Lenovo Delivers SuSE Linux-Based ThinkPads

angryfirelord notes a DesktopLinux article on Lenovo's promise to deliver ThinkPads with pre-installed Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 in the week of January 14. Quoting: "Lenovo will release pre-installed SLED 10 on its Intel Centrino processor-powered ThinkPad T61 and R61 14-inch-wide notebooks. In February, Lenovo's pre-integrated Novell Linux offering will expand to include some Penryn-based ThinkPads. The starting price for this system will be $949, $20 less than the same laptop with Vista Home Premium."

Comments

Re:MS tax

[the_womble]

If you're using Linux, you need to know how to install Linux.

Why? There is absolutely no reason why users need to know how to install any desktop OS.

I have installed Linux for several people who manage updates and configuration fine but who would be likely to to run into problems if they installed from scratch themselves.

Servers are different, of course, and so are many corporate desktops that need a standardised installation. However, this is a laptop that is being sold to people who want a pre-installed OS.

Re:MS tax

[ozmanjusri]

But since the OS is Suse, you still pay a Microsoft tax, am I right?

The value of the royalties Novell will pay to MS from OEM installs is likely to be vanishingly small. The main benefit Microsoft got from the deal was the FUD, and that mostly backfired on them.

I have a HP laptop with SLED10 pre-installed, it even has a little green Suse logo where the XP one normally goes. It's one of the better Linux experiences around, especially for corporates and newcomers to Linux. And let's face it, even if you wipe SLED10 and install your own favorite, all the hardware will be supported and manufacturers will see there's demand for Linux compatibles.

I wouldn't worry about tacitly supporting Microsoft via Novell either. Now that innovators like Asus and Nokia have shown the way, I suspect the day of the big generic desktop Linux is over, and manufacturers will shrink-fit versions of Linux onto their own hardware.

Branding is extremely important

[LingNoi]

and what would have happened if Dell went all out putting Linux on the front page, only selling Linux machines no MS Windows and it was a failure? There's another ten years of "Linux Sucks" right there.

No. Dell did the right thing by slowly growing their Linux desktop market and now everyone is copying them.

Branding matters a lot.

It's the reason Microsoft runs it's Get the facts campaign against Linux. Having Linux associated with big brands that people have heard of increases your chance of people picking your product. It doesn't matter that Linux runs on the top 8 super computers of the world because people will make judgements based of how familiar they are with a product.

This is why Ubuntu is more popular then other distributions, because Mark S. has associated Ubuntu with larger brands. More people know about Ubuntu and are more likely to pick it compared to another distributions. A lot of people here on /. grumble about "Why Noobuntu, why not try X". Well now you know, if distribution X had better branding it would probably be more popular then Ubuntu.

Another branding example..

Have you noticed recently how "Windows Server" adverts keep popping up on websites such as top500.org, sourceforge, etc? Places that decision makers might see them, but also developers. Sourceforge in particular seems to have tons of Microsoft adverts that it is starting to put me off visiting that website at all.

Re:Branding is extremely important

[turing_m]

"This is why Ubuntu is more popular then other distributions, because Mark S. has associated Ubuntu with larger brands."

As someone who actually uses Ubuntu and has in the past used (trying some extensively, some still in use) such Linuxen as PCLinuxOS, puppy, DSL, SUSE, CentOS, Mepis, and probably a few others I forget, I think I'm qualified to say that the difference is not just in the branding. I've also developed nothing in Ubuntu nor hold any financial interest in its success. I have used it solely for about 6 months and the last time I booted my XP HDD for any reason was at least 4 months ago. And I really didn't want to like it because of the ugly default shit brown theme, the name and icon seemed like something more appropriate to a Michael Jackson music video than an operating system, and just because it was too popular already. But in the end I succumbed.

Ubuntu succeeds because it is amazingly polished and stable compared to other linux distributions, with a focus on the newbie and a shockingly vast array of software in the repositories that Just Works. No one uses an OS to use an OS, they use an OS for their favorite applications.

If you want help, you are more likely to find success through googling ubuntuforums.org or posting there yourself. This is because the forums are moderated in a specifically newbie friendly fashion where RTFM is banned.

http://ubuntuforums.org/index.php?page=policy

And now network effect is reinforcing the utility of Ubuntu. Basically anything FOSS gets a concerted effort to put it in the repos if it is any good, or a howto gets written for it. And any hardware has someone using Ubuntu having a hack at it to get it to go first.

Re:I hope they do better than Dell ...

[TeknoHog]

What exactly stops you from buying whatever laptop you want and installing Linux yourself? Given that you want a powerful laptop, wouldn't that be more consistent with your wishes than buying an Eee?

It's important to signal that there is a market for Linux machines, when you think about device drivers for example. First of all, when you buy a Linux machine, you know that the devices will work with Linux, even if you install another distro. More importantly, this sends a message to the hardware makers that mostly write Windows-only drivers.

Re:Odd, given IBM's support for Ubuntu

[Superken7]

Well, i think this has nothing to do with IBM, since they sold all their PC business to Lenovo.