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IBM Thinkpad 600E to be certified "compatible"
dkm wrote to say that IBM has declared their intention of making the Thinkpad 600E named as Red Hat Linux "compatible". Sounds great, right?
Well, the fun part is that while IBM wants to get
named compatible, the bloody modem still won't work with Linux. Marvelous-compatible, but not really. Apparently they'll be "taking steps" as time goes on to get the modem working.
disclaimer:Hemos owns shares in red hat
Unfortunately, IBM will probably write a Linux driver for the modem and then release it binary only with no source rather than actually go back to puting decent modems in their laptops. Without source it'l prob rely on some particular set of libraries so you'll have to watch out if you want something other than Red Hat 6.0 or start upgrading this and that. Honest to goodness hardware serial port modems are forever a thing of the past on laptop built-ins. Sigh.
After all, that's why some OS/2 users do. They buy systems with Linux preloaded, delete Linux and install OS/2. They get a system with more cross-platform support, and they don't pay the MS tax.
IBM Thinkpads are known for their OS/2 compatibility. Not all of them, mind you. You can't even install OS/2 on the 570 series, for instance. But there are a number of Thinkpads that officially support OS/2.
I personally purchased an older Toshiba laptop from http://www.usedlaptops.com/. Since Linux and OS/2 run better on older hardware than Windows does, you can get more bang for the buck with older systems.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Too right, I saw the article title and thought this, you just beat me to it.
.sig here.
Who just moderated this as flame bait? I think it is a perfectly valid point.
Oooh, I hope some one lets me meta moderate that comment.
No matter what it looks like, there isn't a
No matter what it looks like, there isn't a
Space at a premium??? Like one poster above said, the VAIO's are ~1 inch thick, and they have real modems!!! It's not about space, it's about profit.
---- The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. -Thomas Jefferson
I ran slackware 3.4 on my thinkpad 310ED for years just fine, just the soundcard was a bit shakey, but the rest of the hardware worked fine, the modem however was a external USR, so it didnt much matter.. but the IBM making a laptop "able" to run "Red Hat" Linux is crap.. I run redhat on my server and home machine, slack on my laptop, debian on another machine, but being forced to run a certain distributions is like being forced to use windows or whatever.
A couple years back, I bought a IBM Aptiva. One of those all-inclusive puppies. It had an IBM MWAVE modem/soundcard in it. What a pain. It never DID like Linux. It WAS possible to get the sound to work, by loading up the drivers in DOS then using loadlin, but the modem never did work. If the modem in this notebook is MWAVE, they'll prolly end up replacing it. From what I've read, IBM outright refuses to develop linux drivers for this crappy modem/soundcard combo.
As the subject says, chill out. So IBM is basically announcing a product that puts itself on roughly the same footing as all other linux-incompatible laptops. The linux community knows what it likes, and will have the good sense to take their business elsewhere. It opens the way for a lot of great smaller vendors who are *actually* committed to linux to profit from IBM's shortsightedness. Don't get mad at corporate stupidity, take advantage of it.
I think this sort of certification falls into the same category as the 'lite' linux that was being discussed the other day. If people are inclined to tinker, you can get linux up and running on laptops (for example, there this linux on laptops reference ). However, there are many people who just want an operating system which works. They don't want to spend hours trying to figure out why it isn't working. If IBM can provide a system which runs linux off the shelf that's a good thing.
And as long as they are upfront and clear about what is and isn't supported by the "certified" machines, I think this will be good for linux in the long run. If people have sucessful and happy linux experiences, they will be more likely to use linux and to become more sophisticated users.
thats because redhat is becoming the standard whether you like it or not. Promote the LSB more agressively and/or join them. This will help make more stuff Linux LSB certified instead of RedHat certified. What really bugs me is most linux developers dont want to work together - witness the KDE/Gnome incompatibilities, no standard way for applications to add themselves to the menus of the wm at install time, no standard package management, no standard help system. its all bullshit.
Ok linux compatible.. what libs do you have what libc do you have? I know, when we release something, lets make sure we compile for every release of linux and make sure that if one version doesn't have the correct libraries that we find out what libraries it does have and fix the code for that. Or just release a product with no specs, and when it doesn't run on your 'homebrew' linux instalation you can be pissed off at IBM, I bet they love it when they sell stuff that pisses people off, I bet you didn't know that pissing people of makes your market share go up. Oh ya.. don't forget to make a package for every distrobution too; rpm,tgz,deb.... Think before you open your mouth.
FYI my ThinkPad 770ED does not have any Windows keys, and DOES have a third button. While the modem doesn't work everything else I've tried - from the PCMCIA to the serial ports does. It's got a big bright LCD, reasonable battery life, and it's pretty fast. Even the APM stuff seems to work. The most amusing part is that this thing runs Linux way better than NT (which work forces me to use).
Well, I read the announcement and the article and did not see the word 'certification' anywhere. What I saw was a pretty good-faith effort to offer information on how to get their equipment to run Linux. Lack of a supported modem is a huge issue, to be sure. I just didn't jump to the comclusion or see any language that IBM was claiming that they were 100% certified compatible with _anything_ (did I really miss that?)
Now the story with the marketing guy sounded terrible, but the other link actually had some good information, was very upfront with the issues were work was needed, and appears to be a good-faith effort on the part of IBM.
(just curious, why is this post 'funny'? I don't get the joke, I guess)
There is still no way of knowing what kernel and modules are present just because what you are running is called Linux. So there can never be such a thing as Linux compatible hardware. Furthermore, if you think user space code doesn't affect hardware compatibility you should check out the SANE project, which is scanner support in 100% user space code.
Our company is developing a driver for a large complex product. The majority of our target markets run RedHat; so we develope on and for RedHat. Our product is _not_ generally Linux compatable because of changes in libc's, init.d layout, and other misc structual differences. Sure we could make it work for Debian, Caldera, S.u.S.E. etc: but we cannot justify the engineering time and money.
These distributions are rapidly becoming splinterted to the point of multiple O/Ss sharing a common kernel.
-AC
I see it a bit differently. While all these major companies are coming out-and the new buzzword seems to be "RedHat Compatible", but that's all it is...a buzzword. The compatibility issues can only be due to the fact that it uses glibc, and RedHat is not the only distribution that uses it. Let's face it, while there are other distributions out there, doing just as many sales, and are just popular-the GENERAL public is fixed on one-RedHat. RedHat shows them a potential profit margin, so of course everyone is trying to cash in on it right now. What the good thing is, if this "trend" continues to catch on with the larger companies-in the future it may be just as easy to find Linux drivers as it is to find Windows drivers.
From the Hardware Certification Program Program Overview we read:
Aha! So the WinModem requires "special attention". The notebook can still be labeled as "Linux Compatible" though, but not "Linux Certified".As others have mentioned, I presume the marketing department "jumped the gun". I imagine that there'll be drivers for the modem, in due time.
-Brent--
You can always map the windows key to compose or something.
on the one hand it is good to see that companys care about the fact wether linux runs on certain hardware or not and that consumers get an easy way to find about that (that certificat that ibm wants). i do not think it is a problem that they want a "red hat" certificate. if it works with red hat it will work with debian and suse as well...
but i hope that they will not get such a certificate from red hat until all their hardware works and that includes that modem..
furthermore i believe it is inportant that no one gets any certificate for binary only drivers. a binary only driver might work now but might be difficult with kernel 3.2 that is released in 2 years...so i hope there will be no certificates for binary only driver hardware. a newbie might not know why a binary only driver is bad for him..and certificates are there for the newbies in the first place...
just my ATS 0.02
mond.
..That RH was recently investing effort in
protecting the integrity of their trademark, but
now seem to be auctioning it off to the highest
bidder.
