It's better with Windows

I found that the video on geocities-esque page appears to be flowplayer seriously? asus/windows is so great they use opensource to bring you this 90's era webpage.

Right after I bought my EeePC 900HA and had almost resigned myself to tolerating Windows XP, a 5-minute Google search led me to a website with very simple, quick instructions to install a full, retail copy of Mac OS 10.5 on my Eee - software updates, full driver support, everything works!

As the OS X installer is not modified at all, it's hardly illegal, and feels nothing like a clunky "Hackintosh".

After about 2.5 hours(including waiting for the install to complete), I had a fully-functioning microscopic Mac.

Couldn't help but notice the trackpad & wireless work better under OS X - and the screen is much brighter & colours richer.

Asus - your "Designed for Windows XP" works better in Mac OS X. Food for thought right there.

What no one's mentioned so far is that more Linux equipped netbooks get returned to the retailer than the windows based one. From what I remember reading in a news article a few months back, Best Buy reported as much as 50% of the linux equipped netbooks being returned for whatever reason. I'm sure those get returned to Asus and credited in some way. If I was Asus, I'd rather the customers buy the windows equipped models and keep them. If MS wants to subsidize the advertising for something that will help my financial bottom line, why turn it down?

There's also the tech support matter...free tech support doesn't generate revenue for a business. If anything, it can be a heavy burden. If Asus can cut out Linux tech support for their netbooks, it's a savings for the company.

The BSOD feature and M$ that is. Business is Business man! $ talks and BS rolls!

@OS guru
Please excuse me if I don't believe you.

I love how it lists "Trusted" as the first big OMFG WOW FEATURE right below the video. If you're gonna lie that big why not come up with a better lie, like saying it will perform fellatio on you something. It seems like a half-assed job, which would be consistent with everything else Microsoft does :/

For the average user, Linux is shelfware at best. I used to develop Linux software, and I was a Fedora user but it was too big a headache. Linux software is a decade or two behind Windows software. Apple is the only viable option to Windows. Linux is nothing more than a bad laboratory experiment.

Perhaps, but then.. windows is better without asus...
Stopped using their mobo's long ago, was sick and tired of being used as a bios beta tester, waiting for the 30th bios update before their boards could do what was promised when released..
sadly; by that time it was then also to old to be of use..

Why do they need an advertising campaign to beg people to use Dimdows? Wasn’t it something they were going to accept by default anyway? Or is this increasingly no longer the case?

Minotaur has a point.
You say: Learn it!
Uhmmm I say: No!
I don't want to learn Linux. I gave it a good try 2 years ago when I bought all new Hardware and it gave me all types of problems. I didn't want to spend weeks trying to learn and program an OS. I have 3 kids, a wife, twenty million cats, and 3 dogs. Sorry, Linux lost out on my time scale.
I do see Linux getting stronger but people are going to compare it to Windows. It's what they are used to and to be quite frank most of the time it works. When it doesn't somebody close to them can fix it. Not that many people know Linux and even fewer know how to fix the problems that may occur with it. For a little over a $100.00 I can get quite a few less hassles.
Trust me I could learn Linux, program it, mess with it but I just don't really want to. I'll be a slave to the MS machine. All in all they have treated me pretty well.
Wondering what the RRT, RCP, CRTT title is? It's just Registered Respiratory Therapist, Respiratory Care Practioner, and Certified Respiratory... hmmmm it's been a while. Either way nothing to do with Computers.
I appreciate what you were trying to do and say and I understand it but you have to see it from both me and Minotaurs view point. There is just so many hours in a day and on the hours of downtime I do have I would rather just game.
Take it easy.

For those who say that Lin is hard to install on netbooks Ubuntu 9.04 works out the box on the EEE PC 701 and many others.

Win Better than Lin:

Wireless drivers are excellent on Win. While they work on Lin they are poor, buggy and partial implementations. Your mileage may vary.

Flash -- as long as YouTube etc. use this abomination it is a key internet technology. Flash performance on Lin and OSX is laughable. Win has an excellent flash implementation.

Widest range of fully featured software and games.

Lin Better than Win:
FOSS - if you're a believer Lin wins hands down
Free as in love
Firefox 3 can freeze at startup for a while on Win due to slow SSD writes. Linux performance of FF3 on SSD is much better.

Conclusion... If you're not poor then Windows probably makes the most sense. Although the argument for windows would be considerably weaker if wifi drivers were better on Win and Flash was replaced by HTML5 imbedded video on youtube. The argument for Linux gets stronger as the browser becomes the OS environment for applications and as FOSS programs become the norm on all platforms... firefox, openorifice, truecrypt, etc.

Written from an EEE PC 701 running Ubuntu 9.04 with a generic kernel using madwifi drivers and flash regressed to version 9 for improved performance.

I can tell that you, Minotaur, should stay with Windows. Don't even leave the Windows ecosystem.

Why? Because you're treating Linux like Windows. Anything outside of it, you demonstrate your inability to remain open minded and ignorant. That is why you FAIL. You don't want to learn anything, and you just want it to work without thinking. (It means you can be duped and misled in the long run).

