Lenovo To Shun Linux

dominique_cimafranca writes "CRN reports that Lenovo will not install or support the Linux operating system on any of its PCs. Lenovo is positioning itself as an exclusive partner of Microsoft, several weeks after the companies announced they were 'reaffirming' global market development and cooperation agreements." From the article: "A Lenovo spokesman later said the non-Linux strategy is also applicable for the company's Thinkpad brand of notebooks, although Lenovo will provide advice to customers who insist on deploying desktop Linux systems in some fashion. While Lenovo and Microsoft have had a long OEM relationship that pre-dates Lenovo's takeover last year of the former IBM PC Co., IBM had been supportive of Linux throughout its product line -- including preloading it on Thinkpads -- before the sale to Lenovo."

Comments

That's OK...

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll come crawling back to us when Vista turns out to be a flop.

They were right!

[MrSquirrel]

Hmmmm, Lenovo ditching Linux and partnering solely with Microsoft? ...Microsoft being full of security holes... oh look, the US gov't predicted this: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/22/04 36250. Of course, now I see! If they're going to bug PC's, it would be easiest to do through Windows... those crafty Chinese!
Really though... why are they doing this? Seems like they would lose a decent amount of customers considering they're not sold to no-speaky-tech people at Walmart/Circuit City... isn't Linux gaining market share?... Seems to me if a market is growing, you should capitalize on it rather than shun it.

Re:They were right!

[njdj]

why are they doing this?

To answer that, you have to ask "Cui bono?", and the answer to that is "Microsoft". So the most logical explanation is that Microsoft has offered Lenovo extra discounts if Lenovo agrees to discourage Linux use; or has threatened less-favorable terms if Lenovo does not agree to discourage Linux use.

IBM had the clout to resist Microsoft - there are still some big corporations that regard IBM as the gold standard. Lenovo hasn't. So it would come down to ethics and concern for the interests of the customer, vs next quarter's bottom line. We all know what priorities those have in today's corporate America.

their loss

[m874t232]

They have missed a big opportunity. They could have used this juncture to become a leading Linux supplier for the corporate desktop and server market. Instead, they're just handing more and more control over their business to Microsoft.

And if they think they can always do that later, they're kidding themselves. People already don't trust their brand name and their ability to innovate, and shipping beige boxes to Microsoft specs is going to damage their brand even more.

Re:their loss

[m874t232]

The reason I don't run a Linux machine is BECAUSE no vendor (known to me) sells hardware that will be guaranteed to run Linux with 100% hardware working.

You really have to look around a bit more: there are thousands of vendors that sell Linux pre-installed and guarantee that it's working, including same-day hardware and software support.

The lack of Linux adoption is really first and foremost a hardware issue

There is no "lack of Linux adoption"; at this point, Linux is the most common OS after Windows, with OS X trailing a distant third on servers and a closer third on desktops. Linux supports far more hardware than OS X, and far more hardware out of the box than Windows.

The only area where there is any practically significant difficulty with Linux and hardware these days is on laptops and with 3D cards--both of those are real problems, but they don't matter that much to Linux's core market, and they will get fixed sooner or later. It's a shame Lenovo didn't take this opportunity to help address these issues, but it's ultimately their loss.

Re:their loss

[drsmithy]

There is no "lack of Linux adoption"; at this point, Linux is the most common OS after Windows, with OS X trailing a distant third on servers and a closer third on desktops.

I think the claim that Linux has more presence on the desktop that MacOS [X], requires some evidence.

Re:their loss

[linuxrocks123]

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/08/11.2.sh tml

It's still unclear whether Linux or OS X is #2; that article is from 2004, and both Linux and OS X have gained market share since then.

As far as servers, Linux is actually #3 after the combined market share of all UNIces. If you separate out OS X Server explicitly, Linux clearly wins, though.

Re:their loss

[demachina]

" People already don't trust their brand name and their ability to innovate"

I'm kind of curious if people actually have new Lenovo designed and built laptops and what they think of them. Are they actually good designs at a good price, as good as or better than IBM Thinkpads, so there is a reason to go out of your way to buy them?

IBM Thinkpad was a powerful brand with a lot of market presence, but as nearly as I can tell Lenovo Thinkpad has no cachet at all so this deal basically destroyed the brand and the brand was the only thing of value in the deal for Lenovo. The only thing of value in this deal for IBM was it was the price they had to pay, surrendering their PC business to China, to gain very limited access to China's markets in other areas. Most people would call this deal extortion or black mail but that is how the Fascists in China do business and unfortunately it seems to work.

At the moment the Chinese are HORRIBLE at establishing brand presence in the U.S. Their strength seems to be in producing incredibly cheap commodity products, things that you will buy just because they are so cheap but with the realization you are risking getting a product that is crap, and the brands are a complete crap shoot and change weekly, at least on the shelves at Walmart.