[looks over at laptop] Debian time for you.
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
I for one would like to express my appreciation to IBM for what it has started. Getting Linux running on laptops has often been a tricky deal, and now we are getting support from a manufacturer. This is definitely good news, and IBM is taking a lead in this area. Hopefully it is the start of something that continues to show improvement.
Sure, they are targeting Red Hat. What else are they going to do? Target every Linux distribution out there? There are so many, it's hard enough to even get a list of them! They have to start somewhere, and starting with the most popular (or at least most high-profile) distribution is the sensible thing to do. And hey, if it will run Red Hat, it will probably run any decent version of Linux.
So stop whining and complaining and visualize a world in which hardware manufacturers care more about Linux compatibility than Windows compatibility. Visualize manufacturers dropping Winmodems because they're not Linux compatible. Visualize more manufacturers shipping computers with Linux installed, with your choice of distribution.
Jay Ts
http://jayts.cx
This is indeed an amusing announcement, to say the least. Let me give a little background:
I am a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). This year, they issued every freshman an IBM Thinkpad 600E. The configuration they gave us had an empty partition which basically said "put linux on me." We did. And we discovered the problems with compatability. I daresay this is one of the least compatable laptops with any version of linux. Let me list the problems:
1. Modem doesn't work at all under linux. Probably a winmodem.
2. IBM EtherJet CardBus 10/100 ethernet is REALLY hard to get working. After 10 hours of research and tweaking, I managed to get it to run using pcmcia-cs-3.0.14, but only if I tell it to bind to the tulip_cb driver. This isn't necessarily a good solution in 100% of the cases, either, according to one of our local tech guru's at RPI. Apparently the chip in the card isn't exactly the tulip. Oh, and this only works after you've changed the memory addresses that pcmcia scans for.
3. The number lock key that turns on the "numeric keypad" does not function under linux.
4. Hibernation mode and suspend mode lock up the laptop. (unless I've set something wrong on my config)
5. The sound card is a crystal audio CS4239. It's not quite supported by the kernel. ALSA will get it to work, as the rumors go, but I'm still trying on my laptop.
For this laptop to be "Redhat Linux Compatable", redhat and/or IBM will have to do some serious work on this, or Redhat will lose much credibility.
-Larry Lansing
zanzar@nycap.rr.com
...These aren't the droids you're looking for....Move along....
This model also works (-sound -modem) with *BSD and Beos, although Beos is flaky with the docking station...
stty erase ^H
don't know what you are doing, i triple boot mine with 95 (games), NT (office / exchange) & FreeBSD (work). My colleague runs Beos on his
stty erase ^H
I don't know what standards Red Hat is actually using to define whether or not something is Red Hat Compatible, but for simplicity's sake I hope it means that my mother could install Red Hat on it. I think that would enable Linux (Red Hat at least) to reach more users, if they knew without a doubt that if they stuck a Red Hat 6.0 CD into their drive, all of the hardware in their machine would be auto-detected and have drivers installed for it automatically. I build my own machines, so it wouldn't do much for me, I guess I could make my own stickers, but I still think that certifying certain machines as being 100% Linux compatible would be a Good Thing (tm).
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
Hmph. Yep. Bad move. Must think of the other
distributions. I normally recommend slack or deb
to newbies. What other way is there to learn the
joy of compiling your own software? The kind of
people who normally buy Thinkpads are certainly
capable of using any of the popular distros.
There are actually even more reasons why mWave technology is good... one of them being seamless - software - upgrades. I had a loaner 600E last week and was able to change back and forth from a 56K modem to a 33.6 modem without even loging out of Winblows NT. On the TP755CDX I used to have I was able to upgrade from a 28.8 to 33.6 to 56K without any expense; that was great. mWave technology has also made it into a few other IBM products btw, including the craptiva line of desktops... so develop it once and you make a LOT of hardware more friendly to Linux.
Now if only we could get people to STOP calling it a WinMODEM! Oh, and I suspect the reason the lawyers wont let the code out the doors are patent issues... IBM tends to protect it's patents....
I do hope they don't get that certification until it is 100% compatible, wouldn't do a great deal for Red Hat's or Linux's reputation, now would it?
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
This was the "insightful" post... not the half witted rant that preceded it.
Baby steps are for alcoholics. Let's see some real compatibility. Considering that IBM bought Lotus, another underdog, I held a lot more hope that they'd make a real effort.
What's your damage, Heather?
We wouldn't need Linux certified machines if companies would stop using crappy winmodems instead of full blown modems, and nice creative labs sound blasters instead of these shitty rip offs they drop in their "name brand" pos laptops. I'd love to have linux on the go, but I deal with morons on a daily basis who shit their pants if it dont say microshaft certified so it must run that evilness of '95. Just a thought from a guy who hates "name brand" hardware with 3rd country rate parts.
I've read every darn message posted. ( :)
Approximately 150.) I have a ThinkPad 500 which,
as best I can tell, is Linux compatable -- it's running a Slackware-ish hodge-podge. I've owned
many computers, and for some reason, this little IBM is my favorite. Currently it resides in my kitchen woking as a fancy PDA. Networks quite nicely. Weighing in at 50 mhz, 8 meg ram, 170 meg hd, it'll kick many bigger computers buttocks
So, think of the 600E as a Thinkpad without a modem when you are running Linux. You aren't paying a lot extra for the modem, and the built-in Thinkpad modem is a kludge anyway.
While it is nice to see some effort by some of the larger companies in the world to support linux. I'm more than a little worried that there will not be support for distributions other than Red Hat. I'm not so worried that the code they release, drivers for example, will not work with say Slackware ( my favorite distribution :=) ) but this quote scares me:
"But he couldn't say if the source code of any eventual driver releases would be made available to the general public or kept proprietary."
Will there be problems getting compiled binaries for Slackware or any other distribution? If there isn't any source code with those binaries what will I do? Now that RedHat's prime focus is building their company and keeping shareholders happy will they try to make deals with hardware makers to ship only binaries that work with Red Hat? I'm not saying that they are trying to do this or that they ever will but I worry about it...
======== In the future, everything will be artificial. ========
Sounds like a bunch of tech-support crap to make you not try anything funny. Think about it - it's all Open Source. At a fundamental level, RedHat and Debian aren't *that* dissimilar, so making the drivers work with both shouldn't be a problem. And if they're binary-only drivers, then don't buy the NetWinder period.
First, I own RedHat stock. Second, I'm looking to certify my company's hardware with RedHat.
Right. Now on to "why RedHat?" The answers are pretty straightforward. They have a high publicity factor and they have a real way of certifying hardware.
If your company announces support for Debian, it won't get the publicity that support for RedHat does. It's just the way the media works.
The "Cool it works with Linux" is self-certifying and there's no way to back it up.
Getting back to "what doesn't work with Debian et all", that doesn't mean that it doesn't work. It's pretty reasonable to assume that hardware that works with Red Hat works with Debian, Caldera, Mandrake, etc. But what this means is that Red Hat was able to test the hardware in their labs and they certify that it works with Linux. Not being stupid, they say "Red Hat Linux" There's nothing from preventing you from saying from that point "Works with Linux".
It's great to have it *at least* Red Hat certified.
But it would be even greater if it was "Linux Compatible"..
Does maybe the LSB have any plans on certifying third party stuff as Linux Compatible? If anyone can independently certify something as being Linux compatible, I think it must be them.
