Slashdot Mirror
Lenovo Removes Linux Option For Home Buyers
billybob2 writes "Lenovo has stopped selling laptops pre-installed with Linux on its web site, only 8 months after starting the trial program. This means that home customers won't be able to buy a Thinkpad without paying the Microsoft tax. Word has it that the decision to pull the plug on Linux came down from the highest levels of the Chinese company's corporate headquarters. For those looking to buy full-sized laptops and desktops with Linux pre-loaded Dell, System76, ZaReason and Everex all still offer such products."
And im willing to bet that they only do that for their american store, but still sell you preinstalled linux if buying in asia.
So up theirs. As Ive always said: if it doesnt run linux, it doesnt exist.
NO SIG
I suspect the decision was made because of comparatively small demand.
Not every disappointment in life is the result of a Grand Microsoft Conspiracy. (grin)
And people just weren't buying them?
The Microsoft tax isn't that big a deal, at least not in the Thinkpad price range. Were their Linux-based laptops any cheaper? I know some other companies that offer Linux don't offer any discount for it.
A bigger concern is whether they're providing driver support for Linux installation or not.
If they had seriously wanted to hit the market they would have rpovided a variety of options. I was going to buy one, but now I think I'll go Dell.
So if I buy a house from Lenovo, I can no longer get it preinstalled with Linux?
China is a Communist country. The "highest levels" of any corporate HQ is the Communist Party. Is China's Communist government attacking Linux?
Maybe because Linux really practices "from each as per their ability, to each as per their needs", and leads the world in sharing property without respect to class. And is not only successful, but makes some people gloriously rich. Maybe China is just jealous of Linux?
--
make install -not war
Look, people would get these things home and try to download pictures from their cameras and print them, and it was impossible.
I bought a T61 several months ago from them with Suse pre-installed (I then installed the latest version of OpenSuse instead as the pre-installed one was an older, stable and supported version.)
I like it a lot and was planning on doing the same for any future laptop purchases. It's a shame because these are great machines and perfect for Linux (and the kind of person that normally runs Linux.)
However, I ran through the various options before purchasing and it was hard to tell if I was really saving money this way. For the Linux systems the choice of hardware options was more limited than with Windows (which does make sense) and I don't think I was able to set up equal systems which to compare prices with. In the end I think I paid the same or possibly even more for this system than if I had got one with Windows with the intention of not using it.
I think, then, their trial of selling Linux machines failed because they failed to make it a compelling option to the buyer, either financially or otherwise (limited options.)
I still feel good about myself for not giving any money to Microsoft.
The manufactures seem to provide very little value with these Linux installs.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
http://www.hp.com/sbso/busproducts_notebooks.html
Many of those laptops that can be configured have "FreeDos" as an option for the OS.
Sure, that means it doesn't come with an installed Linux distro, but you can get a customized laptop without the MS tax.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
When a particular target group is loyal to a product do your best to alienate them. Thinkpads have always been very popular among GNU/Linux and *BSD people.
On Dell's website, all the Ubuntu models have a note: Ubuntu 8.04 with DVD Playback. What does that mean? That they installed the unlicensed work-around for you or is there some licensed linux DVD decoder?
Rather than focusing on dark and sinister plots perhaps speculation should center on lack of customer demand and/or too many calls for customer support. If the product was selling well and at a profit its not likely that Lenovo (or anyone else) would abandon the it.
I'm having a really bad Linux day, because I installed KDE 4.1 on my Hardy Heron Ubuntu box, and found that, after the dust settled, I was booting with an extra kernel, my graphics were destroyed and my networking was f--- up. About the only thing that works right, actually, is in fact Vista running in a VirtualBox OSE environment, and I'm so bitter about KDE trashing my machine that I'm about ready to say screw Linux and just format the whole dang thing to Vista, if only I can find the signed drivers..
This is my sig.
