the prices are rising fast for the asus machines, and getting the linux ones is becoming yet more difficult.  It might be at the distributor level, though.Dec 21 15:42
schestowitzThey raise if for Intel and MicrosoftDec 21 15:43
schestowitzWith Linux they targeted low end.Dec 21 15:43
schestowitzAs they go upwards with the specs, they punish Linux and pay more to Microsoft's partner, Intel.Dec 21 15:43
[...]
kentmaIt's daft, because the performance of windows on high end machines is not better than linux on low end machines.Dec 21 15:44

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