Greetings,
Ivo
Of course, the news posting would have been a bit more informative if this link had been included. It's the specs for the Thinkpad 600E, on IBM US's pages. Prices seem to range from $2,709.95 (P-II 300 MHz, 32 MB SDRAM, 4 GB disk, 24X CD, 13.3" TFT, 4.9 lbs) all the way up to $4,011.61 (P-II 400 MHz, 64 MB SDRAM, 10 GB disk, DVD, 13.3" TFT, 5 lbs). I dig those 61 cents.
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
This is why we need a vendor-neutral group like the LSB to certify systems as being not just "redhat compatible", but linux compatible. I want to buy a product and have it work flawlessly under debian, redhat, mandrake, suse - all of them. Right from peg 1. I'm willing to pay alittle extra to make sure that the product I buy will work (right out of the box) with linux. I am not willing to pay even a penny more because redhat stuck a label on a product and sent it on it's merry way without any quality standards.
--
"Certified Linux Compatible"? If something's guaranteed to be compatible with Linux, can I sue if it doesn't work on my 0.99.3 kernel? What if the precompiled binaries disagree with some library included in Joe Bob's Linux Distribution? If something's certified as Red Hat-compatible (or SuSe-compatible, or Debian-compatible...), that gives a definite example of somewhere you can be absolutely assured that the thing's going to work. Remember the whole "accountability" thing that suits seem to like? This is for that.
Besides having all the hardware be compatible, a linux notebook needs a keyboard without windows keys. Actually, what would be ideal is if they copied the happy hacking keyboard exactly, and just built it into a notebook. That would rock.
Also, a 3 button mouse for X would be nice, plus a graphics chipset that is accelerated under X.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Yeah, maybe RH is most prevalent in the States but in Europe I'd say that SuSE has the largest following. Therefore saying it's for RH only may disuade SuSE (or any other distro) followers. This is a typical US company thinking that the rest of the world doesn't exist, and if it's popular then it most be the only one.
If it needs a custom kernel, ie special patches make the kernel available with the machine. Simple.
God, ain't that the truth! While I was reading, I just about gagged when I reached this:
by claiming compatibility on Linux, we maintain the position that Thinkpad is the leader in this industry, period. No. 2, we absolutely see a lot of demand from influential people in the marketplace, particularly in education and in the smaller developer markets. When you look at your route-to-market strategy this is obviously important. Thinkpad is very strong in education and Linux is obviously targeting that. We're right there with them." --Tim Eades, a segment marketing manager for IBM Thinkpads
Ok, my problem with the first statement is that his empasis is on _claiming_ compatibility, not deivering it.
The next tip-off is the "route-to-market strategy" marketing-speak.
Then he talks about "... Linux targeting that." and "We're right there with them." Sounds like he's talking about some other company's marketing strategy that he's aligning himself with. Maybe he meant to say RedHat vs Linux, that would make more sense but then this brings up the whole distribution-specific support headache.
I just picture the engineers rolling their eyes reading this as it is obvious that this guy is talking out of his (insert name of bodily orifice here) since the marketing department has obviously gotten _way_ out in frot of the engineers and are making up their own copy.
at least this is a step in the right direction. After all, do we want IBM to declare the Thinkpad to be a 'Windows 2000 only hardware design'? IBM has proven that it wants and does deliver GPL drivers for their hardware (check out this), so lets give them the chance to develop a driver for that modem. Software modems (winmodems) are subtle, their hardware is designed in a way that ties the driver deeply into Windows. It's Windows that actually includes the true 'core' of the modem's functionality - this is why winmodem drivers are easy to write for Windows, and hard to write for Linux. Not to mention the fact that the AT command set and various modem encodings are covered by numerous patents and licenses. In the last 2-3 years Microsoft has rewarded hardware manufacturers for designing pre-specified and Windows-only hardware - winmodems and DVD both have tough license traps. ;)
Yes, IBM could redesign their Thinkpad hardware, but first things first
--Coke
Why this post got moderated up is beyond me...
--
Before everybody goes and condemns IBM and RedHat, they should look at the document that IBM has published. This type of document from a major manufacturer would have been unheard-of just six months ago.
Somebody at IBM went to a lot of trouble to pull this together, pointing out the gotchas and the need to perform further mods to the distro (power management, for example) as well as some of the gotchas (suspend/resume problems with the built-in sound chip).
As far as the built-in modem is concerned, they admit to a lack of support and an attempt to evaluate future support. What more do you want? The great majority of buyers are still Windows users, and it works fine under Windows. If I wanted a modem, I'd more than likely add the additional PCMCIA services required by Linux and add a seperate PCMCIA modem.
I'd like to see a notebook-only Linux distribution that supports just the notebooks and their peculiarities. The IBM document, and other information on the web, would be an excellent starting point for pulling this together. The distro could focus just on that market to provide the best Linux experience to the grizzled veteran as well as the Linux newby.
And let's commend IBM and others for this type of work, rather than just picking and grousing at them for the holes. If we (the 'Linux community') keep this up, then where is the incentive for any help from IBM, or anybody else?
Would this be "flamebait" on the part of the previous poster? :)
:)
:)
Still, I think it's wee bit mendacious on the part of IBM. The curse of winmodems (or HSP modems, in Newspeak). Wasn't someone writing an driver layer for these crappy things? Someone care to remind me about this one?
Right now, the best linux laptop seems to be the Sony Vaio machines.. I have a little Vaio C1 picturebook.. It has a mobile PII/266, a 1024x480 tft screen, and shock, horror, the modem works!
XFree is more than acceptably nippy on it- unlike accelerated X. Xig cliamed that the machine was "lab tested", yet were unable to provide a demo version which worked with the machine, giving the excuse that "someone else must have configured it when testing, and we don't know what they did"
I had a few problems installing, due to the USB floppy drive being visible to the BIOS, so the boot disk worked, but not to the installer at a later stage to load stuff from the second floppy disk.. The trick seemed to be to install from HD in a totally minimal way, and fix it up afterwards...
With those caveats, and bearing in mind the very reasonable price tag, I'd have no problem suggesting one of these great little boxen to a potential mobile linuxer. They even look nice, and so have enough of a "wow factor" to annoy ordinary cloneslingers
Ah, I was rambling again.. sorry.
IBM's howt o-ish document implies that the linux kernel erroneously does not inform drivers when suspended/resumed.
Anyone with technincal insight care to comment?
>Furthermore, why "Redhat" compatable? Can some
>explain which parts won't work with SUSE or
>Debian and why?
because the different distro's might use different kernels or C libraries, and if it's only a binary-only driver they can use redhat's distro as a reference on what specific libs/kernel it will run on.
i thought I had no sig?
Too bad you did...Slack 6.2 beta is out, and kicks ass...and the old complaint about glibc2 has become totally irrelevant, it's all based on glibc-2.1.2. It's the most stable beta I've ever seen, too :)
The only problem is the audio (the Neomagic 256AV is a combined video/audio chipset); at least on my Dell Inspiron 3500, the software mixer isn't fully lined up with the features of the hardware, so I can't, for instance, turn up the volume on my microphone, leaving that particular piece of hardware basically useless on my laptop.
But graphics work just fine.
Red Hat has their definitions of what certified and compatible means on their Hardware Certification Program Program Overview. Also keep in mind that being Red Hat compatible doesn't mean that it doesn't work with any other distribution, just that it meets Red Hat's criteria for compatibility.
Red Hat took the initiative to get a hardware certification program started. This is excellent on Red Hats part. But as others have mentioned, it's not enough. Another organization, perhaps the LSB, need to get a certification program started too. Then we'll be able to see "LSB Certified" hardware too. But Red Hat should be commended for their program, even though, in the future, it should be superceded, if at all possible.
-Brent--
No doubt we'll be seeing many people complain that "Red Hat is not Linux". But quite apart from that, there is a greater danger in these sorts of business alliances. If, to promote their name recognition, any distro endorses hardware that is not fully supplied with drivers, Linux will suffer in the long term.