For the love of god! Linux is NOT Windows! (and vice versa). How many times does that need to be said until people get it?

STOP treating Linux like Windows. Its NOT Windows. It will never BE Windows. To even do so in a mindless fashion will ALWAYS guarantee failure. (This is EXACTLY what Windows users who try Linux, keep doing!)

The only thing in common with Windows is that a Linux distro is an Operating System. That's it.

The funny thing about your comments is that I have a ThinkPad T43. (Its similar to your T42).

...And guess what? It works with all the distros I've tried: Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE...And with a bit of work: Debian, Arch Linux, and even Slackware.

When I say "work", I mean:
* Suspend-to-RAM (standby)? = YES!
* Suspend-to-disk (hibernation)? = YES!
* Standby with hibernation as backup? = YES!
* Wireless? = YES!
* Full control of CPU speeds? = YES!

This is all "out of the box" on Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and Fedora WITHOUT compiling anything.

Now, as the the article in question...Anyone notice something strangely familiar? ASUS is repeating a Lenovo representative's words! Both ASUS and Lenovo are singing the SAME tune!

What does this mean? It means MS have got them both by the leash! (OEM agreements with MS are secret from public, and pretty much legally ironclad...Essentially, an OEM is at the mercy of Microsoft, once they sign up with them.)

When Microsoft says: "JUMP!"
OEMs have no choice but to respond: "How high?"

This is all part of it. Use marketing to play down your most direct threat because you most fear it.

Of course, what happens when Intel's Moblin (and future variants) come to light? Then what? MS will use those Agreements with OEMs as leverage!

This is how they stay dominant: Keep users deaf, dumb, and blind. Keep OEMs behaved with software licensing Agreement conditions.

Someone got there SW Facts mixed up.. :D

Anyway my experience with my old IBM T42 laptop with 512M. It has given me no problems with Win7 7100 so far. Wireless with my Orinico and other wireless card work 100%. With ANY distro of Linux I try, it isn't 100%, it just gets lost!. Hibernate usually kills it needing a reset. What's the point there? It's a laptop it is meant to hibernate and conserve battery power! I did like LinuxOS2009? looked cute, was a lot smoother than Ununtu and almost as fast as Win7. Win7 found all the drivers and updated them for the T42 features! I think LinuxOS was also good at that too from memory. But unfortunately :( damned wireless probs continued. Got more productive things to do than mess around with the damned kernal etc, so back to Win7 and it's faster than XP on this lappy too :D

All that being said, where is Apple they could make a killing selling OS-X to people whom don't want Windows and whom ain't keen on the troubles with Linux. If MS can do, I can't see why they can't do it as well. Although I do hate Apple, have since I had an Amiga 1000 and they thought they where superior :D

yes, i will totally backed up for linux.. but please make the eeepc work well playing HD video!! i use dual monitor at home & the only computer i have right now is eeepc701... at windows it work fairly well.. but in linux still need a lot improvement to do. or maybe i have to buy a new computer...??? need more money....

I work at a computer repair and retail shop, a small mom and pop place, and while I personally think Linux is awesome (we use it often when servicing computers) our customer's for the most part are turned off by it.
I've tried loading Ubuntu on a used computer for our sales floor and even pricing it at $150, it took FOREVER to actually sell. People aren't familiar with linux, and even telling them how they can run their windows programs or finding them linux flavored alternatives most regular consumers just want the same thing they've always been using.
Eeepc's are the only machines with linux we have been able to sell with regularity, it is sad to see Asus doing this, but not surprising. Money talks, especially in a bad economy.

"http://www.itsbetterwithoutwindows.com/"

Apple Mac OSX better than windows on a netbook??

First off, there is no netbook flavour of OSX unless its a Hackintosh which is illegal.
And even when its a hackintosh you got a shitload of problems after install, like mouse not working and wireless etc etc....

Whoever wrote that crap on the site you linked to better stop drinking through his nose.

lol no, where talking about for straight people.

How ironic. I got round to installing Ubuntu on my 901 this week and it's very impressive. There's a slightly unnerving "alien technology" vibe to it now, but following a quick customisation to fit the small screen better (that took less time than it takes to get a new XP install usable, even though I hadn't done it before) it rocks.
(Microsoft = The Empire. GNU / Linux / FOSS = The Rebel Alliance.)

If you look at the site, they are using the Open Source flowplayer (flowplayer(dot)org) to deliver the FUD video.

Hilarious!

The very fact the site uses a FOSS player to play the video is a testament to backing Open & Interoperable Web Standards.

Want to get 10.8 Billion Dollars worth of software(including source code) for free?

Then you need GNU/Linux.

Get your Freedom on:
http://getgnulinux.org

Nigel: "Just get a Mac. Get the job done with no heart ache or OS trouble."

No fruit-themed buns please, just a big mac. :P

uh, there are no mac netbooks.

Man, speak in english or some other human readable language (non dork).

Looks exactly like ubantu with 4770 installed upgrade. simply goes so far & then
FAILS. well before install even starts.

