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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.
From my Suse/HP Laptop!
YESS! Now to hibernate!
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',
or
LinuxJournal is currently running a story on the front page reviewing the new HP Windows laptops. In a story titled "HP Windows laptops kick ass"...
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.
Could HP+SUSE go the way of Apple+BSD and become an option for those that want friendly non-windows laptop?
People don't buy Macs because they don't want a Windows machine, they buy Macs because they like Macs!
Steve: We can't do that, it'd be murder.
Bill: Ruin his career then, have him sent to North Korea as a technology correspondent.
Steve: Yes, Master.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wow, suprised MSNBC would put a pro-linux title and article on the front page
Don't get me wrong, I like Linux and I think it is great that you can finally buy a Linux laptop where everything just works, but I still think it trails behind Apple. I can run Photoshop and MS Office on my iBook without any gimmicks or compromises like I would need to run them on a Linux laptop. Also, when I buy new hardware or look for a new program, there is a pretty good chance that there is support of OS X. The chance of finding mainstream items that support Linux is still very slim.
SIGFAULT
The author seems extremely happy about how everything just works out of the box
Just how low is the fsking bar when a reviewer has to note that nothing was broken when he first powered on the system?
C'mon people, raise your standards for a "good" system!
--
I always wanted an iPod how about you?
Microsoft has announced it's putting its share of MSNBC up for sale.
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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) .
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.
Second, here's a quote from the article:
What is the writer referring to? RPMs know where to install themselves, and what permissions to set. And does SuSE not have a menu system a la the Debian menu, which inserts itself in the various desktop environments?
So apparantly linux is ready for the laptop, but when will it be ready for the desktop?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
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."
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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 headed over to HP to price this thing how I'd like it. The select box for the OS allows me to pick the Suse option, but only subtracts $50 USD. After some research, that's actually about right. So, where's the big money savings by going to linux?
True believers seek redemption from the sin of death.
Yeah, it's Linux so in Slashdot's eyes they instantly get 10 cool points, but come on.
Stuff not working out of the box is noteworthy in a bad way. Everything working the way that it's supposed to is just what's supposed to happen.
Yeah, I know for a long time it was a criticism of Linux that driver support sucked - so in a way I can understand why he'd mention it. But the fact that everything is supported on the laptop is not a good (TM) thing. It's merely the absence of a bad thing.
It's like saying that a new Windows Laptop was the best ever because it didn't explode when powered up, and didn't cause severe burns to the user's lap. Yeah, great that that's true, but it's not something to go around advertising - that would just show that you expected otherwise.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
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.
Will widespread acceptance of linux occur only when dominant software makers support linux, or will widespread acceptance of linux cause dominant software makers to support linux?
Which will come first?
It's my opinion that widespread usage will occur first. Then software giants will realize the demand, and they will start supporting it.
Linux deserves respect and support from vendors, and I believe it will get it soon.
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.
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? ^_^
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.
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.
No offense to the /. crowd and Linux fans, but I really hope families don't get bilked into buying Linux laptops or desktops without knowing what they might be getting into.
...instead... ...a really pissed off family that can't run little Sally's Barbie Dream Makeover software.
I personally think this ia a great step toward making Linux much more mainstream than it is now, but I fear that unsuspecting and uneducated consumers being led around by unhelpful and undertrained sales staff at Circuit City or on the HP sales line might find themselves with Linux machines they really don't like.
I could see a family making a computer purchase and visiting some retailers that, perhaps, start selling things like Linux laptops and Linux desktops as a novelty item. They get in the store and are like, "WOW! This PC is so much cheaper than that PC over there." They might even think, in their minds, that bad viruses and things come from Windows, so they're even more enthused about the Linux machine.
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.
Granted, the process I outlined above has to occur to some degree in order to facilitate adoption of Linux as a mainstream PC operating system (or whatever you might call it). I just hope and pray that vendors like HP and major retailers don't jump on the bandwagon a little too eagerly in trying to sell these machines only to find that they've opened a Pandora's box worse than a MyDoom worm on Windows XP...
A family that ends up returning the Linux machine altogether rather than having the Windows machine with a virus serviced at Best Buy and put back into the wild.
My 2 cents.
IronChefMorimoto
But overall, (and here's where staunch Linux fans will take exception) this machine is not as easy to use for most computer users as the same machine running Windows XP or (if it could) Apple's OS X. You still need to know a lot more about the inner workings of a computer to excel on a Linux machine.
