Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Lenovo Preloading SUSE Linux on ThinkPad

Posted by Zonk on Fri Aug 04, 2006 04:29 PM
from the tux-to-go dept.
Linux Business Portables Hardware
An anonymous reader writes "For years, the holy grail of the Linux desktop has been to get a major computer vendor to commit to preloading a Linux desktop. It's finally happened! Lenovo has made a deal with Novell to preload SUSE Linux 10 on its ThinkPad T60p mobile workstation. Ironically, in June, Lenovo was in hot-water with Linux fans because an executive had said that the company would no longer support Linux on its ThinkPad line. But the company did a quick about-turn. Who knows, maybe Mr. Dell will finally get the message, too?"
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Hardware: The Real Lenovo Laptops - Blank Disk, No Linux 57 comments
wehe writes "A post from two weeks ago mentioned Lenovo Preloading SUSE Linux on ThinkPad notebooks. But in an interview with LinuxPlanet, Rajat Aggarwal, Lenovo's worldwide product manager for ThinkPad T Series, said that Lenovo will sell the new T60p laptop both on its Web site and through its direct and indirect sales channels. 'But we are not pre-loading it with Linux,' he told LinuxPlanet. Still, Lenovo will be breaking new ground with the level of support given to Linux by a major laptop manufacturer, according to the worldwide product manager."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Lenovo Preloading SUSE Linux on ThinkPad 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.
  • Who knows, maybe Mr. Dell will finally get the message, too?

    Yeah, like he did about AMD. (Hint: try to actually buy a AMD-based server.)

    • Dell is stating that they will be introducing AMD-based servers "by the end of the year" in their first-quarter financial statement [dell.com]. Should make for great stocking-stuffers for all those little corps this Xmas!

      • Re:Mr. Dell? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by ender- (42944)
        Dell is stating that they will be introducing AMD-based servers "by the end of the year" in their first-quarter financial statement. Should make for great stocking-stuffers for all those little corps this Xmas!

        You know, the timing of that makes me wonder. I don't think that it is outside the realm of possibility that Dell and Intel have been talking about the future. It wouldn't suprise me if Intel went to Dell and said:

        "Hey, we've got some server processors coming out at the end of 2006 [Core 2 Duo based X
    • Maybe Dell will also realize that a lot of us are pissed off that they
      have stopped "supporting" FreeBSD on their servers.
    • Who knows, maybe Mr. Dell will finally get the message, too?

      Well, they are offering Precision 380 workstations with Redhat Enterprise pre-installed. A step in the right direction.

      -b.

      • They still do, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Svartalf (2997) on Friday August 04 2006, @09:05PM (#15850216) Homepage
        It's not on all models. The biggest problem they have is that they've got magic tags in the BIOS that XP sees and uses to allow an OEM install intended for Dell machines to go on without plugging in the CD key on the labels they're sticking on the machines. They've got to make a "special" version of the machines they're offering no XP preinstall on that doesn't HAVE this magic key to "prevent piracy", especially since they've apparently caught at least three major businesses cheating on licenses this way in the past. The same goes for at least HPaq (I didn't need to key in the license when I re-imaged my laptop for a small XP partition for my wife's benefit and put Linux (Then Mandriva, now FC5 x86-64 on it...) on.

        Blame their wishing for an "easier" way of things for the customer- I blame them for doing something silly that ties them even tighter
        than ever to Microsoft that honestly wasn't something that was relevant save for the fact that the damn thing needs regular re-installs
        to be of any use to anyone.
  • "For years, the holy grail of the Linux desktop has been to get a major computer vendor to commit to preloading a Linux desktop."
    What does it tell you when all of the "minor" computer vendors who did commit to preloading a Linux desktop failed to get promoted to "major" computer vendors?

    • Re:Minor vendor, major vendor (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kfg (145172) * on Friday August 04 2006, @05:00PM (#15849189)
      It's hard to beat an incumbent?