I don't get why Slashdotters assume that it would be cheaper for computer producers and for consumers to install Linux instead of Windows. We also see this in complaints about the Inspiron 900 costing the same with Linux as without it, and there were some huge posts about that. Here's the deal: software development and support costs too. When a manufacturer puts Linux on their devices, they have to first test it, make sure that it works, and iron out the bugs in the parts that won't work. This takes expensive developer time. Once the product is launched, they probably have to deal with 10x more consumer support requests from each user that bought Linux over those that bought Windows, because people simply won't know how to do things. This costs money too. In contrast, if the company went with Windows, they'd have to pay 40 dollars and then a) the software would work out of the box and b) there would be a much smaller flow of support requests, many of which would be handled by Microsoft. That's worth something - perhaps as much as 40 dollars per machine! If you think about it, 40 dollars is maybe 2 hours of a customer support representative's time. What you guys don't get is that preinstalling Windows on PCs is a business decision that is mutually beneficial for the PC manufacturer and Microsoft. It's beneficial for 99% of consumers too of course.
As long as Linux on the desktop remains a demo scene with ever-changing technology, unstable API, incompatible distros, and idealists that make it difficult for companies to provide binary drivers, things stay that way, and you're going to see PCs preloaded with Windows. If you want Linux to reach end-customers, you need first and foremost to make it one single, stable (as in rarely changing), OS. After that you need to make it usable for people who never open options dialogs and have no clue what a terminal is. After that you need to actually have worthwhile software running on it (Microsoft Office, Flash, Photoshop, a decent media player, etc).
I just bought a new Thinkpad T61 preloaded with Suse Enterprise Edition from Lenovo just a few weeks ago. If I remember correctly, it was roughly $100-120 less than the equivalent model preloaded with Vista. Everything worked out of the box (wireless, suspend, 3D rendering, audio...), although I found the distro to be somewhat buggy. I loaded linux mint on it the other day and it works like a charm. It's a shame they stopped offering linux preloaded. At this point I have virtually no need for windows, and I'd rather not pay for it. As an anecdotal story, I was talking with a Lenovo representative about why they offered Linux on only a few select models. Eventually I started asking about anti-trust law. Her response was continually that Lenovo was aware of the law and that nothing was going to change.
I know when I was looking previously I stumbled upon some other options, such as http://www.emperorlinux.com/ which is still perhaps a viable route.
Chinese Spyware didn't support the Linux drivers.
How do you say, "can it run Linux, bitch?" in Chinese?
It's funny because I was about to pull the trigger on one of them. I'm using a company provided T60 that I wiped and installed Ubuntu on. I wanted one of the newer T61's with a 7200 RPM drive so I was just gonna buy one with linux, wipe it and install Ubuntu (I'm not fond of SUSE). When I found out that I'd have to pay the extra cost for the windows licensing that I decided to wait. Looks like I'll be waiting quite awhile or going with another vendor.
A vendor offers an option, doesn't make enough money from it to make it worth continuing, so they drop it. Why does this warrant an article?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Well that alright, we got Dell with Ubuntu and Asus with Xandros! Not to mention HP is warming up...sorta, and Acer has their netbook.
> I think, then, their trial of selling Linux machines failed because they failed to make
> it a compelling option to the buyer, either financially or otherwise (limited options.)
We also bought a SUSE loaded Thinkpad recently. Normally we do RedHat based distros but since this one did come with a supported load left it alone. Yes SUSE is different but the user adapted pretty quick.
The point of preload is not just to avoid giving Microsoft money, I'm smart enough to realize Lenovo almost certainly gave Microsoft their per unit tax (no amount of court orders will ever end that practice) but we got three other important things:
1. PRELOAD. Take it out, plug it in and go. Don't underestimate the value of that.
2. NO SUPRISES. If they are preloading Linux on it they won't suddenly switch vendors on wireless chipsets, etc. and hose you. Even if you decide you don't like the flavor of the month a vendor ships the odds are good you can load any other recent distro.
3. SUPPORT. If a vendor preloads Linux you can call them up and get warranty support without having to worry about reloading Windows before shipping it off or ensuring the drive is yanked out.
In the past we bought Thinkpads because they were the best hardware and nobody offered Linux as a supported option so their lack of that didn't hurt them. That isn't true anymore so future purchases won't go to them.
Democrat delenda est
Maybe when Microsoft starts selling PCs
That was 2001, when Microsoft introduced Xbox, a PC marketed as a game console.
Looks like zareason has been slashdotted.