I'm just not sure people are going to buy Chinese laptops. Most people want a quality product, with a well known brand, and are willing to pay a little more for it, and China has no brand presence or track record that instills the confidence that you make you want to buy a big ticket laptop from them. I have a no name, no brand, Chinese made LCD. It was cheap but it has annoying dead pixels in it and thats kind of what you expect from Chinese made products from Walmart.

Is this surprising?

[kaiwai]

Linux like UNIX's in general (including *BSD) aren't, sad to say, in great demand by typical end users; if it isn't the hardware support issue, it'll be an issue of ISV's that provide their software on Linux.

Some see this as "Microsoft strong arming", but Lenovo is simply asking, "where is the biggest market", and the biggest market is for machines loaded with Windows, and laden with software ontop.

Is this a set back for Linux on the desktop (on any other UNIX), not really; given that the largest is Dell - who quite frankly, couldn't care less what is loaded onto their machines; start to worry when Dell snubs other operating systems.

Also, lets remember that 40% of the computers shipped today are from small 'white box', local computer stores not the large mega corporations.

Ultimately, however, the ball is in Linux's court; opensource is getting there; it just depends on how patient people are; if they're willing to wait (like me), in a few years time, you'll start to see commercial feature rich software opensource software with in the next couple of years - lets remember, the rate at which features are being added to commercial software is decreasing, companies ( Microsoft namely) have reached a point of diminishing returns - every new feature they're adding, is yielding less and less enthusiasm from the 'geek crowd' and their main customer base.

Its just a matter of time; personally, its going to be the commercial companies who will suffer, they either make the port of their software to alternative operating systems, and gain customer loyalty, or shun these platforms, resulting in opensource software becoming the equal and defacto standard on said platforms.

Yes, although this is slightly off topic, in the end it all ties back to *NIX/*BSD on the desktop, customer demand, and how that customer demand is derived from whether the operating system can provide the same level of software which they need at home, at the office or on the road.

Re:Is this surprising?

[kaiwai]

I think that the feature issue will be a tipping point for Free Software in general, not just Linux/Linux distros. MS adds more crap to their software that nobody wants, yet people keep paying for it because they know there's a certain level of support that's going to be there no matter what.

Most definately; some say, "oh, well, thats what customers demand", but I've yet to find someone who has asked for sharepoint, for example - what is the purpose of that? it seems to be nothing more than a glorified php + DB back end + phorum running on top, which, quite frankly, doesn't yield a single improvement in productivity as to justify the costs of upgrading and retraining.

Another good example is Photoshop - how many have moved beyond version 9? I mean, apart from the Mac user who upgraded from classic to the carbon version, then eventually to the universal binary, look at the number who are happily running their 4-5 year old copy of Photoshop, doing the same sorts of things without any problems. The only people I see upgrading, are those who have this fetish that software wears out, and needs upgrading regularly.

Chief example would be Windows Vista; having a look at it, compared it to Windows XP and alternative operating systems, one has to ask, "where is the beef"? where is the customer pulling, earth shattering, clean slate, 'lets get things right the first time' factors which will make Vista an improvement over XP? already the new 'Limited User Account" (or what ever it is named) has been a flop; Winfs has been purged already for 'shipment at a later date' and the remaining components left are of no benefit to the end user given that they can either be achieved via installing third party tools ontop of Windows XP, already available on MacOS X or if they're inclined, they could upgrade to one of the many quality opensource operating systems out there; in my case, I run FreeBSD + Xorg + KDE + Koffice; far superior to Microsoft or any commercial entity has to offer.

As for Microsoft, they won't 'weaken' but they'll become less and less relevant in the IT industry, but like a spoilt bratt, they'll jump up and down, they'll try to make some noise, like they're doing with Windows Vista; but most people have gone past Microsoft, no ones interested in their products anymore, the hype, the momentum is gone; customers are looking elsewhere, they want a different way, a different approach to how customers are serviced in the software industry.

Sun is making moves; PC-BSD is making head roads as users are looking at an easy to use *BSD for their desktops, Red Hat are concerntrating on the servers are the moment, and Novell are focusing on getting their corporate offerings being based around mono. Microsoft know what the future will entail, and they're scared; no more multimillion dollar dinner parties and trips with customers, no more excessive number of staff employed and being funded off the back of monopolistic practices; the 'reform' will be tough, but it will happen in the end.

Re:Is this surprising?

[tomstdenis]

"supporting" Linux only has to amount to using standard well documented components [wifi, sound, video, etc]. The OSS community will take care of the rest.

Look at most Dell laptops. They usually work fine [my 630m does] in Linux because for the most part they use consistent components which are documented. That may be intentional but they really have no overt "support" for Linux on the home user front.

