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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."
From the KDE 4.1 announcement page:
"While KDE 4.1 aims at being the first release suitable for early adopting users..."
If you want to be an early adopter, you need to live with the consequences. I've run KDE for years and would never consider moving to KDE 4+ for a least another year or two.
Also KDE != Linux.
They install LinDVD.
Not true, if you release an OS with your system you "have" to test it, along with all the drivers for each hardware configuration you offer. At larger PC vendors a lot of time and money is spent on this test phase, and a lot of issues are found. The bar is a lot lower for consumer grade stuff, but the testing does still happen. This is why you can't always find the exact combo of hardware you want, for the exact flavor of OS you want.
In order to deliver the cheapest, fastest, greenest, whateverist, people do tend to deviate from Intel's reference design for a given platform. They deviate from other IC vendor reference designs as well, to, in theory, provide a better end user experience, more integration, etc.
The result is that a stock OSes (linux, windows, or "other") may not necessarily work as well, unless/until patches are sent upstream and accepted by whatever OS community is responsible. I am personally aware of a number of OS bugs in both Linux and Windows, found during this testing, that are corrected with the OS shipped with the product by the mfg, that are not yet part of the mainstream OS release. They will be released in a service pack or hotfix, update, etc. at some point, but OS release schedules rarely correlate with hardware releases. Sometimes they never are in the OS release and are in registry changes etc. YMMV.
It may be that some PC vendors are choosing to absorb these costs because Microsoft has been rubbing everyone the wrong way. Lenovo clearly doesn't wish to be one, except perhaps in markets where there's a different expectation of quality & support or where piracy is acceptable.
That's not really true. While the copy of Linux itself does not necessarily cost them anything, the fact that it is another option for the customer DOES make it cost more. General rule of thumb is that the more stock keeping units (SKU), the more it will cost you as a company. Basically, if you only sold one model of widgets, in one color with no options at all, it is cheaper than selling one model of widget that comes in either red or blue. It's not about the paint - the red and blue paint cost the same. It's the fact that your production line now has to support two variations. You now have two different packages for the product and on your web site, you now have to add in the capability for the customer to choose their color, and then you have to make sure that they get the right one. Going back to Lenovo, having a second operating system option means a lot of extra investment in their supply chain. Granted, if there is significant customer demand, the extra investment in the supply chain may be worth it. However, if the demand is not there, then the company shouldn't be selling that extra SKU.
On a non-business note, though, I'm sad to hear that they will no longer be selling pre-installed Linux. In fact, I didn't even know they had been selling pre-installed Linux until now. I like that the option is there. At the very least, I don't pay the Microsoft tax when I won't be installing any Microsoft software and hardware compatibility and driver support becomes more robust. I'm glad Dell is hanging in there. I won't comment on whether this is a conspiracy or not. I'm a dedicated Linux user and I love to bash Microsoft, but even I can admit that the demand just may not be there. It could have even been a factor of them failing at getting the message out to those who would be interested (I at least didn't get the memo). Although I will never completely rule out the possibility of an MS conspiracy, we can't exactly jump to that conclusion here.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson