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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.
IBM are a bunch of graffiti spraying vandals anyway.
"Linux is our flagship technology going forward! Quick, let's cancel it on our sexiest products!"
What a great way to torpedo enthusiasm in the techie community... :-p
Time for someone to set up a petition page...
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
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..
An older article here has the developers of their open source devision saying...
o p
People don't buy many small computers just because they will run Linux (the geek population just isn't that large). People do, however, blow large chunks of cash on big machines just to run Linux. Mom-and-Pop can almost always undercut IBM on prices for small machines, and geeks are thrifty. You don't have to sell many million dollar machines to justify being involved in Linux development.
IBM Kernel Hackers:
All of the people in our group and most in the LTC have Thinkpads for their daily development and run Linux on them (I'm writing this on one as I sit in my apartment). There may not be as much corporate support there as you want, but there is plenty of grass-roots support. We had to learn all the quirks to get Linux installed and get all of the little things working (just like you). I've always wished that we shared more of this information, but there are usually people who are farther ahead than we are. I've uploaded the meager information that we put together during a meeting once. If you're curious, take a look: http://www.sr71.net/slashdot/thinkpad/linux-deskt
Why dont they just start working on Linux for Laptops?
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
Does anyone have a clue why they did it? After all (and as the poster hints at), linux support does in fact *help* selling ThinkPads.
my
IBM also said it was going to include Generic Unix support rather than Linux only (scroll down). This means, they are embracing the entire spectrum of free Unix OS's instead of just Linux (Which IS A BONUS). They would be supporting OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, OpenCLT, WindRiver RT, OpenDOS, Linux (no distro specific). Frankly, it was weird seeing IBM saying they only support RedHat Linux (Linux is Linux whatever distro runs it, and at hardware level this shouldn't have mattered, AFAIK most IBM use was at hardware level). This IS A GOOD THING.
It seems to me that IBM is looking at Linux as an operating system that belongs on server grade hardware and beyond, not on desktops or laptops. There probably are not enough people using Linux on their laptops to justify the time spent supporting it.
They used to have Thinkpads that ran AIX. Some of the SysAdmins I know at IBM used to prefer them for on-site troubleshooting at the server farms since it was UNIX end-to-end (to the extent that AIX is UNIX anyways). But someone decided that it was not worth having the product line and they were scrapped.
Too bad, but this sounds like more of the same...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
...they don't stop giving out hardware documentation, I can't see any real problem here - most other company's don't found Linux development either and people still buy their hardware...
I love my Thinkpad, as it has the best keyboard of any laptop that I tried. I use the built in keyboard enough that I've worn the texturing off half the letters.
There are many support pages and "rings" around the web for thinkpads,and I hope that at least the IBM design teams think about non-MS Operating systems when producing future thinkpads, unlike the TP600 modem debacle.
It'll be a tough one to replace when the time comes.
Strange that I posted this story earlyer.
Anyway the inquirer had a little more info and opinion.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
"If it stops being compatible, my next laptop won't be a ThinkPad. Too bad, because the machines are solid. "
I dunno if that's the attitude I'd have. The reason you buy a Laptop from IBM is their manufacturing compatibility and support. (support meaning they'll replace a defective component...)
If there's an icompatibility with Linux and one of these Laptops, then people should rush to fix it. The reason I'm saying this is that corps who buy these laptops aren't going to be worried about Linux until they really really need it. It'd be a lot easier for everybody if the information on how to make Linux work on an incompatible laptop were easy to find for the non-Linux initiated.
I'd have been a Linux user 6 months ago if I could have gotten it to work on my laptop. Unfortunately, I couldn't find what I needed to fix it, so it got Windows 2000 instead. It'll be a while before I have the free time to pursue that again.
I'm thinking of the Linux community as a whole, here. I can understand somebody saying "This laptop won't do me any good if it doesn't wrong what I need", hell I'd have the same attitude. I'm just thinking that if everybody says that, then this will always be a Microsoft world.
"Derp de derp."
Good business sense, at that.
As displeasing as it might be to the faithfull, it dosent make much sense bottom-line to invest a lot of money in this area. It dosent nessesarily mean that Thinkpads will become horrors of proprietory that will become useless for Linux, it just means spending less money supporting a free OS that honestly manages to support itself well enough anyway. (The Linux work isnt adding value to IBM laptops for the average punter, to the point where they will decide on a Thinkpad over an Inspiron.)
Then there is the fact that IBM may cash-cow their x86 laptop business anyway in preparation to sell it off, rather like their hard disk business.
Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random numbers is, of course, in a state of sin.-John von Neumann
>>as part of IBM's recent Server Group "resource action."
Does that mean IBM is trimming all non-essintial non-server based roles? I have wondered for a long time why IBM is still in the PC business. It seems like they don't sell very many end user machines. While it is common is some circles to have Thinkpad laptops, I have not seen one myself in a couple years.
I have never though it was really a business IBM wanted to be in. I wonder if this means maybe they agree.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
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.
The Linux community right now doesn't really need a whole lot of support. If IBM would use hardware that already has decent and proven drivers in their laptops then there isn't too much to complain about, you can install Linux and be happy.
Now of course if they make you buy it in the beginning with Windoze then we have some reason to complain.
The Anti-Blog
It's not the ssh terminal opening up on OSX that does it. Heck, you could probably ssh from DOS.
/usr/bin :-)
It's ssh'ing TO the iBook and doing an
ls
that brings a smile to my face!!!
Whether or not it makes sense depends on how much return for the investment it generates. It's still a tight economy and throwing a couple million at developers and support technicians for a product that doesn't support itself financially is probably not a good idea just yet.
On the other hand, corporations will shell out the big bucks for support just to have the reassurance that if their system starts pushing up daisies, then someone else will be as miserable as they are.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Okay so IBM doesn't have enough money to fund creating drivers for Linux for Thinkpads. Fair enough since resources are finite. However isn't one of the best features of Open Source projects is to get people who are interested in contributing to the project?
Why does IBM need to hard dedicate manpower to Thinkpad driver writing? IBM can just provide open hardware specs(assuming they don't violate some NDA from inside or 3rd parties), a little TLC and feedback from a maintained ML, and let people who are modivated to get stuff working do their thing. Heck even IBM can maintain the CVS repositories if they want.
The point is that although it would be handy to have IBM leading driver development for Thinkpads or whatever hardware, it isn't exactly necessary. IBM can just as easily, and for a lot less bucks, forster a community that will help support them and themselves.
Most of the stuff that was "special" about laptops has been standardized, including power management (APM and ACPI) internal peripherals (mini-pci).
The biggest thing now is to keep in mind which video and audio chipsets are going to be compatible, which is easier to do in the design stage than the support stage later on.
I love my T series thinkpad, and as long as future designs take those chipset issues into consideration, then I'll stick with the thinkpad for a long, long time.
... as long as they provide all the necessary information to Open Source developers. Ah yes, and they should also stop using components made by companies who don't provide information.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
In this day and age of cost-cutting it really isn't a suprise. Only geeks (like those found here) are going to use *nix on a laptop anyway and most of us can handle our own installs and tweaking.
The only place I can see this biting IBM in the @ss is in the case of Europe where we have France giving a major contract out to Mandrake and the stories about Linux PCs selling in Scandinavia. Even though Walmart is going to start selling Linux loaded PCs soon. Despite the Walmart decision, I don't think we'll have the same enthusiasm (as we're seeing in Europe) in the US for a while.
Hope I'm wrong... Either way, unless these kinds of efforts continue to grow, IBM probably made a good BUSINESS decision, even though I (we?) may not like it.
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
I thought that the newer versions of Linux had awesome hardware support "better than Windows XP" I've heard. Why, then, is it so hard to get Linux running on a ThinkPad which, as I understand, has fairly standard hardware? I thought the days of spending days trying to get Linux running on common hardware were over! (this is not intended as a troll, I'm genuininely interested. Is it because Linux hardware detection isn't quite there yet, or is it because IBM is using weird hardware, or is it something else altogether?)
haha! Looks like Detlef is sitting the bench!
