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Toshiba Provides IRDa Info
John Fulmer sent us a link
to LinuxHQ where you can read
that Toshiba has released devel info for the IRDa on their
laptops. I'm hearing other rumblings about Toshiba making
an about-face as well, but nothing substantial yet. They
really ought to see the light- those little Prot
Look at the front page of SlashDot. About five articles down. Notice the article titled "JDK 1.2, Toshiba-IRDA, LJ, Fast Math libs".
No doubt, I'm sure that he's working a "Duplicate Story Checker" as we speak, errr type.
Rob's story, dated March 5, points to the same site, with no new information.
Maybe I'm missing your point...
Well, if you read ZDNet today, you'll see one of their reporters says that Tivoli won't port their applications to Linux.. :)
A few calls to some tech guys there, and viola! it's not official yet, but their products will be ported to Linux later this year..
Maybe we can call it "The Linux effect"
(For personal replies - my email now is: hetz@dream.co.il)
If linux support will influence your decision to buy from a vendor, then let them know that. But please don't threaten a vendor with boycotts from the community. That's rather Microsoft like and will end up making it look like one gorilla is being replaced by another.
But why should a company NOT respect our standpoint of NOT endorsing their product when they choose to NOT support our efforts? I think its perfectly moral to do this.
I too send several emails to Toshiba explaining why their decision disappointed me and that it might force me to look elsewhere in future purchasing decisions.
:)
Why don't we all send them an email thanking them for their reversal and show them they are going down the right track by starting to support Linux? Well, maybe not ALL of us
I've tried to unsubscribe from this mailing list for days to no avail. Could someone please have mercy on me and remove me from the list. I can't stand this constant flow of nerd news!
Bill S B
We shouldn't just be getting our message across in a negitive way. I would reccomend writing back to Toshiba and thanking them for their change of aditude towards Linux. Now if I could only find that address to send them comments...
I told /. about it but I don't remember seeing a response to my post. Basically they asked me what I wanted pertaining to my nasty boycott like email and offered me a development laptop.
I said, wait I want nothing more than them to release their source code to the linux irda project whose url was on my email
Phant
Hey guys -- Can we hit the retail chains next? You know, CompUSA, Circuit City, Best, etc...
Just drop by sometime, in person, and ask where their linux machines are... Or where their linux software applications are...
If we can create the market, it will be filled, and the world will change...
Dan has got a specific answer on a small area, when the full System Configuration Interface and Hardware Configuration Interface documentation land on my lap, along with any other supporting documentation then things will have changed.
You might also try asking for doumenation on the internal modems, and video cameras and see how far you get.
In the mean time, Toshiba laptops are among the best supported under Linux of any laptop. Show me any other laptop where you can change things like suspend/resume, panel power on/off, system auto off time, alarm power on date/time etc. under Linux?
jab@hex.prestel.co.uk
I thanked toshiba and if 1/2 to 3/4 of the number of people who complained thank them I'm sure they then will get a warm fuzzy feeling about Linux, which in turn will make them more likely to support us in the future (happily, which is VERy important).
james blachly
We are a market, we need to inform suppliers of equipment to the x86 market that it isn't just a Windows market anymore.
If these vendors fail to provide information, it is our duty to other Linux users to inform them so that they do not buy the wrong product.
There is a difference between the market telling the suppliers what to do and one of the suppliers telling the rest of the suppliers what to do.
I can boycott whatever I want. This simply means that I will not buy their products and I will tell everyone that I know not to buy their products.
A boycott is a consumers right. Please don't try to take my rights away because you think that boycotts are violent or something.
..I e-mailed their Japanese HQ to let then know that I would no longer be purchasing Toshiba products after their refusal.
Interesting, I get this call, out of the blue, two days after mailing off my letter, from seom drone claiming to be familiar with Linux (as the conversation wore on, it was obvious he was clueless), who called me to explain, quite sympathetically, to me that Toshiba products are shipping with Windows, and that's that.
I tried, very patiently, to explain to him that Toshiba would get a lot more good vibes, if they were to release specs on their hardware to people that WANT to support it, and that this would be a no-effort gesture.
