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Linux on Laptops Manufacturer Report Card
Werner Heuser writes "At MobiliX there is a survey of app. 100 laptop manufacturers and their Linux status available now. It contains a list of manufacturers, which are the most popular with Linux users. And some criticism about misleading manufacturer announcements for Linux support. The survey finishes with hints to laptop certifications, independent vendors and how to get rid of the "Microsoft Tax". And finally there is a A-Z list of almost 100 manufacturers and their Linux status. Besides Linux also other UniXes are mentioned and some hints about laptops with other CPUs than from Intel are included."
is teh sux.
I alternate between posting +5 and -1 Comments. Karma: +53 -47 = 6
moo
we will always miss you.
works fine on mine, then again it's only a p100
:)
as for microsoft tax, it was cheap and came with a unix on it already.
I think that it's a great idea to keep information on this though, might help a lot of people decide what to buy.. too bad manufacturers proabably don't care to read it and see how well they did
The greatest right given is the right to be wrong...
Laptops are only for impressing chicks, you don't need to actually run an OS on it. (even if you did, the battery life is way too short, you wouldn't get any work done).
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Hmmmm, is it just me or does it seem like slashdot is begining to report more and more on almost usless news from sites that just so happen to sell things.
I think it's just me, so don't mod me down.
Big deal. 0.21, 0.09, 0.03 ? That means barely any load, and, even more importantly, that any heavy load it ever gets doesn't last more that a couple of minutes. Of course you have great uptime with that.
Compare to Linux.org's laptop page.
Checking back, I'm not surprised to see the submitter is from the site. I couldn't imagine a reader thought it was worth telling anyone about. Give him honesty points, at least.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
But ok alot and I mean alot of the *nix users are techies or are heavy in the computer field. And if you really know anything about computers it is usually cheaper and better if you buy a barebone system with no OS on it so why would you mass produce systems with a *nix OS on it when alot of the pubic *nix users don't by prebuilts? Correct me if I am wrong, please, as I see it there really isn't that great of demand for any *nix OS'on prebuilts.
Although it is great to see large companies supporting Linux on their platforms, I think in the end, the best support would come from local companies. For people who are not fluent with Linux, it would be hard for a large comany to even support them. But if they had a setup, in which smaller vendors could carry, sell, and support their products, specifically a Linux program, they could target smaller groups of people more efficiently. Smaller, more tagerted support would greatly help increase the abilities to integrate Linux into the everyday computer environment.
personally I have a dell inspiron 8000 laptop. it works fine with debian. and dri and apm work flawlessly.
God, this place has gone to shit.
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If you scroll down the list to NatureTech, you will find that their notebook's SPARC chips are not only powerful enough for Solaris, but good for you too!
Well this link was a lot less interesting than the writeup!
All there is to see here is some guy's web analysis of what type of laptop people on his site search for.
There's a link to the now archaic windows refund site. There's a few blurbs about laptop companies that abandoned linux over the past few years. Finally there are some links to laptop manufacters and related open source projects.
Nothing really special, and nothing that isn't presented elsewhere in a cleaner, more useful format. Good "web-ring" material.
The "report card" seems to be missing an important aspect: namely, grades! There's nothing here that indicates how "friendly" a company or laptop is toward Linux. This looks more like an attempt to boost page views; or maybe stress-test the server? :)
:Peter
... a stuffed life-sized tux on your lap. It can't compile a kernel, but it's alot cuter than C++ :)
For example, the "Naturetech" laptop maker. Go to the website listed in the article. I think you'll be surprised at how far Linux has branched out.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
The top 20 list admits to being flawed, and the data there is pretty scarce, hardly a story.
To be on topic, I'm using a little Presario 725US w/ 1.4 GHz. Athlon. Pretty good price/performance, and works well with linux out of the box...
Of course, to get the most out of it, I have patched the kernel for PowerNow and ACPI, to extend battery life, reduce heat, and lower fan noise. Also applied a 'kacpid' patch to kernel to recover lost acpi interrupts. Because it has no builtin support for suspend, I also have the swsup patch applied. The sound also required a patch to actually work. The savage chipset driver with XFree I replaced with a more up-to-date version with better performance, but no matter what the driver locks up when xv attributes are set, so I have to patch xine to run it and RealOne is out of the question...
Ok, so it isn't *that* great out of the box but it was a hell of a lot cheaper than the competition out there and the end result is a solid system, at a price of 1200 new (at the time, after rebate).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If Dell's still offering Linux as a custom install, and Wallmart is advertising Mandrake/Lwindows (desktops) on there front page rather than Windoze systems, not all is lost.
