Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Linux on Laptops
katie_york writes "CoolTechZone discusses the future of Linux on laptops after HP and Ubuntu's recent announcement. 'What would be even more exciting for Linux is if other OEMs, similar to HP, took the same approach by partnering with selected distributions of consumer friendly Linux and started offering an alternative not only in third world regions, but also in the United States. In addition to that, support for Linux on the desktop side of things would be just as welcomed.'"
From TFA:
Wow...sounds like Gundeep Hora wrote this article with Slashdot specifically in mind...
^_^
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
"started offering an alternative not only in third world regions, but also in the United States" .. Didn't HP launch it in Europe and South africa ..perhaps im wrong.
I was unaware i lived in a developing nation , such as um the whole of Europe
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
not only in third world regions, but also in the United States
So I guess that leaves Europe, Canada, Australia, and many others out uh?
I know, I know, it's a US centric site (per your FAQ), but we still feel it you know?
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
either you're saying that all non-US countries are 3rd world. or you're saying that only US and third world should get it. there is a whole world out there.
http://www.devishlyslinky.com/
through a different, smaller mfg, though. so perhaps when this article states 'like HP' they mean, Dell?
do you have shinyfeet?
Installing Linux of a laptop is easy, especially with ditributions like Ubuntu. The fact that Linux comes preinstalled or not with the hardware doesn't matter IMHO.
But once Linux is installed, the difficult part is to *use* it. Installing new software and making it work properly is not trivial. Even with GUIs like Synaptic, using any Linux distribution requires Unix knowledge. You can't use (upgrade/customize/etc) a Linux workstation without using a terminal for instance.
So for a newbie or for my parents, I'd never recommend a laptop running Linux (preinstalled or not).
{{.sig}}
What would be great is if everybody started moving to the LSB so that you could use virtually ANY Linux on the hardware. This crap where all you need is a different variation on software packaging and you have a different operating system has GOT to stop.
I agree that this is the way to do it (making sure all the hardware works with Linux), however what happens when somone wants to do an upgrade down the road? Chances are they are going to have to choose from a very small list (by comparison to a Windows machine) of upgrades that now work with their version of Linux.
Now some of you may not think this is a bad thing, but I can see where it could be heading... Want that new upgrade? Send your machine back to HP and for $400 you can have this $100 piece of hardware because you have no choices and we can charge you whatver we want! Profit margins here we come...
I've used every major distribution out there, and NOTHING is as friendly IMHO as Xandros. You want a desktop PC certified for Xandros. Here you go, bitches, a $69.99 computer, with mostly realistic specs! (note the Earthlink "catch").
You can't beat that!
Apparently, HP is determined to make certain models work 100 percent with Ubuntu.
Is Linux still suffering from incompatible hardware in computers these days? I haven't purchased a laptop since 1996 but it ran Linux (I did have to use AcceleratedX because at the time XFree didn't support the video card chipset) just fine.
Are we still having serious problems with people not being able to use their computers 100% with Linux or are they talking about "out-of-the-box" with no configuration necessary?
This is good news, I guess, and making something work with free drivers on any one distribution makes it work (with some kicking and swearing, anyway) on all Linux. But I'm not throwing a party just yet...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
There are already ways by which laptops with Linux installed can be purchased. The major news is the HP initiative that can spark similar behaviour in IBM, Dell (who do SuSE), etc.
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
This is one of those situations that're tough, because there are (at least that I see), two problems here.
1. Linux isn't necessarily (that's the keyword) that easy to setup and use. Things such as adding icons, adjusting controls, file management just aren't that easy, especially in a world dominated by Windows. People are too used to doing everything on a machine with admin rights, how many people are going to be willing to give that up?
2. Windows still dominates the OEMs these days by offering them insane pricing and attempts to force them to stick with just Windows. A company with that kind of power generally will win out.
You would think that people in the industry would know the difference between a laptop and a notebook.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
*whew* ;-)
First world is a misnomer.
It was originally like this:
Old World: Europe
New World: US/Canada
Third World: the rest
The true first world would be Europe.
Of course, the above is not very PC or useful now.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
= laptop heaven. Even have wireless working. Battery lasts around 2.5 hours and that is without much extra work to get maximum battery life.
It would seem that the it would make more sense at first to design a desktop that is 100% linux compatible. The vast majority of Linux machines are acting as servers of some sort or are being used by us geeks that are locked in a basement with no windows anyway, and have no reason to be portable. I don't see the average college kid running out to buy a linux machine for school, nor do I see executives deciding to buy linux machines for their traveling businessmen.
You can also get more horsepower for cheaper. I'm sure that are plenty of people that want a Linux laptop, but if I was going to specifically design hardware for linux, I would start with a desktop. I would probably also include the US, but that's another story.
/. ++
While I've never been an HP fan, I'd be inclined to purchase one of these after reading the initial reviews.
I'd be especially interested if it had an AMD processor.
HP had one of the best laptop repair policies I've ever seen. Back when I did HP warranty work, one could send in a (broken for just about any reason) laptop, and pay a flat $400 fee for getting it fixed. While that may sound expensive, it's a heck of a lot cheaper than paying for the parts + labor for an LCD replacement.
Additionally, it seems HP doesn't hide behind the "bad pixels are not a defect" policy. While some manufactures (*Cough* Apple, Dell) require that your LCD has at least 20+ bad pixels before they fix, I've seen HP repair laptops with 5 or less.
Obviously, this is anecdotal, and their policies may have changed.
1. How many true "geeks" run a system "as it is shipped" Im willing to bet most of us reinstall for one reason or another soon as we get the system. Maybe we want a diffrent partition setup? Maybe we want to make sure there are no Vendor installed CPU wasting crap installed.. For what ever reason most geeks reinstall the OS soon as the computer enters there care.
2. I don't want to be limited to what I can run.. I don't want to be "taxed" for software I will never use.
So in the end I really don't care what OS's you offer.. What I want is the ability to order a laptop void of any OS at all!!!
Personal Website
>According to the company, the Ubuntu notebooks are reserved for selected parts of Europe, Africa and Middle East where Windows piracy rates are strikingly high.
I guess the US should start pirating windows more to get companies like HP interested in distributing these types of laptops here.
There isn't much that doesn't work, but it's worth listing, and easier to keep track of than all the stuff that works just fine:
http://www.leenooks.com/
I wonder if dell will follow suit soon. With "Mr Dells" recent portpholio investment in redhat of something like 100million it would make sense that they would start to try and promote the Linux operating system _MORE_ on their product lines. Especially in the laptops. However I guess that dell has no spine to stand up to their vendors even though they are so big..
Screw the third world, I want one too!
Linux isn't nice just because it's cheap.
In my opinion, one of the most important aspects of a laptop is how well it enters and leaves sleep mode. Use an Apple laptop for an idea of how close to ideal you can get.
My IBM laptop, an older model, does not sleep well, the battery may last a little longer, but its not dead like an Apple laptop is. Perfect entering and exiting sleep mode, and Linux will get a toe-hold
My Acer 1362WMLi works almost perfectly with Ubuntu as it stands, but guaranteed Linux-compatible hardware would of course be nice!
As for usability issues, lots of people I deal with barely know how to use Windows. However, there's two ways of looking at this -
Either it means a different OS will throw them completely, or they'll have a blank canvas to learn on. I didn't really know how to use Linux effectively three weeks ago but now it is a hugely rare occurance for me to boot into Windows as I'm able to do everything as I could before, well, in fact, in many cases better than I could before and more easily too.
Ubuntu also manages my battery far better than Windows. This is not true across the board however, as I previously used Suse 9.2 Pro, which swallowed my battery life quicker than Windows.
Finding the right tool for the job would appear to be the issue we face, deciding which distro to promote for which type of user might do much to encourage Linux uptake, at least in my opinion.
Support for clunker desktops and laptops will go a long way towards making Linux and computing in general available to the financially limited. I was actually rather impressed with M$ rumored foresight at creating a version of XP to run on old machines that are still running 95 or 98. Who here doesn't have a few (dozen) friends with eMachines that they bought 6 years ago and are running on limited RAM, limited disk space, and everything else? The further they reduce the hardware requirements of a basic distribution (coupled with ease of install), the more plain folk will agree to do the switch. I'm personally hoping for the day I can slap something like an Ubuntu install CD into a Sony PCG-N505ve and have everything work well.
Broadcom still won't release the specs. You've got to use the ndiswrapper kludge.
