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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.
I am amazingly surprised that an HP Linux laptop would become a sleeper hit like this. I mean, I thought it wasn't going to get much press and that it would only be purchased by people who really want pre-installed Linux.
I work at a major university. I have been trying forever to get my boss to purchase all our machines with linux on them (he kept claiming that HP required us to buy them with windowsm which was true a while back). We went to Novell brainshare and saw SUSe 9.0 in action and linux has come a long way. SUSE 9.1 "looks even better (more eye candy at least)
It wasn't ready for my laptop about a year and a half ago but maybe now it is.
It's for real. I normally don't go for these things but...Free ipods (click here to get yours) .
However, on the Macs the OS is made to work with the hardware and vice versa. Does it mean that if this picks up. Manufacturers will realize the potential and make sure that their laptop's hardware is Linux friendly as well?
Much can be said for how far Linux has come, but there's a long way to go, especially where finding and configuring hardware is concerned. (Don't reply with the sycophantic "Have you seen how good kxxxawsum is?"; yes, I have.) This looks like a major step.
" I didn't see any price quote from the article"
Like this one?
"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."
Yeah but a apple laptops cost like 9 million times more than a non-apple laptop.
I'd like to especially commend Hewlett-Packard for including LinDVD playback software with this machine. It, too, works right out of the box. When I install Linux on my personal laptops I usually have to buy software to watch a movie.
Is it just me or did this guy's credibility just take a hit? There hasn't been commercial DVD software for Linux for that long and I've certainly never heard of anybody using it over mplayer or xine. I guess he'll be the one linux user (other than all the folks who bought this laptop) who the MPAA won't sue when they get around to stopping us from viewing our own DVDs with our own software.
Mind you, I have never yet managed to get acpi working for Linux on that laptop (Packard bell iGo 4450, really a rebadged NEC Versa E400), but maybe that's because I'm scared of having to recompile my kernel... when the heck will the major distro vendors supply their distros with a precompiled laptop kernel??? or is this just too difficult an option
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I find this unbelievable that Microsoft (MS) would even ALLOW mention of a Linux-based laptop let alone allow comments as if it was something 'positive'. Since MSNBC is a joint effort between MS and NBC we can probably conclude that NBC won this one ^_^.
I don't have much faith in the monopoly that is Microsoft "turning over a new leaf" -- stay tuned some backlash....or a missing article (just like when MS had leaked a method would allow Windows XP Home users to have IIS run on their machines which was soon removed). No, don't worry, if the page returns a 404 File Not Found error we all know it's not cause of massive hits to the page itself... or is it? ^_^
Not to start an argument, but most mainstream hardware devices are actually the ones that do work. It's the less-mainstream hardware that uses a not so popular chipset that you may have trouble with. For example, the Realtek chipset is a very common audio and networking chipset used by many manufacturers. nVidia I know for a fact and ATI, I believe, have created their own actual linux video drivers. So, just about any piece of hardware you get will most likely work when you plug it in. About 80% of hardware I'm guessing.
Don't forget that is just the OS. There's hundreds of $$$ worth of software included with Suse that you would have to go out and buy to be productive with a new win computer.
"For the record, Linux doesn't support Intel's wireless chip."
So I guess I can't possibly be reading this on my Dell 600m on the couch downstairs via my Intel wireless.... it must all be a bad dream. [makes sence seeing as msnbc is praising linux and hp]
*rolls eyes*
http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/
Does anyone else see this as extrodinary that MSNBC did not spin a story towards microsoft for the first time. Its a good step for them, perhaps I should start looking at their news coverage again.
(honestly im not troll hunting here, being serious)
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
I've got a PB iGO4450 too!! :-D
I have SuSE 8.2 Pro installed on it, and I thought the same thing about have to recompile (I think one of the messages implies this). You don't have to. My notes (for SuSE linux btw) are:
"After installing SuSE 8.2 on the PB iGo 4450, ACPI is not enabled. To enable it, simply to into YaST2-->System-->Runlevel Editor-->Runlevel Properties and enable ACPI and check the runlevel 5 box. AFAIK the battery monitor is the only service currently working-- the suspend functions have not been implemented yet."
HTH!
ps. I've also got the modem working... say if you want the notes on how to do this.
whatever....if you read the whole article it comes of as more of a troll.
Tell that to Windows and Mac users and they'll laugh.
etc. etc. I felt betrayed by the linux friendly title. also
" When I install Linux on my personal laptops I usually have to buy software to watch a movie."
does anyone know where i can BUY linux dvd viewing software? I have only used MPlayer in the past.
this sig is deprecated
Yeah, I understand that. But I still end up asking myself, why bother with all that when there's MacOS, which does everything I need, natively.
I'm not saying much here, remember. All I was saying is, none of these systems are perfect, and some of us find MacOS the best choice. Just the best choice for us, the ones who are choosing it. I use Linux in other places. I have my desktop at work and my FTP server running Gentoo. But for my personal computer, my laptop, I'm just looking for certain functionality with the fewest headaches, and for what I want, I chose a Powerbook, in what the OP called a "negative choice". Windows isn't what I'm looking for. Linux doesn't fit the bill. MacOS comes closest, I'll go with it for now.
They get it home, and then they realize that they have to jump through hoops to play this game or open this document from work.
