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HP Linux Laptop Is A Winner
minus_273 writes "MSNBC is currently running a story on the front page reviewing the new HP Linux laptops. In a story titled 'H-P's first Linux laptop a winner', the article provides a brief look at the accomplishments and some of the shortcomings of the nx5000; a new inexpensive HP business laptop that comes with SUSE installed. The author seems extremely happy about how everything just works out of the box and mentions the significance of the product. Could HP+SUSE go the way of Apple+BSD and become an option for those that want friendly non-windows laptop? Releasing an easy to use Linux system is a good first step." We mentioned this laptop a few weeks ago.
Walmart notebook Mobile Athlon 1600+... $600 flat!!! Rip away Win XP home edition and you got one nice but cheap litle screamer. I hope they come up with a Linux edition though, for a few bucks less.
I put Gentoo on my HP ze5600, and I have been quite impressed. The winmodem works, the ATI Radeon works, the WiFi works with NDIS Wrapper, and even ACPI hibernate mode seems to work fine. I hope that companies like HP continue to support more variety in their OS options.
Slate.com recommended dumping IE for Firefox: http://www.slate.com/id/2103152/ Salon also had a similar reaction, but isn't owned by Microsoft. Slate, however, may be on the block.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
I didn't see any price quote from the article
hard to see a quote from the article if you didn't even read the article...
"Street prices for the nx5000 will begin at $1,140.Add extra memory, a larger hard drive, a DVD writer, a better screen plus 802.11g and the total should be a lot more."
Also worth noting, is that is right in the same ballpark as the Apple iBooks in performance and features and cost...
I bought a Mac (iBook G4 14") because I was sick of the increasingly poor quality of Intel based laptops. My last Toshiba cost me £1500 and it didn't even last 18 month before it was dead. My iBook cost me £1000 and it is already 10 months old and still in great shape having been used just as much as the Toshiba was. By this point the Toshiba case was cracked and chipped, the paint had rubbed off where my palms rest and the screen was starting to flicker. Eventually the battery died and then the screen failed.
I never used Windows on my laptops, I always made sure they could run decently with Linux. The best bit with the Mac is it is Unix and everything works right out of the box.
I think it is good that Intel based laptops are appearing with Linux preinstalled but I still think a Mac is better value. This is my first Mac and it definitely won't be my last.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
They [HP] are charging the same price for the laptop loaded with MS XP (not Pro) and Suse 9.1. I was kinda hoping that it'd actually be cheaper.
Msword is a security liability.
So is explorer.
I can play files targeted for WMP just fine under Linux. A number of the newer Linux media players will gladly exploit Win32 codec DLLs.
Your bulletpoints are not compelling.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Perhaps I am a complete and utter idiot. Which is entirely possible. Does anyone see the option on the web site to include Suse in place of WinXP? I can't find it anywhere. I wanted to customize a system to see what it would cost. Possibly even consider buying one 1) because my Compaq 1800t is starting to show it's age, and 2) to help show that there IS a market out there for Linux desktops/laptops.
When it comes to replacing my laptop, an HP would not have been my first choice, but if I can get it WITHOUT paying the MSFT tax, that's a HUGE plus for them. (for those who may point out HP/Compaq are the same, yes, but I bought my laptop shortly BEFORE the merger was announced).
There has been a good SuSE (actually in this case Java Desktop System) Linux business laptop that "just works" out for 9 months now. The Tadpole Talin 15". The also now have the 12 inch screen model available.
... but then again HP's brandname hasn't been that great for awhile now anyway.
... just pointing out some other alternatives.
Not as big a brand name as HP
The Tadpole machines may be more expensive (no way for me to know, I got my Talin 15 as a demo box and their website doesn't say) so I'm not saying you should definitely get this one over the HP box if that is a concern
Things in this respect are definitely improving.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
hibernation on my toshiba tecra 8100 with kernel 2.6.8.1 works perfectly, with latest kernel patches. I use debian so a line in /etc/apt/sources.list :
./
/sbin/hibernate' to "sleep" button in my session manager. I also had set up sleepd to hibernate when battery drops to 5% (which is usually 2 hours).
deb http://cp.yi.org/apt/hibernate
makes sure I have latest hibernate scripts.
I just assigned 'sudo
And, yes - there is a glitch - if I hibernate with blender or glxgears running, then after restore the 3d acceleration gets screwed up, and sooner or later I want to restart Xserver anyway (graphic card is s3 savage).
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
Same big disappointment I found when I learned Dell was supposed to be working with Linux.
r od uctLineId=430&FamilyId=1776&jumpid=re_R2515_store/ smProdCat/PSG/notebooks/HP_nx5000_notebook
When I click Customize, the stupid site did NOT give me the option of changing the Operating System. It's hardcoded as Windows XP (here was the first clue: it's an ASP page....