Wal-mart still has no-os and linux pre-loaded systems for desktops*, but it's looking like right now they have no laptops selling that way.
I guess too many geeks spurned The evil empire of wal-mart, and they too decided it's not worth the effort of trying to explain to customers why the computer 'didn't come with windows'
*= they're looking like they're all legacy type systems that most slashdotters already have more than enough systems at that speed level though...
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I just got an HP ZV6000 series laptop, featuring an AMD 64 processor. I got it with all the intention of installing Ubuntu for AMD 64 on it.
To say that the laptop is not linux friendly is an understatement. There are no drivers for the video card, you can get X.org sort of working with the vesa driver. The touchpad is partially supported, scroll bar doesn't work and you need to resort to tricks to make it work (remove and readd the psmouse module).
I installed the latest Java development kit for Linux AMD 64 on it, followed by Eclipse. Eclipse keeps crashing every few minutes.
Although my intention was to run Ubuntu on this laptop, I find myself booting to Windows XP home all the time just to get some work done.
Expert Java EE Consulting
So HP doesn't pre-install Linux for U.S. customers. But is it the same hardware they sell with Linux pre-installed? If I buy one of these models in the U.S., can I install Ubuntu myself and expect everything to Just Work (unlike many laptops)? Or are they shipping proprietary linux drivers with their preinstalls?
Let me start by saying that this is a great idea. Unfortunately, i don't see people buying an 'unknown' OS together with their 'expensive' laptop. People fear changes. I can't think of anyone who would not buy a laptop with a Windows OS installed. Why would they? What's the argument of the salesperson? I'll tell you what the average salesperson will answer: "uhm .. Linux is just cool and opensource and free! all applications are free!". Followed by a stream of questions by the customer who wants to play his games on it, but is unable to because they only run in windows. Not to mention MS Office (dont come with OpenOffice.org because the average customer can't work with anything other than what they're used to), internet explorer (yes - i know people who refuse to work with anything else because they say it's not safe) and various other MS-only programs.
:P
So what's the use for the average buyer? Not much. They have a cool OS that they know almost nothing about, can't run their own programs on, and looks altogether weird compared to Windows. Oh, and the local neighbour/friend/sysadmin-wannabe/colleage can't help the buyer once they have a problem. Call the helpdesk? Hahahaha! You're funny. If i have linux i shouldn't have to call the helpdesk
I've been in this field now for twenty five years and I can state categorically that corporate announcements have zero information value when it comes to predicting the future.
Well, actually, not quite zero, because you can be sure if something's announced, it's because all parties involved are postively sure it will have no significant impact on the future. Makes sense, if you think about it. Knowledge about the future is power -- competitive power and power to create additional profit. That's why Apple goes ape-shit over rumor sites
Anyhow the last corporate announcement I ever got excited about was between Apple and DEC to cooperate in implementing a standard data interface that would allow Macs to access data residing on VMS. This was back in the mid 80s. Too bad they weren't really serious about it. Things might've ended up differently.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I hope that the future partnerships don't lead to the distro doing tweaks just to fit their hardware partner. I have had a real nasty time adjusting my fav distro to deal with several laptops and their quirky implementations of ACPI and APM. I can see this happening though and, hopefully, those tweaks make it out so all distro's can benefit and become more reliable for all concerned.
Right, because we all know there are almost no hardware drivers for Linux so a functional desktop is the place to start.
I always thought the main New World was South America?
North America and Canada were never up to much economically in comparison (though Canada was a good supplier of furs?)
Actually, Western World = 1. World
Communists = 2. World
not defined = 3. World
No, it actually refers to communist versus democratic countries. 1st world countries are either "within the sphere of US interest" or were democratic and somewhat allied in the cold war. Second World countries are communist. Third world countries are not in either sphere of influence. http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_ countries.htm
I quite like Ubuntu, as i think its finally a step in the right direction for Linux distros and have it on a couple of my machines. Now my main machine is a laptop (Dell 9100) and i often use it with an external monitor capable of far higher resolutions than my laptop display and this is where my gripe come in. Ubuntu absolutely refuses to allow me use the monitor resolution I want and keeps forcing me to the laptop LCD defaults which look like shit on monitor display.
