Slashdot Mirror
IBM Dropping Laptop Linux Support
Bjarne Bula writes "In a message to the linux-thinkpad mailing list, Keith Frechette, former (as of Monday, June 24th) lead developer of Linux support on ThinkPads,
reported that IBM has decided to no longer fund that project." I've been using
Linux on a ThinkPad for some time now. If it stops being compatible, my next
laptop won't be a ThinkPad. Too bad, because the machines are solid. Update: In an interesting counter-point, Information Week tells us that IBM will be opening a manhattan based "Linux Center of Competence" to show off Linux. Go figure.
I just about creamed myself first time i saw a SSH terminal open up on one of those oh too sweet looking iBooks... Kinda sad about the thinkpads tho, IBM has been doing it so right for so long, it's a shame to see them discontinue support. Makes me wonder if they're going to do something else with linux on those laptops, given their recent billion dollar commitment to linux..
IBM designs their laptops and either makes them or has someone else make them to their design. So somebody probably got the bright idea to just buy random Taiwan made laptops and slap an IBM logo on them - they think that this will reduce costs and increase competitiveness with new designs intoduced monthly.
The only have to look at thir Aptiva line of desktops to see where this stratigy will go - their good name will carry a few customers for a while, but in the end, nobody will pay a premium IBM price for a non-IBM product with an IBM sticker slaped on the front.
Well to be fair, it look lie IBM did design the plastic bezel for the Aptivas.
What does this have to do with Linux? We'll getting Linux to run of crappy hardware with Win-Modems and no name audio chips is a pain in the butt - if IBM was to suppot Linux, assuming they are going where I think they are going, they would have to pay a lot of money to get it done right.
Eithr that or the Microsoft OEM contract is up for review.....
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Right. Like the kernel hackers at IBM said recently, their customers aren't asking for Linux on low-end hardware but they're clamoring for it on high-end servers. THAT's where they're investing in Linux with things like AIX5L (L for its Linux affinity). Laptops aren't where the bulk of their customers are wanting Linux. That doesn't mean that the laptops will suddenly stop working with Linux.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Yes, and very heavy too ;)
I got a Thinkpad 600E off eBay earlier this year and put Debian Potato on it. It has been rock solid. I suspend and unsuspend multiple times daily and pretty much never reboot except to play some games in Winderz once every few weeks. And I am one of the fabled "desktop users" whose existence everyone on this site questions, who only runs programs written by other people and couldn't write anything useful in C to save his life.
If IBM's "dropping Linux" means you won't be able to get this kind of performance on future machines, then I will cry. But if it only means you can't buy a Thinkpad pre-loaded with Red Hat, I ask, what Linux user would want someone else to choose a distro for him (or her) and install it instead of being able to configure his/her own OS from the ground up? In short, does IBM's announcement really matter in any sense but the symbolic?
Click here or here.
Same thing with OS/2, big talk, no action. When OS/2 was IBM's flagship product, they were selling their PCs with essentially only Windows preinstalled. Maybe if you were lucky and asked real nice, they might install OS/2 depending on which model you were buying, and of course, for an extra fee -- if you were lucky. Mostly it was no dice.
IBM may be removing active support, but if they use Linux-compatible HW &| release driver specs, that's almost as good! Isn't it?
Yes... unless the reason was Microsoft went there and said, "either you stop this Linux nonsense or we rescind your OEM contract and your laptops suddenly cost $150 more".
Of course, IBM's response could be just dropping the laptop businnes altogether, as some people have speculated here already.
IBM also said it was going to include Generic Unix support rather than Linux only (scroll down).
/. story made no reference whatsoever to this. The first is just a link to the thinkpad mailing lists, while the second is an email sent to the lists by the IBM lead developer who was laid off.
... I suspect as the migration away from Microsoft picks up steam one or more of IBM's competitors will step up to the plate. In the meantime its back to getting everything working ourselves, something we Free Software users have always been pretty good at.
Do you have a reference to back this up? Both articles on the
I see absolutely no indication, anywhere, that IBM plans on continuing any sort of non-Windoze support of their T-series thinkpads, which is a shame as my company alone bought 4 of them specifically to run GNU/Linux (we are, after all, a GNU/Linux shop). Aside from individual sales they will loose with this rather short-sighted and foolish policy, they are likely to loose a number of corporate customers who are migrating away from Windows because of BSA-Licensing nonsense and don't want Microsoft licenses or software anywhere on their premesis. And if you were to foolishly think we are unique in that desire, you would be sorely mistaken.
IBM was uniquely positioned to take advantage of the ever-growing number of companies moving away from Microsoft because of their ever-more-draconian licensing terms, fees, and enforcement, as the ability to run the target operating system (likely GNU/Linux) on their laptops is an important part of such a migration.
