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Lenovo Preloading SUSE Linux on ThinkPad 143

Posted by Zonk from the tux-to-go dept.
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?"
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Lenovo Preloading SUSE Linux on ThinkPad More

Lenovo Preloading SUSE Linux on ThinkPad

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  • Mr. Dell? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 )
    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.)

    • Re:Mr. Dell? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Doctor Memory ( 6336 )
      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

    • Dell once did offer Linux pre-installed. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Dell once did offer Linux pre-installed on desktop systems - at least through its business sales division. I actually have one (a Dimension 4100 - it's a few years old), and it came with RedHat pre-installed.

      • 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.

    • FreeBSD too (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Local Loop ( 55555 )
      Maybe Dell will also realize that a lot of us are pissed off that they
      have stopped "supporting" FreeBSD on their servers.

    • Re:Mr. Dell? (Score:3, Informative)

      by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 )
      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.

  • "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.
    • Ahhhhhhh, a rose by any other name; probably wouldn't sell as well.

      KFG

    • 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.

    • Re:About time (Score:3, Informative)

      by (H)elix1 ( 231155 )
      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.

      • We just rolled out over 10 Lenovo T60 laptops for a client.

        --I was impressed with:

        o How cool they ran
        o Battery life
        o Their implementation of the eraser-head mouse interface is the best I've seen on any laptop
        o The LCD Displays are nice
        o Wireless is built-in yet can be turned off via hardware switch
        o Gigabit Ethernet along with dual-core CPU

        --Wasn't impressed with:
        o SATA hard drives (XP came out in 2001 - if you have to do a bare-metal (re)install of XP, first you have to F6 the SATA driver; and also make su
  • Would have been nice if they had one that when I bought my T42. Oh well, better late than never.

    • Re:About Time (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I love my T42. I put in a 100 GB Seagate and have dual boot with XP and FC5.

      But when I asked the tech support folks for a linux driver for the funky Atheros WiFi card, they said in effect - "we didn't sell it to you with linux on it, therefore we're not responsible."

      The message I sent them saying they might sell more laptops if they provided some assistance anyway - went unanswered :-(
      • Try NDISwrapper, it works just fine...Granted, if you are a purest, this is non-open software technically, so if you don't mind loading it using the afore mentioned software, it will work like a champ.
        • Dont do that...
          Atheros cards are really well supported, the drivers are called "madwifi" and support 802.11a/b/g (on supported cards), are very stable (im using one right now) and support monitor mode properly (wardriving!)

          the site is www.madwifi.org
    • T40, T41 and T42 all work just dandy with SuSE, as well as Debian based OS's

  • 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.
    • perhaps it would be a good time for them to start positioning certain products in the 'premium' space.

      They have. In their XPS and Alienware lines.

  • 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.
      • This is especially important since they probably will ship the exact same hardware configuration with Windows. That is, hardware vendors have a better chance to get on their preloaded Windows offerings if that hardware is supported by Linux. Which is a big advantage for Linux even if the number of preloaded Linux sales is small compared to the Windows sales. That number just has to be high enough that the sale isn't stopped (i.e. selling the Linux machines must have an net advantage).

  • 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]

  • American Way (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
    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.
    • Instead they're sticking with Microsoft, even when the new MS OS won't be good for customers for years.

      Well, if you want to wave the American flag, I suppose you *should* stick with M$. They're still very much an American company that provides many jobs in certain regions of the US. Some stuff has been outsourced, but not even close to everything, and certainly not the important development work.

      Linux, on the other hand, was Not Invented Here ;)

      -b.

      • 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.
        • 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.

          I guess you didn't see where my tongue was when I posted my post - firmly in cheek :) Myself, I use a red-blooded 'merkin OS - BSD - named after UC Berkeley, Calif... Yeehaw!

          -b.

          • I saw the smileys, but I get a lot of people smiling while they "whistle Dixie" these days. Your points were real, though sarcastic, but not explicit enough to preempt my own unironic description.