Now I know this is not an Ubuntu specific problem and its been touched on here before but I cant emphasise how fucking annoying it is and as a result Ubuntu rarely gets booted. I find it staggering that in 2005 there are still problems with screen resolutions in Linux.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I agree that this is the way to do it (making sure all the hardware works with Linux), however what happens when somone wants to do an upgrade down the road?
We're talking laptops, remember? You're not going to be throwing in a new NIC or Video card into a laptop. Well... video cards are upgradable, but nobody really sells them so the point is moot. Hard drives would require a reinstall anyway, memory upgrades don't require anything.
So no, upgrades aren't an issue in this case.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
I've always assumed that marketing folks make these kinds of announcements with good intentions, without ever realizing that they lack any authority or ability to persuade the company to make what they announce feasible.
Even if the intentions are in the right place, do the people making the announcement really understand the problems associated with, say, supporting wi-fi and video chipsets? Even the few companies that supposedly supported linux on their hardware, have failed to deliver drivers for broadcom wi-fi or even the built-in modems for instance.
... HP is launching these notebooks in regions where Windows piracy is high because they can rely on the security of selling them to people that will buy just because they're cheaper, but will eventually install a pirated copy of Windows instead of Ubuntu. Not very promissing for Linux I say. Heck, the bundled FreeDOS even makes this easier...
Ubuntu was the first distro that, first, installed w/o hitch on my Fujitsu E, and, more importantly, had both suspend and hibernate working out of the box without my usual little configuration dances and overnight compiling with little hand-held fan attached to its side ;-)
I think the thing more than anything else that would help ease getting Windows to work with laptops is simply publishing a good hardware spec sheet.
In installing gentoo on my IBM T22 I relied on the spec sheet more than anything else. If vendors could just get into the habit of releasing information like the the ethernet chip, audio chip, etc., then we wouldn't have to resort to guesstimating from lspci.
Part of the problem at the time was that Linux was under very heavy development. I know, it's under very heavy development now, but major XFree86 and desktop and libc versions were in flux.
For example, IBM was, IIRC, shipping Caldera OpenLinux 1.3, a fine distribution, one that was one of the best at the time--until the transition within a few short months from libc5 to libc6, XFree86 3 to XFree86 4, KDE 1 to KDE 2, etc. And suddenly, nearly every piece of new, interesting Linux software was incompatible with OpenLinux 1.3 (and all other current distributions at the time), even when compiling from scratch (you'd basically have to reinstall 50% of your packages ad-hoc to get something to compile, many of them system packages) and every current Linux book that discussed config files or the desktop or whatever didn't seem to match what the users had on their systems.
Linux was changing too quickly at that point to be the desktop alternative that it is now. It's a shame that everyone jumped on it just a little too quickly. I think it makes evident the distaste that both consumer and OEM alike have for Windows and the degree to which they were searching, even five or six years ago, for an alternative.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I think the issue is that Microsoft refuses to buckle down to pressure from Walmart. That situation is likely to continue as long as most computers are sold through outlets other than Walmart, which is a situation I hope continues indefinitely. Microsoft doesn't even come close to Walmart in terms of evilness. I'd go as far as to say that if you ripped out the last lab of Macs in your school district and replaced them with a bevy of Windows PCs and two moronic techs at $40k/year to maintain them, and you shop at Walmart, then the shopping at Walmart is the bigger moral outrage that you ought to fix first.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
with suse pre-installed. Was surprised when I cam e to learn that the 1 year support they offer applies to the linux distro as well. This is only for one model though. An AMD Mobile Sempron 2800+ with 256Mb of ram, 15" display, dvd-cdrw combo and a 40G hard disk for around $675.
that ain't bad with a 1 year international traveller warranty
would love to see other models of acer also to have this option
If linux had better graphics support, I think that linux would take off more - on both the laptop and desktop - as a development platform for console-style games. Think of it this way: If you are developing a game, you currently have to develop the game for windows, mac, linux, etc. if you want it to be on all platforms. However if you were to use a live linux distro as the base for a game, you could make it so that all you have to do is restart your computer, put the CD in your drive and the game runs automatically - no need to mess with installing it on the hard drive, no need to have to port the game, nothing! It will run on any processor that it is designed for that has a fast cd-rom drive (which is pretty much all computers these days), and with network support built into linux you could very easily set it up to connect to the internet and get to a gaming server for lan parties or just regular internet play.
http://www.virtualvillagesquare.com/ Online Communities: The Next Generation
great if they start getting out laptops based on amd64.
Most of the recent inspiron models quite mysteriously seem to behave well with linux, so it shouldn't be much of a problem to offer some customized linux with their notebooks
My understanding of how a GNU licenced operating system works in this situation is a little hazy. But this is slashdot, so I'll just jump right in. Wouldn't a BSD licenced OS make more sense for a laptop vendor?
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
You can see the conversation with Schneller over at the ubuntu boards: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=28410&pa
or else!
Something I posted previously concerning Linux laptops... If laptop manufacturers would make more laptops with LESS built into it, I think people would have a much better time with Linux. Build me a laptop without an integrated modem, ethernet, and wireless network and just give me a bunch of usb and PCMCIA slots so I can choose my own accessories, much like I do with my desktop. That way I can spend less on a laptop because it doesn't "come with everything" and I can expand it with exactly the hardware I want. I have an old Digital HiNote VP 700 with no built in modem or ethernet card. I poked around online to see what PCMCIA devices are supported by my favorite flavor of Linux, and I bought those items. Machine runs slow as shit with a 133 mhz processor and Red Hat 9, but at least all my hardware works because I found the modem, ethernet, and wireless cards that work well with what I want to run. I am also happy using generic video drivers as long as I get the resolution I want. To compare, I have a Toshiba Tecra with built in Ethernet, Modem, and Wireless. First off, Fedora Core 3 locks up on bootup, so I put RH9 on this one too. Wouldn't ya know it, the modem doesn't work, the 10/100 ethernet adaptor is detected but doesn't work, and I haven't even attempted the built in wireless. But I still have these cards I know work cause I researched them and picked them out myself, so I just shove em in and I'm good to go. Although RH9 was able to correctly determine my video and audio chipsets, I would be just as happy using generic video/audio drivers if I had to. Sell me a laptop without everything built in so I can expand it myself...that's the way to make a Linux compatiable laptop.
I've never been to either.
(I originally wrote this yesterday in a comment to the article "Mad has hell, switching to Mac", but it's even more topical here so I'll repost:)
> He doesn't want to bother with packaging, experimental drivers,
> non-ability to sleep, and other issues that come with Linux (especially
> on laptops). Plus, Macs can run a lot of Officially Supported
> Microsoft software that the industry feels it needs in order to be compatible.
Yup, that just about sums up my experience too. My company really tried our best to standardize on Linux, but since most employees need laptops we had to give up and buy Macs instead.
We put a lot of work into getting drivers for the laptops and making stuff work right, but in the end it just wasn't worth it. Stuff like ATI graphics adapters that either worked with dual screens, say for projector use, with the X.org driver or worked with accelerated 3D graphics with the ATI driver, but not both.
Or the lack of stable drivers for the Intel Pro WLAN 2200 Mini PCI WiFi cards which also had to be manually reinstalled after each kernel upgrade.
As you said, the non-ability to sleep was also a major issue.
This isn't really a problem with Linux, it's more a problem with non-open and proprietary hardware, hardware that changes constantly and comes in a pre-packaged form wich you can't influence (laptops come with everything soldered on the mainboard, you have to take or leave the whole package). We never had a problem with our whitebox dektop PCs, nor with our servers of course.
We didn't have much problems on the application side of things by the way. People adjusted quickly to OpenOffice and Thunderbird (for email) and of course loved Firefox, everything else we do we host on the web. The only grumble we had was the CEO who claimed there really wasn't a proper Linux replacement for Microsoft Project available anywhere, open or closed source.
In the end we came to the conclusion that the TCO for Linux on laptops was too high, but on desktops it was mosly a no-brainer. Had we been able to use desktops all over the firm we would have stayed an all-Linux shop for sure.
So why Mac laptops, why not Windows? That was a no-brainer as well. We already run Linux (and OpenBSD) on everything else in the company, Mac OS X is also *nix-based and based on open source projects so the skillset we have is applicable. But the clincher was security and TCO. Macs are by far the cheapest laptops to own and operate in a corporate environment, because they a) Just Work with the hardware and b) the OS is secure from the ground up.