What is the single most horrific event in the life of a Windows user? Hardware incompatibility. As everyone knows, each release of Windows is bedeviled by PR disasters when 2% of modems, ethernet cards, whatever, fail to work properly. These things harm Windows' image, cause stress, and reduce sales.
But consider how much worse it is with Linux. Newbies who already are nervous about command-line interfaces and only have hazy recollections of "dir" to help them navigate through the guts of the machine will have no chance - absolutely none - at understanding why their modem/ethernet/insert-noncompliant-hardware-here fails to work. Their obvious (although incorrect) answer will be.... are you ready...
"Linux sucks"
This is not what we want to hear from newbies. Yesterday there was a proposal posted about Linux Lite, and many of you agreed it was helpful to build a distribution that would "just work" out of the box. I consider hardware like the Thinkpad 600E the antithesis of that idea.
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
I'm using a Dell Inspiron 7000 which I've set up to triple boot NT Server, Win 98 and RH 5.2 at the moment. It works pretty well. However I despaired of getting LILO or NT Boot Manager to work correctly with all three, so I got a copy of PowerQuest's BootMagic. BootMagic is a truly cool program and supports just about any OS you want. I haven't had a problem since. You can also use it to dynamically hide/unhide partitions from particular OSes.
I thoroughly recommend it over the alternatives.
Mikester.
"I can only help one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow is not looking good either."
Most likely being 'RedHat compatible' means essentially 'compatible with Linux running kernel and libs about the same version as current RedHat (might work with other)'. I think it'd currently mean kernel 2.2.x and glibc 2.0.
Why RedHat compatible? RedHat is willing to use money on some certification procedure (eg. IBM works on the hard and soft, then delivers to RedHat, where a small team hacks it for a while to see if it works with RedHat linux and if they can integrate possibly needed changes to RedHat (and release under GPL)).
They use money -> they get the name. Good for them (most people see "RedHat compatible" leads to them buying it with RedHat linux) and good for Linux and other distributions (released under GPL -> just take the code, integrate it to the distro and it works).
Are there ever a LOT of posts on this topic.
:)
Here's some clue-food. I have a 390E, which is the internal, IBM version of this laptop. (Or at least, really, really darn close.)
I work for IBM.
IBM and Red Hat, in case no one has noticed, are about 2 miles from one another. They work together a lot.
My Thinkpad runs linux. The modem does not work. That particular thinkpad has the Texas Instruments PCMCIA bridge, which is an absolute bitch. I hear that the new PCMCIA card services fix the problems related to it, tho.
X on an external display at any decent resolution with this Thinkpad is really weird. I was not able to get it to work on the monitor I used. It either wasn't outputting a real signal, or the one it was sending was of such a high refresh rate that the monitor wouldn't synch. I'm also pretty sure that the display chipset has 2.5 MB of RAM, making it a wee bit odd. Afterstep, however, looks damned nice on mine. The built-in display on those laptops is _awesome_.
APMD works great. The infrared and USB ports don't work, at all with linux as far as I can tell. I've only spent about 20 minutes with each, tho, so I'm not an expert.
Red Hat 6 installs like a champ off of the CD-Rom, no problems, boots and runs. Yay redhat.
Any other questions about it, feel free to e me.
--
Blue
it's marmot.raleigh.ibm.com, for anyone in IBM/RTP
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
6.2? They didn't do some new math to turn 4.0 into 6.2, did they?
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
This is definately not a beginners project. Writing this driver would require simulating the functions of a DSP chip on a general purpose CPU. It would require excellent understanding of how modems work at the signal level. It requires hard real time for acceptable performance. The reason no one has attempted reverse engineering one is that doing so would be very specific to a certain winmodem, and the work involved would be orders of magnitude greater than required for just about any other driver.
I have seen plenty of advertising over the years reguarding items are 100% compatible. Very little of it has ever been true. Look at all of the software that claims to be 100% Compatible with Windows 95/98? Many of them increase your rate of system crashes substantially, and are unstable. Sounds more like it's partially Win95 compatible.
Also, with computers being 100% Windows compatible. How often have you installed a fresh copy of Windows on your laptop or desktop just to realize that none of your peripherals work, even after downloading the latest drivers for them? That WinModem that could change IRQs at will is now a Hayes 2400 on IRQ 7 and won't move. That's why I gave up getting preassembled machines and construct my own. The preassembled ones with all of their cheap/proprietary BS just hork what they claim to be compatibe with.
Once I see a machine consistantly have no hardware issues after a reinstall (aside from general configuration), I'll buy into this 100% compatibility thing.
Mike
"by claiming compatibility we maintain the position that thinkpad is the leader..."
Just plain marketing sleaze. They know full well that their view of compatibility is opposed to the users view. There is nothing worse than deceiving your users/customers for short-term gain. I have to agree with the other posts that state that the marketing dept must follow the Engineers and not the other way around.
Hypothetically, anything hypothetical is possible.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought IBM had invested a significant amount of money in Red Hat back before the IPO.
If this is the case, I'm not too surprised to see them refer to "Red Hat" compatibility. After all, they own part of da' Hat.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
And how about getting that modem to work too? :)
It's nice to see that IBM cares whether or not us linux geeks buy their equipment, but this reminds me of when the Corel NetWinders were coming out. They were advertised as coming with a modified red hat linux, when I enquired about debian etc, they said they had "redhat-specific drivers that unfortunately prevent installing a different distribution or recompiling a non-corel kernel".
Have you had a look at the language used? His point may be valid (although I disagree), but why does he need the foul-language to support it?
Okay, I've got one of these puppies with all the trimmings (minus the DVD drive), and overall, I *love* the box, though there's a few minor issues.
1. Yeah, the modem. I just use an ethermodem. Yawn.
2. Resetting the pcmcia (as in the case of a pcmcia restart or suspend/resume) causes the audio DMAs to mess up. I have scripts to get around this by reslotting the audio drivers. I consider this more important than the modem.
3. APMD doesn't react properly and has to be disabled.
4. Samba has a tendency toward keeling when you shuffle eth0 around as I often do.
Considering the quality and quantity of glitches even the "Designed for NT" notebooks have under that other OS, I think I'd support labelling it "Works with Linux" but not "100% Linux Compatible".
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the 600s to anyone looking to build a Linux laptop: we've got five 600s in our department running RH & Mandrake Linux with no complaints (and the owners are users, not gurus), not to mention a few 760s and 770s and a couple of Dell Inspirons.
Add VMWare to the mix, and you get a notebook that only needs to be rebooted when you upgrade kernels, runs NT in a window with M$ Office (the de facto standard in world freakin' domination, ugh), and moves from network to dialup to network with the grace of a ballerina.
So IMHO, don't get your collective panties in a bunch. If Red Hat certifies it, though, they'd better release a stack of RPMs to fully enable the kernel and PCMCIA APM for the thing. And IBM had better release full specs if not source code for the modem and at least leave the ball in the Open Source community.
$0.02
If you want the DOS TSR that runs the LT WinModem that I got with my Aptiva a couple of years ago, send e-mail to clawson-at-home.com and I'll blop what I've figured out (not much...) about the LT WinModem & Win95, at least, to you. I have it in a zip file...
I haven't tested it in DOSEMU in Linux. But if someone were to reverse-engineer it, or if there was a good book(s) on how to RE DOS TSRs and hardware that someone could point me out so I could do it, but that would mean I get to buy the Linux Device Driver book and thus figure out how to write a Linux Device Driver as well... Hmm...
Hulk confused...
