A new feature in Linux netbooks
 

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/sh...tegory&v1=Mini

The good news:
Linux version is $50 cheaper than the Windows version. (There are some other differences, so the "Windows Tax" is < $50.)

The "new feature":
So, HP: Let's see if I've got this straight:

1. Windows users can be trusted with access to a CLI, but Linux users cannot.

2. You are willing to sell something with Linux, but only if you can disable one of the real advantages of the Linux OS.

HUH??????!!!!!!!

Well to be fair, the OS they have developed for these devices is more of a dashboard interface than a traditional multi-purpose operating system. They have intentionally limited the interface to a few big buttons, so clearly this is not an OS for the power user.

No real Linux user is likely to keep the stock OS on that device for more than a few hours before they blow it out in place of their distribution of choice. But for the average person it will probably be great.

In the first Acer and Asus netbooks, the CLI was there--it was just buried somewhere. Thus the non-technical user could at least get help from someone.

This said, I DO understand your logic....

How can I creat a bootable ISO image so that I can install netbook remix o my laptop. I have downloaded the image .

To be fair, the Windows CLI is a joke.

Installing without a cd drive
 

Try unetbootin

And yet another example of why hardware manufacturers have replaced Microsoft as the biggest obstacle to Linux adoption. Pretty much every Linux "distro" that manufacturers put on netbooks is either completely lame-brained or is seriously crippled in some way.

With friends like these.......

My perception is that the typical marketing department has a view of the typical computer user as being pretty inept. I think the assumption is that the buyer of a netbook is not going to want to learn a new OS. Solution: hide the OS from the user---set up a functional interface and hide the details. Actually, not a bad solution for many users.

When the Acer Aspire One first appeared, Circuit City was stocking them. In one store, there were none on display. When I inquired, the rep launched into a spiel about how this was not a real computer, did not use Windows, and would not work with most printers. I then took off my clueless mask and explained to her that the majority of common printer ARE supported by Linux---and corrected a few of her other misstatements. They still would not show me one of the Acer netbooks.....

Before stowing the soapbox: The issue to me is that we dont teach computer technology in high school (or below). Many teachers seem to believe that a class in MS Word counts as a "computer class". In a high-tech society, we raise technically-illiterate people by the millions.......

I know this wasn't the point of your post, but I am glad you brought this up. I have been browsing netbooks for the past couple days, and would like to buy something sans-Windows. (I don't want MS to think they've scored a sale from me.)

I still love my (old now) original Asus EEE701. Xandros was deleted after 2 days, & I've happily been running kubuntu on it since. Small, light, portable, cheap, does everything I need absolutely reliably.
Much information over at http://forum.eeeuser.com/ and http://wiki.eeeuser.com/

Thanks for the tip -- I'll look into the Asus as well.

(I'll refrain from replying to any other recommendations so that I don't take this off topic with my own situation. ;))

How can I get this netbook.img file to be bootable from a cd?

Dell is selling their Mini netbooks with a brain-damaged version of Ubuntu. You'll probably want to replace it with something more normal, but at least Microsoft isn't in the picture. For what its worth, I've been running Slackware on my Mini9 for quite some time and it is great.

I have the same model. I use the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The terminal works great and I even play with some c/c++ programming with it as well (nothing too fancy as I am just learning).

linux illiteracy
 

i believe the bigest problem with getting a decent laptop in the uk is linux illiteracy, i went into my local pc world and enquired about linux netbooks and was told they don,t sell them because it is impossible to get wifi to work with linux, after i stopped laughing i informed him i had been doing the imposible for the last two yrs then and walked out, i then went to my local o2 store and enquired about their "free" netbooks on linux and was told again it is impossible to get linux to work on wifi or mobile broadband. i asked him if he,d sold any g3 phones lately then told him most of them used linux systems so they must'nt work either and left him with his mouth hanging open.