      KFG

    • Re:Minor vendor, major vendor (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Excelsior (164338) on Friday August 04 2006, @05:10PM (#15849233)
      Nice logic, good point....NOT. For every minor vendor that commited to preloading Linux and never became major, there are thousands of vendors that are commited exclusively to Windows and never became major. For reference, see pricewatch.com or Computer Shopper. Good try though.
      • It is quite consistent with a small potential market. After all, if there were huge demand for machines with Linux pre-installed, and there were only minor vendors offering them, you'd expect that these minor vendors would have benefited significantly -- since there wouldn't be so much competition for these customers.

        Your comparison is not particularly relevant since

        (small Linux-based vendor) vs. (non-existent large Linux-based vendor)

        gives the former a better chance than

        (small Windows-based vendor) vs (se
      • Nice logic, good point....NOT. For every minor vendor that commited to preloading Linux and never became major, there are thousands of vendors that are commited exclusively to Windows and never became major

        You can be insignificant in the Windows market when compared to giants like Dell and still outweigh your Linux competitors.

    • um, the same thing it tells you when all the "minor" computer vendors who load *only* ms windoze fail to get promoted to "major" computer vendors?

  • About time (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rjmars97 (946970) on Friday August 04 2006, @04:38PM (#15849070) Homepage
    I've always loved the IBM Thinkpads but have had doubts about the ability of Lenovo to matain the same quality. I've been looking at getting another Thinkpad, and Lenovo offering a Linux distro may be a good enough reason to try them out. Its not my favorite distro, but its deinetly a great foot in the door for Linux, which is something I can definetly support.

    • Better for other distros too (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Harmonious Botch (921977) on Friday August 04 2006, @05:08PM (#15849228) Homepage Journal
      Even if it's not your favoite distro, the drivers will be similar, so installation will still be easier.
    • As far as I'm concerned, as long as it says ThinkPad on it, it'll be the same quality we expect from a ThinkPad. The ThinkPad name and look are so associated with IBM that IBM will make sure Lenovo keeps quality up.

      Just my two cents.
    • I'm using a t60p right now with SLES 10 on it. Very nice hardware - on par with the t42p, t40p, and t30 before it. The only 'extra' bit of work for the t60 series was they switched over to a SATA HDD and a dual core CPU, which was not an issue but took a bit more work than the IDE drives and single CPU in the earlier laptops. Took forever to get the 2x2G sticks of RAM, but that would be my only beef. The rest is pretty nice kit.

    • I just bought a Thinkpad a few months ago (late May-ish) and it's a real beaut. It's a T60; it runs great, there is absolutely no heat issues which I was a little worried about with the dual cores, battery time is good. All in all I'm very happy with the purchase and I wouldn't recommend you worry at all about the ownership change. It's a great laptop.

      My laptop isn't running SuSE so I can't comment on that.

  • Would have been nice if they had one that when I bought my T42. Oh well, better late than never.

  • hardware is a commodity business (Score:4, Insightful)

    by User 956 (568564) on Friday August 04 2006, @04:44PM (#15849099) Homepage
    Who knows, maybe Mr. Dell will finally get the message, too?

    Dell understands that the hardware business is a commodity business. There's two ways to make money in a commodity business; a. volume, and b. premium marketing

    They've mostly maxed out the profit-through-volume business model, so perhaps it would be a good time for them to start positioning certain products in the 'premium' space. Linux enthusiasts are willing to pay more for a product that caters to their tastes. Case in point: the WRT54G-L router from Linksys.
      • It is a good example of how to make money from a commodity item. They can charge more because it is a premium item. From your perspective, you are paying more for the same hardware. From Linksys perspective, they are profiting from remarketing an existing product as "premium" and introducing a stripped down and cheaper version as "standard". Good business move if customers buy it.

        And frankly, the WRT54G-L is still a good deal, even with their "premium" pricing. So more power to them. You want linux

