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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
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
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....
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.
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. ========
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.
--
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.
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?
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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