Maybe I'm missing the boat, but I think this is a given. I've never heard a Linux user claim that someone who's only familiar w/ Mac or Windows is going to fully understand (much less fall in love with) Linux the first time they use it. That kind of negativity - however slight and between-the-lines - is just pushing more people away from Linux by reinforcing the "theirs is harder to use than ours" idea.
You must figure out on your own things like where to store the software and associated programs and how to handle permissions. These are not things most consumers want to do.
...and because of this we have x million Windows machines running with little or no protection, instant worm-fodder.
Linux to me is professional-grade software - the difference between the Huffy bike you'd get when you're 10 and the 18-speed alloy frame bike you buy when you start racing. It won't always be that way; there are thousands of people out there pushing to make Linux more accessible to Mr. & Ms. Average Joe, but right now it's counterproductive to act like your average AOLer should be able to sit down with KDE and instantly feel at home.
They have to make it "sound like a winner" in order to get credibility. If you read on, you'll see that they don't recommend the PC for anyone who isn't a Linux expert because You still need to know a lot more about the inner workings of a computer to excel on a Linux machine.
So, basically, they said that its great but they don't suggest that 99 percent of the Joe Users out there buy the thing. Safe.
But the article does have points. When the hell are we going to see some standards in Linux to sort this out? Here's my list of needs/wants:
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.
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), we'd see a huge Linux section on download.com. Yes - I realize that there are some nice things out there but we need a STANDARD to which every desktop distro can adhere (or else they don't get that fluffy "Desktop Linux Compliant" sticker that the industry also needs to invent).
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* - quick launch, desktop, taskbar, programs menu (and sometimes right even off of the top of the start menu). Some of them even install their own "tool bars". WTF? If Linux doesn't fix this NOW, before it becomes desktop mainstream, we're gonna have to live with it forever. We don't need uninstall icons right off of the program menu if there's another way to do it in the control panel. FORCE companies to put software installs in ONE LOCATION. Put it off of root? Sure, why not? Nobody's stopping me.
Forever.
Hell... its Friday so I'm gonna go now. I really wish there were a place to submit all these suggestions that I've got.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
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
#
"Usually I download DeCSS from one of the available offshore repositories. Yeah, I know it's illegal, but who reads MSNBC anyway?"
-dameron
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.
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.
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)
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).
Which, if true, will need to change for Linux to severely cut into the 94% market share that Windows has.
Besides, few end-users ACTUALLY make full use of their operating system - a point missed by most of the tech community. Because they are our livelyhood, they're also are lives (most of the time.) For everyone else, it's just a computer. Many facets of the Linux/Windows/Whatever battle don't even apply to the people the results will affect: Mom, Dad, Jimmy Five year old, Missy High School Report - none of these people will, or should for the matter, need to know how to use WSH, PERL to use their computer as they want.
Diversity, OpenSource, and Choice are great...but the tech community is taking itself far too seriously in this matter.
But don't you have to buy all those same things with other companies as well? How is Apple any different? We bought my sister a HP laptop about 3 months ago (her school provides support for their teachers and they won't support anything but Windows). We paid $1400 for the laptop, $200 for the extended warranty (it came with 90 days), it only came with 256 RAM so I upgraded it to 1GB, and we paid $100 for a basic laptop satchel. All in all it was about $1800 total cost.
Apple actually STARTED with virtually ALL of the PC market share (Apple II years), and has been losing market share every year since then. We don't need to rehash the market share vs. installed base and related arguments. Apple does not cater to yuppie techno elite, however they *are* more popular with artist types. But I am a software developer who switched when Apple OSX hit the market because it is the nicest *nix I have ever used. And I'll tell you what - I have had many many fewer issues with the 5 Macs in my home than with the PCS that I had prior. I was constantly tinkering and fixing with my Windows/Linux PCs. I decided - I do that all day - I want to have computers that are nice to use when I come home. And now I do, thanks to my Macs and OSX.
But the claim was that Apple only sells > $3000 computers. That is false.
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
Where did he mention Powerbooks? Either compare it to an iBook (from $1099), or admit to your FUD!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
Perhaps a quote from Chris Rock is in order:
Niggers always want credit for some shit they're supposed to do. They'll brag about stuff a normal man just does. They'll say something like, "Yeah, well I take care of my kids." You're supposed to, you dumb motherfucker. "I ain't never been to jail." Whaddya want? A cookie? You're not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having motherfucker!
dell ships their first laptop with FreeBSD and Gnome preinstalled.
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.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
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 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!
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?
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.