2008: A year of the Linux Distillery in review
As 2008 draws its final breath let's reflect on some of the highlights of the year. There were major new FOSS releases, battles with Microsoft, arguments to further the cause of Linux as a viable server and desktop platform and more.
Netbooks
Looking back it’s interesting – even sad – to see how some things didn’t work out as they could have.
At the end of 2007 ASUS had released the ASUS Eee Linux PC. This diminutive subnotebook was cheap – ok, not cheap as in “dirt” but cheap as in “a laptop for just a couple of hundred dollars.”
The punters loved it, the competition envied it, an entire new market (dubbed “netbooks”) emerged and it looked like ASUS had pulled off what Ubuntu and Red Hat had not been able to do – namely entrench Linux in the homes of ordinary folk who use computers to send e-mail, manage their photo collection and write letters.
I finished 2007 with a story that hit the front page of SlashDot, “So, just what can you do with this ASUS Eee Linux PC thing anyway?” talking about the remarkable and even crazy things dedicated hardware hackers had achieved.
By June I was spruiking that hardware manufacturers were turning Linux into a household commodity with the rise of netbook and the invention of the Atom processor specifically for low-powered portable units like them. They gave new strength to Linux advocacy.
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