Add to that the fact that Mac OS X plays nice with everyone else, especially in a *nix environment, and the fact that we can still run OpenOffice (NeoOffice/J), Thunderbird and Firefox and we're all set. We can even run Microsoft Office if we want.
This is a win-win situation, the users are happy because they have tools that work all the time and we IT guys are happy for the same reason.
The only downside is the fact that we now have to rely on only one supplier of laptops and have to pay their, frankly, inflated prices. In the end we decided that there is really nothing wrong with rewarding a supplier for making an excellent product, it's not their fault that the competition stinks. Anyway, it's not like we had a huge array of choices in the PC laptop marketplace either, once we started eliminating ATI graphics adapters, Intel WiFi chips and other problematic components from vendors who won't allow proper Linux drivers to be made.
The field of remaining, workable laptops was depressingly small, and the fact that we couldn't rely on any of the models being available for any amount of time was unacceptable.
Apple gets our money from now on.
(I'd like to add that if HP will commit to making laptops that will only use hardware that Just Works with Linux (any distro, we happen to use Fedora), we'll consider purchasing their laptops as well as Apple's.)
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
How about native Centrino support. I think SuSe 9.3 has it, are there any others? My laptop is mostly for diagnostic purposes, and wireless capability would be great.
All I care about is: will they make suspend/hibernate work on their hardware? Nothing else matters as much on a laptop, but I have never yet seen it running without any problems on any Linux laptop. (I know some people have it running "flawlessly", but I've never seen it, and not having it working makes a laptop much less useful...)
Are specifically built to only use hardware that has good linux compatibility (pref without the need to use binary drivers although for some things like video cards that might be unavoidable, especially for laptops).
The laptops would have WiFi chipsets with linux support. And power management functionality that works in linux. And so on.
The desktops would include things like Ethernet cards with linux support. And so on.
Then, have printers, scanners and such that are also supported in linux available as an option.
Said computers would be available with windows too but being able to offer "Linux" as an option and know that all the hardware will work would be a nice thing.
Or better yet, someone should make a database listing hardware and how well its supported in linux i.e.:
1.Isnt usable at all (this would include the case where you can use it via a "hack loader" that loads the windows driver)
2.Usable only if you use the binary driver (which would mean that its specifically linked to a particular kernel version/distro/whatever)
3.Usable via open drivers created by reverse engineering (i.e. without the help of the company)
4.Usable via open drivers created with help/documents supplied by the manufacturer
5.Usable via official open source drivers
So it could be given a rating from 1 to 5 matching that list, with hardware rating a 4 or 5 being the best to buy (since it is supporting companies who support Open Source).
The same sort of ratings could be applied to vendors, something like:
1.Vendors who are openly hostile to linux or Open Source (e.g. vendors who have sued someone for reverse engineering their product, vendors who violate GPL etc)
2.Vendors who are neutral to Open Source (i.e. they dont care about linux at all)
3.Vendors who support Linux (by providing binary drivers for example) but dont support Open Source
4.Vendors who support Open Source by providing documentation and information to Open Source developers
5.Vendors who support Open Source by making actual code written by them available (e.g. an Open source linux driver for their product)
Like with the hardware rating, it would give a guide to who to support and who to avoid (any hardware vendors who rate a 1 would certainly be vendors that anyone smart would avoid if at all possible)
> one _CAN NOT_ sell computers without an os
> if one is at the same time selling m$ stuff.
Why is this not illegal under anti-trust law?
Is something I can understand making quite a big splash. The only thing I think that's keeping Linux from becoming a huge desktop OS is the difficult driver installation procedure. With laptops, it's unlikely that you're going to upgrade the core hardware. However I do think it might lose out on USB devices. I've had a lot of trouble with cheap USB devices and Linux in the past.
While this is a great move by HP, I doubt they're doing this out of pure goodness of their heart. Linux on Laptops in India is not something new. It's a highly competitive market. Most branded PCs/Laptops lose out to the "Assembled" ones which come preloaded with Windows and Office at "no cost". In order to compete companies have to remove the cost of Microsoft baggage - hence Linux. For example take a look at this Acer Laptop.
FYI/
Nokia's new 770 Tablet - Debian Linux, X, Gnome, Opera, 802.11g, Bluetooth 1.2, 800x400 widescreen, handheld form factor - supposed to go on sale for US$ 350 within 4 months. (No phone included.)