  • Small market (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Great Pretender (975978) on Friday August 04 2006, @04:46PM (#15849106)
    I don't see this as any real big thing. The linux market is still dedicated to the smaller, tenacious demographic (before the flames engulf me I use Ubuntu on my Dell X300). Unless Novell is committed to supporting the operating system in a way more comprehensive manner than M$oft purports to support windows, it's just never going to grow significantly in the short-term. And lets face it, the target truely is the IT admin who's kitting out the workers. A person who's going to order 10's - 100's of units at a time. Now if they're smart, they'll put minimal resources into this until the user base increases enough for a significant cash injection. Be first at the line and capture the tidal wave of change. I really hope they don't just leave the decision to the quarterly bean counters.
    • I agree. What I see is a lot of computer enthusiasts that really don't understand that there are target markets, and of course, business size. Granted, Dell is probably very strong in the business market but it looks to me that their strong point is the general consumer market, and that Lenovo's strength is the business market. Lenovo is probably targeting a niche market here. The mobile workstation market is very, very small (T60p includes a FireGL graphics chip) and starts at $1900, a win of Lenovo h
    • The impact is not revolutionary but it is definitely a positive step. When a manufacturer commits to the idea of making a laptop which can preloaded with Linux, it will make more effort in selecting hardware component or forcing the component OEMs to provide (at least half ass working) driver. This can make the IT manager's life easier: buy a particular brand of laptop and you don't need to care whether the particular user at the end need a windows or linux config.

  • Preloaded Lenova (Score:5, Informative)

    by joshsnow (551754) on Friday August 04 2006, @04:47PM (#15849112) Journal
    If you lived in the UK, you can buy a Lenova/IBM thinkpad with linux preloaded already, from here [linuxemporium.co.uk]
  • Chinese company will preinstall Linux when American competitors will not. Instead they're sticking with Microsoft, even when the new MS OS won't be good for customers for years. This country is really starting to look stupid from every angle.

      • Re:American Way (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Doc Ruby (173196) on Saturday August 05 2006, @08:34AM (#15851946) Homepage Journal
        The American Way: wave a (made in China) American flag whenever something has an American label, and turn your back on anything even vaguely "foreign".

        How about that Microsoft monopoly abuse decision? They abuse Americans. How about that MS corporate tax payment? They don't pay any [google.com], but Americans have to pay for all the government services they consume - including all the government SW revenue we pay for.

        Linux, on the other hand, is an essential tool for millions of taxpaying Americans. Which represents the best American traditions of hard individual work paying off in results rewarded by merit, not corporate leverage. And it's an immigrant which has brought its experience to build America, in the best American tradition.

  • Of course.. (Score:2, Informative)

    by slummy (887268)
    IBM owns Novell, Novell owns SUSE. There you have it folks. Good to see GNU/Linux making it's way into the mainstream. Now we've got to get someone pre-loading Slackware [slackware.com].
    • >IBM owns Novell

      No, they don't.
      • But many of the IBM'ers in the German labs liked SuSE, so most of the blue stack - DB2, WebSphere, etc - seems to get developed on SuSE and then 'ported' to other distros. RH also works, but it was not as common (from what I've seen) as SuSE. (Yes, Suse now... I know)

  • Like IBM's Linux T20 (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dr. Evil (3501) on Friday August 04 2006, @05:00PM (#15849188)
    For years, the holy grail of the Linux desktop has been to get a major computer vendor to commit to preloading a Linux desktop. It's finally happened!

    2647-L1U. It was done a long time ago.

    http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/quickPa th.do?quickPathEntry=2647-l1u [ibm.com]

  • Dell did this 5 years ago (Score:5, Informative)

    by pyros (61399) on Friday August 04 2006, @05:12PM (#15849246) Journal
    Dell was selling Latitude's with Red Hat pre-installed in the late nineties, lasted until at least 2002, then they canceled it due to lack of customer interest. I hope Lenovo sees better results (they should given how much Linux has improved since then).
    • There's a lot of interest in SLED 10, so I think it will work out differently this time. Every review I've seen puts it at least on a par with Windows XP Pro for business users, so I think that Lenovo has got their choice of timing and partner right.
  • The deal used to be that Lenovo wouldn't supply you with 3rd-party GPL software; but if you supplied Lenovo with the software you wanted (e.g. SuSE Linux) then they would cheerfully install it for you. Looks like this has changed.

    I don't know whether it has to do with the 'NO WARRANTY' ... Lenovo presumably like offering warranties ... or the requirement to make source code available, or something else about the 'aggressively free' GPL.

  • I think that comment was really stupid whoever made it. Fact is, when the comment about no linux was made, they were already in talks with Novell about preloading linux. That's why it seems weird. I think that was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. The left hand was ignorant of Linux and gave the normal "we don't support linux" answer that most hardware vendors like to belt out. All the while the right hand was working out the deal with Novell.

