Lenovo Removes Linux Option For Home Buyers

billybob2 writes "Lenovo has stopped selling laptops pre-installed with Linux on its web site, only 8 months after starting the trial program. This means that home customers won't be able to buy a Thinkpad without paying the Microsoft tax. Word has it that the decision to pull the plug on Linux came down from the highest levels of the Chinese company's corporate headquarters. For those looking to buy full-sized laptops and desktops with Linux pre-loaded Dell, System76, ZaReason and Everex all still offer such products."

AC comment from TFA

I suspect the decision was made because of comparatively small demand.

Not every disappointment in life is the result of a Grand Microsoft Conspiracy. (grin)

Re:AC comment from TFA

Most likely it was a combination of low volume and pressure from Microsoft. If M/S keeps the pressure on and the sales don't make it worthwhile fighting then they drop the line.

Re:AC comment from TFA

Most likely it was a combination of low volume and pressure from Microsoft. If M/S keeps the pressure on and the sales don't make it worthwhile fighting then they drop the line.

Most likely it was an example of Boyle's law in action: the higher the pressure, the lower the volume.

Re:AC comment from TFA

So do you subtract the amount they're paid to bundle adverts? Do you subtract the support costs that would be required to support more options for purchase? You have to assume that Dell/IBM/HP/etc are all evaluating their full cost structure including those things. If so, is it possible the "Microsoft Tax" is actually a negative value meaning it's cheaper for IBM to sell a Windows machine and be paid by advertisers than it is to sell a machine with nothing on it? Again, not trying to troll... just seems like its become one of those buzzwords with no actual meaning any more.

Comment from me

because of comparatively small demand.

Maybe the "demand" was small because no one could find it on their f-ing web site.

I wanted a new laptop w/ Linux last month, and I looked at virtually every Thinkpad on their web site, and I could select Linux on almost none of them.

I can almost say the same thing about Dell. Only a small fraction of their laptops can I find Linux available.

Most of these companies just are paying lip service to Linux.

Re:AC comment from TFA

Not true, if you release an OS with your system you "have" to test it, along with all the drivers for each hardware configuration you offer. At larger PC vendors a lot of time and money is spent on this test phase, and a lot of issues are found. The bar is a lot lower for consumer grade stuff, but the testing does still happen. This is why you can't always find the exact combo of hardware you want, for the exact flavor of OS you want.

In order to deliver the cheapest, fastest, greenest, whateverist, people do tend to deviate from Intel's reference design for a given platform. They deviate from other IC vendor reference designs as well, to, in theory, provide a better end user experience, more integration, etc.

The result is that a stock OSes (linux, windows, or "other") may not necessarily work as well, unless/until patches are sent upstream and accepted by whatever OS community is responsible. I am personally aware of a number of OS bugs in both Linux and Windows, found during this testing, that are corrected with the OS shipped with the product by the mfg, that are not yet part of the mainstream OS release. They will be released in a service pack or hotfix, update, etc. at some point, but OS release schedules rarely correlate with hardware releases. Sometimes they never are in the OS release and are in registry changes etc. YMMV.

It may be that some PC vendors are choosing to absorb these costs because Microsoft has been rubbing everyone the wrong way. Lenovo clearly doesn't wish to be one, except perhaps in markets where there's a different expectation of quality & support or where piracy is acceptable.

Re:AC comment from TFA

It does not cost them anything to pre-install Linux in the first place, any more than tweaking a copy to run on each model they have

That's not really true. While the copy of Linux itself does not necessarily cost them anything, the fact that it is another option for the customer DOES make it cost more. General rule of thumb is that the more stock keeping units (SKU), the more it will cost you as a company. Basically, if you only sold one model of widgets, in one color with no options at all, it is cheaper than selling one model of widget that comes in either red or blue. It's not about the paint - the red and blue paint cost the same. It's the fact that your production line now has to support two variations. You now have two different packages for the product and on your web site, you now have to add in the capability for the customer to choose their color, and then you have to make sure that they get the right one. Going back to Lenovo, having a second operating system option means a lot of extra investment in their supply chain. Granted, if there is significant customer demand, the extra investment in the supply chain may be worth it. However, if the demand is not there, then the company shouldn't be selling that extra SKU.

