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Toshiba Supports Linux

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the isn't-that-helpful dept.

Matts Kallioniemi writes "Toshiba just now put up a Linux support page. Quite a change from two months ago when they refused to even think about Linux. Now if I could only get a Libretto ff 1100, but Toshiba Sweden are not importing the Libretto any more. :-( "

8 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Before you laugh, read this by JoeBuck · · Score: 2

    OK, the person who wrote this page is a poor English speaker. But the irony is that most of those of you that are laughing at him are completely monolingual, and can't speak or write any non-English language as well as this person wrote English (and no, your knowledge of computer languages, in which all the keywords are English words, isn't an argument against this point).

    If anything, the poor English is a good sign that the people putting this site up are technical and have the information we need. If it were marketing people, their English would be perfect but they wouldn't know anything.

    The Slashdot community could react to this effort to reach out with a wave of ridicule, or we could say "thanks ... here's what we need." You decide.

  2. Re:For Developers by BadlandZ · · Score: 2
    Think it's likeone of those automatic translators, not someone with poor english skills. ;-) Least thier trying, Better open policy with a low budjet (won't hurt linux too much), than a bad policy with a big budget.

    My guess is this project _just bearly_ has full corporate approval, so the budjet is tiny until they see some success.

  3. Toshiba Spec sheets by SEWilco · · Score: 2

    Toshiba spec sheets are here.
    Select your model then look at the spec sheet. Chip types and other useful information.

  4. Some more information by Chilli · · Score: 3
    I assume, not too many are clicking on the "Japanese page is here" link. Which is a pity, as it is common on bilingual Web-pages in Japan that the Japanese pages have more information than the English ones (that's not to protect the information, but because it is an awful lot of work for the average Japanese to write English).

    So, here some more information for the Japanese-impaired ;-)

    • In Japan, they offer pre-installation service for laptops and desktops if you order more than 10 machines; interestingly, not only for Linux, but also for FreeBSD (not too surprising, as FreeBSD is quite popular in Japan). IMHO this means that they really have some people with technical expertise working on that project.
    • If I understand correctly, they also plan to develop machines that have Linux pre-installed for normal sales.
    • Furthermore, they plan to develop utilities (not further specified) and drivers of their own.
    • They also want to offer free and commercial user support and plan to create a training centre.
    • There is already information on the DynaBookSS PORTEGE 3300CT PAP330xx and LibrettoSS 1010CT PAL101xx available. Are they sold outside Japan?
    Seems to be a pretty honest attempt to cooperate, which IMO should be acknowledged by supporting them.

    Chilli

    PS: I am sorry for any inaccuracies, but I am neither a native speaker of English nor Japanese.

    --
    -=- Just a random lambda hacker
  5. Linux in Japan is no news by Leech_boy · · Score: 2

    believe it or not Linux out sold NT server on Dec of '98 in Japan.
    And PowerLinux is made by hitachi(Japanese company)
    Also, from what I know quiet a few Sys Adm. Use linux in Japan too

  6. Regional habbits by Oestergaard · · Score: 3

    Seems the US is the most Microsoft using region. Then Europe, then asia (dunno 'bout africa and others).
    Asia is far away from the states where Microsoft lives, both in miles and culture. No surprise that the irrational choice to just use microsoft stuff like everyone else is less widespread there.

    Denmark where I live, used to be a very IBM loyal country. Banks used OS/2 when IBM was pushing that, and apple computers have never really been widely used.
    Sweden (right next to us), has always had a lot of apple machines.
    It seems that Denmark now is a Microsoft loyal country. The RIPE region has something like 50% of all web servers running Linux, and around 15% on windows. In denmark (which is a part of RIPE) those numbers are reversed. (What _is_ it with us and large firms?)

    A friend I have went to Russia to tell some university people how they could solve their computing problems by buying PCs and putting Linux on them (that was a solution they could afford). But they weren't really interested in Linux, they wanted windows because that's what we use in the west. They smoke Marlboro there too :)

    It's really fun to watch how culture and regional differences influence people's decisions.
    Meanwhile I'll just be an illoyal dane running the OS that works.

  7. Re:libretto by bats · · Score: 2

    Um, that's been out for a long time. Check here:

    http://hyper.stanford.edu/~dhinds/pcmcia/pcmcia. html

    And look under supported cards, way at the bottom. The drive is not in the standard pcmcia distribution due to its small user base, but its on the pcmcia-cs ftp site with detailed instructions.

    It works too!

  8. Good news, now lets see more by Tooky · · Score: 2
    Another major computer mannufacturer is "supporting" Linux. Its good news. I'm glad. But, I'm going to reserve judgement for a while. There's really not enough on the site just yet to make me smile fully. In fact some of the comments on the site at the moment don't make me smile at all.

    The only page with any useful information on is the "Developers" page. Of course this is good, as thats what we want, to be able to support the tosh range. TEC say:

    "We at Toshiba would like to offer good comunication channel between people developing device drivers and system utility programs for Toshiba PCs and Toshiba. "

    Well this sounds great! But the next paragraph is:

    "These information are available with conditions. (Not all free give away). Please request clearly, what you want to do? what kind of information you need, so on. Please understand we are just started to approach in this free field. That's why we will cope case by case, in case of the content need time for answer it or can not give information back. "

    Ok maybe I'm not taking it in the right spirit, and I agree they are definitely making the right noises, but I want to see more from them. Ultimately it will help their business, because us geeks won't just want to buy their systems, chances are we will.

    I'm looking forward to seeing how it all develops, and seeing more "support" for Linux in the computing world.

    Now all I have to do is make my company see the light. Could be a long time coming though, they've just replaced all their Sun Servers with NT Servers. I couldn't even convince them to use PostgreSQL or MySQL on a linux box instead of buying SQL Server and 300 user licenses.
    --

    "I was either onto something, or on something!"