  • Mr. Dell -- the grand violator of GNU GPL! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Mr. Dell should not be distributing Linux at all. Even before IBM shipped Linux pre-installed, they at least recognized that when they distribute a GPL covered work they need to also provide a copy of the license.

    Dell still publically demostrates they can violate Clause 1 of the GPL [dell.com] by distributing the Linux kernel, busybox and other GPL works without providing a copy of the GPL. They admitted that adding the GPL to the tar ball would be cheap, easy and something they are required by the license to do and

  • They're worth buying even just to vote for Linux with your dollars.

    I was planning on sticking with my current Thinkpad for awhile longer, but this is almost reason enough to get a new one.

    So, where can we buy one?

  • ...that quality has gone WAY DOWN on the Lenovo-designed ThinkPads.
    • please provide links or something. I am genuinely interested in knowing how Lenova ThinkPad quality compares to IBM ThinkPad quality

  • Hmmmm.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GmAz (916505) on Friday August 04 2006, @05:55PM (#15849444) Journal
    I wonder if the price of that laptop will come down since there won't be a cost of licensing any Windows products. Or will they keep it up and pocket the extra profit.
  • Whether this will make a difference or not, depends on the effort Lenovo is going to put into the advertisement. Will they offer it on a dusty corner of their website, just for the folks who use Linux anyway? Or will they have it more prominent on their websites and ads, like "New! Linux now made easy for everyone. Be the first non-geek enjoying Linux!"

  • This being said.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Cherita Chen (936355) on Friday August 04 2006, @06:29PM (#15849605) Homepage
    I have been running SUSE 10.1 on my thinkpad T43p for several months. SUSE seems to be the only distro that has implemented the Intel wireless (ipw2200) card correctly (firmware, driver, etc...), as well as provide support for Bluetooth. Red Hat and Fedora both require that you do download the firmware, and re-install the ipw2200 drivers before the wireless card will work correctly. And I wish you luck w/the Bluetooth. In fact, I can honestly say, that this was the first time that I have ever installed a Linux distro on one of my ThinkPad's (I have owned 5 total), and had everything work correctly right after install. Coincidence?

    This said, I am now sure that they (Novell) have been planning on supporting the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad(s) for a quite some time...

  • Why this matters (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mrfantasy (63690) <mike@chair t h rower.org> on Friday August 04 2006, @06:33PM (#15849625) Homepage Journal
    Novell employees are required to use SLED as their primary desktop. The majority of Novell employees have ThinkPad laptops (T42 and T43s). I imagine the T60p will now be the new Novell employee laptop.

    I'm also hoping this extends to over ThinkPads in some form. I have the T60 (similar but an ATI graphics adapter) and would like some of these features when I run SLED 10. I'm particularly interested in getting power management similar to what we get in Windows, with full suspend mode support, better special key support, etc.
    • Lenovo never said that it wouldn't be supporting Linux on its Thinkpad line... it is just as much of a misquote now as it was then. The guy interviewed was a someone who didn't have anything to do with their Thinkpad brand, and was in fact talking about another Lenovo product (although I don't remember what product that was).
    • It will be sweet if customers actually BUY the things.
      A nice discount over the Windows machines would help, since even if buyers use the discount just to get cheaper machines (and load Windows later) the sales would be good for publicity.
      The problem with pre-loading Linux is that most Linux users are picky about which distro and what setup they want. They could just as well buy a computer with no OS, considering how little effort it takes to get Linux installed on supported hardware these days. With distros
      • But the advantage with preloading Linux is that you know that since the preloaded distro worked, your distro of choice will presumably be gotten to work as well. You even have a working model to examine.

        I know I'd rather start from a SuSE laptop, even if I didn't want to run SuSE than from a random Windows one.

      • The Civic is a great car, a marvel of economical engineering. I'd even say it is a more impressive feat than any Ferrari and has a huge community following.

        Windows is more like a Tiburon. Lots of style, lots of hype, it works... but it sucks, depreciatees fast, is easily 0wn3d and has a mysteriously lousy engine.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.