Well, there's something interesting to that. There's growing evidence that all these sudden OEM "about faces" are actually the result of sizable payments or bribes to the OEM's by Microsoft to do so. I posted a news report recently detailing one guys findings (I think it was through Groklaw) on how this has been going on quite a lot ever since Microsoft got its but handed to it early in the netbook wars. Asus is just the latest casualty. Which sucks too, because they've done Linux a huge favor. Of course, that may be why MS wanted them out of the way too. The funny part is, the netbook OEM's are now fighting back by producing much cheaper, Arm powered netbooks that MS can't compete on. lol. Take that MS! We'll take your money, but we're gonna stab you in the back first chance we get!
Yeah, that's an old sore spot among many old timers. MS used it as an early method by which to pretty much lock out ALL competing OS's, and not just Linux. They only started specifically targeting Linux in the ACPI standards changes when it became a viable threat in the primary marketplace. Or else it was about the same time that Linux started totally whipping Microsoft's *** in the server market.
Yeah, we've seen this on a number of Linux netbooks. It's almost like they WANTED Linux to fail. Either that, or they were so bloody clueless about how to build a proper consumer Linux box that they went and totally boned it right out of the gate. The other possibility is they tried to "Windowize" Linux, which of course destroyed any semblance of a quality user experience right from the word go. Ask MSI. Theirs was the most boned of the lot, and thus died first.