So all Lenovo has to do is avoid random custom chips for things like sound, wifi, etc and they'll be ok. If they go with the "we saved 30 cents per chip" basement bargain components they'll be screwed.

Tom

I don't think that will stop anything ...

[Quiberon]

Lenovo's like a restauranteur, and Microsoft is like a wine waiter. Of course the the restauranteur sends the wine waiter round to see if the clients would like the wine; and lots of them do.

However, if you force everyone to take the wine, some of them throw it on the floor and fill the glass up with water.

They're the Linux users; the freedom-loving kinds.

Re:I don't think that will stop anything ...

[shani]

So does this mean Linux is "free as in water "?

Re:I don't think that will stop anything ...

[nickgrieve]

Um..?

What..? What..?!

I thought car analogies were bad. Sheesh...

Re:Then What laptop should I buy???

[bstadil]

Turion x2 based HP machines DV2000z. They will be out in 2 weeks or so. Killer design made by Nisha in Japan. Here is the Intel verison

Never thought I'd say this

[StarKruzr]

but I agree. Vista has *not* impressed me so far. xgl is just as impressive (or at least, just as useful) as Aero Glass, and with Dapper being as gorgeous and capable as it is...

By the time Vista comes out, Edgy will have been released. I'm seriously considering thoroughly forsaking Microsoft when Vista rolls around.

Re:Never thought I'd say this

[QuantumG]

Who gives a shit what impresses you? I don't mean that in a rabid, you're not important kind of way. I mean that in a you'll install what we tell you to install kind of way. Microsoft still calls the shots. You might like living in alternative land but the majority of people like the mainstream, that's a truism, and the mainstream is whatever the hell Microsoft says it is. Maybe one day that won't be the case, but until a good majority of the mainstream are more technically literate, that day won't be any time soon.

Re:Never thought I'd say this

[m874t232]

Microsoft is entirely capable of producing a next-generation OS with lots of new, innovative technology. Vist isn't it.

Microsoft has some of the smartest CS researchers in the industry But that is neither necessary nor sufficient for producing a commercial next-generation OS. "Innovation" in a commercial OS doesn't mean inventing new stuff, it means being able to sell stuff that was invented 20 years ago but hasn't made it to market yet.

Re:Never thought I'd say this

[westlake]

My aunt isn't technically literate. She's using Linux becaue it came preinstalled (by me of course) on her computer.

The Geek converting his relatives to Linux (not always by choice) counts for little in the larger scheme of things.

Re:Never thought I'd say this

[SanityInAnarchy]

Microsoft still calls the shots.

I don't know about you, but I'd like to change that. And the easiest way to change that is to put Linux on as many systems as possible, no matter how much work it might take to get an equivalent system, because that reduces the power Microsoft has over you and the world, and can directly and indirectly impact how easy it will be for other people to slip out of MS's control later.

Somewhere.....

[ericdano]

Somewhere in Microsoft H.Q., all the chairs are breathing a sigh of relief.

They don't have to

[kanzels]

They don't have to support Linux, I don't remember other vendors really supporting Linux. It will just work as on other hardware...

Conclusion is simple

[Rehdon]

Linux users will shun Lenovo.

rehdon

It all about getting a better deal on Windows

[mattcoug]

Of course this would happen. Lenovo is trying to cut to costs as much as possible. IBM as a brand can for double what Dell sells for, but Lenovo can't. One big way to cut the price, is to make the deal with MS. Cut out Linux support and Windows is suddenly much cheaper....

Gotta wonder how IBM feels about this...

[allroy63]

I used to work for IBM supporting other IBM employees. We certainly had users who ran Linux on Netvistas, Thinkpads, etc. or who ran AIX. You have to wonder what IBM's feelings are on this - after all, IBM has helped to push Linux out the door in the past. They've offered the OS as an installation option so that you boot into Linux fresh out of the box. They also offer support to clients running Linux - typically on IBM hardware.

They've also done substantial work developing a href="http://linux390.marist.edu">S/390 Linux [linux390.marist.edu] in partnership with Marist College. S/390 Linux runs on IBM mainframe systems and allows clients to connect to their own Linux "workstation" hosted off the mainframe (think VMWare - but now instead of running an additional workstation in a window on your own machine, you're running an additional workstation on your own machine but all the processing power and resource utilization is hosted on an OS390 mainframe).

There are a multitude of other places where one can see IBM's support, endorsement, and development of Linux. The big question is where is IBM getting its hardware for its own employees these days? If there's an agreement with Lenovo to purchase PCs from them, I would imagine that this decision will create some serious support problems. It's one thing to have technicians working on laptops that have been designed in house. When the specifications you're working with are open to the communities you serve, you're far more able to create workarounds to specific problems or resolve recurring issues between hardware and OS. If Lenovo is now designing their machines with a commitment to exclusive Windows compatibility, how will this affect the very business that sold the Thinkpad/Netvista etc. names to Lenovo in the first place? What kinds of kinks does this throw into continued IBM development and endorsement of Linux?