I don't remember what Lenovo was offering, but I know with Dell, it's pretty pathetic. You get a *small* number of their machines available, plus a small number of available options - even if 'Linux compatability' does not apply - fewer, if not far fewer, options available with Linux Dell machines.
Then there's the matter of even *finding* the damned things on Dell's website. They've separated it into it's own dell.com/ubuntu area, and you can't (easily) get into it from within the main dell.com purchasing process. Is it really that hard for them to make Ubuntu an option in the OS choice box?
Lame.
Back in the day, most Linux users recall a time when the only hardware that really worked well with Linux was OLD and otherwise useless hardware. Those days are long-since gone and no amount of Microsoft pressure could prevent people from developing drivers and support for Linux or otherwise releasing the specs so that other people could write support code. Now just about everything is supported under Linux and quite a few things won't fly under Vista... and it won't be long before Vista is all that is [easily] available. (There will always be ThePirateBay I think...)
But with people everywhere interested in at least trying Linux out, the people refusing to supply Linux preloaded will also become a starving minority group... and in time, we will even see Linux priced at $0 while Windows will be shown for its true price... not $0.
It is an eventuality... an inevitability. I don't see this as much of a setback as it might have seemed a couple of years ago.
is almost always about value, and almost never about price.
Most people have long ago swallowed the Wal-Mart Kool-Aid.
So buy a Windows machine and get a refund.
Having just purchased a T61 (as it was being discontinued), I suspect they have good reasons for not offering Linux right now.
The new T400/T500 use Intel's newest wireless chipset (Wifi 5100), which wasn't supported under Linux at the time of launch (early August). Intel announced support on August 14th, and as far as I know, it's not supported in any stable release of any major distribution. This will change in the coming months, of course, but it makes sense that there's no Linux option now.
The video card is in a similar situation. The laptops with discrete graphics also have integrated graphics which are switchable via driver (for power savings). As far as I know, this switching isn't implemented at all in X and I don't know if you can disable one or the other card. If you order a version with only integrated graphics, I believe it's supported only by the latest version of the intel driver (which isn't yet packaged for many distributions).
Even though I use my T61 for Linux, I still bought a Vista Home version for three reasons: 1.) Every so often I like to have Windows for something, 2.) The hardware options for the Linux version were crippled - slower processor line, etc. and 3.) OpenSuse isn't my distro of choice anyway. You'd have to buy the dock separately (no big deal), because the support for it under Linux isn't official (and it took some time to get things to work reasonably well for me).
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
And there goes my toilet bowl...I mean shit...I mean....
I agree that it would be nice to have a Linux option for the laptop. But at the same time, is this "Microsoft tax" really an issue? I thought that the amount you are actually paying for your Windows license on a store-bought computer is only about $10, since Microsoft basically is giving them away for free. Unless we are literally bitching about the 10 bucks.
.
News at Eleven: Lenovo pulls the plug on a product that isn't selling well in the North American market.
Of the 99 laptop PCs currently available from Walmart.com only six run Linux and all six are $300 netbooks
- and only one or two of these are to be found "in selected stores."
If the "Microsoft Tax" meant anything in the mass consumer market
why does the OEM Linux PC remain firmly anchored among the bottom feeders in big box retail?
They are available from http://laclinux.com./ They have a decent selection, if not all.
From the website:
Ubuntu 8.04 with DVD Playback [Included in Price]
Yeah, something like price = price + 0 I would hope
Just bought a new workstation from them this week. They are very professional and full of Linux goodness! And they do thinkpads.
http://laclinux.com/
> Is it really that hard for them to make Ubuntu an option in the OS choice box?
Yes it is. Because above all else, end users MUST NEVER become aware of the amount Windows adds to the sticker price. That is what is behind all of these games. Windows must be an invisible component lest users begin questioning why they must buy Windows and keep on rebuying it with each and every hardware purchase. The entire monopoly depends upon this, thus Microsoft would mercilessly punish any OEM who broke that rule.
Democrat delenda est
Who cares? Just install it yourself if you want it. There was no cost savings anyway, you were just stuffing more money into their corporate coffers if you purchased the Linux version. If you bought a Lenovo, chances are you should probably be using M$ products anyway. There are better laptops out there for less money.
My understanding is that your OEM license is not applicable to VM installations. Is that not the case?
I understand that it's stupid, and that the license _should_ allow it, but if you're violating the license anyway you may as well just grab a copy online.
because of comparatively small demand.
Maybe the "demand" was small because no one could find it on their f-ing web site.
I wanted a new laptop w/ Linux last month, and I looked at virtually every Thinkpad on their web site, and I could select Linux on almost none of them.
I can almost say the same thing about Dell. Only a small fraction of their laptops can I find Linux available.
Most of these companies just are paying lip service to Linux.
I think it's honestly from the support nightmare that giving advanced OS such as linux to end users results in.
Since linux has no official "help hotline" they end up getting customer support calls. Which costs them money. Of course, it's the manufacturers fault when the operating system gets FUBARRED, and there's no perceived OS Support line.
Sure, that means it doesn't come with an installed Linux distro, but you can get a customized laptop without the MS tax.
If a laptop comes without an installed Linux distro, it also comes without the manufacturer's assurance that there exists a Linux driver for all hardware in the laptop.
I see what you did there. Very clever. How is that working out for you? ...Dr. Phil?! Is that you?
OK, Smartguy. Please explain the difference in logical content between these three conversations:
"Nobody voted for Nader."
"I did."
"There was no demand for this product."
"I bought one."
"P is an empty set."
"I am a member of P."
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Correct. That would be 42.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
My job forces us to use Lenova-made StinkPads - erm, ThinkPads. Honestly, I don't care WHAT operating system they do or don't sell with, these things are garbage anyway. I'm on hard drive #3, motherboard #2 in just a couple of years. I'd drop-kick the damn thing out my 5th floor window, but the prize would be another p.o.s. Lenova anyway so there's no point. Seriously, there's no reason to spend your own money on a ThinkPad anyway.
I tend to think that the majority of Lenovo's customers could care less about having Linux on their laptop. Thinkpads have fast become the standard corporate laptop in the business world, and I think they are "OK", but not as impressive as their prices would suggest. I have a Dell and an old Gateway that run Linux at home, and most Linux users will put it on whatever they have anyway. Dell is actually doing fairly well, in fact better than they predicted with their Linux laptops, so all is not lost.
Now I sure wish my name was "Bob Smith".
Table-ized A.I.
For the typical consumer how has no idea what Linux is, there is little point in a preloaded Linux system. Windows is fine for them, and has more consumer-type software.
That leaves as the market for these things the people that actually want Linux. But people who know enough about Linux to actually want it probably want a specific distribution. If the preloaded distribution is that one, great!
But if the one they want is not the preloaded one, then they are going to end up doing their own install anyway. In that case, the only advantage they really get buying one of the preloaded Linux systems is that they know the hardware works with Linux (maybe--some companies that do preloads simply don't support all of their own hardware under Linux).
But there is also a disadvantage. Windows often comes bundled with third party software, and there also often ads from third parties included in the packaging. The companies that make the bundled software, or that the ads are for, pay the computer companies to be included. The computer company often makes enough money that way to more than pay for the Windows license. Because of this, it is often cheaper for them to sell a given model with Windows than to sell it without Windows.
If this is the case, the Linux fan who is going to install his own distro over the preloaded one is better off, financially, buying the Windows computer and wiping it.
Bottom line: the market for whom Linux preloads makes sense is only a small subset of the people that want to run Linux on their new computer. Hence, it is no surprise that manufacturers are not finding it worthwhile.
Consider this:
Most people spend a lot of time configuring their desktops, changing wallpapers, appearance settings, icons, metacity themes, compiz settings, skydomes, and god knows what else. Some people make their systems look like a mac, some make it look like vista, some make it look unique. I think it would be a significant leap if we could make a SINGLE (large) file container, with everything involved in the desktop settings, and send it to other users. The community could share beautifully tuned desktops, and we all could experiment with numerous desktops really rapidly. If we improve productivity in this arena, then everyone on windows would see amazing desktops, all changeable, and that's an important step towards solving bug#1. A large file could have all associated settings, parameters, needed files, and command sequences to configure the desktop in ONE click. Most newbies don't have the know how or the patience to learn how to really transform a desktop... we could give them a little instant gratification, as this is something that no mac or windows user can do. And wouldn't it be cool to quickly check out if that awesome desktop fits your machine?
that whistleblower who decided to scream from the mountaintops about the terms of the MS OEM refund instead of signing his NDA? Might it just?