Plenty of people at IBM read Slashdot. I agree that this attempt is a bit misguided from the viewpoint of your average Linux user, but I don't think IBM is aiming this at Linux users at all. They may or may not know that anyone who has used Linux on any laptop at all can get it working on a Thinkpad ... that isn't the point.
IBM's main interests have always revolved around business. Their forays into the home user market have never been much more than exploratory for a corporation their size. This recent attempt, successful or not, looks more like an effort to console business owners and CIOs who fear running this "new-fangled" OS on their Thinkpads. IBM simply picked a distro they all had probably heard of and showed how to install it. The fact that they put in caveats regarding the modem and other possible problems and don't put them in fine print is a step up from where IBM used to be in this business.
I agree that IBM should release specs on their hardware, but there is certainly nothing forcing them to. There is no moral "right" or "wrong" side to stand on, only different points of view. If people really don't like the fact that they'll have to buy a PCMCIA modem, they won't buy a 600E for use as a Linux laptop. The same goes for the closed hardware specs. When IBM sees profit in opening up their hardware specs - more profit than if they don't - they'll jump at the chance. Until then, there are other companies to buy from.
LouZiffer
LouZiffer
A driver would be a blessing for those unfortunate souls who bought a winmodem not knowing what they werde doing.
Of course they are inferior, but some people have them and would like Linux to support them.
I hope they would release the source of a possible driver though (yeah right...)
But it's NOT that it is Red Hat specific, it happens to be compiled to work well with a certain library. That isn't RedHat purposly TRYING to make an incompatibility, as seemed to be the concern of several people.
And as for the 'car' reference, it just doesn't fit in this equation. Something like glibc is by an external entity, and not RedHat itself. You can hardly say RedHat was/is trying to locking users in by making something RedHat only..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Well, it's off topic, but that is the case right now. Slack has ALWAYS been brandy spakin new for their new/beta releases, but it's NOT kept up, and there is NO SIMPLE way to maintain packages without doing it manually. While I despise people being RELIANT on RPM's or .deb's, they DO serve a purpose.
I'm not going to rely on a distro that I've had a major issue with in the past. I'll probrably never use Slack again.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
DSP != standard modem.
Winmodem = DSP only.
Standard modem = DSP + communications processor.
A winmodem does Anolog- digital conversion only. A winmodem is similiar to a sound card.
A 'real modem' processes the output of a dsp to data.
You can connect a dumb terminal to a 'real' modem.
A 'real' modem uses 0% of cpu time to communicate. A winmodem uses 100% of cpu time to communicate.
You cannot print to a winprinter while using a winmodem to browse the internet.
Monchi
DSP != standard modem.
Winmodem = DSP only.
Standard modem = DSP + communications processor.
A winmodem does Anolog- digital conversion only. A winmodem is similiar to a sound card.
A 'real modem' processes the output of a dsp to data.
You can connect a dumb terminal to a 'real' modem.
A 'real' modem uses 0% of cpu time to communicate. A winmodem uses 100% of cpu time to communicate.
You cannot print to a winprinter while using a winmodem to browse the internet.
Monchi
You are lying.
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
There are some problems, but overall, I like my TP600E a lot. It's fast, light, and works OK.
/etc/pcmcia/config.opts and change this line:
;-).
I'm running
1) oracle, postgres, mysql
2) apache, apache 2.0, zope 2.0
3) OpenDX, VTK, and VMD
on a puny little laptop. That's kind of cool. Next week, fun with vmWare (need to port the Dopewars client to NT). It's a bloody *laptop*... all I really want is SOUND, which *is* a bit of a bitch. But my coworker got sound on his TP570, and I'm pretty close, so I'm hoping this certification nonsense will help me play my CDs through my laptop.
Suspend is fucked up. apmd will hose up and force a dirty shutdown if you suspend and resume. Keep your windows/FAT partition around (well, at least enough to dump the contents of memory to, in my case 192MB + a little cushion for bookkeeping) to suspend to. Maybe IBM will fix this niggly too.
CardBus cards suck. Sell yours and get a Xircom RealPort type III card before your X-jack breaks off. The Xircom card I have works like a charm and you don't have to unplug/re-plug it after a suspend. If you insist on using the 3Com card (don't say I didn't warn you), go into
include memory 0xc0000-0xfffff, memory 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff
to
include memory 0xc0000-0xfffff, memory 0x60000000-0x60ffffff
and do an insmod 3c575_cb.o (or whatever you have) to force it. Then ping somebody. DHCP appears to be fuct for some reason with this card.
Read this article:
Installing Debian on a Thinkpad 600E
I can't think of anything else. X configuration was a drag, but if you read the NeoMagic README it all becomes clear. I assume if you're reading Slashdot, that you already discovered this.
I want 32-bit color (any resolution) on this thing and would gladly pay up to $250 for the upgrade.
I can't think of anything else at the moment, but when I get sound working on *my* laptop I will be happy to gloat about it
Keep plugging away at it. I wouldn't trade my Thinkpad for anything now that it works for me.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
A company called Sandy Lion used to have a sticker line called "Playful Penguins" that were perfect. I've got one covering the Windows logo (AKA the "sigil of ultimate evil") on my Vaio. Unfortunately I can't find a web page for the company, but check your local Hallmark.
Alternately, there's always Badtz Maru for those with a Sanrio fetish...
Caveat Emptor!
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
If IBM really does want this to work, they need to figure out someway to get the modem to work. That's really rather disgusting that it is a winmodem. I'm not sure how they can do it, but if they can, and they release there driver source, that'd go a long way of convincing me of their intentions. As it is, it seems like they are jumping on the word linux. I'm sure they intend for their computer to work on all linuxes, but they think that (RedHat == Linux) which it certainly isn't. While I have to dislike their misthought here, perhaps it will be the intention that counts.
Infact, in the end it will be the intention that counts. If they are latching on to this 'Linux' buzzword thing, then they will be remembered for that. If they are really wanting to help, that will show too. I certainly hope they do help. The instalation guide looked pretty decent, a lot like what mine looked like when I wrote one after getting it working on mine (so I could help my friends) but there is enough wrong with these laptops, that I worry about what IBM can do.
Good luck, IBM. You're going to need it....
linuxy
hornp@rpi.edu
The super-slim laptops usually don't have CD-ROMS, (I don't know about the VAIO), which frees up some space.
So, please IBM, GPL the modem driver.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
Supporting 50 of these laptops running Windows NT and 15 dual booting NT and Linux (RedHat 6.0), I can tell you that IBM has a LONG way to go. The damn DSP modems in the things take up TWO IRQ's and a DMA! Not to mention the sound card which takes up another IRQ, and two DMAs. By the time IBM is done stuffing really crappy hardware that NO ONE else uses into these systems, you are left with little upgradeablitity in the line of PC cards. Stick a network card in these things and you are really low on IRQs, not to mention the fact that occasionally, the laptop just tries to change IRQ's for no reason at all.
The Toshiba's that we are starting to use here are much MUCH better and 100% easier to configure under both NT and Linux.
No, we're forgetting the point of Big Business and how they view/want things. Big Business does not give a flying f**k what you or I think. They only care about what they want, and who will give it to them, not what those who have things to give want Big Business to think of them.
As the line in "Pretty Woman" goes, where Larry Miller is laying it on Richard Gere to make up for his big gaff:
"More suckup?"
yes but you first develop the drivers and support then you make the claims.
Hypothetically, anything hypothetical is possible.
1) IBM should try to make their computers LINUX COMPATIBLE, not DISTRO COMPATIBLE. Some clueless people will start to think that Linux is something RedHat invented, just like today many think that that windowing systems are a M$ invention.