It only takes a bit of education. I mean, i rememeber when i switched my mother's PC to Windows 95 from Windows 3.11, she constantly complained because of the new setup ("Icons are out of place!", "What is this taskbar thing?"). People are lazy, and PC users are the laziest of them all - i don't expect users to become software engenieers, but you can't treat you new laptop like a toaster.
In any case, a well thought desktop distro like SuSE or Mandrake is as easy to use as Windows, if not easier. As long as people isn't expecting a "cheaper Windows" (and i think HP would be smart enough not to publicite it as such), things will work out with time.
I went to HP's website and configured one, and compared to a similarly configured Powerbook at Apple's site, and the HP comes out a lot cheaper, with a similar weight, and a higher resolution display, so it looks like a good choice for a non-Windows laptop, if the keyboard doesn't suck.
So far, the only good keyboard I've found is on ThinkPads. (No Apple dealer within 30 miles of where I live, so I haven't been able to check out Powerbook keyboards yet).
Actually, I'd pay $10-$30 or so for a special add-on CD for SuSE or Red Hat or Gentoo or whatever that had licensed codec add-on software (e.g. Microsoft, Apple, Frauenhofer codec plugins to mplayer or xine).
There may be a market for this....
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Of course I never understood why using "Start -- Suut down -- turn off the computer" and then closing the lid would cause windows XP to hibernate, and when I powered up again later, it booted, finished shutting down and turned off.
The comparison is flawed.
Apple does not provide "just" BSD. They have heavily customized (in fact forked) BSD and build that wonderful GUI, installation, configuration, ...etc. on top of it. Third party ISVs know that they have to deal with only a finite set of variables on the OS. Mac OS X is not available on any other hardware architecture than what Apple makes. They have a limited set of supported peripherals, ...etc. This gives the users much fewer surprises from incompatibilities and such.
On the other hand, HP just makes the hardware. There are endless aftermarket peripherals available for it (granted much less than a desktop). They do not have their own fork of SuSE, nor any special GUI on top of it. Hence, one can get SuSE from anywhere, and run it on any hardware, and it would not be much different from HP's offering (apart from being pre-installed, usable by the masses, and perhaps certain features configured specifically for their hardware).
Apple is playing at a different level than HP.
Don't get me wrong: I love Linux and has been runnig it myself for years. But this comparison is Apples to HPs.
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You would think that they would be a Microsoft shill given the fact that it's *MS*NBC, but most of the time I hear the exact opposite kind of talk out of them. They seem to be frank about MS product flaws, and willing to praise praiseworthy competitors.
Do they just happen to NOT have their heads up their asses, or is there a more cynical explanation?
I am sooooo pissed after reading that HP has such a huge success with it's Linux Laptop.
That's not because I'm a Windows nut or I don't like HP or stuff, it's because I own a HP Laptop (pavilion ze4360) that is simply not usable under Linux! And I'm not talking about any "nice to have" features like suspend-to-disk or whatever, but about 20min uptime when running on battery.
They apparently f*cked up the ACPI implementation in the BIOS really bad, so under Linux speedstepping is unsupported. No matter what I did and tried, I had a Laptop that was running at a constant ~1800MHz. Of course I can't expect any help from HP support since the guys answering my inquiries don't quite understand the problem ("But if you use that and that setting in Windows XP your battery _does_ last longer").
How come HP produces a wonderful Linux Laptop and at the same time makes another one completely unusable for people who want to run Linux?
This is a good thing for Linux; hardware vendors should be able to knock off the rough edges (a lot of which are due to incompatible peripherals) - well if they can't, who the heck can?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The post you responded to mentioned another laptop where one has to manually configure the hibernate function. The post was informative, because it described in detail how to do it. Now, pay attention, here's the one point which you utterly missed:
This is what makes Open Source Software so great
If the hibernate or any other function isn't working correctly in a commercial, closed source, software computer, what do you do? (1) hire a consultant, (2) call 1-800-EAT-SHIT, (3) sit down in a corner and cry? With FOSS, you get other alternatives: (1) Google the error, (2) ask the right on-line forum, (3) read Slashdot. I saved the text of the post you commented to, in my tips.txt file, because even if I don't have a need to configure a hibernate function right now, that's a very informative post. I might need to use exactly those steps or some variation of them in the future.
However, contrary to what FOSS detractor FUD preaches, normal users do not need to perform all those tricky little steps for every small configuration detail. The article itself had some subtle misinformation, giving the impression that there isn't any good package installation system in Linux.
The truth is, installing and configuring most software in Linux is simpler and easier than in MS-Windows these days. Using synaptic to install a package or even typing "apt-get install something" in the console is much easier than navigating through a maze of windows, clicking on all those buttons, accepting license agreements, filling in all your life's details in the on-line registration form, etc, etc... Then in the end, where the fsck did the files go? Are they under C:\Program Files, or in C:\My Documents? Or maybe in C:\Windows\System? And, God forbid you having any non-English character in your file names, because then you have to configure the right Code Page! And don't forget to update your anti-virus, because your newly installed software requires the latest anti-virus system to work reliably.
A positive example of good moderation in Slashdot, I was just browsing the story and found that post, correctly modded to +5, Informative.