If its OLD 'puter, try speeding it up on boot:http://tech.msn.com/howto/article.aspx?cp-documentid=18548938

Before going Nutty. Its Popular Mechanics article, yet OLD=Slow Basic Point, New? Testees' Needed, seems game.

yet for ALL work,MS Machine does most of work, while Pengie, more of Laugh, just nOT Complex enough to Todays Demanding surfer, Surfing.

...because Asus, in their "wisdom," use Microsoft's ASL compiler when preparing the BIOS. This is a PoS that doesn't quite comply with the ACPI specification everyone else, including the free OSen, uses and leaves you with a broken DSDT on anything other than Windows. You can, on any reasonable operating system, disassemble the DSDT and recompile it with Intel's compiler to give you a DSDT, loadable at boot-time (or, if you're feeling really brave, grafted into the BIOS image), that works. It's rather complicated as MS's little offering quietly accepts syntax that Intel's doesn't. I'm not sure if this is the case with the Eee range as I don't own one, but it's certainly the case with desktop boards. For example:

# acpidump -dt ./acpi.asl
acpidump: RSDT entry 3 (sig OEMB) is corrupt

Whoops. Looks like I'm SOL and JWF if I want to disassemble and try to fix this PoS with a corrupt root system description table. Let's try anyway:

# iasl ./acpi.asl

[...many errors]

./acpi.asl 5189: Scope Name (G0T3, Package (0x07)
Error 4094 - ^ syntax error

Maximum error count (200) exceeded
ASL Input: ./acpi.asl - 9627 lines, 331801 bytes, 1519 keywords
Compilation complete. 201 Errors, 2 Warnings, 0 Remarks, 9 Optimizations

Suffice to say that the corrupt table is probably the cause of most of these errors and, even if I were to go through the code and try to fix the syntax errors, I very much doubt it would compile with bits missing.

The results? See for yourself:

acpi0: <033109 on motherboard
acpi0: [ITHREAD]
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
acpi0: reservation of fee00000, 1000 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of ffb80000, 80000 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of fec10000, 20 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of 0, a0000 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of 100000, cff00000 (3) failed
ACPI HPET table warning: Sequence is non-zero (2)

Oh, and just in case anyone thinks I'm blowing smoke about them using MS's asl compiler, here's the XSDT:

XSDT: Length=76, Revision=1, Checksum=31,
OEMID=033109, OEM Table ID=OEMXSDT, OEM Revision=0x20090331,
Creator ID=MSFT, Creator Revision=0x97
Entries={ 0xcffb0290, 0xcffb0390, 0xcffb0400, 0xcffbe040, 0xcffb94e0 }

Creator ID MSFT. Says it all.

This is an Asus M3A78 Pro. So, Asus, either you're conspiring with MS to shut out alternative OSen or you're incompetent. Which one is it?

You hit the nail on the head. I can say that from multiple times experiencing driver disk hunts, "Damn, I know that disk is here somewhere."
My Acer laptop now only runs Linux (Ubuntu) and after several months now I am getting use to and growing very fond of it.
Open Office does a great job even though I only use the word processor and Firefox was my browser of choice under Windose too.
Linux has come a long way and is only getting better by the minute, it has Microbloat scared (have been for years) as they should be.

Did anybody else wonder about the crap design on the website and the really stupid and ameture video posted there? The site is a joke! Whoever posted this just wants attention, if you actually believe that this is from Asus, check out the WhoIs for itsbetterwithwindows.com some how I doubt Asus is using GoDaddy to publish it's campaigns...

Even on mains that claim to run Linux, if you upgrade system with new swank game card, linux will have vast issues, NOT even installing is result.

While with dedicated intuition, Windows installs, Linux just hasn't enough options.

Restore Consule being Greatest Invention Since Bakig Powder. Penguins, Hard Sinew On Pretty Bodt.

It all started off quite promising, but then Asus decided that they wanted to make laptops (and make the old-school Apple mistake of launching a zillion different models, too).

After the pay-off, it's going to be dull "me too" Windows-only laptops from Asus as Acer, Dell and HP move in and take Asus' share of the market which made them popular. Some clueless executive may wonder why "the numbers are going down" a year from now, but if not, their investors should be wondering about it.

I'd say it's a start:

http://www.itsbetterwithoutwindows.com

We can expand it to include other reasons why it's better without Windows :)

It seems that Asustek's campaign hinges on the fact that you've used Windows before. If you haven't, then "Trusted" == No and "Familiar" = "No". As for "Compatible", well Linux actually supports more hardware in its core OS than even a pre-installed OEM Windows does! To get compatibility with third party peripherals in Windows, you'll have to scramble around for driver CDs and manufacturers' Web sites and even then you may have trouble (e.g. 64-bit Windows drivers anyone?).

This smells of Microsoft fronting up a load of money to Asustek to tell the world that Windows really is "better" when in reality, it's just "what most other people use" and that's all.

Just get a Mac. Get the job done with no heart ache or OS trouble.

burp!

Hmm, So Asus think their own flavour of Xandros has hardware issues with EE's eh.

Well fwiw the fortunates with Acer Ones should look no further than Linux4One, apart from some arm wrestling with the wireless configuration EVERYTHING 'works' right off the install.

perhaps Asus should try a little harder...

oh and did i mention free as in no cost ;-)