2) If IBM wants their computers to be LINUX COMPATIBLE CERTIFIED, they should think to start making them BE COMPATIBLE, and they think to CERTIFY THAT CONDITION. And here we get into this nice subjet:
"Why is entitled to certify linux compatibility?".
I've always checked at newsgroups before buying anything. If I buy a CD burner, I check, for example, the cdrecord page, not a particular distro's page. If I buy a notebook, maybe I check at LINUX LAPTOP PAGE. Why not giving away hardware to people who is working for that to became functional under linux instead of just trying to get a "certification". Sure, they can't do that...some say the modem don't works...
Why not giving specs and a new Thinkpad 600E as a gift to a guy involved in ther serial port stuff of the kernel, (or pnp, usb or whatever is wrong with their modem...?!!). Many people, the kind of people who installs Linux on a notebook, don't give SH*T if a company says that something is "Linux compatible" if that don't appears on a newsgroup or in that hardware's working group specific page...
It was shipped with a WinModem
I mean, seriously - if I wanted microsoft I'd use windows 2000! And I agree - slap a Penguin on there and tell 'em what kernel or higher they need to have to use the hardware. Define Linux!
keeping the world safe for prematurely grumpy old men for oh, about 7 years now
Your getting paranoid. It's impossible to make a RedHat only binary. They ALL RUN LINUX.. Now, if Slackware doesn't provide something that this driver needs, well, that's Slackware's problem.. (I recently left Slackware becouse it just didn't keep with the times)
You can load any modules you want with any distro of Linux you want, plain and simple.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
I'm surprised IBM targeted only RH also. They usually support 4 distributions publicly. I'm sure MSFT just loves this because it gives them a single target. A single point of failure. We really don't want this AGAIN do we? I don't.
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
FWIW, the MWave modem&sound card was put in a lot of laptops -- IBM doesn't like reproducing engineering. It's pretty much the same as most cards of its type -- basically a DSP, some support circuitry and a driver. It's not even that bad an idea, since a DSP-only modem uses less power and takes up less physical space, both of which are at a premium in laptops. For a long time IBM refused to release the specs to the thing, leading to hacks to make it work in SB compatibility mode. More recently (and the data on this point is confused a bit), IBM seems to have finally recanted and provided some basic specs for talking to the thing. Dale Wick has been working on making the thing work, or at least controlling it a bit, under Linux.
Did anyone notice the DVD, Last I checked that also was not supported. I work at big blue and let me tell you the 600E is not Red-Hat Ready ( nor is any other dist. ready )So I'm waiting to get the oh-so-yummy iBook.
IBM recently announced Linux support to some of it's internal accounts, curious, I called with a simple question and I could hear the pages flipping in the background. I think IBM really jumped the gun to get something out. . .Oh and for those who were implyign(sp?) that they were trying to beat Dell to the punch ... Don't forget, Dell now produces all IBM Hardware...
"When I look down I miss all the good stuff, When I look up I trip over things..."-Ani DiFranco
Here's how I got sound working on my ThinkPad i1452. Hopefully the harware is pretty similar?
If you've ever worked on a major project in a major corporation you will quickly realize the amount of resources (time and money) it takes to test and support any product. Now for IBM or any other large corporation to claim that their stuff will work with all Linux dists would just be ludicrous on their part. If IBM garuntees that something will work, it better damn well work or they've got to cough up the resources to make it work.
Just because they certify that their stuff will work with RH is not a statement that it won't work with other distributions. They just can't help you if you are having a problem with those other dists...
I installed it this weekend on my toy box which simply could not/would not swallow Caldera Open Linux and it's lauded graphical installer. For the record, that toy box has run w95, os2, FreeBSD, Slackware, RH, and now SuSE. The default desktop setup is KDE which I am just now learning about. The setup tool for X that they call sax took in my Matrox M2-G200 without a hitch. I think I'm sold on SuSE.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
It's obvious that when they took the time to discuss this arrangement, they must have known into consideration that the system is going to be completely useless with RedHat. I mean, what the hell are they thinking. Nobody will want to buy a system that isn't going to be Internet ready for a year or two. Freaky conspiracy theory: IBM is getting paid big bucks by MS to discredit Linux (esp. Read Hat, being most public system at present) by creating an inferior application for the OS.
I don't know if this was intentional or a typo, but 'voiciferous' sure is a great word in this context...
A piece of hardware is linux compatible iff there are kernel drivers for it. Thus, e.g., winmodems are not linux compatible whereas my 3c509 is.
I'll take a dozen.
How can they feel the rain but not know of the flood?
I think it's high time that somebody started certifying hardware for Linux. The fact of the matter is that a certification program is an excellent way to get vendors to cough up the drivers or support needed to get hardware working with Linux. As soon as 3dfx is 'Linux Certified', other video card vendors will want a little sticker on their box too.
The laptop I use with Linux has all sorts of problems. Sound? Forget About It.The BIOS *requires* that a bootable DOS partition exist on the hard disk. The video card requires all sorts of framebuffer tom-foolery to get to work decently (of course NOT including 3D acceleration).
Sure, I wish that there were a generic Linux compatabibility test and body to administer it. But until such a thing exists, RedHat is the logical choice. Who else has the commercial clout to beat on hardware vendors with? In my opinion, the effort by IBM to get their laptop certified is the best thing that could happen because the rest of the laptop world is likely to follow IBM's lead here. And we all know that if it's Red Hat compatable, it will work with any other distro, too.
IMHO, we all ought to ask 'is it Linux Certified' every time we make a hardware purchase, regardless if we actually know if it's going to work.
Sooner or later this will get the marketdroids attention.
- Declare that they lied and it wasn't compatible after all
- Work valiantly to make their modem work with Linux
Notice that option 1 becomes less and less viable the longer IBM has been claiming "Redhat Linux compatibility." At the moment, they could withdraw that assertion without anybody (including the mainstream media) noticing. So, an appropriately delayed response will probably get us option 2. In fact, if at that point IBM feels pressured to get things done fast, they might even feel a greater pressure to work with existing developers to quickly release GPLed drivers as opposed to binary-only ones.It seems like it is worth waiting to me...
Everyone who is worried about RedHat getting all the mindshare with regard to Linux, remember that RMS feels the same way about GNU vs. Linux. Not that that justifies the militant GNU/Linux nomenclature, but the feeling is the same. "Sadly ecstatic, that there heroes, are news" --The Who
First of all, IBM is doing the same with SuSE in Germany -- look for an announcement in a week or less. Secondly, you Euroweenie, the code will work with SuSE and I expect that if they do not already have the code working (I have an MWave modem driver for Debian from a friend at IBM and it apparently has been sent to Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera, and Pacific High-Tech), they would, by virtue of the fact that this is, after all, Linux, incorporate it in an official SuSE patch in .0001 seconds after Red Hat released it. Thirdly, you can make your own kernel for your own machine if you want; again, THIS IS LINUX.
Well, the thing that bothers me is the doubtful availability of source. If you wind up with binary-only 'support', then you will likely have the issue of mismatched librarues or some such problem that can be fixed by compiling the source on your deb, suse, slack whatever - but you can't cause you don't have source so it doesn't work at all.
is it true the Picturebook has 3 mice buttons?
Also does the camera work in linux?
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
I really like the tp600e. But to go without a windows partition we need at least that tp configuration software (or support for the tpctl coders).
And I want the *%/\ing modem working. Do it IBM. Otherwise my next laptop will be a Powerbook (if the modem is supported).
BTW.: I recommend to load the sound modules dynamically. Thus they will most likely survive an apm suspend. Loading them via script is not the way to do it.
If you need help installing Debian on the tp600e see Debian on a ThinkPad 600E.