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
I'm happy with my Everex laptop. Glad it got mentioned.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
What fun is to overwrite Suse with Ubuntu? The real satisfaction is to buy a laptop with Vista and overwrite it with Ubuntu! Lenovo knows that!
Also, it's no surprise that home buyers prefer homes with windows. Linux homes tend to be pretty dark, and you must know the home better (from technical side) to be able to do anything in it.
I heard the Kraken botnet is very consumer friendly. It is like, connects all those Windows systems together to form possibly worlds largest and most potent supercomputer, and all that without even bothering the people who use these systems. They don't even know it, imagine!
Oh, nice catch.
If there were a competitive market for _operating systems_ (not mac!) microsoft would not be allowed to set the price per laptop/pc as high as they do. So the difference between the price you pay microsoft for their OS on your computer now and some imaginary competitive price, much lower than Microsofts.
The last time I checked with Dell, it was at least $200 more for the Vista Premium, without an office application suite than the Ubuntu formatted hardware. I would imagine a competitive market would probably be anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3 lower.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
If i buy an apple, how do i get rid of the OSX/Apple tax?
Don't buy a Mac.
Unless you really need an 8 core bedroom heater, or unless you're hooked on brushed aluminum in some particular shape, you can find a Wintendo that's functionally superior to pretty much any Macintosh, and 20-40% cheaper.
The only reasons to buy a Mac instead of a Wintendo are (a) you want OS X, or (b) you've got more money than you know what to do with and you're buying it for the style.
If you bought a Mac, and you're complaining about the price because you don't want OS X, put your analyst on danger money.
I'd be more interested in what Excel has to say about this.
If Lenovo was selling enough units with Linux to make any difference to Microsoft's bottom line you can bloody well bet they'd have kept the option.
Most home laptops are bought at retail, not directly from the manufacturers. I doubt Lenovo was selling very many Linux ThinkPads to home customers.
The Microsoft tax isn't that big a deal, at least not in the Thinkpad price range. Were their Linux-based laptops any cheaper? I know some other companies that offer Linux don't offer any discount for it.
They were cheaper. I bought a T61 a few months ago, mail order straight from Lenovo, and I went for the Linux option. I saved about $120 that way.
I do admit that I didn't try the route of buying the Microsoft option and then trying to get a refund. Maybe that have worked out to an even lower end price, but at what cost in terms of hassle?
Given that I was going to configure the machine for Linux/Windows dual boot anyway, as I have done with all my PCs for more than a decade, Lenovo's option was a double win: one, I didn't spend any money on an OS for which I already own a license anyway; I simply shrank the Linux partition and installed XP from a retail CD. And two, I didn't have to spend countless hours struggling to get pesky stuff like X and WiFi to work under Linux.
I was sad to see Lenovo ditch their 4:3 (specifically, 1400x1050) screens from the T-series lineup, and now I'm even sadder that they are reinstating the mandatory Microsoft tax.
I'm sitting here typing on my Lenovo with pre-installed Linux that I bought from Los Alamos Computers (http://laclinux.com/en/Start).
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
..Perhaps this will lead to an increase in demand for Dell machines to help them continue their rollout?
I hope so.
I just bought a T61p a few months ago and wanted to get SUSE as a GNU/Linux user and developer. My problem was I wanted high end hardware and they only offered SUSE on the lower end models. I wanted a 15" screen they only offered SUSE on the 14" I wanted a NVIDIA graphics card for CUDA development and they don't sell SUSE with anything other then Intel. There problem was they limited you to one model and thats it. You could change the CPU or memory around but thats it. I ended up going with Vista Basic and never even booting into it Gentoo is on it now.
If you want a Thinkpad with Linux just go to Emperor Linux. They were selling them before Lenovo bought Thinkpad from IBM.