Domains for only $8.75/year! Transfer your domain for on
I think to some people since IBM was one of the first mega-corporations to embrace Linux, this announcement about cutting support for Linux on the laptops comes as a suprise. However, where is it that IBM has made all of its Linux progress? They've made their progress in the enterprise on big ass IBM servers running Linux. However, the desktop/laptop space is very different from enterprise servers. The margins appear to be much thinner on those machines and so I'm sure that business unit is trying to cut costs. I doubt they have seen enough traction from Linux on the desktop to justify the cost of support and development. I also think that IBM knows that there will be some unofficial ThinkPad Linux support that is provided by its users.
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?
I'd be happy if IBM officially supported linux on laptops, but I've bought laptops before from other vendors that weren't officially supported linux and have had little trouble. It just takes some up front research to figure out what's going to work and what won't.
;)
Now, IBM may be cutting official support, but it's reasonable to believe that IBM will continue to support community efforts. That is, they'll probably be helpful in making the information about their laptops available to the kernel hackers out there so that they can be made compatible. This way, IBM spends very little, and you can still get an IBM laptop running Linux, it just means there won't be some guy at IBM you can call and ask questions.
No big deal, I never used to do that even when I ran Windows
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
For the rich guys and for the poor guys. As a bonus, you don't have to hang your in shame saying you run a "Unix-like" operating system. With these, you get the real thing...
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
They are freakin' rock solid.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Hmm.... now that's a possibility I didn't consider, and you may be right. I sure hope not. I *hope* IBM is smart enough to realize their laptops command a premium price and are highly regarded BECAUSE they engineer them to superior quality standards. They innovate, when everyone else is imitating. (Remember the "butterfly keyboard" that folded out when you opened the lid of a Thinkpad? Remember the built-in keyboard light on a few models? And love it or hate it, didn't they bring a whole new mouse technology to the laptop world with the eraser-point? Aren't they doing new things now with secure encryption chips integrated into their laptops?)
If they opt to use cheap generic laptop parts, they eliminate the only real reason to keep buying Thinkpads in the first place.
I don't think it's such a big deal that IBM is dropping their laptop Linux support, so long as IBM doesn't do anything that would prevent Linux from running reliably on their laptops, i.e., hiding hardware details that are critical to stable operation. I've been running Slackware with stock kernels on a T20 (with a "Designed for Windows 98/2000" sticker on it) for about 8 months now with no problems whatsoever. Zero crashes. Even if IBM drops this support, i think users would still be able to get Linux to run on their IBM laptops because that is their OS of choice.
Still, it would be nicer to have some kind of "official" support from IBM to give additional incentive to those considering Linux on laptops. More incentive == more users.
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
..Red Hat, IIRC.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
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!
Now, my requirements for a laptop are: three mouse buttons, no Windows keys, black, fast, good display, trackpoint. I don't think anything else than an IBM ThinkPad qualifies.
I really hate newish x86 notebooks with their buggy, baddly performing i8xx chipsets.
I have moved to a Mac iBook after 12 years of x86 PC's and I am very happy to have done so.
Mac OSX is awesome, OpenBSD works well and although I have'nt tried them on ppc yet, Debian, Mandrake, Yellowdog, etc are options too.
Though after almost 5 years with Debian and OpenBSD on x86, I am happy to stay with OpenBSD servers and OSX desktops.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
When IBM first announced their big Linux initiative, I asked some of my IBM friends about the thinking behind it. They claimed that one advantage that drew IBM to Linux in the first place was the notion that IBM could use the same OS on everything from big iron to desktops to laptops to PDAs. In other words, IBM could focus on just the hardware and yet still have a common software solution that works across any product they might come up with. (What other OS can scale from mainframes to handhelds?) I conjecture that IBM has now forgotten the original rationale and is now focusing just on those areas that are most successful.
This is the ultimate fate of any Really Good Idea in any large organization: eventually, the rationale is forgotten and the focus switches to near-term success. This is probably a good thing.