On a non-business note, though, I'm sad to hear that they will no longer be selling pre-installed Linux. In fact, I didn't even know they had been selling pre-installed Linux until now. I like that the option is there. At the very least, I don't pay the Microsoft tax when I won't be installing any Microsoft software and hardware compatibility and driver support becomes more robust. I'm glad Dell is hanging in there. I won't comment on whether this is a conspiracy or not. I'm a dedicated Linux user and I love to bash Microsoft, but even I can admit that the demand just may not be there. It could have even been a factor of them failing at getting the message out to those who would be interested (I at least didn't get the memo). Although I will never completely rule out the possibility of an MS conspiracy, we can't exactly jump to that conclusion here.

Maybe the word actually came from consumers?

And people just weren't buying them?

Re:Maybe the word actually came from consumers?

Yeah All kinds of possibilities can lead to this.

I think as *nix advocates (at least some of us), we need to realize that it's not all about being altruistic to these guys. It's about money, and if it's doesn't make money then why would they do it? But why speculate on motivations. It's just a fact and we can accept it, make Linux better where we can, and move forward.

Re:Maybe the word actually came from consumers?

Agreed..

Linux isn't the answer to everything. Typical linux users don't pay the premium lenovo/IBM pricing anyway for the most part. They would go HP/Dell and put their own OS on since the "MS tax" has little to do with the price differences of Lenovo and other options.

BTW, when will Apple get rid of the Apple Tax? :)

What about driver support etcetera?

The Microsoft tax isn't that big a deal, at least not in the Thinkpad price range. Were their Linux-based laptops any cheaper? I know some other companies that offer Linux don't offer any discount for it.

A bigger concern is whether they're providing driver support for Linux installation or not.

Re:What about driver support etcetera?

So let me get this straight. There was no MS tax on these, NO one was apparently buying them, so they're dropping the line and we still have to rattle on and on about a MS tax?

If i buy an apple, how do i get rid of the OSX/Apple tax?

If I buy a ford, how do i put a Mazda engine it it from the getgo and not pay the Ford tax?

Re:What about driver support etcetera?

If i buy an apple, how do i get rid of the OSX/Apple tax? If I buy a ford, how do i put a Mazda engine it it from the getgo and not pay the Ford tax?

Apple makes the computers. Ford makes the cars. So there really isn't a way to not pay them in some way (unless you stole their products...but that's beside the point)

Microsoft, on the other hand, does not manufacture the computers. So if I want to buy a computer I shouldn't have to pay them as well if I don't want their product to come with it.

I have one

I bought a T61 several months ago from them with Suse pre-installed (I then installed the latest version of OpenSuse instead as the pre-installed one was an older, stable and supported version.)

I like it a lot and was planning on doing the same for any future laptop purchases. It's a shame because these are great machines and perfect for Linux (and the kind of person that normally runs Linux.)

However, I ran through the various options before purchasing and it was hard to tell if I was really saving money this way. For the Linux systems the choice of hardware options was more limited than with Windows (which does make sense) and I don't think I was able to set up equal systems which to compare prices with. In the end I think I paid the same or possibly even more for this system than if I had got one with Windows with the intention of not using it.

I think, then, their trial of selling Linux machines failed because they failed to make it a compelling option to the buyer, either financially or otherwise (limited options.)

I still feel good about myself for not giving any money to Microsoft.

More reasons for preloading

> I think, then, their trial of selling Linux machines failed because they failed to make
> it a compelling option to the buyer, either financially or otherwise (limited options.)

We also bought a SUSE loaded Thinkpad recently. Normally we do RedHat based distros but since this one did come with a supported load left it alone. Yes SUSE is different but the user adapted pretty quick.

The point of preload is not just to avoid giving Microsoft money, I'm smart enough to realize Lenovo almost certainly gave Microsoft their per unit tax (no amount of court orders will ever end that practice) but we got three other important things:

1. PRELOAD. Take it out, plug it in and go. Don't underestimate the value of that.

2. NO SUPRISES. If they are preloading Linux on it they won't suddenly switch vendors on wireless chipsets, etc. and hose you. Even if you decide you don't like the flavor of the month a vendor ships the odds are good you can load any other recent distro.