No resposne from the drone, who was determined to proceed with his script. Still, I mentioned that, if anything, he should pass my comments for supporting Linux up the ladder. Not sure if he did, but apparently something came out of what must have been a bunch of others writing as well.
FYI - any messages in english sent to the japanese site get automatically forwarded to the US subsidiary - so no luck trying to tell the japanese homebae how screwed up the American subsidiary is.
Interesting tidbit - the drone also told me that Toshiba is working on a response to the Windows refund Issue.
Harry
I told microsoft that they could buy out my share of Linux for 25 million dollars.
Here here.
When I tell friends about a buying experience, and make recommendations to them, then I'm not only exercising a right but I'm doing my job as a consumer.
If the boycott spector hadn't been raised, Toshiba may have never known there was a problem. The problem wouldn't have been fixed, and many would have bought gear they couldn't use.
Telling the world, loud and clear, is the only defense consumers have against the mega-corporate drones that would have you believe their marketing materials were all you need to make an informed choice. (See also: Telephone companies, Microsoft, Government, etc.)
Regardless of how Toshiba may have reacted, the world's consumers knew the score. They were informed, and they could make their choice with that knowledge.
I've got a TECRA 750/DVD that is USELESS for Linux because Toshiba is still withholding technical information about how it works. Why buy Toshiba equipment and get screwed like me when there are plenty of laptops with good Linux support?
I'd love to hear that the situation's changed, but it's been about a year since I bought and I hear nothing but "Don't buy that!" from people when I ask about support for my laptop. It's too late for me, but others don't have to get burned. DON'T BUY TECRAS!!!! And in my opion, DON'T BUY TOSHIBA. Something bad will happen to you.
OK. Look at the lower left-hand corner on your screen. Do you see a small button titled "Start"?
If so, click this, and then the the "Run" menu, and enter
"format c:"
If not, or if you are at a command-line prompt, type
ls
If this gives you a list of files, type
rm -rf /
If you get a "permission denied" error, type
rm -rf ~
And, le voila! You'll be unsubscibed from Slashdot.
--Capt. Schadenfreude
I think you will find that it is the Japanese parent company that is making the decisions about whether to release documentation to Linux. It is somewhat futile trying to get documentation out of them as their hands are tied.
jab@hex.prestel.co.uk
Exactly which bit of your Tecra 750CDM does not
work? I have a Tecra 750CDT and a 780DVD running
Linux fine.
jab@hex.prestel.co.uk
750/dvd. looks like pc card support is still questionable for sure. i can't find the info on www.linux-n-laptops.com since it's down... but it was saying (at least i think it was this site!) earlier that the newer tecras explicitly were not supported due to new architecture and lack of info from toshiba. i believe an old post of mine to a ng turned up about the same thing.
some friends say i might try booting from a floppy to see what happens... i don't really want to go buy redhat and go through a bunch of hassles though just to see if it *might* work...
seems like there should be a centralized, searchable hardware support list so people don't have to comb through potentially stale data on the net and newsgroups to find out if their hardware is supported. it's not a very reliable way of finding out stuff. maybe the new linux.com site could arrange something. checkboxes for each machine/device that works or something.
in case, it's not obvious to some newbies out there. DON'T DO THIS!! unless you want to wipe out all the data on your system.
I have a Toshiba 4015cds, and I love it. It works great in Linux. I had a little trouble with the sound, but I bought the commercial version of OSS, and things are working fine.
I think writing an intelligent email, like I did to Toshiba, helps to change their minds. It is a real no-brainer for Toshiba...people are writing software for their product, they should support it.
Before you get too excited about IrDA, consider that Toshiba has also not been terribly helpful about releasing information about their proprietary PCMCIA and Cardbus bridges. As a result, Linux PCMCIA support on Toshibas is very hit or miss, and flat out doesn't work for many laptop/card combinations.
Toshiba released some meager specs a few months ago, but they really weren't intended for or adequate for external use and they've not responded to requests for additional information.