This is a profoundly unstrategic move for IBM to make, and I suspect has a great deal more to do with bulk OEM licensing of Microsoft's monopoly operating system for installation on their hardware than it does with their desire (or lack thereof) to support GNU/Linux. Especially with the DOJ making it clear that they have no intention of enforcing anti-trust law against Microsoft in any meaningful way, IBM may well have felt they had no choice if they were to avoid paying twice what everyone else is for the privelege of reselling Microsoft's shoddy products.
Oh well, there are plenty of other laptop manufactuerers out there
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
To be blunt, why should IBM lay out the serious cash required to support linux on laptops when the only people who give a damn run linux on their laptops anyway and never use the support? It's basic economimcs. IBM probably sells a couple thousand thinkpads with Linux a year. Those sales probably cost them 20x as much to support as they make. If the product loses money, axe it.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
But what other line of portables can measure up to the ThinkPad? I've been using those for the last several years, and kept buying them, although with Windows NT & 2k, always looking forward to the day I could make the switch to Linux.
Recommendations for Linux portables?
Trusted Computing FAQ | Free Dawit Isaak!
I have been a contractor at IBM for two years.
I have a ThinkPad A21m (750MHz PIII, 256MB RAM/20GB HD), dual booting Win2K and RedHat 7.3. It runs Linux beautifully, even autoconfiguring my Intersil Prism II 802.11b networking.
However, when I wanted to _buy_ a UNIX/Linux laptop for my own uses and with my own money, of course I went with the Apple Powerbook G4 Ti. I use both, but for portability, consumer and multimedia use, and sheer sex appeal, the TiBook is king of the hill.
I have the TiBook running yellowDog 2.2 and OSX 10.1.5. iMovie is the greates free app I have ever seen. And as a former NEXTSTEP SA, having Mail.app and the OpenStep develpment tools, plus fink, makes the Apple solution a hundred times better than the 8lb IBM brick.
I will return my ThinkPad next week as my time at IBM ends. I will not miss it. But my TiBook will satisfy all my work and play needs (excepting GTA3 on my Athlon) for years to come.
Not to mention governments (Germany, Peru, come to mind) switching to OSS or considering doing so. *That* is not a *geek* market; it is a potentially huge worldwide market that IBM will miss out on with their Thinkpads.
It seems like most companies don't support Linux because of the 'driver problem.' Really it just boils down to laptop manufacturers not wanting to give out specifications or open the drivers up so non Windows drivers can be made.
Luckily, it seems that apple has a pretty good track record when it comes to laptop drivers and specs. Unfortunatly, their products cost a bit more.
IBM cutting back on Linux?
;)
Thinkpad Linux persona non grata
By Egan Orion, 19/06/2002 10:25:04 BST
OVERNIGHT it has come to our rapt attention that IBM is laying off its senior Thinkpad Linux software engineers, as these soon jobless folk have begun to reveal.
We can't quote them, as they haven't left yet, and we wouldn't want to say anything to complicate their departures from their soon former firm.
We're all ears about this, though, seeing as how last year IBM trumpeted spending a billion US dollars on internal Linux development.
We can't help wondering if it has spent it, and so cutting off further investment in this protracted cyclical economic and IT equipment spending downturn.
Seeing as how IBM has all but conceded the Desktop PC market to its more efficient competitors -- primarily Dell, but also most everyone else too -- we can't help but observe that IBM's only remaining Intel-based markets are Thinkpads.
These are exquisite, though expensive, but also in demand and quite profitable for IBM and low-end xSeries server systems, which compete head-to-head with HPQ, lately Dell also, plus many others.
Thinkpads are an IBM platform strength, so we must ask ourselves: if IBM is abandoning this market for Linux, are they giving up on Linux?
Although we sort of doubt this will turn out to be the case with IBM's server systems, we're aware that the Thinkpad Linux community, larger in Europe than in the US, by the way, are less than happy campers right about now.
Should IBM back away from Linux servers also, it will likely see a big backlash the likes of which only some retired mainframe IBMers might recognise as the furies that descend after leading on and then blindsiding loyal customers.
We'll keep our eyes peeled for more on this.
Konqueror 2.2.2 on Suse 7.3 w/o JS, works fine
So screw IBM. Linux runs nicely on an iBook. They're cheaper than Thinkpads, and damn near indestructable. Or pony up some more bux for a Powerbook.
You could, of course, simply defect to OS X--but I assume you want to stay with a standard Linux distro. Mandrake, Yellow Dog, and Gentoo all run on PPC. I'm sure there are others.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Makes you wonder what kind of backend agreements are being made. Think about it... IBM continues to push Linux on the servers but drops all attempts to push Linux on any desktops in an effort to show good faith on projects with which it has obligations to Microsoft on. Just a though. >