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HP Releases Linux-Based Notebook
SteamyMobile writes "As the article says, 'In a sign the Linux operating system may be gaining traction beyond server and other back-room systems, HP said Tuesday it will be the first major PC maker to ship a business notebook computer pre-installed' with Linux. This is great news because, as anyone who has ever tried to run Linux (or even Windows XP) on a laptop knows, laptops come with all kinds of funky hardware, and it's often a mess trying to find and configure the right kernel modules to make things like software suspend work correctly. Having it shipped pre-loaded, and with support, makes it easy for me to decide where I'm getting my next laptop. Linux has been ready for the desktop for a while now, but it is good to see companies like HP acknowledging that."
I'd be more impressed with HP's Linux offerings if they'd support the current crop of laptops out there, specifically the ones with Broadcom wireless drivers and media card slots. Sure, I managed to wrestle the wireless drivers into submission and usability, but the media slots have no hope of ever being usable at this state.
Novices don't fix the wear and tear. They pay people to do it, buy new computers, or simply deal with - and complain about - the fact that their computer is slow, spy/adware ridden, and broken.
And will HP be providing tech support for users who have problems with Linux (yeah yeah, I know there are few problems with Linux/Suse, but you never know...)?
What happens when it comes time for my annual reinstall?
If HP is smart, they'll do what they do for their windows products... Include a backup partition or a restore CD/DVD that you can restore everything too. I mean seriously, novices are in the dumper anyway when fixing wear and tear on their Windows boxes. I ought to know, about half my income from my consulting business is repairing windows machines for home users.
There is no reason at all that HP couldn't have a default restore utility that works exactly like their windows restore. Just wipes the drive, and puts everything back the way it was when they got it on day one. That is hardly unfeasible. I could write a perl script...
Think for yourself, destroy your television.
What annual reinstall? The only reason you have to reinstall Windows once a year or more often is that the Registry, .ini files and other system files gradually get corrupted because any program can alter them in whatever way they want. Linux doesn't have that problem because programs can only alter their own .configure files, not the basic system ones.
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ACPI and to a lesser extent APM are a struggle in Linux. I didn't realize this until I bought my 15" Powerbook. Now I know. The next killer app/functionality for Linux is laptop compatibility/wireless. Show me that sleep/sus[pend will work out of the box and my management will be sold since the release of Evolution/exchange connector.
This guy is way out there
I'm not asking for them to support some funky ISA bus card cage docking station (or worse), I'm asking them to support current hardware that enjoys Windows support. I don't think that's unreasonable to ask for. I'm sure they're not re-inventing their product line by offering a Linux compatible machine (and if they are, perhaps they should make the hardware changes across the board to all of their laptops).
>> .....and BonziBuddy doesn't run on it.
>>
>Not Yet!
Ya ever hear people complaining that it can be difficult to install some new software on Linux, what with permissions, dependencies and every distro arranging things differently and all?
As it turns out, there's also an upside to that.
KFG
Although I agree that the desktop needs some work, your complaints are almost all irrelevant to an HP laptop with Linux preinstalled.
Its clunky to configure irrelevant if it is preinstalled as it is already configured.
has issues with even common hardware (many manufacturers still refuse to ship Linux drivers) hopefully this is not a problem for the preinstalled version, though there have been examples of linux laptops shipped with hardware that just does not work.
comes with an RTFM mentality for support Apparently this comes with HP support.
and requires you to fiddle with initialization scripts again irrelevant for a pre-installed laptop.
What's more open office is a poor replacement for MS Office, and the same is true where there are apps to replace the industry standard. This complaint is the only one of 5 that is legitimate for a preinstalled machine.