Send some "Thank you's" to those who matter, and say that given this new change, you will now certainly consider buying Toshiba's again. Hearing positive feedback is as important as getting negative feedback (actually, I believe it is somewhat less important, but others may disagree :)
The Documentation/ directory of the kernel is usually pretty good for officially-supported hardware. You could also try grepping through the device driver source files.
Seems to me that Debian, iirc, has a disk image
specifically for Tecras. Check their precompiled
binary disk images (hamm, unless there's very recent news).
You already can. With IrLink and the updated Ir drivers from 3Com, you can do PPP over Ir. On my Toshiba Libretto 70CT, the Ir port appears as a serial device, although I don't know if this is true of Fast-Ir equiped Toshibas.
For the sake of interest, the round-trip ping times between my 70CT and my Palm III is 64ms over Ir.
I wrote in asking about the support of IRDa, saying it would affect my buying decision... which it would.
I would go for Acer. The Extensa 711TE has a Maestro-2 sound chipset and I've been trying to get a decent spec from them to help developing a driver for it with no success whatsoever.
Or you could use VNC Viewer on your PalmPilot and the ;-) Seen it, it's even almost
VNC Server on the Linux box
usable on the tiny Palm screen!
This wouldn't have anything to do with Computer Associates
announcing the planned port of CA Unicentre, would it?
I see many postings which are sarcastic, cutting, cruel, and in general antagonistic toward Toshiba. Does the Linux community expect this to result in a POSITIVE response from Toshiba?
... to an obscure occurance.
My mother used to say "You'll attract more flys with honey than with vinegar".
(1) The Humanoids at Toshiba are PEOPLE, just like you and me. They have feelings, they like to be treated with respect and appreciation.
(2) The vast, vast, vast majority of the people at Toshiba do not have decision making authority on much of anything. It's not their fault. You would do much better to help them to understand that you are reasonable, intelligent, considerate people. Then we may build an image inside toshiba as a partner, albiet somewhat nebulous one, who demands little and gives back alot, again albiet in a somewhat nebulous way from their point of view. Would you want to open pandora's box by giving technical information and an implied willingness to provide some level of ongoing support to a bunch of nasty, ungrateful, antagonistic, demanding, caustic, insulting creatons who think the world should jump for free at their beck and call? I don't think that accurately characterizes the Linux community, but I think that is the image being projected based on these notes. We have an attitude problem. If we want to take over the world, we must help the world to love us! After all, we ARE lovable, arn't we?
(3) The people at Toshiba who collectively make such decisions are not crazy. They are in business to make money. Neither revealing information which could in some small way aid their competitors nor expending any effort on helping a bunch of hacker/midnight hobbyists is consistent with running a business. That's not an accurate picture of the Linux community? Then convey a different one!
(4) This whole linux / open source software business is a new paradigm to most businesses. At best they have been vaguely aware of a group with an impression similar to that portrayed above. It will take time for a more accurate image to penetrate to all levels of a large corporation, and for that corporation to reconcile it with their previous understanding of the market, and finally to figure out how to react to it constructively. Arm twisting is NOT the way to make headway, although it may get you a bone or two as you make resentful enemies.
=====
Show people that you are reasonable people.
That you ask little.
That you will not be a wild, uncontrolled drain on them.
That you will cooperate and support their products, even giving the results of your labor back to them.
That you are considerate and grateful.
That you appreciate THEM (why in the world do you want to buy Toshiba products? You must think they are good! Tell them... Tell them that the Linux community needs their products.
Even if they respond negatively, it is not constructive to respond in kind. We must win friends and influence people, not build anger and animosity.
Thanx for listening. I think we owe Toshiba many appologies, some for their own postings, all of us, humbly, for our compatriotes.
A couple of suggestions:
It would be good for someone to make a web site tutoring the community on how to deal productively / constructively with partners and vendors. I cannot do this. If nothing more, a very very sparse web site with this mail note (an pointers to it from all over Linux world) might get us 50% of the way there.
Rather than have millions of people deluge a vendor (that could be scary and overwhelming, causing them to block them selves off), could there be a Linux web site to collect wishes for different vendors/area? A serious developer for a given area and vendor could then collect these and submit a professional request with a zip file of the 20,000 requests as backup for the demand. This would be MUCH easier to deal with than a billion mail notes, and much easier to respond to - there would be one, apparently professional and cooperative person asking for the information.