It's possible that I may have looked in the wrong place.
http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/ctoBases.asp?P
Anyone else have any luck actually trying to order this thing?
We must drive a sword through any hypothesis that is not strictly necessary.
I was gonna say rtfa, but I won't... :)
Wifi: Hp has added another wifi adapter that is supported ny linux. So the intel one just sits there idle.
It's not the first MSNBC story to question the superiority of Microsoft:
(Posting with IE under Gentoo, and I miss the tabs :)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I can't comment on the HP machine, but am running Suse 9.1 on my Gateway 200X. The CPU throttling, fan, and disk management worked without any fiddling. I had to turn on the suspend to disk, because Suse defaults this off. This was easy, but couldn't (as far as I know) be done from within YAST. I had to change one switch in '/etc/powersave.conf'. The suspend-to-ram is flakey, and I've heard it is not well developed yet. It will suspend just fine, and the light on the front of the case starts blinking (just like it does under a Windows standby), but nothing short of pulling the plug will allow the machine to turn back on. None of the buttons are responsive (under windows, I just hit the power button).
As for wifi, the centrino chip now works under SuSE 9.1. You have to install the proper firmware, but this shows up when you run your first software update. Otherwise, it works fine - even WEP.
I think what this says is not so much that hardware is becoming better, but that SuSE 9.1 is really quite good.
maybe that's because I'm scared of having to recompile my kernel... :)
don't be. just put both kernels (your old one and the new one) into your bootloader. if the new one fails, just use the old one and retry
HP is intentionally targetting the enterprise market with this laptop and have stated this multiple times in the past.
Cnet even has a video where an HP representative tells us that HP is targetting enterprises and that they're doing this more as a trial run to work out kinks and see what improvements users request before they put more resources into this segment.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
> 1) Standard control panel through EVERY distro & desktop environment. Gnome and KDE need to learn how to play nice. Obviously, this will involve some work at lower levels by others. We need everyone to create some STANDARDS here.
You could maybe lend a hand. The source is available, you know. First problem to tackle : write configuration software that will parse *any* configuration file thrown at it. That's not so trivial. Some configuration files have very hairy syntax (*cough* Sendmail *cough*). Next, make sure your software doesn't do a big mess while writing changes, this will irk power users (I did make a clean, commented /etc/fstab, and the stupid Mandrake configuration tool wrote back a mangled thing without comments or indentation. This is not acceptable). I wish you good luck. This ain't a piece of cake, to say the least.
Still, there are efforts in this area. One example would be the GNOME System Tools. Although I won't settle for something less than stellar, this kind of software could satisfy you. As for your demand that everything should be the same from distro to distro, I just can't understand why that would be. The very point of having more than one distro is, we get to choose which one is best suited to our working methods. And, generally, we end up settling on one preferred distro and we don't move anymore (instead, we go trolling on Web forums saying it is the best distro ;-)) For my part, I chose Debian. But I guess it wouldn't please you. That's why you'll be so happy when you'll be able to get Mandrake or SuSE (or Fedora, or Gentoo, or even Slackware, whatever).
> 2) An installer. n00b's don't know what the hell a freakin' tar.gz file is and once they do figure it out, they don't know to where they should extract it. If Linux had a standardized software installer (complete with a dedicated file extension that could be "picked up" from a browser click)
An installer... you mean, like apt-get ? You know, that tool you just tell 'install foobar', and it downloads and installs the program foobar ? Or would you like some graphical thingie like Synaptic, where you just click on the program, then on Install ? Don't tell me you're still building from source without some specific reason on a 2004 distro ? That's SO nineties ;-) Also, I gather you want the files to have specific extensions. I'm not sure why (MIME types are way better metadata to identify files), but be advised the .rpm and .deb extensions are just that. Ain't life cool ?
> 3) Rules for software companies. Right now, there's no problems with this as there are with Windows because Linux hasn't become mainstream. What am I talking about? Software installs run amok. I hate to see Windows programs putting shortcuts *everywhere*
Then, you'll just LOVE Linux : you see, the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard specifies very clearly where files go on a Linux distribution : binaries (executables) in /usr/bin, libraries in /usr/lib, data files in /usr/share/{programname}, and so on. The menus also have been unified between KDE and GNOME. Not to mention that package management makes it a lot easier to know what your package has really installed, and you'll be sure to find your configuration and documents in your home directory. No more nightmares finding them in C:\Program Files\Foobar\Obscure\Path\Name\You\Would\Never\Hav e\Thought\Of. Linux makes managing your software a breeze :-)
That's it. I hope I've been helpful, and I wish you good luck in your quest for a better Linux. But remember : diversity and freedom to experiment with your own solutions is what appeals so much to Linux users. A more rigid f
Xenu brings order!