3. SUPPORT. If a vendor preloads Linux you can call them up and get warranty support without having to worry about reloading Windows before shipping it off or ensuring the drive is yanked out.

In the past we bought Thinkpads because they were the best hardware and nobody offered Linux as a supported option so their lack of that didn't hurt them. That isn't true anymore so future purchases won't go to them.

DVD Playback?

On Dell's website, all the Ubuntu models have a note: Ubuntu 8.04 with DVD Playback. What does that mean? That they installed the unlicensed work-around for you or is there some licensed linux DVD decoder?

Re:DVD Playback?

They install LinDVD.

Possible reasons

Having just purchased a T61 (as it was being discontinued), I suspect they have good reasons for not offering Linux right now.

The new T400/T500 use Intel's newest wireless chipset (Wifi 5100), which wasn't supported under Linux at the time of launch (early August). Intel announced support on August 14th, and as far as I know, it's not supported in any stable release of any major distribution. This will change in the coming months, of course, but it makes sense that there's no Linux option now.

The video card is in a similar situation. The laptops with discrete graphics also have integrated graphics which are switchable via driver (for power savings). As far as I know, this switching isn't implemented at all in X and I don't know if you can disable one or the other card. If you order a version with only integrated graphics, I believe it's supported only by the latest version of the intel driver (which isn't yet packaged for many distributions).

Even though I use my T61 for Linux, I still bought a Vista Home version for three reasons: 1.) Every so often I like to have Windows for something, 2.) The hardware options for the Linux version were crippled - slower processor line, etc. and 3.) OpenSuse isn't my distro of choice anyway. You'd have to buy the dock separately (no big deal), because the support for it under Linux isn't official (and it took some time to get things to work reasonably well for me).

Re:Well up-theirs

i bought my laptop for dual-booting, WinXP MCE and Linux. After 4 months of getting tired of it telling me "Use *our* antivirus of choice!" in windows I just gave up and installed linux. Truth be told, I kept my MCE key around, because that gives me the legal right to use it in a VM should the need arise. (But it hasn't, thanks, in part, to everything moving to the web)

Re:Well up-theirs

if it doesnt run linux, it doesnt exist.

Dude. You just made my car disappear.

Re:Well up-theirs

Fortunately, my toaster is safe.

Re:Maybe Vista is better?

From the KDE 4.1 announcement page:
"While KDE 4.1 aims at being the first release suitable for early adopting users..."

If you want to be an early adopter, you need to live with the consequences. I've run KDE for years and would never consider moving to KDE 4+ for a least another year or two.

Also KDE != Linux.

Re:Communist Plot Against Linux?

Linux is communist in a sense because the community 'owns' it, anyone can contribute to it regardless of social class, and the community governs itself without need of outside interferance.

These are all fundamental ideals of communism [wikipedia.org] - that all property is communally owned, that all people are equal regardless of class, and that the workers (common people) should be in charge of governing themselves.

The way the Chinese run their country is very far from the ideals of communism, in fact no country that I know has ever had a successful communist government. There has been plenty of dictatorships masquerading as communist though.

Re:Communist Plot Against Linux?

Ironically, it's also close to the ideals of a free market. There's no friction, no real barrier to entry, and competition is very pure and open. Supply is limitless, thus cost goes to $0, which isn't happening elsewhere in the software industry. In a way, free market economics says that the ease of reproducing software would drive the cost to zero, which has happened in a lot of ways.

Morally speaking, while most people would argue that there's nothing wrong with charging money for software, almost everyone will agree that the community that's sprung up around open source is very right. It's heart warming, really.

Re:Maybe they shouldn't have used Suse

Precisely. I bought one of the Lenovo Suse lappys, but never even booted it into Suse. I had an Ubuntu disc sitting on my counter before the UPS guy showed up.

I bought the Suse one for two reasons- known linux-supported hardware, and not paying MS.

The laptop, by the way, is fantastic. Durable, high-performance, and with a docking station, replaced both my desktops.