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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.
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.
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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Try to customize this laptop on HP's website and you'll find "Note for SuSE Linux: MultiBay DVD+RW and Intel PRO wireless not supported."
I pretty much got fed up making linux on the laptop work and just sold off my Dell to pick up a iBook. If this had been an option at the time, I may have considered it. As it is, OSX has all the unixy goodness plus none of the hassle.
HP said Tuesday it will be the first major PC maker to ship a business notebook computer pre-installed' with Linux.
Hardly. I owned an IBM T20 which qualifies as a business notebook computer and it shipped with Linux years ago. Here is the coverage from June 19/2000.
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
Hmm, I think you've got it wrong. It actually goes something like this:
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I presume you mean the SD slot as media card...
The SD consortium folks did not publish enough information for open source drivers. You had to sign various agreements to see the specs, etc.
However, this situation is now changing...
Our dear Redmond friends recently asked them for permission to ship SD drivers in source form; we (HP) said "sure, so long as open source drivers are possible". So this got them off the dime to open up SD implementations (at least the software side; they are keeping the mechanical and electrical specs locked up; they want to ensure interoperability of the hardware, and enforce it as part of the contracts you have to sign to get access to those specs).
So the programming specs are getting opened up; this should have taken place by now. This didn't happen in time for the Nx5000.
There is an SD driver developed independently on the iPAQ handheld for Linux from information that had already leaked out over the last several years; this needs further work for particular SD chip implementations. But it was problematical to distribute, at least by a member of the SD group.
At least it is now possible for do drivers, not possible in the past. I don't know how long it will take to get support done for a particular implementation; if you are interested, go for it!
- Jim
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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