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.

Comments

Very stupid thinking...

[Glock27]

on IBM's part.

"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...

Re:Very stupid thinking...

[Olinator]

Blockpoth the quoster:

[...]he made the point that IBM sells a very small number of laptops with linux. I believe his statement was "the smaller companies can undercut on price and geeks are thrifty."

They sold one lousy thinkpad with linux, and you really had to be determined to find and order it through their webpages. Great selection. (Huge sample size, too: how many of that model sold with windows compared with their other 'dozepads? Funny, they don't say.)

I wonder how many other people (besides me) said "Gee, I really like this much lighter Txx model, and I can probably get it to work with linux... and since the damn linux preload is more expensive anyway, I might as well!"

Ole

Laptops != the future of Linux

[why-is-it]

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...

Re:Laptops != the future of Linux

[Olinator]

Blockpoth the quoster:

[...]someone on here can probably drag out an isolated case where Linux is used daily on laptops, and with great success.

Four words:

Mobile network troubleshooting platform.

Ole

Re:Interesting

[OUSpirit]

I think you pointed it out yourself...

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.

The point is there's not a lot of money to be made there. One thing we've got to remember is that regardless of how "cool" something is, if it doesn't generate enough money for the company, it won't last long. Just look at what IBM did the the folks in San Jose. Hard drives just don't have the same profit margin as a p-series, or z-series server, or selling lots of software and consulting services. That's where the money is, not in working with the Linux community to make sure every major distro will run on IBM's laptop. There are plenty of people who do that for free. Why should IBM pay someone to do that?

Just my 2 cents.

IBM's statement

[timothy_m_smith]

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.

what does this mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

IBM Desktop Linux Stance

[Greyfox]

The attitude of IBM toward Linux has always been "Not on the Desktop." I guess they're a bit shy about taking on Microsoft in the desktop arena anymore. Remember what happened last time... Anyway, none of the Lotus desktop products are available under Linux. No Notes Client. No Smartsuite. No Sametime client. Nothing. This makes it a bit of a pain in the ass to use a Linux system full time in the company but fortunately the Win3.1 versions of those products mostly work in Wine now.

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.