Re:Gotta wonder how IBM feels about this...

[Jim Hall]

There are a multitude of other places where one can see IBM's support, endorsement, and development of Linux. The big question is where is IBM getting its hardware for its own employees these days? If there's an agreement with Lenovo to purchase PCs from them, I would imagine that this decision will create some serious support problems.

I don't work for Lenovo or IBM, but I do talk to my sales reps on a regular basis and get to ask some pretty pointed questions. Yes, IBM does have a relationship with Lenovo to provide laptops ... probably desktops, as well. IIRC, the deal is over the next 3 years to provide Lenovo laptops.

The deal is also when you buy a laptop from Lenovo, it comes with the "IBM" logo on it, and the blue "Access IBM" button. And that's also why www.lenovo.com/thinkpad redirects you to an ibm.com web site.

Personally, I'm curious how IBM will react to this. The IBM/Lenovo deal has IBM receiving all its laptops from Lenovo for the next 3 years, so what will the IBM Linux support techs say? Will they not care much, since the hardware isn't likely to change all that much in the (near) future?

As a customer, I am concerned if this will have any impact on IBM's support commitment for Linux on their servers and blades. We're a big user of IBM servers and blades, exclusively to run Linux. (Yes, I've already emailed my IBM rep to ask.)

Lenovo is making its own decisions...

[DiamondGeezer]

Anyone who has actually dealt with the New Brave Chinese Economy knows fine well that its basically irrational, and not to put to fine a point on it: racist. So it's made it's business decision to ignore a small, growing market and go with the dominant worldwide brand. That's fine. It's made a brave corporate decision. We'll just see some of its customer base inherited from IBM go somewhere else. Especially as its not trying to reassure its customers that it wants what its customers want. I won't be buying Lenovo and nor will I recommend buying them to anyone else.

It doesnt make much sense

[oztiks]

They go off and advertise on /. then they tell everyone that they arnet supporting linux? obviously the marketing dept doesnt speak to the support dept very often at lenovo...

slashdot analogy

[sentientbrendan]

need I say more?

Re:Or when the Chinese government tells them to

[corrosive_nf]

Read the article you link to. Lenovo is based in the PRC (mainland China) while the Linux requirement was mandated by the ROC (Taiwan). Two totally different countries, even if the rest of the world does'nt have the balls to acknowledge Taiwan.

That's what Microsoft wants

[njdj]

if you force everyone to take the wine, some of them throw it on the floor and fill the glass up with water.

After paying Microsoft for the Windows XP that they delete.

Seriously, this is the real problem. As long as Microsoft gets paid for Windows on every PC shipped, regardless of whether that PC will actually run Windows or not, Microsoft wins. It will use the money that you paid it to, among other things, buy more anti-Linux "studies".

That's one of the reasons that the Lenovo decision is a genuine victory for Microsoft and a real defeat for Linux. Let's face the facts and not pretend otherwise.

The problem is Linux, not Lenovo

[jopet]

I do not see how Lenovo, or any computer seller could possibly support Linux the way it is done with Windows: these companies do not manufacture all of the computers themselves. They assemble components from other hardware vendors. The problem is - there is no stable, working way how these hardware components are supported. Hardware vendors do not provide opensource drivers and Linux does not want closed-source drivers. If 3rd parties provide opensource drivers they often are buggy and lag behind current hardware.

But in order for a computer seller to "support" Linux, these things should just work at least to some acceptable degree. Which is not the case really.

Do you know of any other laptop where *all* hardware components work under Linux as they are supposed to?

As long as Linux will continue its "opensource only" policy for drivers, this situation will continue. Simply because Linux does not have the market power to enforce anything (as MS does have). It is quite easy for harware manufacturers to simply ignore Linux. Developing good drivers for Linux would cost more money than they would gain by additional sells.

As somebody who uses Linux 100% of the time, I am not happy about this, but unfortunately, these are the sad facts. Given the current move of Linux advocates against closed source drivers and DRM the situation will get worse in the future. I do not see how it will be possible to play HD/BR-DVDs on a Linux machine or how to handle encrypted HDTV signals.

Unless there is a drastic change of who Linux is getting developed the gap between Linux and Windows will widen -- no matter how crappy, buggy, or insecure Vista will turn out to be (probably not that much, given the effort that was invested in it).

Sightly offtopic but still...

[Masa]

Am I the only one who thinks that newer IBM / Lenovo laptops are just pieces of crap?

Company I'm working for has a contract with IBM and we are using an IBM hardware. I have an R50 laptop and last week I had a chance to try some X series laptops. I have heard that the T series are (were?) a good laptop brand, but I have no experience of them (I've heard that the T series, T42 to be more specific, is quite a nice machine for Linux). Anyway, my R50 - and every other R50 I have dealed with - is just a huge pile of crap. And now the light-weight X series seems to be following the footsteps of the R series. The thing is, both models are, as far as I know, provided by the Lenovo factories.