-- it ain't over 'til it's over
Yeah, I'm posting anon. I've had bad experiences trying to convince moderators of the aforementioned point...
And if Linux vendors were actively trying to crush the competition and striking exclusionary deals with vendors to develop only for them, while Microsoft was pushing their Open Source and free Windows operating system supported voluntarilt by hackers around the globe, then I would agree with you that the top article in this thread would deserve a -1 Troll rating.
--
"We now return you from this alternate universe to the one you call home."
What I need:
BTW, how do you access a cell phone from your notebook to dialup an ISP and get mails?! Not that I have a cell phone, I'm just curious.
Thanks in advance!
> Maybe a dual boot? Can lilo find happiness on a
> laptop dual booting to NT?
A friend has some thinkpad, I have no idea which model, and he has it dual booting between linux and NT, though I think he uses NT's boot loader and not lilo. Not sure what it took him to get this going, but it definetly works.
-chris (gandalf@darkcorner.net)
but maybe the way they plan on working the problem out will be to help develop WinModem drivers. I think it's kind of funny that an OS like linux, that can actually cope with multiple tasks well, doesn't use WinModems. Windows is noticeably slower when used with one. (Compare sometime, the difference is a little scary.)
On the issue of the Red Hat cert I don't think they should be certified compatible. If it was just the modem that was shipped with the machine, maybe... but it is internal and I think that makes it part of any certification. Opinions vary.
Insert pithy comment here.
Last time I checked anything relating to money was Red Hat compatible.
e rview.php3 you can see for yourself that getting a "compatible" rating doesn't take much effort or thought. They can't even use the Red Hat logo on packaging.
If you check out their site http://developer.redhat.com/certification/cert-ov
For that matter getting Red Hat certified was very easy. However trying to get RH to improve the certs program is like hitting your head against a brick wall.
Linux works better on the new Mac G3 Notebooks than it does on the ThinkPad.
Suck for those of us that didn't install that increasingly flavored distribution, doesn't it?
First CodeWarrior gets bound to Red Hat, now IBM's hardware 'compatibility' aims for that distro... I think that perhaps Big Business is missing the point of Linux. I'm certain that Red Hat enjoys the notoriety of being the 'originator' of Linux, but we know better. Yes, they're a great contributor to the exposure and success that Linux as a whole enjoys. Yes, they've made it easier and friendlier, and they may be the spear-head on which Linux is delivered into the mainstream, but the big companies out there need to know that Red Hat != Linux.
Am I wrong in the expectation that if this prejudice isn't resolved, Red Hat is going to suffer a backlash from those that believe in the Freedom of Linux?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Linux works better on the new Mac G3 Notebooks than it does on the ThinkPad.
Runs on my Thinkpad 570E just fine.....except for the damn modem!
Check with the OS/2 guys....
They have a beta driver for these Lucent Winmodems up and running. If you ask reeeaal nice, maybe the source code can be had.
Typical case of marketing pushing for something without first confirming with the engineers. The other second common problem is for marketting pushing for a product release before it is up to par.
This most commonly happen on organizations with a formal marketing deparment.
--
I think it'll be the same sort of tricks w/ debian.. the debian kidz seem virtually paranoid about compatibility problems and once someone finds your code useful and ports it over he/she will make sure that the .deb package (he makes and sticks in the non-free section or whatever) stays compatible w/ the debian... at that point you
can add "debian" compatible to your adverts.. Note this works even if you don't want them to distribute the package for you w/ 'installer' packages.. which will do the conversion etc for you..
-avi
I happen to own one of the 600 series notebooks. The "modem" leaves much to be desired no matter what operating system is on it. These notebooks were issued to us by our company, so I had no choice as to which notebook we would use. When I recieved the machine I knew it would have Windows "something" on it, which turned out to be Windows NT. I was looking forward to setting up dual-booting on the machine so I could use Linux, and still have NT for the propriatary Win32 apps our company uses. After recieving my wonderful new laptop, I discovered that the serial port didn't work. After a great deal of effort I was eventually able to get it running, as it is essential to my job that I have a functional serial port. After that, I was never able to get a connection with the modem above 33.6! After a trip to IBM's web site I was able to download an upgrade for it, now it seems to connect mostly at 44-46. This still is not as good as my Courier, which effortlessly connects at a consistent 49 over the same phone line to the same ISP. As far as I am concerned, IBM should remove the modem, and let us choose what we want to use in our PCMCIA slot!
Eagles soar, but Weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
Too late, it's already been done. Just saw this the other day (a Linux-specific keyboard), but don't remember where.
I'll post the link if I can find it.
I'll also agree that a "Linux Certification", would be far more appropriate... But then there's the fact again that RedHat is one of the most recognized dist. and they will remain one of the most recognized distibutions until another organization or distributor starts such a program RedHat will probably remain one of the most recognized distributions.
My two cents...
IMHO, IBM has really come out in the right direction here with the install guide and pointing out exactly what hardware works and what doesn't.
I wish more vendors would give out explicit details of how to configure their hardware during the install process. Let's face it, Linux works with almost anyting, as long as you know how to configure it (except those idiotic winmodems). I'd really appreciate it if other vendors told you what install/kernel options to choose for their hardware.
This is a basic problem with Linux, the OS should be capable of determining what hardware is in the computer and choosing a more specialized configuration. We don't really need (or want) hardware vendors to ship us binary drivers, but working up an autoconfigurator script would be very useful.
Back on topic, the Thinkpad is certainly a good box; a little pricey, but what would you expect from IBM? Nice to see Linux support is being taken seriously. A couple more years and we'll have that world domination thing worked out...
sorry if this got in blank.. tapped enter by mistake...
i run a thinkpad and Linux and love it. so i can't use my mwave modem, so what. *shrug* it's slower than i like, anyhow, and so i'll be grabbing a PC card modem when i need one. thinkpads are solid machines, more reliable than most other laptops out there (save for the powerbooks). guess what? over half of the hackers at defcon with laptops used... thinkpads.
jose nazario jose@biocserver.cwru.edu
Laptops are notoriously proprietary, making a Mac or Sparc station look like a Dual Celleron w/ an abit bp6 board. I have a Dell Latitude XPi 133ST. It took me forever to get any Linux on it. There is nothing wrong with it being 'RedHat' certified (being that they have a lot more resources than any other distrib anyway) -- Linux is Linux regardless of if you throw some commercialism into it. I wish that Neomagic would stop being a stupid about their chipset and just release a non XBF server, that all laptop manufacturers would stop using 'winmodems' -- for one the damn cpu in most laptops is underpowered to begin with you don't need to bog it down any more - and two why? it's terribly slow, and impossible to use. I think that this may be a first step in that direction. (golf claps) -- but there is still a lot of work to be done.
I happen to be working on one of these damn machines right now. But I'm not in Linux, and it's not in English! The computer is in Chinese, for some of our overseas reps. Using Win98J and I can't get the modem to work. What a coincidence!
Brad Johnson
Found it. The link is at Linux PR, the company is CoolKeyboards, and you can get 'em at Linux Mall or sales@coolkeyboards.com
If a software or hardware piece runs on Linux GPL (or any other free software) should be called just Linux compatible or even better LSB compatible!
distributions (in this case Redhat) should take care to make this possible
I don't want thinks like this
Other then the modem problem the system seems to work pretty well... I installed debian on it (I too am not a redhat guy) and it worked great (except you do need to use the tecra install disk...)
:)
it seems like a nice laptop to me, but then I didn't pay for mine
--bdj
In order for some company to make something "Linux compatable", they need a definition of exactly what Linux is. What library versions? What directory structure? What config files? Since LSB is vaporware at the moment, all a company can do is pick a distribution to be compatable to.