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
This is very true, and, IMO, rather pathetic. For a company so willing to spout and trumpet the open source software they are "embracing" and spending "1 billion dollars" on, it seems fairly counterintuituve to drop linux support on any level, expecially a level where they are still forcing people into that damn M$ tax. I refused to buy an IBM laptop because of this about 2 months ago. It makes no sense for a HUGE company like IBM that purports to "embrace linux" and has a rather bitter history with M$ to be so resiliant to employ OSS on anything other than their high-end servers. Sorry, I'd rather buy a laptop with forced (Argh) winXP from Dell then support rampant hypocrisy and buy a laptop from IBM with (again) forced winXP.
They are big enough to tell M$ to "fuck off" and go ahead and sell whatever the hell they want with their machines. Why don't they?
----------rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
I still don't understand why everyone here bitches and moans whenever a hardware vendor drops Linux from their lineup on certain items. Linux is not and will not (atleast anytime soon) be the choice of the road wariors who buy laptops by the truck loads. Its really quite easy to see that certain operating systems are better for some tasks than others, Linux is not ready for desktop market.
Step back and look at it before writing this off as a troll. You're a geek, you're one of the few. Most people who buy laptops buy them because they're on the move, running between business meetings and such. They've not got the time to deal with learning Linux or other OSS OSes.
Stick to what you do best, keep those servers churning while letting the desktop slip; its not your strong market.
scott
I can not disagree with this statement enough. I watch the market and this won't happen. I've owned 4 thinkpads, know them inside and out, watched as IBM has improved them. You can now get more bang / buck from a Thinkpad than from any other laptop on the market, and great support. They keep winning awards for a reason.
Keeping in mind that IBM's laptop and desktop lines have nothing to do with one another, do you have anything to base your claim on? Personal experience w/ Thinkpads? Anything?
Saying that IBM will slap it's logo on random Taiwan junk just is not justified. It's like saying that BMW would slap it's logo on a Chevy.
I have trouble seeing how this comment got moded up so high.
And incedentally, Redhat runs great on Thinkpads. There are some wonderful utils out there to give you full control of every aspect of the hardware. IBM even has some very helpful sites.
It's easy to employ 2 programmers and claim you offer Linux support for your product. It's harder to publically say that you don't dedicate enough resources to it to be able to claim you support it.
=brian
I've really got to start proofreading my posts. Rereading it made it sound like I was convinced the original post is wrong, which is not necessarilly the case.
I'm looking for a solid reference to indicate IBM is in fact taking a more agnostic, distribution (and specific *nix OS) independent approach, rather tha simply dumping support altogether.
IFF the post was correct, this is indeed Good News(tm). If, however, it isn't correct them there should be some concern, and the speculation I posted above may have some real relevance.
Here is hoping all of my speculation is wrong.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
> I *JUST* bought an old thinkpad 760dx (used of
... depending on what model Thinkpad you actually have, you might be able to get the sound working).
> course). Now how am I supposed to get the
> soundcard working?
If you mean the 760XD (XGA screen, built-in modem, P166MMX processor, max 104M ram), you've got one of the Thinkpads with a proprietary (mwave) sound / modem setup.
What that means is that you can't get the modem to work (IBM only provided drivers for *newer* mwave modems than yours). You *might* be able to get the sound recognized by Linux as a soundblaster if you load the DOS drivers (in DOS) then use linload to load Linux. I never actually got this to work, but I heard some people did.
Essentially, the modem and sound hardware on a 760XD is useless under Linux. Oops.
(I've heard that some of the less fancy 760s have fairly normal ESS souns cards which *are* compatible with Linux
-- Rick
I didn't like the older thinkpads (think Pentium days) mainly because of the fact that you had to have either the CD-ROM or floppy disc drive, never both. Another thing that bugged me was the "burly" keyboard. Sure it was solid, but it sucked to type on.
Have either of these issues changed much with the newer thinkpads?
From all the installations of Linux I've experirienced, with a little bit of configuration it will run on anything. Does any have an experiences of recent Linux distros not working? (I mean REALLY not working, not testimonials from people who don't RTFM)
QLITech has some very nice laptops that can be preinstalled with a boatload of distros. If you're thinking of getting a laptop you should look at these as well as the "regular suspects".
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
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.
Want an open-source friendly latptop OS with guaranteed hardware compatibility? Those Powerbooks ain't cheap, but they do kick ass....