Oh, and the legendary "black IBM design" with well-finished product quality (case and components) is just a joke. Pieces are not fit together well enough and the finishing touch is just missing. Also, the assembly of the LCD screen is just terrible. Every time, I open the laptop lid, it feels like the CD drive and the lid would come off in any minute.

The worst thing is that most reviewers have been giving absolutely glorious reviews for the R50 series laptops. But maybe drug-abusing is common trait in the laptop-reviewer-circles.

Re:Sightly offtopic but still...

[Jim Hall]

Am I the only one who thinks that newer IBM / Lenovo laptops are just pieces of crap?

Yes, you are. At least, I would disagree with you.

I've installed and run Linux on lots of IBM ThinkPads: T60, T43, ... R40, R30, ... A31, A30, A21e, ... 770z, 770, 765D, ... 384ED. I've always considered the ThinkPad to be a solid machine, very Linux friendly. I love the R40 that I'm on, but now that it's 3 years old it's time to replace it with one of the dual-core laptops ... I'm considering the X60, since the T60 definitely supported Linux. When the ThinkPad was an IBM product, for example, IBM opened the code to the DSP on the ThinkPad 770 series.

Actually that's a good question now

[gd23ka]

I personally own a Thinkpad T41 I purchased in 2004 and posted here about they way the socket of it's powersupply came off this last christmas and what a hassle I had to go through to get that fixed. Now a couple of days ago I talked to a friend of mine (who I had recommend a T41 myself for shame) and he told me his plug had come loose too. If you ask me quality took a nose-dive down even before IBM sold to Lenovo probably in the full knowledge that quality was bound to deteriorate even further so why bother. A product built using cheap labor is one thing as most electronics nowadays are but using even cheaper parts manufactured in the chinese forced labor camps are another. I will not buy anything from Lenovo, ever. I want a rugged notebook that doesn't come apart, whose screen stays up (and doesn't have to fixed with tape like I saw one of my colleagues to with his Fujitsu Siemens) even after a year of use, the powersocket of which doesn't come loose and so forth? Who makes notebooks like that, today?

Distributions should start recommending hardware

[deragon]

I think it would be good for distributions to start recommending hardware manufacturers. Imagine Red Hat and Novell recommending HP over Dell, Nvidia over ATI for example. That might give a push to hardware manufacturers to better support Linux.

Re:Handy

[pintomp3]

whether or not they designed them, calling their products imitations doesn't make any sense. and since they've made some pretty nice new laptops since name change, i'de say they have pretty decent designers too. not all products from asia are counterfits and knockoffs. asians are capable of design too.

Toshiba Tecra M4

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any other laptop out there as good? (And doesn't have those horrible pad mouse things?

I have a proper IBM ThinkPad, and like yourself, I've always liked them. And I will not buy anything that doesn't run Linux, period.

However, when I upgraded my laptop just over a year ago, it was to a Toshiba Tecra M4, because it beat Lenovo ThinkPad hands down in MANY areas: cost (only 1000 UK Pounds, astounding for the specs!), 3D graphics (nVidia 6200 Go), display resolution (1400x1050), all-integrated comms (Wifi, Bluetooth, PSTN modem, gigabit ethernet), multiple storage built in (hard disk, CD/DVD, SD card, and PCMCIA slot for microdrive) and it's a sexy laptop-tablet convertible (use it in either mode, as the display swivels).

Of course it supports Linux beautifully too, everything works.

Unfortunately, it does have a mouse touchpad (but you don't have to use it of course), as well as a ThinkPad-style nipple, plus USB slots if you want an external mouse, all of which can be used to move the mouse pointer at the same time.

I should mention the downsides of the Tecra M4 too: it's very heavy despite being quite slim, and it sucks power like there's no tomorrow. If you can live with those bad points, I strongly recommend it as a ThinkPad "upgrade".

Oh, there's also a 3rd downside: Toshiba "customer service" ranges from non-existent through incompetent to pure customer-hatred. Worth mentioning, in case that matters to you. :-)

"wonderful" dapper my ass.