They also have Dell and Sharp products.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I've never in my life brought a complete (desktop) pc system. Choosing your own parts and assembling them is cheaper and fits your personal needs better anyways (and dead easy too, if you have working eyes and the ability to read). While i didn't exactly assemble my latest pc/first laptop, it's pretty much the same thing: I brought a model by Nexoc, which is basically just a laptop case and you get to choose everything from ram to hds to vga.
No OS, no preinstalled crapware, but 300 Euro less than a Dell laptop with the exact same specs ( thou i spend those to add another 2gig ram and a better vga, plus the laptop got tested for free by my retailer ). Installing a OS took like half an hour. How does it get better than that?
I recall Lenovo stating some time in the past that they explicitly wouldn't support Linux. (http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/04/0415221) Please note that this was in 2006.
They came back on this statement some time later.
It appears that they've now been selling PC's with Linux pre-installed for about a year. And now they're stopping it again?
Lenovo has been changing their mind much to often to be taken seriously.
I'd choose an HP laptop over Lenovo any day.
Who are they to say I can't use Linux just because I decided to buy a home?!
(Gotta love the English language)
A couple of months ago I decided to try a Lenovo with Linux. I was shopping for a new laptop to replace an Hp ZD8000, which had dual boot Ubuntu/XP.
The Lenovo was very well done. SuSe worked perfectly as did everything installed. Even wireless! Heaven Forfend!
But the installation was very lean, having only the minimal software needed to run what was pre-installed, like open office, etc.
Video? Nope. Not a chance. and other things.
trying to figure out the required packages and configuration settings was way too much work. after a few days, including reinstalling it using the included disk, I bough a copy of XP from NewEgg and installed it over the SuSe.
I was able to get the various windows drivers directly from Lenovo, though I did have to get the first few using a different PC, as the LAN and wireless cards were not supported right on the XP disk. If I had a land line I could have used the modem, but I don't.
But with about an hour of searching and downloading I had everything working. Firefox, embedded and streaming video, MS Office as well as open office, wireless set up, Avast installed and downloading Windows updates to bring everything up to date. Which, by the way, broke nothing.
If I was going to order a bunch of machines for a corporate distribution, with Linux pre-installed, using a standardized, uniform set of add on software, with the machines so tightly locked down that users could not change ANYTHING, I would order a truckload of these Linux-T61's.
But for any other purpose, heck no.
I gave up on Linux after a couple years trying to use it, both dual boot on the HP, and solo on desktops. I even went about 6 months without booting Windows at home.
But Linux is not ready for use by anyone but serious hobbyists. For anyone that just wants something the works, choose Windows.
In Windows, everything works good enough on a clean install that you can boot up. Updates to the system software rarely if ever break something. drivers are available for everything. video, mice with more than 3 buttons, wireless, bluetooth, PIM manager software and syncing with a PDA all work.
You can NOT say that about Linux.
When you can, I'll take another look.
Call me in 5 years.
I understand their failiure and problems with Linux if they use SLED. I dont want to be rude but its really not a distribution that works nicely on a desktop. I have done serious integration and tried to use it as a terminal server. It was no walk in the park compared to Edubuntu/Skolelinux/K12LTSP and for every package i installed the system was one step closer to certain doom. I have also been seriously bitten by upgrades. For example on a HP umpc i got a while ago with SLED it broke down completely when i upgraded it. Such nightmares can be had with the Windows experience instead, no need emulating that behaviour on Linux desktops.
I suspect they are just looking at Ubuntu or any other distribution that fits better on a desktop.
HTTP/1.1 400
Is it really that hard to come up with a form factor for laptops? From day one, I've always pieced together my home PC's. I realize that a laptop is significantly more complicated, but I'm sure many would be up to the task if given the chance. I would even sacrifice my super-slim profile laptop for something a little bulkier if it meant that I could upgrade key components whenever I needed. I think if there was a laptop company that let you select your OS first, narrowed down the components that are compatible with that OS (and each other), and them shipped them all to you to assemble yourself, that company would make a fortune. Of course, you could still offer assembly and pre-installs for a tidy profit, but I really loathed buying my Dell laptop only to realize that I only had two or three choices when it came to things like video card, ethernet card, wireless card, etc. I don't need Windows, I don't need software support, and I certainly don't want to pay a premium for things I'll never use. My Vista CD remains sealed in a drawer somewhere, and the first thing I used my Vista install for was dowloading my latest distro of choice and burning it onto a CD.
