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Buying a Small, Light Linux Notebook Computer?
"I have no Windows software and will not be running any, not even via WINE. I have no
desire to go through the hassle of purchasing software I'm not going to use and
then fighting to get a token rebate that doesn't actually equate to the cost of a Windows license. Nor am I interested in buying a machine that was purchased with a Windows license, and simply having Windows erased with no refund given.
So far I've found iDot Computers, who will sell laptops with no OS installed. Unfortunately, their lightest,
smallest offering is a hefty 2.8kg brick, 3cm bigger than the iBook in width and depth. What I really want is something comparable to a Toshiba Libretto or Sony VAIO R505--except that neither of those companies want to sell me a machine without Windows.
I'm sure plenty of Slashdot readers have faced the same problem--what's the solution?"
Small, lightweight, runs Unix, nice GUI, long battery life, etc...
I too havent found the right solution yet where i dont have to give some company money for crap i will never use. just please dont get pissed off and buy any laptop and pay the microsoft tax, becouse it just reports to there numbers as how many "users" there are. untill i find a solution that i can live with, and not pay MORE for the luxary of not having to purchase an operating system, i will not purchase a laptop. i am not afraid of doing without, and neither should you.
Why don't you just buy an iBook. It seems to be your benchmark, so why isn't it suitable? Linux runs quite nicely on it and it has everything you have listed as a requirement.
Am I missing something? It's hard to get a better laptop for the money.
ahh, but the big guys still are cheaper with the windows tax than a smaller company that sells without it. I was in the same position a while back, and just decided it would be much easier and cheaper to go with a toshiba.
It's not JUST a political statement. You're also inadvertantly funding MS's efforts to ensnare you, so it's understandable how one might not want to do that.
I seriously doubt that those machines are "Microsoft Free": Emperor Linux most likely doesn't have the purchasing power to force Sony and other vendors to sell them machines without Windows licenses. Most likely, all they do is erase the Windows partition for you.
Now this could probably be considered a switch story..but I still use Windows/Linux, so it's more that I have just added one more to the list.
I recently acquired the last model of the PowerBook series. 15"/G4/1G RAM. I must say I am very impressed with the hardware, the size, the layout, etc. I'm still trying to get used to the Operating System.
I do a lot of Java Development, and have gotten my favorite IDE to work (Eclipse), and have gotten JBoss to run semi-succesfully. There are a lot of things to get used to though. The built in mouse has but one button, so you must ctrl->click to do a right click...that is annoying as heck. So, purchase an external mouse whatever you do.
being able to drop to the shell and be in a familiar place is very nice. Install Fink and you can apt-get your favorite software. There are a lot of apps out there...more than I thought there was (www.versiontracker.com).
All in all...I'd say get a PowerBook and leave OS X on it, and install your favorite Open-source software.
If you choose to wipe it clean and install a version of Linux...it is still very impressive hardware, so you should be in a win-win situation.
My two cents...
-= Xafloc =-
alinuxbox.com
N
If there's one place where Apple kicks ass (and I'm of the opinion there are more), it's in full-featured notebooks.
Dude! You're getting an Apple!
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Don't turn everything into a political statement. This is more a consumer statement. Whenever you buy a product, you are in effect "voting for" it. You tell the market that you wanted that particular product and allow company X to produce more of their product Y. If you knowingly buy Windows, you are telling the market "I like Windows!" Whether or not you actually like the OS is irrelevant - you are voting with your money. When you can no longer buy computers without Windows, you have lost the most basic right of a consumer - the ability to choose what product you spend your money on. I would have hoped in a "Democratic" society, this idea would be abhorrent at best. The loss of the basic freedom to buy what you like should anger you. Heil Microsoft, I guess.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Notebooks are different in that they tend to be all-in-one solutions, so they tend to include the OS whether you like it or not.
The only way to assemble one is if there's a commodity hardware standard for notebooks or subnotebooks... but there's little chance of that happening since much of the size advantages of subnotebooks is a result of the tight intergration that an all-in-one solution affords.
So you're pretty much stuck buying something OEM.
Personally I can't see why you shy from an iBook. With an iBook, you're paying for Mac OS X anyways.. Although nothing is stopping you from installing Linux on it- once you give OS X a shot you'll probrobly won't need to.
Ok, so I understand the whole Microsoft Tax idea, but I think the same thing could be said for Apple. Why purchase a Mac just to wipe out the drive and install Linux? The higher cost associated with Macs is partly contributed to Mac OS X. I have an XP box, a Red Hat box, and an iBook so I get my daily dose of multi-OS use, and I can't figure out why anyone would pay more money for an iBook just for the hardware. There are plenty of laptop manufacturers out there that provide just as high quality laptops as Apple. Soooo, back to my point: If you don't plan on using OS X, don't buy a Mac!
than the ibook, though i must say i've carried around my son's ibook, and it feels great sizewise. and, they are pretty darn reasonable now. of course, the advantage of booting into osx for itunes and such makes it an even better buy. the g4 powerbook is larger than some of the supersmall x86 machines, but how many of those have slot loading dvd recorders?