[simscitizen]

I just installed dapper, and wasted the last 5 hours of my life on it. Let's try to do something simple, which I could do back in Windows _98SE_ in 1 minute: make my 2005fpw 20" lcd my primary monitor, and my t43's sxga+ screen a secondary monitor. In windows, this takes three-five clicks. Display Properties, enable secondary monitor, drag the secondary monitor to the position you'd like, set its resolution. Done. What's more, if you undock the laptop, windows will automatically detect the change, and revert you back down to only the LCD. Dock it back in, and the windows will shift back onto the primary LCD, with space on the secondary display. No logout/login or shutdown needed. Everything just WORKS automagically. Contrast this with Dapper (and FC5; I tried that too). 5 hours after playing with fglrx, and ati+mergedFB and i STILL could not get a correct dual-head setup. In any case, you shouldn't have to muck with a textfile to do something as simple as lighting up two displays at a time. This is 2006, for crying out loud. What's more, even if I COULD get the dual-display working, you can't even use 2 monitors in Linux with hot docking. "But it's as simple as startx --serverlayout_that_you_want!" No, I don't want to fucking close all my apps and restart my X server EVERY SINGLE TIME I dock or undock my laptop. That is not an acceptable solution. I'm not going to even bother talking about how Dapper mucked up /etc/fstab because I installed with an external USB drive attached. I'll stick to just ssh'ing into our linux cluster when I need linux tools. (Which is often, actually--perhaps that tells you how much I cannot stand Linux on the desktop.) I love the shell, but don't delude yourself into thinking Linux is "ready for the desktop". When you want to configure a GUI like X, you should be able to use the damn GUI to configure it. Apparently, those working on Linux distributions don't get this. I'll stick with Windows and Mac for my desktop until they do.

Re:"wonderful" dapper my ass.

[camcorder]

It's not the distro fault for not being able to dual heads with GUI. You better blame your card vendor for not supporting Linux, instead developing shitload of useless applications for Windows. Just send a mail to ATI and complain about the situation. If you were using NVIDIA chipset card btw, you would have GUI for dual head display, which is not very intuitive but still would do the work.

Btw, for your peculier problems like dual heads, and sticked usb drives, you can't judge if linux (ie. dapper) not ready for desktop. Vast majority of desktop users do not have dual head display, and for vast majority of the desktop applications Ubuntu desktop is superior than Windows, like having ready ofiice suite, pdf reader, im client and powerful graphic editors etc. Besides these applications you also have a proven security.

Re:"wonderful" dapper my ass.

[bubkus_jones]

What do grandma's generally do? Email their kids/grandkids, search the web for recepies and play games. Two of those are ready out of the box, the third takes about 10 minutes, only if they have specific "Windows-only" games.

There are very few things that people like that NEED windows for.

Re:their loss -MS pressure?

[fons]

This makes me think...

Lenovo is a company and companies want to make profits.

However small Linux sales were, if they stop Linux sales, they will lose business. If they made a profit on Linux sales, they even lose profit by cutting their Linux offer. They will also lose investments they made.

Companies generally don't want to lose business or profit.

So, why did they do it?

MS offered them a deal. Since IBM is a big player, this deal will have cost MS some money.

So I think this proves MS is at least scared enough of Linux to buy off the possible competition.

Re:their loss -MS pressure?

[m874t232]

First of all, Lenovo is not IBM; IBM was shipping Linux.

However small Linux sales were, if they stop Linux sales, they will lose business.

Well, that's not always the case. Shipping or tolerating Linux costs them some money: marketing, support calls, more difficult deals with proprietary hardware vendors. Still, I think all things being equal, Linux is already popular enough so that those costs would have more than been compensated by the sales.

So, I agree that Microsoft probably pushed them with both a carrot (lower Windows licensing costs) and a stick (Microsoft has lots of sticks).

And, yes, Microsoft is clearly scared (as they should be).

Big Deal

[pandrijeczko]

My only two criteria for buying a notebook for Linux (aside from best value for money) is that the manufacturer publishes detailed hardware specifications (so that I can check how to get wireless, video, etc. cards working under Linux before I consider buying it) and that I'm not paying for an unwanted copy of Windows in with the cost (I'm not sure such a thing exists for notebooks).

As it happens, I purchased a HP nx8220 notebook recently that works pretty much as I want it to - it had XP Pro pre-installed but that was okay because I wanted some mobile gaming capability and I dual boot it with Gentoo Linux where just about all the hardware works (with a bit of tweaking).

Personally, the Lenovo issue is minor - Linux is ready for the "desktop" provided you choose your hardware relatively carefully and are prepared to devote some time to configuring it yourself. However, if you're nothing more than a "fad follower", you shouldn't be using Linux, full stop.

People seem to forget the reasons for using Linux - don't go near it if you want fully compatibility with Windows and commercial games-playing & if you've got no need to embrace the true power of an operating system through scripting & programming at the command line, then you should stay away from Linux.

Far too many people today are verbally anti-Microsoft yet are unwilling to turn those words into actions by investing time learning alternative operating systems to become less dependent on Windows.

Anyone who uses Linux for the "cool" factor alone is a fool - Linux is an amazing environment to work in for flexibility and usability provided that you spend time learning how to embrace its power properly.

there's plenty of Linux vendors

[m874t232]

For servers and workstations, you can go with companies like Penguin Computing (there are many more of them) that put together machines out of Linux-compatible components, integrate it, preinstall everything, and ship it.

