Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

IBM Thinkpad 600E to be certified "compatible"

Posted by Hemos on from the making-steps-in-the-right-direction dept.

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

2 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. This is Good News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5
    I'm having a little trouble believing all the negative comments I've read here so far! It seems to me that when a hardware manufacturer starts a Linux compatibility program, that is a Good Thing for Linux and all of us. How many complaints have I read in the past that Linux gets ignored by hardware manufacturers who only care about compatibility with Windows?

    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

  2. Linux combatable by Signal+11 · · Score: 5
    If Redhat were to declare the IBM thinkpad compatible while it still has outstanding problems (modem!), Redhat would be running it's own trademark through the mud. Redhat "compatible" won't stand for anything if anyone can get a certification that say their product is compatible - anything could be!

    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.

    --