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
...or better yet, compare to linux-laptop.net.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
It's a shame that the only places that sell laptops/notebooks pre-loaded with Linux charge an arm and a leg for them - I mean, there's nothing under $2000 at EmperorLinux.com. You'd think there would be some money in buying some less-expensive laptops sans OS at wholesale (from Asus, perhaps) and then undercutting the competition by saving money on the OS. Even if this means no (win)modem, I don't see it as a huge deal.
I just see some money in the ~500mhz for $600 market. Desktops really started to take off at that price point - perhaps laptops will do the same, even at the reduced performance?
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Does anyone have a list of sites that sell laptops without an OS? Or at least sites that sell laptops without the Microsoft tax?
I know places to get desktops, like Walmart, but haven't found many for laptops.
Never underestimate the power of fiber.
Are you sure you don't mean "a lot" instead, considering that "alot" isn't a word?
I have a Sony Vaio PCG-FXA35, with the AMD 1.0GHz chip in it . Absolutely wonderful Linux notebook, with one exception: the battery life is 30 minutes *or less* when running Linux...which pretty much means it has to be plugged in all the time.
The source of the problem, as far as I can tell, is the lack of Linux support for ACPI, which appears to be the successor to APM. The laptop has no power management configurability in the BIOS, it all must be done in software. There is no Linux software that I know of that will do this, and altering settings in WinXP appears to only affect the power usage when running WinXP.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd most appreciate hearing them. At this point though, I think my next laptop will be a Titanium powerbook, as they appear to have pretty good Java support, 5 hrs of battery life, instant-on/off, and run a BSD-based OS.
well thats what the article claims! load of crap article.
/. article linksland.
Oh and if you want to see naturetechs offerings it is not http://www.naturetech.com/ with their hippy food offerings it is http://www.naturetech.com.tw/
Oh well another day in crap
"It's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done" - Orbital
Free sparc notebook with purchase of 10000000 bottles of all natural bee pollen.
The link provided less info than any usual Ask Slashdot ...
Anyways, I have a Fujitsu-Siemens C Series laptop bought in Germany a year and a half ago (Celeron 450 Mhz, 192 MB RAM). I still use it as my main computer at home and work running only Linux. I have installed almost every flavor of linux and works perfectly, but lately have only used Mandrake: easy install and autodetects everything, from sound card to video, modem and ethernet card.
Even if it is almost two years old it works like the first day with Mandrake 8.1, KDE 3.0 and Forte & Eclipse (and i have dropped it to the floor twice). I even run JBoss in the background while working with Eorte or Eclipse and it runs perfect. No slowdown. If I were a XP or 2000 user this machine would have gone the trash way a long time ago. God bless linux.
I Must recommend this laptop as one of the bests I have seen, and when I buy a new one next month I'm gonna get a Fujitsu-Siemens.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
I have seen better pages for Linux on laptops out there.
Linux-Laptops for example...
This sounds like a great resource for the community. I had the luck of inheriting a Toshiba Pentium laptop from a friend that worked perfectly under Linux 2.2. Sound, video, everything. Once I recompiled my kernel it even had functioning APM, if you didn't mind having to rmmod and insmod the sound drivers after waking it up. However, I understand that it is often a good deal more difficult to get Linux to run on laptops.
However, this website also could actually be bad for Linux users. There are a number of issues.
First, it suggests (however accurately) that getting Linux running on laptops is not a simple "plug and play" matter. This scares away potential new Linux users. Linux makes a lot of headway in colleges, but not among the huge number of students who own laptops. This site just makes them want to play it safe and stick with Windows.
Furthermore, I'm very frightened regarding the techniques for avoiding the "Micro$oft tax." Yes, I hate it as much as the next slashbot Linux geek, and that's why I try to build my own boxen whenever possible. But if you avoid the Windows license fee, then you are violating the contract among you, M$, and the laptop manufacturer. We need to fight the common media portrayal of Linux users as evil pirates and hackers, and publishing instructions for subverting the law is step in the wrong direction.
Finally, the effort being put into getting Linux to run on laptops comes at the expense of other worthy goals and projects. Linux makes the most impact (and shows the most growth potential) on low-end servers and "salvage" PCs (Pentium or 486 firewalls and the like that would otherwise be trashed). We should be fixing the installers for these niches, rather than chasing the evasive laptop market.
I will definitely bookmark the Linux on Laptops page. But I'm afraid it may end up hurting us more than it helps.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Have a Dell 4000 Inspiron running Red Hat 7.2 (have also run Mandrake on it) with all of the devices up and running properly. Apparently, I am just another number.
come on fhqwhgads
whan is someone going to get Linux running on one of these bad boys?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Since this story was entireless useless, I'll post some info about a new laptop...