For laptops, there are actually plenty of Linux compatible laptops, but there is no single recognizable brand that is consistently Linux compatible, making the problem one of selection, not availability. Fortunately, a number of companies like Emperor Linux do the legwork for you.

With hardware virtualization on the new Intel mobile chips, using Windows or OS X as a "bootstrap loader and device driver" for Linux is another reasonable choice. That way, you get all the goodness of a Linux desktop environment on your hardware, but installation is trivial and you can strip down the host OS to its bare minimum.

I don't think so

[m874t232]

OS X gives you basically just one theme (well, there are third party hacks, but I have found them to be pretty unpredictable), plus the option of enabling a few gimmicks in the GUI. And architecturally, a lot of that stuff happens by special-purpose functionality.

The combination of Gnome, KDE, and X11 in (K)Ubuntu already gives you a choice of dozens of well-designed themes each, in addition to having implemented nearly all the special effects that OS X has.

But that's just the beginning, because the Xgl architecture makes it much easier to implement new visual GUI technologies. People have already demonstrated far more sophisticated and complex GUI techniques and visual styles than anything shown by Apple.

Re:I don't think so

[m874t232]

I'm not after "complexity" and neither are the Linux GUI developers; historically, UNIX and Linux GUIs have been clean and minimalistic.

Linux GUIs are getting complex because that's what users coming from Windows and Macintosh expect. If you want Linux GUIs to get better, get Apple and Microsoft to clean up their shitty user interfaces so that Linux doesn't have to keep supporting that kind of mess.

Re:you got it wrong

[drsmithy]

The reason it's not there yet is probably because there hasn't been a big need for it in the past: most vendors didn't make drivers available, and the few people for whom this mattered spent the 30 minutes to figure it out.

Well, speaking as someone who can - and has - "figured it out", the experience was enough to keep me away from Linux as a desktop until the situation has *dramatically* improved. It's the tedium and difficulty of these sorts of tasks - which should be trivially easy - that really needs addressing in the Linux desktop.

My job is adminning unix machines (amongst others). I waste *more* than enough time in my day making servers work (or keep working), I have zero interest in performing that same struggle on the machine that should be a transparent tool. Linux on the desktop is simply too much work, as far as I'm concerned.

Installing it by hand is a major undertaking that involves significant text-mode interactions.

Maybe if your idea of a "major undertaking" is hitting [Enter] half a dozen times. In which case, I'd hate to think how you judge something like the OpenBSD install (or the prior version of Ubuntu).

What really pleases Microsoft?

[dbkluck]

This is actually quite telling. I'm living in Beijing at the moment. On a quick trip to one of the many electronics markets, I can find hundreds upon hundreds of Lenova PCs available for purchase--not one of them running a legitimate copy of Windows. Logically, one might think that the way for Lenova to buddy up to Microsoft and "affirm global cooperation" would be to crack down on piracy of MS software in their home market. Au contraire, it appears, what really pleases MS is not the purchase of Windows (they don't care if you steal it, so long as you use it) but rather the non-use of a competing product.

Re:Distributions should start recommending hardwar

[hacker]

Funny thing too... ATI's 2D/3D Linux drivers are absolutely amazing on my Thinkpad T42p here. They work solidly and I'm getting ~2,000fps in 1600x1200@24bpp on this laptop. Their setup tool builds packages for Ubuntu, Red Hat, SuSE and others right from the installer itself, including for Debian Unstable, Ubuntu Dapper and other "less-than-stable" distributions.

All I see and hear are complaints about NVidia's drivers, compatibility and installation problems.

Yes, ATI isn't one of the good guys because they're doing this as binary drivers, but they are certainly allowed to do so, since they have their own IP to protect. They are, however, one of the good guys in my opinion because they are extending an arm into the Linux community to help improve and support their cards and drivers under Linux, natively.

Re:Distributions should start recommending hardwar

[Woy]

My case was a Radeon 9600 on a regular desktop PC. Of course it works decently on the basic cases, but try dual-head with 3d acceleration. For me at least, that was extremelly painful to get going in linux, and trivial in windows. Dual-head with different resolutions on each monitor made such nasty graphical artifacts on the screens i was ashamed someone would see it and think linux sucked. Playing 2 videos at once was slow, it felt like 1999 again. Restarting X (without changing xorg.conf) would bring a random refresh rate for each monitor. This was with up-to-date software and drivers around March 2006.

Both Nvidia and ATI provide binary linux drivers. I use kubuntu dapper and on those forums i rarelly see any complaint about Nvidia. Also, most how-to forum posts range from "its one step on nvidia, and 3 pages of shit for ATI" to "if you even want to try this, get a Nvidia card".

Hell, i was as big a fanboy of ATI as anyone a few years ago when they finally fixed up their windows drivers and had better price/performance ratio than nvidia. But now i run linux. I moved on, and ATI didn't.