Gnome and KDE will always have some different config requirements because, well, they're different systems. There will always be some things they do differently - just like vi and emacs have different configs. However, where I agree with you is that the stuff that is common - dealing with X, with hardware config, font rendering and so on - should be configged in a similar way. Obviously there will have to be different clients (Qt and GTK+), but the backend should be the same (if that is true then the clients will probably evolve similarly anyway).
Fortunately a lot of the work I see going on on freedesktop.org seems to be heading in this direction. It won't happen immediately, but I think in 3-4 years gnome and KDE (as well as other DEs) will be able to play very nicely together with minimal effort.
As for the installation / deinstallation stuff you mention, there's already pretty good standards for this (LSB). Most distributions adhere quite well to it, and the installation / deinstallation is managed very well by apt or rpm or various front-ends (take your pick). Generally, people who need to know how to deal with source tgzs are experienced enough to deal with them fine; certainly, for commercial software a company would be insane not to offer it as a deb or rpm - these are the de facto standards now. You're worrying about a problem that has already been solved.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
This MAY be great news, but it feels more like a publicity stunt... I'm willing and ready to purchase one and not go through all the hoops of converting a windows box.... Just try and go to the HP site and in a straightforward way navigate to the laptop with linux. What a pain! And, at least in my case, when you finally find the model, and click through to "customize", you'll NOT find linux listed there as an option for OS anymore. Go figure.
Of course, ymmv.... I'm sure someone will try and find linux and claim it is there and easy to find. But, I navigated, and drilled down about four or five different ways, and never really ended up with an option I was looking for. (This is about two or three times more than I normally afford a web site when looking for something -- before moving on to some easier to use business selling the same item.)
Additional disclaimer: it may not be only "hiding" linux -- I've shopped the HP web site before and had similar frustrating experience just trying to find a normal laptop or desktop with the configuration I wanted. But, finding the linux configuration was well nigh impossible.
The main complaint the article highlighted was with changing between network connections, something that both Novell and Red Hat have been working on recently. If you follow Planet Gnome at at, you'd see that both companies have just released glimpses of their upcoming programs which address this very real annoyance with Linux on laptops.
The other complaint they had was with installing new applications, which shouldn't be a big deal with Red Carpet or Yum (especially if Red Hat/Fedora ever ships with a nice GUI front-end to that). Desktop Linux is rolling along rather nicely, good to see.
501 Not Implemented
Er; that's sleep mode, not hibernate. Unless there's some option I'm missing on my iBook, I don't think OS X has a way to hibernate completely like Windows laptops/desktops do. That said, the battery on my iBook, in sleep mode, lasts almost a full *week* of non-use, so it's not a big deal.
Comment of the year
Let's just hope nobody tells my wlan nic, otherwise I'll have to resort to fast ethernet.
I am currently at the kde conference in Ludwigsburg, Germany and working on one of these NX5000 notebooks. Hewlett-Packard was nice enough to sell them for about 580 EUR, which is about 700 USD, to kde developers.
However, our laptop models included the intel wireless 2200BG card, otherwise known as the dreaded centrino card. But what surprise, the driver from SourceForge works. Sometimes a bit flakey though, but it works...
Otherwise I am quite happy with the NX5000. The thing looks quite stable, has mostly supported hardware and sports a pair of superb speakers.
All in all, quite a nifty device for a very reasonable price.
Why? On the Mplayer Download Page, they have all the codecs you will ever need. I have yet to run into an audio/video file I was not able to play in Linux with Mplayer. Just download the Mplayer coded DLL files and put them all in /usr/lib/win32, and now Xine, Totem and Mplayer will play _everything_ you throw at them.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
I use mplayer or xine+libdecss to play encripted dvds under Suse 9.0/9.1. They are both OK; myself I prefer xine. Kafeine uses libxine,if libdecss is installed, it also plays encripted dvds. A fourth choice is ogle. You DONT NEED proprietary software!
You can download the source code of libdecss from many places, for example from www.videolan.org. Compile it and you are all set! Under linux you can play any dvds, it does not matter if they are for Region 1, 2, 3,4,5 they just work!
Yes, but when its not entirely off, it still produces some heat, and storing it inside a laptop case in the trunk of my car which gets over 100 degrees can't be good for the laptop which is on, but in sleep mode (using minimal power, but still on).
Configuring XP is quite frankly miles ahead of Linux. Mainly because nearly everything is in a centralized place!. Yes, I click control panel and I can change nearly anything I have to day to day.
I still think that the points that the OP said are very, very valid. They are the 3 points which infuriate me more than anything.
Oh also, apt-get is useless - you need to know the repositries, and commerical software is not going to be delivered that way. Installshield/Microsoft installer does a far better job. Personally, I think OSX does the best job at this, a very, very clean installer that is web aware.However, the autopackage folks are doing a damn great job, and we need to really help projects like this, and the freedesktop initive get off the ground.