I've got Linux running on a new IBM T30 right now.
Red Hat 7.3 install went easy.
I need to check into:
1) Sound
2) Getting the middle "mouse" button on the UltraNav thing working
I believe the modem is a winmodem, but I don't ever use one so I'm not sure.
I'll try some 3D stuff later to check that performance.
Any info on 1 and 2 above would be great... I'm up2dating as we speak. So maybe I'll have more info later.
So far, so good.
and getting a Thinkpad. I was saddened to see that IBM doesn't directly support Linux on a laptop anymore. I don't think this market is very popular in general, even though the possible hardware variations are far smaller than in desktops and there fore easier to support.
Has anyone run any distro on a Thinkpad A31?
I'm not brave enough to buy a laptop and put my favorite OS on it.
I've been lusting after a number of tiny sub-notebooks for a while now. But I'm too afraid to pay $1600US for a laptop when I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get it to work very will with the Linux kernel.
Can I expect to be able to return the laptop (with the hard drive in some sort of pseudo-penguined state)? The "terms and conditions" I've
been reading on online-store sites seem pretty unfriendly - stuff about having to ask for the seller's permission (Return Material
Authorization) to return an item, and promises that the seller will keep some of my money if they decide I've "abused" their product.
Linux-on-laptops sites like www.linux-laptop.net give me some confidence, but the models they list are often older than the newer models I see on sale. What if the newer models have some sort of fatal show-stopping quirk? I don't have money to burn, and I don't want to be stuck with a laptop that runs only windoz.
Is there a way I can put money down on a tiny Fujitsu or Sony sub-notebook, try to put Debian GNU/Linux on it, and then return it for a full refund if I fail?
- Tim
D'oh... little hasty on the "Enter" key there
What I meant to say was, yeah, that was a completely pointless site to go to. Along the theme of it though, if you're (seriously) looking for a *nix laptop of some type, you really, really need to take a look at Apple's Powerbooks.
Feel free to mark me -1, Redundant, but Apple's laptops are probably the best in the industry hardware/design wise, run cooler than most x86 boxes, have faster chips that most PC laptops, and run a full-fledged *nix operating system, with a big giant company and a growing user base to support it.
If you're willing to open your mind (and your pocketbook a little - but come on, you're buying a laptop!) it's hard to go wrong with one of those.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
>>>--From my web server statistics (data are from April 2002) I know, which manufacturers are most looked up for Linux purposes. Please keep in mind that this is a very rough estimation about their Linux popularity and doesn't tell anything about a laptop fitting a specific purpose. -->>>
Does this site have anything more than very rough estimates or is it just me? On to the next story.
Here's the link I use: link
It's got driver info, compatibility tables, how-tos, etc. And useful message boards.
So which crashes more - KDE or that piece of shit AMD processor?
At least the video card is integrated so you don't have to deal with AMD chipsets/video card incompatibilities. You might want to strap an extra fan or two on it though so when the CPU fan dies it doesn't ruin itself.
Weird that they barely mention Apple and the PowerBook. Last year at the O'Reilly Open Source convention, basically everyone was packing a PowerBook or iBook.
I have a recient iBook that dual boots Debain and OS X. There are a bunch of distros that I can think of off the top of my head that work on it: LinuxPPC [defunct?], Debian, Yellow Dog Linux [Red Hat based], and SuSE. The dual boot setup is pretty easy for those with linux experience, a guid is available here. I have to give Apple props for the case design, among other things. My only complaints are the 8meg ATI Rage 128 Mobility [it lags a bit] and a soft modem which is unusable under Linux. I got the AirPort card to work {kernel compile), but the lack of a modem irks me because in having a laptop portability is a must and that includes having a working modem. Overall I am happy with my purchase, BUT a PowerBook G4 would be nice... Oh yeah, when you buy an Apple you avoid the Microsoft Tax completely (and it comes with a nice *NIX preinstaled too!) =)
"The chief enemy of creativity is 'good taste'" -Pablo Picasso
I'm somewhat actively looking for a laptop to run Linux, but I've found the various websites mentioned to be far from useful. It seems that laptop models change about every three months or so.
For instance: I looked at CompUSA selling an HP Pavilion zt1250. I haven't found any linux/laptop site which mentions this model. Not only this, but HP's website has no listing for this model at all, not even an historical reference.
I get the feeling that, as a general rule, by the time someone gets Linux up and running on a new model, that model is no longer being manufactured.