Nokia's site for open-source components for the 770: Maemo.org has Linux sources and application development resources.
Developer's FAQ PDF here
http://linux-laptop.net/
We all know Cuba isn't a part of Europe ...
Servlet v2.4 container in a single 161KB jar file ? Try Winstone
Does this mean I should salute our third-world neighbors to the north?
Does this mean that I'll be able to get a fully-supported Linux laptop simply by smuggling it across the Ambassador bridge?
Department of Homeland Security eat my shorts! Three cheers for Canada!
I was at HP's site yesterday, and those specific models mentioned can be bought in the States with FreeDOS instead of Windows. So unless the HP-supplied Ubuntu CDs come with custom kernel modules, there's nothing stopping US customers from buying these and installing Linux themselves.
I wonder if HP's upcoming special-edition Turion notebook will officially be supported for use with Linux too. That model is going to debut in the States only, but the specs look really tempting.. wide 14" screen, under 6 lbs weight, affordable price; the only question mark at this point is battery life, but it's got to be better than Acer's 15.4" behemoth.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
I would rather just see manufacturors offer their laptops without any OS on it. Odds are very high I won't use whatever they load it with anyway. When I buy a computer I don't want to be paying for software I don't use. And yes, Linux would cost as well as they would have to pay someone to customize it to their machines and add all their annoying utilities.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
What exactly is wrong with being gay anyway? It's my understanding that "GAY" is an abbreviation for "Good As You".
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I'd still really like to see somebody provide the kind of laptops you expect from hp, toshiba, and others with NO OS. That should mean less work for them and a lower price for us and since I already scrap the existing OS right after getting a laptop it wouldn't be any more work for me.
-Tim Louden
I'd buy a laptop and run linux on it if I knew there was a model which had a reliable docking station. The IBM laptops look great, but I haven't found a single report where you could hot plug and unplug a running, or hibernated laptop from the station without problems. I don't want to give up my TFT and proper-sized keyboard for extended hacking sessions.
...no problems whatsoever !!
...too sad IBM (or Lenovo) don't make them anymore.
...and if somone from IBM is listening... make an A31p but with a PowerPC or Cell, pls...
A laptop that doesn't play encrypted DVD's would be a showstopper for me.
And even getting legally shady alternatives like decss to work with the 2.6 kernel on my desktop has been an adventure in futility (at least for most of my dvds, where they don't play at all, or don't play past certain chapters and so on).
This post was made by I, Mojo Trolljo, for you to read that was written by I who is Mojo Trolljo!
(HP Pavillion ZD7000)
Sound works, though without hardware mixing.
Video works, with acceleration and widescreen (1200x900) using the NVidia driver.
Ethernet works
Volume etc keys work (using hotkeys package)
Software power-down works (ACPID)
Wireless works (using a windows driver through NDISwrapper, some functionality lost compared to native drivers)
USB works
Haven't tried firewire
Parallel works
DVD playback, CD-burning works
PCMCIA works
Internal winmodem - NOT working (interferes with soundcard)
Internal ENE cardreader - NOT working
I use this laptop on a regular basis. Generally I only boot to windows (dual-boot) to run Half-Life 2 (which would probably work on wine anyhow), use the internal cardreader, or windows-specific apps. For modem a Xircom PCMCIA card handles things well.
I would love to see HP and their parts suppliers further support linux, particularly the internal cardreader and perhaps the winmodem.
Perhaps HP has recognzied the threat that the XBox 360 is to their home PC market? According to Robert X Cringely, the XBox can, besides playing games, browse the web and do email, which is all that a large majority of home users use a PC for.
I wonder how long it will take them to realize that Microsoft is now in direct competition to them and is using PR to "cutt off the air supply" to their home PC market? Once they realize it will they begin behaving like a truely independent corporation, instead of a subsidiary of Microsoft? Will they offer Linux preinstalled to the US market? Doubtful.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
My ZD7000 has a defect (they all do, it seems) wherein running RAM-intensive applications causes the machine to shutdown or reboot if you have RAM installed in the secondary slot. This applies primarily to graphics apps such as photoshop and GIMP, but could also affect games etc.