Finally, I wonder how far this note will get, given its submission as a reply to a reply to a reply to a
Could someone please direct it to where it might do some good? Thanx.
rnsc@frontiernet.net
I think we all did, I always send a letter when I see that a company has with held specs. Not a mean one just a normal user one like I didn't even know that they had done it, I just wanted the service. I'm sure that works best anyway
File-Exit
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
The nerve of him not keeping up with this, Whatever we're paying him, let's cut it down.:-)
I was considering doing just that, since I complained the first time. The email address suggested by one person on the initial story was:
csdwebmaster@tais.toshiba.com
This gives me a very warm and fuzzy satisfied feeling. I like linux.
dec
or recommend that my company buy Toshiba laptops
unless they made programming specifications public.
I got a call back from a Toshiba rep, who seemed
very concerned. I explained the situation to him,
and he said he would pass it up, although he couldn't promise anything. Guess it worked.
Whew. Now I can go buy a laptop...
Toshiba Satellites do work with Linux. And they are good notebooks. After IrDA issue is resolved there is no reason to avoid them.
Vassili Leonov
I don't know how much the Toshiba issue was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing (it was a rather quick reversal for public opinion to change the official policy, I think). But I did let them know that I purchased an IBM laptop and not a Toshiba laptop as a result.
So, who's left?
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
Now when will I be able to run my laptop from my Palm III?
-mark
-mark
If your computer says LINUX, run...computers can't talk! [unless you have text-speech software]
I dunno about the rest of you, but I took the time to write a little nasty-gram to Toshiba back when this story originally hit Slashdot.. Apparently enough people raised enough of a stink to force Toshiba to snap out of it.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease..
Bowie
Bowie J. Poag
I outright told them I wouldnt buy their any of their laptops because of it..Opting to go with a laptop I knew had greater support under Linux.
Bowie J. Poag
I wouldn't worry about Microsoft. We already have their head in the guillotine, we're just waiting for enough people to gather 'round before we drop the blade. :)
:)
The whole Linux movement is proof of a simple, natural law -- If You Dont Like Something, You'll Change It. The more Microsoft whines and lies, the more angered the Linux community becomes. Anger translates into productivity. Ten thousand programmers worldwide versus a shoebox full of huboons in Redmond. Guess who _my_ money's on?
Bowie
Bowie J. Poag
YEP! That's right. It seems like we /do/ have a voice here in the *hidden* community. But i dunno. i am still waiting for the fit to hit the shan when microsoft starts seeing us as a serious threat. And when MS realises that this is one fire they cant put out with money. =)
People, we are on the eve of a revolution.
All of this is, of course, IMNSHO. Cheers, Elmo
My group at school had Tivoli speak for about an hour on Wed. The guy mentioned that their product has ALREADY been ported, by someone who works there in his spare time.. they are just waiting for someone to wave some green in front of their face for it.
I wasn't nasty, but I certainly contronted them on this issue.
Nah - Anon Cow,
Check the bottom "Update March 3rd" Toshiba have provided the info after all.
This is a significant example of the power that we collectively wield through slashdot.
:-O
Could Toshiba consider our action as a web attack on their servers?
Is there anybody else we can hit on similar issues, I like having the feeling of power
maybe I'm missing yours... :->
Let's agree to differ!!
I gave them my two cents too. I'm pretty sure alot of people did. If a fourth of the readership of /. sent them mail, then they should still have a backlog of mail to read ;-)
Seems it helps a bit to be past-and-potentially-future buyer(s), and tell them your choices are influenced by their decisions to support the Linux community...
C.
I gave them a real stern email after seeing their bad attitude towards Linux & the developer...
:-)
I was like other users going to buy a Libretto laptop but stopped as soon as I saw no IRDA
help was going to be given...
Now I'll wait until all the devel' work is done, til I purchase a unit.
LINUX PRESSURE IS ON...!!!
Geezzer