I conjecture that IBM has now forgotten the original rationale and is now focusing just on those areas that are most successful.
Most successful, not really. Most profitable? Sure. We still push Linux on every platform Intel to Z, not desktops to mainframes. That was never a big push here. The only way to make money on Intel is to sell software you didn't have to buy from anyone, b/c there sure isn't any money in hardware. I guarantee that if a customer came to IBM asking to have us rollout 20,000 Linux desktops, we would do it.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Hmm. I've tried following this link 3 times (from 3 different posts to this story). Each time it has crashed Mozilla 1.0 ... which has otherwise been rock solid.
Either their web page is b0rked, they are running a b0rked java or javascript applet, servlet, or what have you, or they've managed to uncover a bug in Mozilla that slipped through the release process. Well, I guess a 4th possiblity is that it is a malicious site, and the link is a troll, akin to the goatse.cx link of yore, but that seems unlikely.
Has anyone had any luck viewing the Iquirer site with a non-microsoft browser, and would they perhaps be willing to post the text here for those of us who do not, or cannot, run internet exploder?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Who cares? Linux has never been officially supported on my laptop, a Powerbook G3. But Mandrake 8 still runs better on it than the OS with which the laptop came.
If you need an officially supported Linux laptop, there are places to get one.
Thanks!
:)
And no, I missed it because I was a lot more specific than 'Linux Laptop Help'. I.e. I put in the specific problem I had.
Anyhoo, info appreciated.
"Derp de derp."
Did you actually *read* my coment?
;)
I said nothing about the bulid quality of Thinkpads.
If I did, I would say that they are excelent - THATS WHY I OWN SEVERAL.
They are preceved, rightly or wrongly, by the market as being expensive.
As for IBM slapping a sticker on someone elses product - they have done it already with the Aptiva.
I also did not say the *will*, I said they could, and this would explain the dropping of Linux support.
It seems that we both agree that, *if* they did this, it would be a mistake - I'd stop buying Thinkpads if they did, and I imagine a lot of other people would as well.
PS. The BMW 5 and 3 series automatic transmissions are designed and built by GM. So yes, BMW does stick it's sticker on a Chevy
more info - look at the application notes.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
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.
This comment contains so much crap, it is astounding.
:-), and produced by IBM and contract manufacturers. HP and Compaq did this also for their retail lines. (As opposed to the business boxen, which are a completely different animal.)
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.
IIRC The i-Series ThinkPads were designed by IBM and produced by Acer. (I am a RTP IBM'er and had to use an engineering sample of the i-Series for a little while, so I know they are developed in-house.)
All other ThinkPads are designed by IBM, and built by IBM. So you had that part right.
How on earth to do you take the fact that IBM has dropped funding for Linux support, and end up with the conclusion that IBM is OEM'ing (relabling) laptops? (Something that IBM has never done.) My mind is boggled.
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.
The Aptivas were designed by IBM (and if I find the designer somewhere in IBM that has the flat-head screw fetish (anyone that has ever had to service Aptivas and PC 300s will know what I mean), I will bring on the LART
IBM pulled out of retail because it is simply impossible to make any significant amount of money selling computers in stores. The sales were structured in such a way that the manufacturer, not the store, has to take the depreciation hits for the decreases in price. Over the past several years, the best that any company has done in retail is about break even. (HP) IBM and Compaq lost money the moment E-machines entered the market. It is impossible to make money when a comptitor (E-machines) has no qualms about losing money.
IBM has NEVER OEM'd PC's of any kind.
SirWired
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. >
There are two meanings of "support" in the computer biz. Sometimes "we support foo" means "We'll help you on the phone with problems about foo". Other times it means "We make sure our product will work in conjunction with foo."
It isn't clear which meaning is meant here, but I suspect it's the second, not the first. And that *is* a problem even for knowlegable linux users, because it means the next Thinkpad you buy might come with some peripheral hardware device that can't work with linux, like a winmodem, or a proprietary video adapter with unpublished specs. And since it's a laptop, swapping the device out for one that works might not be an option.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I didn't want it, but still got it. Yet again, another person assuming everyone wants windows...
---rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
It can't be empty. The ssh* tools are installed in /usr/bin. :)
But OSX is a lot less fun without the Developer CD.