These are a stunning laptop. I love mine. Only criticism is that it gets hot. They're small, light, firewire, 2x USB, DVD burner, good battery life, monitor spanning support, built in ethernet and modem ... the list goes on.
The catch is always software. With Mac OS X, you get great software. Better by far than any Linux configuration on the desktop. Want to burn a CD? Insert the bank CD, drag the files onto it, and then eject it ("do you wish to burn this CD?")
How easy is that? I don't have time to fsck around with cdrecord and mkisofs anymore. I just want to burn a goddamned CD. I just want to connect to a wireless network. I just want to watch a DVD. I just want to fire up emacs and write some code. I don't want to tinker and stuff around all day making things work.
So remember, hardware is half the story. Software is the other. If you can take the mac premium price, you get the best of both worlds.
Ash OS durbatulk, ash OS gimbatul, ash OS thrakatulk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul! Uzg-MS-ishi amal fauthut burgulli.
Here is something odd. As people have been posting links I have been eagerly following them. I am noticing a disturbing trend. Every link has led to a place that had laptops on average $500 to $1000 more than the same laptop from a major vendor with windows on it. I am starting to think that we linux lovers may be taking it up the butt the same way that vegetarians get reamed for "Organic" produce..
See a market , exploit that market and I think we may being exploited here.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
with an emperor(sp) laptop, you got a windows machine that simply has linux on it now.
In essence, your buying a windows machine. those laptops are all sonys and ibms and such. they bought the laptops, reformated the hard drives, and installed linux.
"Humanize war? You might as talk about humanizing hell!" -- British Admiral Jacky Fisher
they won't even support their laptops connecting to a non-Apple wireless access point.
oh really. i bought an ibook and called them up when i couldn't connect to my linksys WAP. the guy told me exactly what i needed to do. very helpful. if you want to bash apple, at least know wtf you're talking about.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I decided against saying something terribly insightful about the "Microsoft Tax".
/. populace will ram shit and vinegar down the throats of the companies that build PC laptops because they preload Windows on them, but it seems fine and dandy to pay for a notebook from another supplier, and get the OS you don't want there either. Why?
I *do* find it F*cking hillarious that you would buy and Apple notebook computer, and load linux onto it, and be just as happy.
OHMYGOD: Apple won't sell a laptop without an OS either. THE BASTARDS!
It's quite odd that the
You feel better about paying the "Apple Tax"?
Now, Merits of Mac OS X aside, if the poster wants *Linux* on the desktop, buying an iBook hardly fixes the problem, as a matter of fact, it does just encourages Apple, 'Cause no-one complains.
In an Ideal world, you could buy that notebook Windows free. Trouble is, welcome to earth. Suppliers like companies that build millions a year vs thousands a year. They get cheaper access to the components to build laptops. Even if you find a distributor that ships and OS-free laptop, the added cost for that distributor to build laptops in small quantity would drive up the price, most likely past the point of buying one with Windows included.
Buy the laptop based on what you want it to have, suck it up and chuck away the Windows or MacOS license. Or resell it on ebay.
Now, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
Am I the only one so far that has caught this paradox?
Basically this guy says he wants everything in a 12" PowerBook G4 but says he wants an IA-32 architecture notebook because he hears PCs perform better, then goes on to say performance doesn't matter.
I'd look at how a PowerBook performs compared to a mobile version of an IA-32 processor. Not how a Mac and a PC compare in desktops, especially since you're going to be running Linux, which I really don't know why you'd not go for the Mac because you get Mac OS X, Classic, plus the ability to run everything Linux runs with a recompile.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
i have a 12", 700mhz/256mb ibook. all my linux apps that i need are there. especially a nice vim port. i run X with gimp, and it runs great, while i am testing mysql/php on apache, have mail open, mozilla, and assorted other stuff. and it doesn't lag at all. i don't know what all the bitching about speed is about. of course i can't "compile a kernel in 5 minutes...", but i have all the power i need. no, i'm not playing UT2K3.
and, the best part, i get 3.5-4 hours battery, plus, the it truly is a laptop. i can leave it my lap for hours. everything just works. usb, firewire, cd-rw, etc. yes, i have gotten all to work fine in linux. i use linux in my classroom. have for a few years. i was thinking seriously about a dell, or powernotebook.com laptop. but i ended up with the ibook simply because it is a sub 5 pound unix laptop and i didn't want to pay the m$ tax either. if you measure the price, you're not giving up too much with an ibook compared to a PC laptop. and you're getting a ton more. just get minimum 256mb, preferrably 384mb.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Buy a Used Laptop. Someone else may already have consumed a MS license on that hardware, true, but you will not be consuming one yourself. None of your money will be heading to Redmond (unless you account for the effect of resale value of hardware that was originally sold with a MS license).
:-)
eBay is a great place to start looking
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
You win.
Man, if you're looking at the white iBook and you say it's too heavy then you're in for a trouble. At 2.2 kgs that thing is light enough, lighter than about 90% of laptops there is. There goes 90% of your choice.
:)
Then you want one with long battery life, and most laptops nowadays have 2-3 hours. I approximate there goes another 70% of what's left of your choice.
Also you'd like one with USB, Firewire, ethernet, and wifi support. I think you can get USB and ethernet built in, and wifi is probably there too, but firewire is relatively new in the PC space, so you'll probably gonna need one in a PCMCIA card. The problem is usually PCCards are power hogs, so you won't get the full maximum battery life out of it. Beats me how iBook did it and still have a decent battery life. I approximate you lost another 60%-70% here.
The problem is you don't want to pay for windows at all. Most PC laptop manufacturer today simply don't want to bother refunding windows because most laptop devices require very specific driver to work. For example Toshiba doesn't even have a BIOS setup, all is done through an app in windows. The last laptop I've used that has a BIOS like in desktops (and you'll _definitely_ need one of it) is Dell. But none of Dell's models are lighter and smaller than the iBook.
So in conclusion:
1. Your choice is extremely small, if you did find one exactly like your spec, maybe it'll be just one machine with no other choice.
2. Some of your requirements are contradicting one another, try to loosen up in some area.
3. Even when you did find one, it'll probably be extremely expensive. Or, it'll be of very low quality from an unknown manufacturer.
I think your only choice is that iBook you're looking at in the first place. It's just a tad heavier and bigger than you like. The only other viable option is the Picture Book from Sony, but you'll have to swallow the windows license there.
I got the same problem before, as I already owned a Win2000 CD, and I needed to purchase two laptops. Mind you, I purchased them _in sequence_ and they blow up in sequence as well, so no two copies of them running at the same time, blah blah blah. In short me and my windows CD are perfectly law abiding. But no, I have to buy _another_ windows with each laptop I bought. Now I have multiple copies of 2000 and XP scattered around, and me end up paying MS tax multiple times.
It's pretty frustrating, I know, but trying to get what I wanted was extremely difficult (I needed a high performance one. Light, and small if possible) and the chance of finding it was small. In your case, it's very miniscule.
My suggestion is don't try to look for something that doesn't exist, you'll be wasting your time and energy getting frustrated. Get that damned iBook instead
Just pay the extra $25 dollars.
Is there something wrong with someone standing up for principles? I think you should be able to buy hardware without buying software (and iBooks don't accomplish this) , regardless of how little it turns out to be when you work out the math. I'm told that MS makes most of their windows-license money from new PC's, so it certainly is not an insignificant amount ($25 is much less than I have heard from other sources)
Just wondering-the author was looking to buy an iBook, but is blantantly opposed to paying the M$ tax. What about the Apple tax that come with Apple hardware? Apple won't sell hardware without an OS.
The iBook is cute, but, IMHO overpriced. Moreso, the lack of a PC Card slot and the lack of IR means I won't be getting one.
The author is going out of his way to avoid giving MS any money for something he won't use, but seemed to have no problem paying apple for software he won't use. My point is perhaps he should not be outright opposed to buying windows if he gets a better machine. Windows "only" adds maybe $30 to the cost of a PC.
This is the problem. You say just pay the extra $25, but paying that extra allows Microsoft to keep thier control. You can't buy a computer (aside from a Mac) without Windows because everyone is so willing to just pay the $25. It's my $25 and I don't want to have to spend it on something I don't want, and not everyone wants a Mac.
"When you can no longer buy computers without Windows, you have lost the most basic right of a consumer - the ability to choose what product you spend your money on."
I would argue differently: When you can no longer buy computers without Windows, the market for computers without Windows is too small/unprofitable for a company to take advantage of. I love it when people say, "Microshit is junk/sucks/etc." I always respond that Microsoft must be doing something right, because 90%+ of desktop computers around the world run Windows. There's a obviously a *market* for Windows software and with 90%+ of market penetration, I'd say that Windows is excellent (there's not many products and industries with marketshare like that).
Nonsense. MicroSoft has been engaged in conduct that violates anti-trust laws, and much of their financial success is based on their predatory conduct, not on the merits of their products.
To me (and apparently to the author of this topic article) paying money to MicroSoft is like supporting organized crime. I'm not going to admire organized crime for its financial success and conceed that it "must be doing something right," even if I am trapped into having to deal with them, somehow.
When MicroSoft plays fair (or at least plays legal) and makes a big profit, I'll be impressed. As long as they continue their criminal conspiracy to violate antitrust laws, I'm going to continue to feel soiled every time I'm touched in any way by their lousy software.
Adrian
Who would of thought that over half the people answering this question suggested iBooks or Powerbooks?
Think this would of happened 2 years ago?
Alternatively there is the "Apple tax". If they ever garner an appreciable market share we'll be answering this exact same question reguarding iBooks.
The difference is that Apple sells computers and software... MS just sells software. You will never, ever, ever be in a position of having to pay Apple anything for a [Toshiba | Sony | Dell] laptop.
Oh, unless you count FireWire licensing! ;-)
Give me fifty quid or I'll cut your throat. Multiply your hourly rate by the time taken up with finding the police, going to court, and talking to your lawyer, congratulations, you've lost money in the long run.
Get it?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I have another suggestion:
Get very cheap one like $700 HP ZE4209 from Staples or Dell. Delete Windows XP.
Donate $150 to EFF. Use tax exempt.
This is much more than HP paid to Microsoft!
And you get a cheap brand name notebook too!
Kubus
Hi,
... - laptop manufacturer, and only Dell was willing to sell me one without a payment for the OS.
...
:)
...
:)
...
:?
:))
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:)
:P
I live in Belgium, Europe - and I tried calling every - Toshiba, Sony, Compaq, Dell, Mac, Acer, Siemens,
Typically - the salesperson or manager would go like "your computer will not work without Win XP" or something like that ; I confronted them that I would never be using the installed XP OS and so on, and every time when I stated that I wanted to run Linux on it, or eventually - that I already had a legal copy of Win 2000 that was just fine for me to install - they would switch me to another operator higher in the "chain of command"
There - I learnt that because of OEMs with MS, they were not allowed to sell a laptop without an MS license, unless the quantity would be > 1000 pieces.
So - I figured that Dell would be the nicest of them, considering their ads state they uncercut competition
I kept calling there, and after four times hearing the same song that my computer is useless without Windows OS (go figure), I got connected to this person who was willing to send and sell me a laptop without OS - meaning I got a +/- 150$ discount on the machine.
So - I called back all the other companies - being a pain in the ass that I normally am in such situations - and tell them about Dell doing this favour for me. While before, they were stating to me that absolutely "NO" company whatsoever would be giving me a discount -some companies ( Toshiba, Compaq) stated that there were plans for doing so within six months, and talks were ongoing, since apparently I was not the only one to call in with questions like this
One fun detail though : when I received my shipment with my shiny Inspiron 8200 - Win XP was installed, and !!! the official DELL CD with the OS backup thing to reinstall, was included as well, meaning I got an official copy so to speak.
All the same - on my invoice - there was clearly a mention of the fact that I got a 150$ discount for not wanting the OS installed on it
So - apparently, from what I heard from the salesperson when I contacted him again on the matter of the included CD - they are obliged at Dell to send the laptop with the Windows installed, because that is their check to see if all the hardware is performing right
And it probably would have costed them more even in manhours to remove it again, once installed.
It is strange though - that they were still sending the CD along
My recommendation - bug every company as much as you can to sell you one without OS. Then - if they don't want to - tell them that they leave you no other choice than buying with the competition (be sure to mention the model you wanted to buy from them - I used to think I heard the salesperson's hair getting up from shrinking profits
If nothing works- go to Dell.com - tell them explicitly you don't want an OS installed, and try several times until you get a person who is willing to help you
BTW - I did this not so long ago for a company as well, and they got a discount too, for not installing the OS ; this one was blank however, no Win installed, and no CD's either ; there was a DOS disk included though - which also struck me as weird, but hey - another 150$ discount made it a good day
Good luck
Knowledge first. Social contact later.
You're complaining about the ~$50 "tax" for Windows? Hardly seems worth worrying about in the context of a machine worth >= $2000.
:)
I'd rather buy from a well-respected laptop manufacturer which offers me good support, a good warranty, and good components even if it means that I have to pay the $50 or so "tax" for Windows. (You'll also get your first legal copy of Windows.
There are a few problems with Sager. 1.Those things are expensive compared to the big retailers. 2. M$ noticed the no OS option, and it sadly, is gone, it happened while I was shopping for a notebook, and they had a "according to the new Microsoft volume licensing we are no longer able to offer Systems without Microsoft Windows" sort of message up for a few days. 3. He said small, Sager doesn't make small laptops (smallest is a 14.1"@about 7lbs)