I've been trying to get information for writing a driver for a while now. I get the feeling that the modem code itself does have restrictions on it which would probably make a public release out of the question BUT as far as I can tell, most (all?) of the critical algorithms are implemented in DSP machine code, and there would be no reason to recompile this for a Linux driver. Can anyone else comment on this?
Anybody know what chipset is used in IBM's Etherjet pcmcia 10bT card? Or any technical info about it at all? I'd like to get it working with linux or Be. I can't be the only person frustrated with this card.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Yes, because, well, yes the law (UK law anyway, I assume US law) states that goods have to be sold as advertised.
No, because I suspect you will find something in the small print of the declaration (if one were made) that covered it!
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
I'm sure Dell, IBM and friends will twist the truth as much as they can get away with. If you want solid information over industry propaganda, I suggest starting a web site devoted to pointing out what systems aren't entirely Linux kosher.
I can't see any well defined procedure by which you could verify ``Linux compatibility.'' The fact that the modem still doesn't work does suck, though.
The community is falling into an unintentional trap. We're waiting for action from corporations AGAIN, before we do anything... This is no the way Linux was made into a usable OS, and it's not the reason it's compatible on so many platforms. IBM should open up the hardware specs and let the developer community go nuts, that way it'd be compatible with everything. Why WON'T this modem work under Linux? I'm assuming it will work under something (OS/2, Windoze), and if it does, it should be possible to make it work under Linux, FreeBSD etc as well... If IBM doesn't want to open up the specs, it's an IBM problem, use hardware that IS open... Idealistic, but it's the best way.
If the article had said "Linux compatible", would that have made the problem any more apparent? I don't think so. The fact of the matter is, they're using a winmodem that isn't compatible with the linux -kernel-, irrespective of which distribution they/you like to use.
I don't think (personally) that being "Red Hat compatible" is a bad thing, especially if they're going to work on getting a winmodem to work under Linux. The more companies start working on that, the better -- maybe they'll start a trend. I'd love to see Toshiba follow suit and make my Satellite 2540's modem work under Linux.
Overall this is a good thing, regardless of which distribution IBM decides to side with, IMHO.
What does compatable mean any more? The concept has been sufficiently blurred over the last few years that such a designation is dubious at best. Furthermore, why "Redhat" compatable? Can some explain which parts won't work with SUSE or Debian and why?
I suspect we are past the days of binary, black & white thinking about compatability. We need a more sophisticated "compatability designation" now, don't we? How about something like that geek code some of you sign with. A hardware version could contain all the info you need, and simply be run through a decoder to indicate all the details:
a) Modem: Winmodem, only works when in another OS
b) Sound Card: Specs, works with kernels 2.0.x
c) NIC: Specs, blah blah blah
Perhaps it could even be expanded to give us a sense of the feel and mood of the hardware - techno-power machine with peripherals duct taped to the side and sitting inside a fridge, or pastel or neon iMac, etc.
Hmmmm....
---------------------------- DevNull - a discernible void in the province of Saskatchewan
Currently the "most popular" vendor neutral linux cert company I know of is Keylabs. (check out http://www.keylabs.com/linux ) However if you look at what they are testing, it is almost exactly the same as Red Hat, just more expensive. Hmm, makes you wonder.
I've got a Thinkpad 600e, and I think it's a piece of sh*t. It's heavy, bulky, small battery life and they have made no effort to integrate it with something as common as windows nt (I know, I know...). OTH, it's built like a tank and costs nearly as much.
By compairson, I have a Fujitsu 690tx that triple-boots Linux, win95 and NextStep. It's thin, light, has a detachable docking station w/ethernet, stereo speakers and TV out (along with all the usual ports). It's very well intergrated with win95, runs linux and nextstep great (no modem, tho'), costs half the price and has twice the battery life....
Guess which I would choose again.... The only thing IBM laptops have going for them is the warranty.
Chris.
-- I don't have a cool sig.
I spoke with Linus a couple of months ago when he was at BA-LUG about winmodems and doing it in Linux. He thinks it shouldn't be too hard to do as long as we got complete docs (as usual).
I ask about real-time issues and his answer was: "As long as win95 can do it, I'm pretty sure we can do it better."
;->
I haven't heard of anyone working on this though...
-- I don't have a cool sig.
One of the reasons laptop manufacturers particularly like winmodems is that they take up much less space, which is, of couse, a premium inside a laptop.
The winmodems have no other purpose than to be cheap. Even under windows, they are inferior to a normal modem because they offload processing onto the CPU.
The Thinkpad, OTOH, uses a DSP to drive their modem and sound (which, btw, is supported by Linux). It has to be initialized at boot-time, but does all the necessary thinking by itself. Just because there is no driver for Linux doesn't change the fact that it's a perfectly wonderful modem.
There is, of course, an issue about how much support IBM has given developers for this particular project, but please save the "cheap-ass hardware in name brand laptop" rant for elsewhere. IBM's laptops are nearly without peer in their engineering and attention to detail.
Althought the Thinkpad 600 is a fine machine, and I know at least one Linux novice who is using one, the spirit of Linux (if such a thing exists) is better served when you make inexpensive equipment do the job. That's why I'm using a 701. Well, I'm using a 770 to read this, but it sucks.
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
It's nothing to do with RedHat's distribution. The problem is that IBM does not give out the specs.
This also affects Debian GNU/Linux, and other distributions.
These big, relatively PHB-friendly companies don't CARE that Linux is multiple distros, and they especially don't want to port to eight zillion freaky niche distros -- that's why half of the computing world left Unix in the first place.
They want a simple checklist of things, so that they can go down the list and end up saying "hey, we're compatible!".
RedHat simply recognized this, and is giving these PHB companies somewhere to go -- they're providing the PHBs with a checklist that they can stick in their reports to the VPs, plus a logo they can give to the marketing guys. That's all.
Now then, if you REALLY want PHB-companies to explicitly indicate their support for every distro on the planet, why don't you do something about it instead of ranting aimlessly?
If it matters that much to you, why haven't you written the distro-neutral compatibility checklist? Why haven't you contracted with an auditing group to check compatibility?
Oh yeah, I forgot, you just wanted to whine about RedHat. How silly of me . . .
You can rant and rave all you want. It does not matter. IBM is like the IRS - the people who work in certain depts. get their paychecks for whatever they do. For instance,
/. ? Do they care? And more importantly, is there an email id, or is this the archetype of the faceless bureaucracy?
"Early Tuesday morning, says Tim Eades, a segment marketing manager for
IBM Thinkpads, IBM will set up a Web page for the Thinkpad 600E that will
include the compatibility announcement"
Indeed, the article is up and running, and it says that Thinkpad is 'compatible' with linux.
What this means is another matter. But you can rest assured that if you call up IBM, a drone-like voice will assure you that it is 'compatible with redhat linux'.
What interests me is - does anybody at IBM actually read
L.
How can you possibly support Linux in general? You would have no idea what hodge-podge of drivers/libs that any given user has. But, if you stick with a particular distribution, then you would be dealing with a known sub-set.
Think about it. If you were a major hardware manufacturer, and you were looking to support a particular distribution, which would you choose? Obviously the most prevelant and generally supported distribution, which, for the time being, is Red Hat.
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
Besides having all the hardware be compatible, a linux notebook needs a keyboard without windows keys.
:-)
Steal em.. Where's the code to allow the keys to be used in Linux and potentially reprogrammed to do whatever you want?
Scratch the Windows logo off and get a little Penguin key. Someone should start selling little tiny penguin keys or stickers to go over the windows one. Ahh, if I wasn't so lazy....
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.