A lot of pages I find about running linux on a laptop tend to say things like: works great out of the box, except for sound, X, modem, network, and power management.
Rocks, 99% of the hardware works with little or no special attention after a RH 7.2 install. Battery life is a little less it seems but when I need Linux on the laptop its for network diagnostics and usually I solve a problem there quite quickly. Dual booting with XP via GRUB... I'm quite impressed, any questions?
I'm wondering where they got their list of computer manufacturers. They included Commodore, who has been out of business for a decade! Other companies they list that no longer exist or no longer make (laptop) PCs are CompuAdd, Escom, Hunday, TI, AST, Digital, Quantex, and Zenith. I'm sure there are more in the list. This is just pitiful -- one of the most useless pieces of mis-information I've seen on the Web.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Unlike many others, I have not had such luck with laptop installation. My greatest problem occured yesterday. I installed Mandrake 8.2 on a Sony Vaio PCG-FXA53. First I tryed fixing some Xwindows problems, but on reboot, the laptop died. It now refuses to turn on what so ever. It exhibits no power confirmation from either battery or a wall outlet. The laptop was designed for XP, so I guess that is my problem. I'm actually assuming that the problem is concerning ACPI. I hope to get it replaced today, but Im afraid of telling them I put linux on it. Whether its cable modem companys or resellers, most places refuse to deal with your product if a non-windows OS has touched it.
I use a WinBook XL (PII/233,64MB) as my lug-a-round for doing security audits. Since the display is only 800x600 and X was a little sluggish on the C&T chip and LCD, I dumped X and now use QT-Embedded with a framebuffer window manager. Works great! The Qt apps are much snappier without the KDE overhead. There are some problems when switching virtual consoles, but I am working on it. It is really amazing to me to see the difference in some of the apps on a small display without window manager decorations eating up real estate around them.
What a completely useless link, and what's with the idea that Dell's linux support was "silently gone". Where the hell was he when that happened? It only made national news.
This web site has almost no useful information, like most Linux on laptops pages.
About all you can do is read current user reports, and buy the laptop from place that will take it back without asking questions.
"Star Wars Moral Number 17: Teddy bears are dangerous in herds."
They're one of the few laptop companies that not only have their shit together, but keep their shit together. I recently made the jump from Toshiba; a jump urged all the faster because of their indifference to some concerns I had with their adoption of the Legacy Free BIOS design. Bad.
Anyhow, I'm about a month into owning my spanking new Dell Inspiron 8200, which runs Quake III like a dream by the way. Even at 1600x1200 res with everything enabled. Presently working my way through various System Shock 2 levels. This notebook does not disappoint. So very highly recommended.
- IP
As for the Windows tax on laptops, I suggest buying refurbished models. Where I've gotten mine (including that HP 800CT), they seem to have two tiers of laptops. The higher cost ones have relatively recent hardware and come with Windows 98 or more recent, and the lower cost ones - about $200 to $500 - have older procesors like Pentiums and don't include an OS. (OK, there's DOS on the drive, but no Windows.)
If you write me, I'll be happy to tell you their URL, though curiously, their laptop stock seems quite low right now.
yes it depends. for me I had the lucent winmodem with the Mars chipset which has linux support. its a package called ltmodem. google it. I personally use 6.00c2 and it works.
Linux on a laptop is a great idea, I have Suse 7.3 running on a Dell Inspirion 2500, with KDE 3.0 on it. Had to do a little configuring with X though before it would work. Once that was solved everything worked except for the (win)modem. I love it.
Once upon a time, I once I had a great Sig.....then I lost it.
Here is a very good laptop reference for Mandrake users.
I appreciate the answer.
Fools, the future is desknotes, not laptops or notebooks.
S3 verge/ savage cards a common in laptops,
Xfree drivers for S3 cards have just started to appear in the DRI CVS
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Yes, TuxTops stopped production, but QLITech bought their laptops and even their customers who were under warranty. They are located in Moline, Illinois. Yes, right here in the Midwest.
;-)
http://www.qlitech.net
They sell servers, home/home office, multimedia, and laptop systems. Most offer your choice of intel or AMD processors and your choice of pre-configured Distro.
I feel that this article was not very accurate, or for some reason chose NOT to include QLITech. The link to www.tuxtops.com even explains that QLITech took over their entire laptop business.
They have great support and for pre-configured Linux systems, they are a great choice.
The owners also actively support and attend the local QCLUG (Quad Cities Linux Users Group).
Visit their site, pick up a machine, or two
Just my 2 cents
DocChaos -------- I may be crazy, but then again I may be crazy.