In partnership with a hardware company in India called Zenith, Microsoft is a PC OEM for a system called the IQpc. That was really not a smart move on Microsoft's part.
All the next billion users are not belong to Microsoft. Not theirs. The backlash from this decision is just now reaching the upper levels of Microsoft management as their platform is deprecated by long term partners who understand that if Microsoft gets share in this market, they're dead. This is the same reason you don't have a Microsoft branded cellular phone.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Let the companies that are still offering Linux get your purchase instead of Lenovo. Simple as heck. Everex is looking good imho.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
HP has had for more than a decade their own Linux distribution called "Insight Diagnostics". You can download it from HP.com and use it to do diagnostic tests on almost all the hardware that HP computers come with. It's special purpose and has no install to HD option. This disk includes at the least drivers for almost all HP provided hardware, even if it's third party. Most come with a physical disk, but you can always get the ISO from HP.com no matter what other OS the PC was shipped with.
I really don't understand why HP Linux wasn't mentioned in TFS. You can get all HP servers with Linux, and most desktops as well. HP has thousands of FOSS projects they fully fund. They partner with standards organizations at the highest levels. You can get many different distros from them including Debian, Mandrake, RedHat, RedFlag and SuSE. Almost all of the 36% of the top500 supercomputers that use HP nodes are Linux. They don't make a big deal of it, but the option is there. Is this a matter of complaining about the people who are on the fence so we can get them to change?
/Disclosure: I don't work for HP, but I fix most of 'em - laptops, desktops, workstations servers and blades (but not superdome or nonstop). My opinions are most definitely not my employer's.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The Truth: Yes, it does. It is on half of the most popular netbooks on Amazon.com right now.
Westlake I suggest you get the facts before you post this "Windoze owns the market" nonsense again because it's provably false and lying in such an obvious way does not move your message at all. Not here where we know better.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Have you heard of Splashtop? It's a linux distro ASUS is including on every motherboard. It boots in five seconds. You can browse the internet, watch Youtube videos and do Skype with it, among other things.
There's a lot of point in that. Five seconds from power to browsing videos on Youtube. What's the point in that? The point is that the bloated pig Windows has become can be avoided for most uses, and optionally loaded only when you must have those occasionally useful programs that require that crutch because they're poorly written to depend on it. As people more and more avoid the pain of loading Windows more and more software houses will get the point that if they want their apps to be run, they had better run in the lightweight environment that is used by most of the people most of the time.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This tells us where Microsoft's astroturf campaign is going without having to aggregate all the various anonymous trolls. We really do appreciate you reading out your playbook like this for us. Now clean out your desk, because when your boss reads my post you're done.
None of the stuff in your post is a common experience. It's a summary of the historical pain points that have since been overcome. Even the newest novice can avoid all of these issues just by installing from the latest CD of Ubuntu, which is free, or buying their Linux PC preinstalled from a major vendor with support. You manage to mention all of the major vendors and escape mentioning that they all sell Linux preinstalled in a way that uses all of the hardware on the machine, and does it better than Windows ever did. HP? Give me a break. HP spends billions on Linux and they support eight major distros. Kernel.org runs on HP servers donated by HP and it has for many years.
Obvious troll is obvious.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Surely you are aware that Lenovo (formerly Legend) is significantly owned by the Chinese Communist Party's state organs and their cronies, and that most (probably all) Lenovos are made in China.
Somehow I doubt that buying MS-preloaded Lenovos will help counter the masterfully engineered massive trade imbalance between the "People's Republic of China" and the rest of the world.
In this case buying a non-MS-preloaded device (but perhaps with a localized and locally supported version of Linux) that is built in a free country by a company not directly supporting China's military expansionism and trade/currency manipulation might be an option?
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
I also purchased a T61 with Suse Linux installed. As installed, the installed version of Suse Linux is a mixed bag -- all of the hardware is supported out of the box without hunting down missing drivers and resolving incompatibilities. On the down side, the installed Linux distribution is fairly old and it was 32-bit when I wanted a 64-bit distribution.
I installed OpenSuse 10.3 and have been much happier with my Thinkpad.
