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Linux Laptop from R Cubed Reviewed
An anonymous reader writes "NewsForge (Also owned by VA) has a short writeup on R Cubed's latest laptop, the LS1250-L Linux laptop. From the article: 'My test machine came with Fedora Core 5, the GNOME desktop, OpenOffice.org 2.0, the Firefox browser, and Evolution mail client. The lineup also includes the normal assortment of multimedia players, administration tools, and games. If you prefer, you can choose SUSE 10.1, various flavors of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and even Microsoft Windows XP.'"
Dell must be quaking in its boots. And Apple... well let's just say Mr. Jobs should get acquainted with his local welfare office.
Not trolling here, but the price does seem high... almost as if the MS tax in in there somewhere. Is there such thing as a Linux tax? Consider the Dell XPS M1210 for $1200.
http://religiousfreaks.com/From TFA: "The $1,433 suggested retail price for the reviewed model seems high."
That's for sure, considering the reviewed model was a 1.73GHz Centrino processor with a 533MHz front side bus, 512MB of DDR2 memory, and a 60GB 5400RPM hard drive.
I like what rcubed is doing and give them lots of credit, but until the likes of Dell and other large vendors offer mainstream factory linux installation (without hidden charges, etc), we're on our own. Modern distributions are savvy enough to handle almost everything you throw at them, but without the blessing of the big vendors, linux will be confined largely to enthusiasts.
Why don't the no-name revolutionary linux laptop makers understand that unless they sell their laptop for lesser than a similarly spec'd Dell Inspiron, people are going to buy the Inspiron and install Ubuntu instead.
:-(
Yes, I know it's easier to have a pre-setup laptop and not have to worry about searching for ndiswrapper etc for wireless, but the community that the linux laptop makers are targetting actually loves such challenges.
Okay, now I'll get back to trying to figure out how the heck this BCM4318 is going to work
I don't thend to think that this is a "slashvertizement", and even if it was that wouldn't be a problem. We are really here to be on the cutting edge, if I wanted a new laptop I'd want to know what is the latest and maybe greatest linux laptops. This just makes you aware of what you might want to buy but doesn't really do it in such a way that says that you should only look at this. Also the review element is clearly different from an advert... when was the last time you saw an ad and it said "it is a bit expensive..." (aside from maybe stella)
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
This article made me think of the overall lack of commercial systems sporting pre-loaded Linux operating systems. It's funny that it would take such a relatively small company as this to even attempt it. In particular, I am surprised that boutique companies like Alienware don't offer their models with Linux or with a Linux-Windows dual-boot. People who are willing to shell out thousands for an SLI notebook are (relatively) likely to be interested in Linux. And if you dual-boot with Windows, what's the loss?
One of the biggest reasons why Linux has not reached a wider audience is the difficulty of installation and configuration, which involves partitioning, potentially compiling drivers, and other things that can take some time. It also requires a decent amount of technical knowledge. If Linux came pre-installed, casual users would be a lot more inclined to give it a try.
My guess is the reason they are charging so much is that a laptop preloaded with Linux is very much a novelty, so they can.
What I don't understand about all the "clearly a slashvertisement" comments is how Slashdot is every supposed to post a story about a new product? I agree that sometimes a summary is highly slanted... some obscure piece of hardware is given a rave review and called a "must have for any geek" and the only links are for places to buy it.
However sometimes the community really does want to know about a new product of some kind. And I would think that Slashdot would care about the goings-ons in laptops sold with Linux pre-installed.
So while we should always take Slashdot to task for abusing their "position of authority," we should not dilute such arguments by crying wolf every time a product-related story is posted.
that's just peachy
Has it got a windows key too ?
I notice that the Leveno Thinkpads have gone to two button touchpads too.
I'll be glad when I'm out of computing, it's a lifetime of frustration.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Am I seeing right? Are they targeting Linux users with a two button mouse latptop instead of three? This would be pretty much ridiculous.
Wouldn't most people with the technical ability to use/maintain a linux laptop just save a bit of money and get a laptop (probably a 'barebones' laptop) with no OS on it? Especially when you consider how custom linux is, and how advanced most linux users are...I wouldn't want someone else to install linux for me, although I actually am a Windows user...
Still using Pentium M when the Core Duo has been here a while, and Merom just around the corner ...
The tagline is all about the software that comes preinstalled. But really, living with Linux on a laptop is all about hardware support. Can it suspend to RAM or disk - even if 3d acceleration is enabled and I forget to remove my PCMCIA devices first? Can I dock and undock with a docking station - each time switching over to my high-res external desktop display - without rebooting? Does the WiFi work - including support for all the weird security and authorization mechanisms? These are the important questions a linux laptop buyer should ask.
why couldn't they offer a preconfigured option with Ubuntu? I know they can't offer to pre-install every linux distro out there, but considering it's popularity...
Firefox! I must have this machine...
What's the point of creating yet another laptop with an overpowered CPU and no battery life? It would make more sense to use a less powerful CPU that doesn't suck up power. Especially when the system is designed to run Gnome on Linux — that's a configuration that would run happily on a system with 1/3 the hz.
