Linux preinstalls up

The Inquirer is reporting that 2.8% of computers bought in the UK come preinstalled with Linux, up from 0.1% in January 2007 when Windows Vista was launched:

LINUX HAS MADE headway in Microsoft’s UK heartland, the PC sales channel. The number of machines shipped with Linux preloaded on them has multiplied a whopping 28 times since Microsoft launched its Vista operating system in January 2007.

The Linux share of this route to market has edged up ever since the Vista launch. Then it broke the two per cent barrier in May after the latest release of Ubuntu, the strain of Linux most capable of kicking Microsoft in the shins. Microsoft is still be shipped with 93 per cent of all PCs sold through distribution in the UK, according to Context.

No doubt much of this is the Asus Eee and other small PCs.

(via Slashdot)

What the Chinese government are up to

What the Chinese government are up to:

Prominent supporter of Vladimir Putin dies. A bit of a naughty way to put it, I know. But Solzhenitsyn suffered incredibly and in the end he got a lot of what he wanted: the end of Communism and the restoration of authoritarianism on traditional patriotic grounds. He won on his final throw, with anticommunist liberals his useful idiots.

It’s part of the Chinese project to effect a similar wider national reconciliation without going through the muscial chairs of regime change. Faster, higher, stronger!

Britblog roundup #181

Britblog roundup #181 is now up at The Wardman Wire.

Britblog Roundup is a compendium of last week’s outstanding posts in the British Blogosphere. Next week’s roundup will be hosted by Mr Eugenides — send your nominations to the usual address, britblog (at) gmail (dot) com.