So I've been running 512MB instead off 750MB-1GB for awhile now, HP will not do anything to help me out (and 1GB singular DIMMs of laptop RAM are not cheap)
the Apple *Books are strongly Linux compatible, esp with the new 2.6.11.x kernel, and newest alsa. Sleep, sound, 3D, all works. Not bad for a totally silent, compact notebook. Only the darn built in wireless doesn't work is all.
HP knows that these machines are intended to run Linux, but they're somehow unable to ship them with the OS installed. If it's not pressure from Microsoft, then why? More importantly, how would one reasonably go about proving the conspiracy theory?
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Don't know if anyone's heard The Music's (yes a stupid name for a band) great new alt.rock/dance album Welcome To The North.
When I say alt.rock/dance I mean some hairy stonemen bashing rocks. Heavy metal thunder guitarrr for those who play KoL.
Please clarify which Birmingham. The one in the UK or US?
I distinctively recall HP is one of the companies that abandand Linux some time back. To me what they do or don't do with Linux carries little weight in overall scheme of things.
I wonder why an OEM vendor shipping Linux pre-installed on laptops only signals "The Future of Linux on Laptops" when it's Debian^WUbuntu ?
... but that's the price of Freedom ... Ubunto isn't Free!)
... I see this more as Linux becoming more mature in support of features we all want working out-the-box (which previously requried manual setup).
HP first started shipping Linux preinstalled on NX5000s with SuSE.
And, Mandriva ships pre-installed HP laptops (looks like an NX9030) in Europe
I point out that Mandriva 2005LE does everything (at least on my HP NX7010) this apparently "highly configured system designed especially for HP notebooks" does out-the-box, including:
-LAN (8139too)
-WiFi (ipw2100 in my case)
-Modem
-Sound
-Bluetooth (I use it with a Logitech MX900 and my Nokia 6600)
-Graphics adapter (fglrx or radeon)
-Battery usage meter (ie acpi)
-Suspend to disk
-Hotkey configuration (new in 2005LE, keyboarddrake should choose the right keyboard layout )
I don't have any Firewire devices, and I all the IR devices I have have a faster medium (bluetooth or cable), so I haven't tested them, but the firewire modules get loaded fine.
(On the download edition of Mandriva, you would need to download the firmware for the ipw2100, you would get the radeon driver, and the modem may not work out-the-box
So
"Though HP isn't offering Linux in shipping laptops,"
I'm sending this comment using my HP nx5000 laptop with SuSe Linux 9.0 pre-installed that I bought directly from HP.
This product has been reported in numerous places (Linux Journal etc.).
While not perfect, it is great and sure beats trying to shoe-horn any Linux distribution into a new laptop.
Hell, I'd settle for a vendor that'd sell me a box with XP and a rescue CD that gave me the option to not wipe out my Linux partition once I've got a dual-boot set up.
How hard would that be?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I won't say the original article ripped me off, but I do know InfoWorld published pretty much the exact same article three days earlier and mine was better written. Oh well, call it sour grapes.
Breakfast served all day!
Well, that's a first, never heard that one before. Fortunately, being modded up to +5, lots of people should see your comment and you should be shredded back to reality by the end of the day.
I actually wanted to buy one of those notebooks - but it would have to have a better than xga screen (e.g. 1400x1050), and a "proper" graphics card instead of an integrated shared memory chipset. Both the nc6000 and nc6230 seem to fit the bill - but neither is available here in Germany (the nc6000 is available in .gb and .fr, but not the nc6230, this one almost seems to be an .us exclusive).
For the nc6000 they claim that it is not available anymore because it's an old model - ok that seems plausible, but why is the nc6230 nowhere to be seen?
- Debian or debian based distro pre-installed
- ARM or PPC based
- optional/removable CD or DVD
- optional internal HD
- no FD
- 2 x USB 2 ports
- 2 x PCMCIA (or whatever the new one is called)
- bootable internal compact flash
- screen with similar aspect ratio as PowerBooks
- 8+ hours of battery (could it be done w/ARM?)
- modem (optional ISDN/GSM)
- ethernet
- DVI port (capable of split screens)
- audio out (no speakers)
- aux audio in or mic in (no mic)
Is it currently possible? Maybe. Will any hardware manufacturers go for it? Who knows.Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.