Or who listens to the lone ranger theme and immediately thinks of wm tell.
I've been getting a bit annoyed with linux recently and the fact linux had a heck of a struggle with my fujitsu-siemens amilo when i bought it pushed me towards FreeBSD.
Initially I tried FreeBSD 5.0 developer-priview 1, which seemed to support *ALL* the hardware on the laptop - nic, usb, pcmcia, gfx, modem, firewire, etc. but then i discovered enlightenment didn't want to play ball, so i tried 4.6-pre.
It worked, but hardware support is flaky. However, it gave me a good reason to learn a lot more about FreeBSD as an os, and for the first time got me hacking around in the kernel (which is a heck of a lot simpler to understand than linux 2.4 kernel). Since then i've managed to get most of the hardware going with the exception of APM and firewire (which I have nothing to test it with yet)
It's an experience I'd recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about the inner workings of a unix kernel and doesn't mind getting their hands dirty so to speak.
Debian or Mandrake ?
http://www.storever.com/product/notebook/C5600
For Color send it to your local paintshop
or this one I guess ( dont know who alienware uses
http://www.casemods.com/custom.html
I've run SuSE 7.2, 7.3, Lycoris, and SuSE 8 on my Dell Latitude. Lycoris and SuSE 8 have run straight out of the box, so's to speak. Performance is good, and battery life reasonable.
Yes it is pretty good page, but author has not updated since March 2002 (5 Months) i have personally reported a couple new pages that are waiting for a long time to be updated.
Please Kenneth E. Harker (http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/) update it!!
"1) man XF86config. you can use as many mouses as you want, usb, serial, ps2... (one has to be the primary tough)" ...soooo,he was right...next
...no,the ZERO-hassle thing is to get winmodems to work...duh...and yes,they're real...dials out and everything...
...strawman-prove a negative..."they all work,give me examples that don't"...he already did...sony vaio
...crusty hardware..yay,and then the admission
...your OS should not depend on 'luck'
...ooohh,it's the ACPI,not linux...i see...works fine on windows,which btw has months of uptime(my win2k box,for an example)
"2) yeah winmodems suck, some work (mine does) some does not, its a matter of luck. The zero-hassle thing is to buy a xircom pcmcia modem/ehternet combo, which includes a REAL MODEM on it!!!"
"3) total bullshit. even crappy neomagic video adapters are properly supported under X. Name one that does not work at least."
"4) my toshiba (old 2100 CDT) hibernates properly, but I must agree that some does not."
"Again, its a matter of luck."
"As ACPI grows mature, new laptops will be able to hibernate as fine as mine (months of uptime - yay!)"
nice try,but as useless as linux
7:16am up 15:53, 1 user, load average: 0.04, 0.03, 0.00
Damnit!
Actually, that just means that the majority of my work had shut down, I just had the browser open, and a couple of people logged in.
Oh did I mention it was a WORKSTATION?
120 days is still impressive for an os. my 2k boxes don't function like that.
I wonder if if OS/X is killing Linux on laptops. You can search, but there seems to be nothing out there, whereas not terribly long ago there were at least a couple of adventuresome little offerings.
Even Linux Magazine in their June 2002 issue was going on effusively about how great OS/X on the laptop is, with no linux/laptop content:
"This is all well and good, but what's it got to do with Linux?" you're asking. A lot, actually. While one could make a good case that a desktop Linux market might emerge "real soon now," it doesn't appear to be happening at the moment. Meanwhile, the Mac is a well established desktop platform, and it's now a super-fertile breeding ground for developing new Open Source projects as well. Open Source developers have been flocking to Mac OS X because it's a great environment to working in. --Adam M. Goodman, Editor & Publisher, Linux Magazine
On page 10 they review the Apple G4 Titanium Powerbook, awarding it 'Linux Magazine Emperor Class'. Geeks I know are drooling over ibooks with OS X, let alone powerbooks. When even the geeks abandon Linux on the laptop isn't it safe to say that Linux on laptops is at best an option for poor geeks who can't even afford an ibook?
it would be from these guys.
Werner is the maintainer of several Laptop related link lists, How-Tos, etc.
Check out the homepage of mobilix.org. It contains a bunch of very useful links. If you ask me, mobilix.org is THE place to go when searching for infos on Linux on Laptops.
I'm very astonished that his work is seen as an advertisment plug.
IMHO it's not the slashdot stories that get weaker, it's the comments from some posters. OK, we always had these comments, but somehow more BS postings get modded up to +5.
Bye
egghat.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel