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HP Thailand Sells $450 Linux Laptop
greyrax writes "The revolution has begun! Seems that the Thailand branch of HP is selling Linux-based laptops for $450. The government of Thailand is now talking to Dell Thailand about a similar arrangement."
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What kind of laptops? How many of these were they selling (as many as people would buy or a fixed number)? Can Anyone buy one? Can I buy one over the internet? Would I want to buy one? The list goes on. Anyone have any links to know the answers to any of these questions?
$450? I somehow doubt this is a particularly excellent piece of hardware. I mean, even accounting for the "M$ tax" as it were (which is negligible when applied in bulk OEM licenses anyway) and considering that it's difficult to find a decent laptop for under $800... well, I think this is kinda fishy.
Is it an english keyboard? Can I buy one without having to learn Thai??
Witty or funny here...but you know what, that is just a helluva deal. You don't find that many Linux based portables as it is, and finding one at this price would be great.
Now how about spreading the love to those of us in U.S.?
I just bought an HP notebook a few months ago (here in the U.S., where I couldn't avoid the M$ tax). Since then I've seen another HP notebook with a faster Athlon and bigger hard disk (40 gig vs. 30 gig) for the same $850 I paid. Considering that HP will build the systems with 20, 30 or 40 gig drives, will put a 14.5 inch rather than a 15 inch screen, give a choice of CPU, and will sell it with a DVD drive rather than the DVD/CDRW drive I got, it certainly makes sense that you can get a decent Linux notebook for this price, although I would expect a 40 gig version with a DVD/CDRW drive and a hot processor to certainly be more. But HP could well sell decent notebooks here at that price too if they dropped the M$ tax.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The government of Thailand is the real force behind this move. That is an interesting development, has Microsoft ever taken on a government before? (I'm kidding) I wonder who has more cash?
The fact that Linux has no licensing fee does give these machines a competitive advantage, especially if the user intends on puchasing a pirated copy of Windows. In fact, this government-sponsored initiative also gives an advantage to the software pirates, i.e., it gives them a new market. Hmm, is this a good idea? Is there any fair way to avoid this? Or is it that Microsoft creates their own disadvantage here by way of their licensing policies and fees?
The bulk of the TCO for these machines is assumed to be end user support. Really? If you install a kernel especially suited to the hardware on the laptop, I'd think support would be down. I've struggled very hard with Linux (Debian and Slackware) over the years, but it's always been over hardware issues. Once I learnt enuff Perl to do stuff, use of the Linux environment has been natural and intuitive for me.
In Windows, I am still a stranger in a strange land. I still can't get Windows to do what I want it to do on a regular basis, but hardware setup is usually pretty smooth. If I had been wise enough to ask someone smarter than I to build my kernel for each Linux box I have deployed, I would have spent WAY less time and money on support for them compared to the Windows machines. Is my experience so unique as to be counter to the conventional wisdom? How did the Thai Ministry conclude that they must anticipate higher support costs?
The best way to do is to be.
That's plenty more than the 300 MHz Celeron I'm using for my desktop at home. And I have few complaints about it. And my 300 MHz laptop, running XP of all things, isn't terribly bad, either.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Rock out. That is precisely *twice* the specs of the laptop I'm running Gentoo on now. This would be a sweet little upgrade for next to nothing (as far as laptops go).
:) I guess the question is, exactly how cheap are the bits inside, and are the drivers open?
I'd be very interested to see what the peripheral options for this box are. For example:
* Wireless networking capability?
* PCMCIA slots? Media card slots?
* Docking station?
* Battery type and life?
Another nice spec to have would be the internals. Since they're putting linux on it, I suppose we can all assume that they are using compatable hardware
GMFTatsujin
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
As a loving owner of some Via processors let me say that I wouldn't let that stop you. They compete well against an equivilant speed of Celeron processor and run cooler and quieter. I have a lot of different CPUs running around my lan and the via are my current favorites.
:)
For a fun project you could buy a cheap lcd monitor and a mini-itx mobo with via cpu and build your own laptop. It'd be pretty easy to remove the monitor from it's case and then you'd just have to make a new case, add a dc-dc power converter, some ram, a hdd, and you prefered input devices. The only hard part would be making your own case.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
It would be an interesting day if Microsoft decided to go the services route. Would be worthwhile to see at least.
hardware setup is usually pretty smooth
Case in point:
We just got some new desktops for the office. None had OS as we were replacing old gear.
I installed, redhat 9, on mine, networked it with my old box, set up an scp to transfer by home dir, went for coffee. Applied all os patches from rhn, installed the nvidia drivers, so I can play quake. Done, total time ~3 hours.
The competition?
Day 1: Installed win2k, had some issue with license key, hunted around for key, gave up, went to warez. Finished install. Unable to connect to network, checked dhcp server, no issue, read news groups.
Second day - Found alternate network driver, got network running, spent rest of day looking for install disks and more keycodes.
And so on... nobody else has been able to switch their computers yet, its been a week, and their new machines are just sitting there.
Yeah, windows is easier to install, sure...
I for one can't wait as I'd like to sell a good well supported Laptop with a good OS, and HP tech support has always had an excellent reputation.
I think in a coupla years time when the suits have had time to play around with their Linux laptops, they won't be so unhappy to wave goodbye to Microsoft, after all if this Linux thing turns out to be shit they can always call them back in to clean up the mess.
However Linux isn't and won't be shit.
Economic Left/Right: -0.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
Umm... you do know that debt is mostly owed to citizens, business, and the federal reserve (which is by the way a private institution, nothing federal about it). Something they neglect to mention, foreign powers actually owe the US money, not the other way around.
...the latest statistics I find say that 42% of our federal debt is held by foreigners.
Except that a VERY large portion fo the citizens and businesses to which the debt is owed are foreigners...