Linux people have to stop producing technology whose only advantage over standard Wintel platforms is that there's no OS tithe to Redmond. Go with the Penguin's strengths: less resource hungry, so you can produce cheaper systems that use less power; open source, so you can fix all the usability bugs that Microsoft (and, alas, most Linux app designers) can't seem to deal with.
That notebook looks just like an ASUS notebook. Did they just rebrand it, or did they actually change it?
Let's get things straight. R Cubed says it's based on the Asus Z33A series of laptops. So let's compare the full Z33A specs on the "ultraportable" as Asus compares. http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&mod el=606&l1=5&l2=64&l3=0
It's a Centrino based system. Which means Intel Pentium M or Celeron Pentium M at 1.6 GHz or better and SpeedStep, Intel chipset, Intel WiFi. All supported, so we're good. Everything lines up nicely with much of everything... but there's a few bits that it falls on:
First, the graphics card isn't ATI or NVidia. It's Intel. That means no native OpenGL support and thus you can't play most Linux games, including Second Life. The graphics memory is also shared with main memory, which means it's going to be slower than anything dedicated. Those two alone is worth ditching the laptop for.
Second, the screen's only 1024x768. That means for most websites you need to expand Firefox full screen. My HP Omnibook 6000 has older ATI graphics and that's 1400x1050 -- enough screen real estate to run Firefox at 1024x900, a few aterms, and KDE... or KDE and Gimp at the same time. Even OpenOffice.org benifits from more room.
Third, there doesn't seem to be any word on doubling up on 9-cell batteries on Asus site. Remember, happiness is two batteries in the PC and 4+ hours of runtime.
This laptop? Not worth it. Go on Nextag or Pricewatch or maybe PriceGrabber, and search for NVidia based laptops.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Jesus is my OS, but he panicked on boot up so I reformated him and installed Windows.
KFG
Will it explode as well as a Dell?
Yeah, "That's an Asus" was my first thought. Confirmed it by scrolling half a page down the article and reading "Powered by ASUS", nifty logo and all...
The model reviewed by the article is just one of several types of Linux laptops sold by R Cubed Technologies, ranging in price from $999 to $1,454. I really think you're getting a better buying one of these Linux laptops than buying a Dell laptop where you have to pay the Micro$oft tax or one of those exhorbitantly expensive Apple laptops.
The R Cubed Linux laptops have Intel integrated graphics cards for which Intel has released 2D and 3D-accelerated open source graphics drivers that are capable of transparent windows and drop shadows with EXA as well as rotating cubes and wobbly windows with XGL and Compiz! Way to go Intel!
Get computers and accessories from Linux-friendly manufacturers
Mr. Period: Nine is the one that's right by ten!
Nine: One day I will kill him. Then, I will be Ten.
It's still got a bloody windows key though :(
Looks like someone took an ASUS laptop , slapped fedora on it , hey presto linux laptop..
http://linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html
It's a trap!
http://tinyurl.com/l2mcs
OK, one more seller is using GNU/Linux on laptops. Where are the news? even acer (who makes pretty cheap notebooks) is exporting notebooks with GNU/Linux preinstalled on some countries, like Brasil ( I bought one of these) and aparently Polonia. The news are that those notebooks are MUCH cheaper with the same components of these ones.
All from shoprcubed.com:
http://shoprcubed.com/products.asp?cat=27
14 inch widescreen
15.4 inch widescreen
Their super-small one (12" I think?) and the top model (which I can't quite see why it's SO much more expensive w/o looking in more detail) both are celeron M or pentium M, but the middle two on the page are both Core Duo capable.
I find it interesting that they're such big supporters of "Linux", yet their website is running Windows Server...
Confirmed it by scrolling half a page down the article and reading "Powered by ASUS", nifty logo and all...
The article on Newsforge does not mention ASUS.
(However, going one link further, R-Cubed's site does say "built on ASUS", but leaves open the question of whether they changed the machine in any way.)
For that price, it better come with 900 hours of free AOL, or 6 months of Norton AV!
FC5 is the latest version of that distro afaik. So you are completely uninformed there pal.
As for being fully configured, you are missing the point: even die hard geeks need to get things done.
I have installed Linux on many laptops. Been there, done that, got the cheap T-shirt. If I needed a new laptop I would be more than happy to get something ready to go to which I can add what I need, but that has the basics (Internet stuff, multimedia, office applications) ready to rock.
They are aiming for the geek with little time. The laptop is even cheaper if you don't put the OS of the beast on it, which in my book gets lots of coockie points.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm also not surprised that the sleep and WiFi are flakey. It's gotta be tough for an OS to support proper re-initialization on hardware that can be powered off and on. That's not something that OSs typically do ... if it's on, it's on, if it's not, it's broke.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I have a LinuxCertified laptop which I have owned for a while and have been very happy with. Wireless performance is great, and hardware is very linux friendly.