We don't really need IBM to expressly support Linux, we just need them to refrain from using components like winmodems, sound, video, and bus drivers that don't have open specs (and consequently have no linux serviceability).
To me, better than "supported Linux" would be a laptop that actually has all of its components in a workable state.
If I found out that Thinkpads have winmodems or other components for which drivers do not exist on any system other than windows, I will go with the theory that IBM is giving up in frustration at the support nightmare that ensues when Linux is installed on such a beast.
I would really like to see a compatability list of all the notebooks on the market. Do any of them have complete hardware compatability with linux?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Actually, sshd (which is what is needed to connect to the machine) is in /usr/sbin
You still need to generate keys. /usr/bin/ssh-keygen
Winmodems and built-in modems are useless anyway. You don't want to plug a built-in modem into a random phone line because it may fry it. And Winmodems are just not reliable.
There are plenty of tiny PCMCIA and USB modems that work really well. And when they get fried (which they will sooner or later), you just get a new one.
Much more interesting to me at the moment is Apple's current desktop grab. I decided several months ago that if I were in the market for a laptop, I'd go for a Powerbook running OSX. Actually I find the Powermac to be a pretty tempting desktop platform too. It's going to be an interesting choice when the next upgrade cycle rolls around.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Stories like this bring out the neverending "Linux will never make it on the desktop" (which used to be the "Linux will never make it") debate.
In my home, which has five computers running more or less all the time, 80% of the desktops run Linux (for those of you new to elementary arithmetic, that means there is one Windows box). I am, however, a dedicated techie. My laptop runs Linux, and I much prefer it to running Windows.
Linux will "make it" on the desktop, but it depends on what you mean by "making it." I suspect Linux is running on hundreds of thousands of desktops, but the owners/operators of those desktops put it there themselves.
For the kind of people who want Linux on their desktops, this is just not that hard to do. For the people for whom this would be difficult, Linux is probably not something they want in the first place.
Most of the major OEMs have "per unit" licensing arrangements with the Redmond Behemoth. So, without a decent proce break for a Linux-only machine (in fact, in many cases no proce break at all), there isn't a lot of incentive to hunt down the machine preloaded with Linux. So you buy whatever is handy that has the features you want and you add to your collection of Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/xp restore CDs.
That means that in the narrow margin PC hardware business you have to set up production of Linux PCs (which has certain fixed costs) and then sell maybe 50 such machines a year. That doesn't make money.
I am a total Free Software guy, but that doesn't mean I want to lose money. Nor does IBM.
Do not underestimate the power of inertia. It will be hard to make people move to Linux from Windows without either substantial price savings or some sort of "killer app." Linux is great, but is not, itself, a killer app.
I don't read too much into this announcement.
I dunno 'bout you, but my experience with Linux on my Thinkpad has been pretty miserable thanks to slim-to-nonexistent support from the major distro vendors.
A fact of life with laptops is that network connectivity is generally dependent on a PCMCIA card, and if you haven't tried mucking with PCMCIA support under Linux -- especially if you are using older or less popular hardware -- skip it and try something pleasant instead, like being dragged by a helicopter through a valley full of broken glass. Worse, a lot of laptops don't have CD-ROM drives (like my old slimline Thinkpad).
Can't install from the network or a CD? Fine. Copy the install CDs to a FAT32 partition; some distros support installing that way. Don't have a large enough hard drive for the latest bloated RedHat release? Fine. Try floppies instead. Oh wait -- the only "major" distro that supports much of a floppy install is Debian. (Forgive me if I err -- I haven't tried SuSE.)
So let's give a big round of applause to the Debian folks, but before we send a big razzberry to IBM, let's extend one first to the I-wanna-outbloat-Microsoft fiends who make the commercial Linux distributions.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
When Apple redesigns their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards, instead of built-in ADB keyboards, they will have fixed the problem. They have not yet done so.
I don't get it. How will that help?
If that's really what's holding you back (and I doubt it is): check this out
Clue stick: *whack*
When was the last time you saw a laptop with the video adapter being a replacable PCMCIA card? Did you even read my list of examples?
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.