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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."
Linux isn't only ready for the desktop, it's ready for the laptop too!!! And I also have an HP laptop which I'm happy about, where gentoo runs without any trouble on "standard" laptop parts. Only tricky bit was getting the DRI to work with the radeon mobility u1, but even that was easy. Go HP!
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Fink said the launch is a test "so that we can see the take up we get for this particular product."
Soooo.... if the "take up" is insufficient, then the test failed? Where is the customer left in that case?
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From the looks at it, the price is work it just for having wireless configured. It's a real PITA.
This does look really nice though, and I'm glad to see that they are using Suse, which seems to be the best "User Oriented" distrobution out there. I'm actually a little suprised that they can make a notebook no more expensive than it is with all supported hardware, as I've noticed Linux compatible hardware tends to be a wee bit more expensive than non-supported hardware.
I do have two concerns though, first off is the quality of the notebook. OS aside, if the hardware isn't robust enough to stand up to lots of abuse, then it won't sell well and someone will probably blame that on Linux. The second concern I have is that while Suse Professional is wonderful, the personal edition seems to really lack some important things (like a compiler. I don't care if your not a developer, if your using linux at some point you will want to install software that has to be compiled for your system).
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
The article points out that there's only a $60 difference between the Linux-equiped laptop and the comparable model from HP running Windows. Am I the only one who thinks that's exactly what HP is paying for their OEM licenses since they buy it bulk? (A Foogle search reveals that there are many web outlets who will gladly sell you an OEM Windows XP Home copy for about $80-$100, provided you also buy a piece of hardware at the same time to keep the transaction within Microsoft's rules.)
What happens when it comes time for my annual reinstall?
You put in the 'rescue' disk and click on "Yes".
There, not so hard, is it?
Not that I've ever had to do a reinstall of Linux for maintenance purposes. It doesn't fragment, crud up or slow down and BonziBuddy doesn't run on it.
KFG
Would be reliable suspend/resume to/from disk and memory, with all devices waking up correctly. I've heard that Powerbooks with Linux can do that, but I don't own one (yet)..
I know that I should be "grateful for what I have", but I've got a couple gripes about "linux on laptops". Keep in mind, however, that I own an IBM Thinkpad X30, and I do run single-boot debian sid on it.
:-/ (Anyone know why hostap stuff hasn't been brought into the main kernel tree?)
1) IBM needs to get their act together and offer Linux support, at the very least, for their laptop line. Their hardware is mostly supported already, but it shouldn't be necessary for me to pay the extra amount for a licensed copy of Windows XP, which I'll never use just to get a well-built laptop. What's more, they're advertising linux for enterprise use, and enterprises use laptops. I don't see how moving to linux couldn't be anything but good for them now, overall - or at least moving in and helping linux laptop development, so that it is soon mature enough for IBM to start offering it at a corporate level on laptops.
2) It would be nice to start getting a little bit better kernel and X support for things like suspend and power ACPI. At the very least a listing somewhere on manufacturer's sites saying, "hey, our hardware needs this specific version of software to work properly if you run Linux" - it's often difficult to find definitive information on such topics, and people will often get things working when others are not able to for odd reasons. Personally, hard or soft suspend do not currently work for me w/ kernel 2.6 and X 4.3 running the dri-trunk debs - on current sid - on my X30. Returning from suspend results in X being borked, requiring a reboot to fix. (Anyone that has information as to why this is occuring, or what the fix might be, and I'd appreciate hearing from you...)
3) Wireless support. I'm not talking solely about drivers, as those have improved significantly* and are on the right road, but wireless tools for useland. As far as I know, it's currently fairly difficult (via waproamd, the only thing I've seen to do this) to get a wireless card to 'roam' from network to network as you go from, say, home or work. There needs to be a good userland tool for this.
4) * The wireless drivers in the kernel itself are still pretty shitty and minimal, and wlan-ng sucks horribly. The hostap 2.x drivers are a significant improvement over the other two in every regard (as far as I've seen), but actual support in the kernel really should be improved.
5) power management tools don't seem to work too well. It's quite possible that I'm simply ignorant on the matter, but tools such as cpudyn and cpufreqd do not scale the processor's speed dynamically when losing AC power, or gaining it again. In my experience, the daemons need to be restarted manually.
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