As others have noted, the laptop vendors are performing an important value-add by funding or coercing hardware vendors to develop Linux drivers.
Am I happy with my T61 and Linux? By all means, yes! Dropping Thinkpads with Linux installed won't keep me from buying another one -- as long as I can wipe the hard disk and install the OS of my choice.
Well, can home renters still get the Linux option? Also, does it run all types of houses and apartments?
"Obvious troll is obvious."
Yes, you are.
From Lenovo's website just now.
Of course, it would be nice if they did the laptops without wireless hardware too, but that's just too much to ask.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
and am very happy with it. It is a shame they are pulling the plug, the had the best bang for the buck that I found. System76 was a close second, but I only found out about them after purchasing my T61 anyway.
I'd love to see "None" as an option on their drop down menus. Even if I could get Linux pre-installed, I'd still want to start from a clean slate.
It wouldn't cost them a thing in support, and would be a nice option for people who would prefer Linux or already have a copy of Windows around (as a student at Umich, we get free windows from the Microsoft Academic Aliance).
Everybody go to their web site and submit a sales question about purchasing with Linux
Someone didn't get the memo about the poll on a lenovo blog asking the public what distro they wanted. http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=98&dem_action=view&dem_poll_id=2 Ubuntu got 25,266 votes or 37% of the votes, while Suse got 2,045 or 3% and OpenSuse got 1,528 or just 2%. SLED got just over 300 votes. They asked the public answered and they still go with a distro with lukewarm results. Wasn't it bound to happen?
http://ww.ravalonline.com
If you read the article, you would see that businesses and governments can still order the Linux desktop. The reason for this because Lenovo can control what version is on the desktop and write a support agreement to only support certain things. The cost of supporting the Linux distros was probably more than they wanted to bear and decided to cut the cost.
I don't want to buy a computer with an OS. I want to buy a computer without one.
Whatever is on there when I buy it gets wiped before I install my Linux distro of choice.
...but thanks! As someone involved in the inner working in this project, you have helped to ensure it's survival. Linux is not being pulled, in fact there are more models soon to be released. And this thread lit a fire under someones' tail.
Saying all Asians pirate software is racist, in the same way that saying all people with black skin have some undesirable characteristic.
It's highly offensive to suggest that all Asians are dishonest when I've experienced some of them being conspicuously honest
Time out for a second. Where did I say that all Asians are dishonest? You are putting words in my mouth to support your argument that I'm some sort of racist. If I had made the off-hand remark about piracy in Russia instead of Asia would you now be accusing me of being anti-Slavic?
You strike me as one of those types that looks for reasons to be offended. You have my pity.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Nobody cares. Why? Because the Linux-crowd all want it's favorite distro installed with A Personal Touch.
What Lenovo should do is an 'everybody's equal'-policy: kick Windows off and let users select that with their notebook upon purchase.
Aaah, a clean HDD-option, that will be the day :)
You are a sad, sad case, but a fine showcase of fenqing inability to engage in anything remotely resembling a debate.
I gave you several detailed arguments and all you can do is resort to shouting "LIES LIES!!", "WEST IS EVIL" and "ALL THEIR LAND IS BELONG TO US!!" style nonsense without a single logical, let alone moral, point.
Without your ilk the absolute madness and destruction of the "cultural revolution" couldn't have been possible.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Linuxcertified is still selling Linux Thinkpads with Fedora, Ubuntu or SUSE Linux distributions. http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux-laptop-lctp.html They have 3 models. Looks lime Lenovo no longer sells Linux units directly but are selling through partners and VARs.
they're better of being trampled under the military might of a country that is run by old coots on top of a singular party. way better off. some 'free country' you have, you fascist piece of shit - ah and btw, this is FREE internet, if you are not able to stomach it, get the fuck behind your goddamn firewall. if you can, stomach it, and talk proper and dont trigger replies like the one you are reading now. we dont like anything against freedom here - get used to it, or get lost.
Read radical news here
fortunately, I got T61 with Suse, before it was pulled out due to the higher power. Need to sell my Windows XP desktop on ebay, hm.... The problem with mainstream OS is the security, the more people use them the more the risk. That is why MS has an update every other week.