Acer to ship 10-inch Aspire One with Linux

Historically the headline was a mechanism to extort further or more favorable terms from MS. If the Linux version just fails to appear or is suddenly withdrawn, or even if due to shipping that version is hard to obtain, then that is surely the reason.

If it is true, that some OEMs are not being charged to put XP on their netbooks, then it might be possible that Acer wants to be paid to drop Linux. This would be hard to differentiate from the prior possibility if based solely upon information available to external observers. However, if Acer reverted to absolutely no Linux one could logically argue that an extra payment was the impetus and the most likely explanation given the public reversal.

Less likely though possible, its threatened competition that makes XP even with the discount less likely to hold or gain market share.

Your guesses?

I think the 16GB SSD version is part of it. XP would take up too much of it and thrash the swap memory too much. Time will tell if it's a gambit to get better terms from the former monopolist.