Re:don't care about mainstream support

[Cheerio Boy]

I honestly could care less if mainstream PC companies leave out linux. they usually don't really get it right anyway - offering a limited selection of pre-installed distros that are installed their way.

You'll care once they start producing hardware with encrypted software drivers that only work on Vista or whatever the flavor-of-the-day Microsoft OS is.

The fact that they're working towards becoming an exclusing Microsoft partner means that at some point they will cease to produce anything that is compatible with anything else. From their business point of view it won't make sense to do so.

One-Vendor Dependent Company

[JoeCommodore]

I guess they want to play Monopoly with Microsoft.

I can see this is probably a knee jerk marketing action to boost sales, but it's like saying "We commit support the platform everyone else is supporting already and are not prepared for any weird change in the industry."

So in general there is no real news here: "Our offerings have just become more limited than what they had been in the past. the public should be impressed by that fact, and should give us their business."

Re:When Marketing and Sales dept control products

[Glonoinha]

Maybe the reason Lenovo is shunning Linux is that all the spyware they are bundling in the firmware only works if Windows is the operating system.

Laptops...

[Junta]

For PC market true, but for a good linux laptop, thinkpads have of late been an excellent choice with all the features working under linux.

My thoughts exactly: Will IBMers have Dells?

[swillden]

Note: I work for IBM but not for IBM's IT or support departments, and I have no non-public knowledge of IBM's plans, and may well have misunderstood the public info.

IBM is slowly moving toward Linux as the standard desktop for internal use. IBM's CIO actually announced in 2004 that IBM's standard desktop platform would be Linux by the end of 2005. That didn't happen because it turned out to be much harder than expected to get all of the internal apps moved to Linux, but IBM has continued the push in a low-key way. More and more internal applications are moving to the web, and the IE-only web apps are slowly getting fixed. IBM Workplace provides Lotus Notes application support on Linux. Most all new internal apps are either web-based or written in Java and tested on multiple platforms.

I don't know how long it will take, but unless something changes, Linux will eventually be the standard desktop/laptop operating system for IBM employees. If Lenovo is selling machines that contain a bunch of hardware that doesn't play well with Linux, will this lead to IBM having to abandon the Thinkpad? More likely IBM will simply tell Lenovo to use Linux-supported hardware in the boxes they sell to IBM. IBM has to be Lenovo's single largest customer.

What worries me is the interim period, before IBM begins supporting Linux whole-heartedly for internal use and demanding Linux compatibility. My next Thinkpad could be unable to run my preferred operating system effectively. I wonder what people would say if I bought a machine with my own money to use for work? It would probably be one of the new Macs, dual-booting OS X and Debian Linux -- assuming, of course, that Linux runs well on them.

T-series

[Noksagt]

I've had both a T42 (IBM) and T43 (Lenovo). Both are solidly built.and both are excellent Linux machines.

Re:Now I'm annoyed...

[Sporkinum]

Gesundheit!

Is this really true?

[metamatic]

IBM had been supportive of Linux throughout its product line -- including preloading it on Thinkpads -- before the sale to Lenovo

Really? I kept looking, and never saw any option for buying a ThinkPad without Windows, let alone one with Linux preloaded.

Sure, back in the days of the ThinkPad 600 there were a few abortive experiments, but that was a long time ago.

I think the only difference is that Lenovo have come out and stated what was IBM's unofficial policy for years.

[Opinions mine, not IBMs.]

Not to sound like an ass, but...

[Chordonblue]

What the hell is wrong with being able to do simple X11 configurations in a lousy 640X480 16 color mode? Every modern adaptor supports VESA modes, so it seems pretty cut and dry to me.

I don't have an aversion to text files - so long as the contents of which are well documented. But people coming from Windows are used to having their graphical editors - which distros like Ubuntu do a TERRIFIC job at providing. Why not provide some consistency for those types of users? Or should anyone who does not have a Linux certification 'go shove it'?

Re:Word of the Day: Switcher

[MaestroRC]

This is why inveterate PC-type people such as yourself would do better to stay off the Mac, a computer that was designed for Mac types.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure that Apple disagrees with you. Trying to say that the mac is only for the elite few that possess some sort of hidden knowledge that the rest of us don't have (which apparently has to do with knowing what some animated QuicktimeVR animal is).

In other words, shut the fuck up and go back to your little hole of a perfect world where only you and your friends can reside. For me, I'll keep using my Macs, and I'll keep switching people over from the hell that is Windows. Oh, and you might consider not posting as anonymous if you want to flame people about stupid shit all the time.

Lenovo Backtracks On No-Linux Statement

[chriscrowley]

http://www.channelweb.com/sections/allnews/article .jhtml?articleId=188701694&cid=ChannelWebNews