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Lenovo Preloading SUSE Linux on ThinkPad
An anonymous reader writes "For years, the holy grail of the Linux desktop has been to get a major computer vendor to commit to preloading a Linux desktop. It's finally happened! Lenovo has made a deal with Novell to preload SUSE Linux 10 on its ThinkPad T60p mobile workstation. Ironically, in June, Lenovo was in hot-water with Linux fans because an executive had said that the company would no longer support Linux on its ThinkPad line. But the company did a quick about-turn. Who knows, maybe Mr. Dell will finally get the message, too?"
I've always loved the IBM Thinkpads but have had doubts about the ability of Lenovo to matain the same quality. I've been looking at getting another Thinkpad, and Lenovo offering a Linux distro may be a good enough reason to try them out. Its not my favorite distro, but its deinetly a great foot in the door for Linux, which is something I can definetly support.
Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer
I don't see this as any real big thing. The linux market is still dedicated to the smaller, tenacious demographic (before the flames engulf me I use Ubuntu on my Dell X300). Unless Novell is committed to supporting the operating system in a way more comprehensive manner than M$oft purports to support windows, it's just never going to grow significantly in the short-term. And lets face it, the target truely is the IT admin who's kitting out the workers. A person who's going to order 10's - 100's of units at a time. Now if they're smart, they'll put minimal resources into this until the user base increases enough for a significant cash injection. Be first at the line and capture the tidal wave of change. I really hope they don't just leave the decision to the quarterly bean counters.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Mr. Dell should not be distributing Linux at all. Even before IBM shipped Linux pre-installed, they at least recognized that when they distribute a GPL covered work they need to also provide a copy of the license.
Dell still publically demostrates they can violate Clause 1 of the GPL by distributing the Linux kernel, busybox and other GPL works without providing a copy of the GPL. They admitted that adding the GPL to the tar ball would be cheap, easy and something they are required by the license to do and yet three years later they still have choosen not to do it.
Btw, this is just one of many examples of Dell violating the GPL over and over again.
You know, the timing of that makes me wonder. I don't think that it is outside the realm of possibility that Dell and Intel have been talking about the future. It wouldn't suprise me if Intel went to Dell and said:
"Hey, we've got some server processors coming out at the end of 2006 [Core 2 Duo based Xeons] that will kick the crap out of the Opteron's. Why don't you announce support for AMD based servers around that same time. People will think you're finally going to do it, but once they see how fast our stuff is, nobody will actually buy an AMD server. It'll prop up the hopes of AMD and their fanboys, then Wham! AMD gets nothing, and you get to have another solid excuse for never again threatening to carry AMD products. You will of course get an extra discount on Intel products for going along with this..."
I'm sure it was a little more subtle than that, but the gist may have been the same.
Then again, what the heck do I know?
ender-
Nothing to see here
I wonder if the price of that laptop will come down since there won't be a cost of licensing any Windows products. Or will they keep it up and pocket the extra profit.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
But the advantage with preloading Linux is that you know that since the preloaded distro worked, your distro of choice will presumably be gotten to work as well. You even have a working model to examine.
I know I'd rather start from a SuSE laptop, even if I didn't want to run SuSE than from a random Windows one.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
This said, I am now sure that they (Novell) have been planning on supporting the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad(s) for a quite some time...
I'm not fat, just big boned...
Novell employees are required to use SLED as their primary desktop. The majority of Novell employees have ThinkPad laptops (T42 and T43s). I imagine the T60p will now be the new Novell employee laptop.
I'm also hoping this extends to over ThinkPads in some form. I have the T60 (similar but an ATI graphics adapter) and would like some of these features when I run SLED 10. I'm particularly interested in getting power management similar to what we get in Windows, with full suspend mode support, better special key support, etc.
-- Of course I'm paranoid. I'm a sysadmin.
It's not on all models. The biggest problem they have is that they've got magic tags in the BIOS that XP sees and uses to allow an OEM install intended for Dell machines to go on without plugging in the CD key on the labels they're sticking on the machines. They've got to make a "special" version of the machines they're offering no XP preinstall on that doesn't HAVE this magic key to "prevent piracy", especially since they've apparently caught at least three major businesses cheating on licenses this way in the past. The same goes for at least HPaq (I didn't need to key in the license when I re-imaged my laptop for a small XP partition for my wife's benefit and put Linux (Then Mandriva, now FC5 x86-64 on it...) on.
Blame their wishing for an "easier" way of things for the customer- I blame them for doing something silly that ties them even tighter
than ever to Microsoft that honestly wasn't something that was relevant save for the fact that the damn thing needs regular re-installs
to be of any use to anyone.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas