Google Pushing Ubuntu Off Netbooks?

huh?

The Android is a Linux based OS, just like Ubuntu is, but typically (of Ubuntu users) Joe conflates Linux and Ubuntu as the same thing. The focus is still Windows XP vs. Linux, like Linpus (based on redhat), Xandros, Mandriva, EeeBuntu, etc. Android is just a more well known one, due to the marketing power that Google wield.

I think this whole netbook thing is really going to open the eyes of OEMs to the power of competition in the OS market can bring. So the OS on your device is going to depend on which distributor can work the best deal with the OEM, and it won't really matter to the end user since they will all work about the same, with some minor interface differences etc, and they will run the same applications.

Or even better the end user can choose if they want Ubuntu, Android, Linpus, etc. installed.

I can also see a merging of the phone and the netbook.

It should be interesting to see what kind of an impact Intel has with Moblin. I've downloaded two alpha releases so far and it looks very promising. It's optimized for Intel processor/hardware and won't work on much of anything else which is a drawback, but on my Sylvania g Netbook Meso it's fast and very slick looking.

Oh, and yes, it's based on Fedora.

So, Android is Linux. Cool but has anyone here used it on a lappy or desktop? How about an Android review?

@tracyanne: One problem is that you don't get the root password with Android. So like the Android phones it runs Linux but doesn't give the users the power that Linux can offer. Android pushing out other Linux distros would therefor be bad IMHO.

Whether Google takes Linux, or even NetBSD or FreeBSD, to build their own mobile OS, having it branded Google is a pretty smart thing as far as average-consumer recognition goes.

Given the way XP (and eventually Win 7) is pushing Linux off of netbooks, a Google Linux (or "other") is probably the only thing that has a chance of competing ...

Let's face it, people, you can sell Linux to all of us (as few as that may be), but you can sell Google to a whole lot more people.

@Steven_Rosenberg: According to Microsoft Linux is retaining a 30% market share on netbooks. Please see the post I made on my blog about this at: http://ever-increasing-entropy.blogspot.com/2009/02/netbooks... I don't believe XP is pushing Linux off netbooks, sorry.

A new Google OS which is really Linux won't alter the market share figure much if at all. People will largely choose what they are used to and that's Windows. Linux will make incremental gains in coming years.