            I guess if Americans who care about our country, but are honest about the truth, without getting too crazy about it, find it so hard to even understand each other, it's hard to solve the problems.
    • Moderation +1
          40% Insightful
          20% Troll
          20% Informative

      23% of Americans are authoritarian lemmings who worship power [itsallpolitics.com]. 20% TrollMod seems about right - even encouraging.

  • 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].
    • I'm a Slackware user myself; I normally use Slackware 10.2 on an Inspiron 1000, and I just recently ordered an E1505 which will most likely be loaded with Slackware. However, I don't think Slackware is a good candidate for pre-loading onto consumer machines, or business machines for that matter.

      I use Slackware because, despite its lack of GUI configurators, it's highly customizable and fairly easy (if time consuming) to configure. It took me two years of using Slackware to get to that point. I'm very partic

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

      by Sr. Zezinho ( 16813 )
      >IBM owns Novell

      No, they don't.

      • Re:Of course.. (Score:3, Informative)

        by (H)elix1 ( 231155 )
        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.
  • Will the laptop come with the ATI 3d video drivers instll or will have to install them yourself?

  • 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.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • T42 (last IBM design i believe)
        T43 (First lenovo ?)

        T42 has a radeon card with 32mb dedicated videoram
        T43 has an intel integrated video chipset

        T42 has an intel 1gbps ethernet controller
        T43 has a broadcom 1gbps ethernet controller (far less stable than the intel one, slower, and causes more cpu usage)

        T42 has standard ide drives
        T43 has SATA, a step forward i guess

        and the external flat panels that came with them, the newer lenovo one seems a lot cheaper in terms of casing

    • Re:Too bad... (Score:2, Informative)

      by gkitty ( 869215 )
      I have an SXGA t22 (made in Mexico by IBM) and a UXGA t43p (designed by IBM, made in China by Lenovo) and to the extent there is any quality difference, the Lenovo wins. Slightly better keyboard, trackpoint, display, case solidity, etc. My t43p is a quantum leap ahead in features and crushes the t22 in CPU, video, memory, disk i/o, battery life etc. I can't help but notice that the t43 scrolls a terminal window faster with the output of a kernel build than the t22 can dump text using 'cat'. (Stupid benc

  • 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.
    • 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.

      There are giant economies of scale in a market which is 95-98% Windows. One of the reasons why OEM Linux has all but disappeared from Walmart.com.

      • "There are giant economies of scale in a market which is 95-98% Windows"

        Do you mean for the cost of hardware or software. Once the OS is made it's about zero cost to duplicate.

        "One of the reasons why OEM Linux has all but disappeared from Walmart.com"

        Balance CN4949 14.1" Laptop, 1.0 GHz VIA C3 Processor
        OUT OF STOCK ...
  • 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...

    • Hmmm, Suse is not only good for thinkpads. My Compaq v5101US is also supported quite nicly "out of the box". The only driver issue i had was with the broadcom wireless card, and that was a simple issue to install the windows drivers through ndiswrapper. The only other thing i could complain about would be no 3D accell from my PCIe radeon card, and that is not a distro specific fault.
      I have tried other distros on the same laptop, RH was ok, but didn't have network manager implemented with KDE, ubuntu had s
    • The latest version of Ubuntu (6.06) worked with my Intel 2915 in my Acer Aspire with no need to configure anything. In the preceding version of Ubuntu (5.10), I had to manually install the ipw drivers; though even that was pretty straightforward.

  • Why this matters (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mrfantasy ( 63690 ) <`gro.reworhtriahc' `ta' `ekim'> 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.

    • 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.

      In my experience hardware in ThinkPads (atleast centrino ones) is very well supported on linux. I have a Thinkpad x41 running Debian testing and everything except HDAPS works. Linux

  • I know I know. I'm probably trolling. I like the idea that I could buy a computer and the hardware will work under tux.

    I don't, however, like the fact that people will just put pirate copies of XP on it. Piracy hurts the tux!

    • That's what Microsoft wants us to think.

      It will depend on what kind of support Windows gets on it. If it doesn't come with a driver disc then it's going to be a bit of a pain to install...
    • Given that HW manufacturers pay only couple of bucks (don't know the exact number, but I understand it's around $30) for the Windows license, I would guess that Lenovo will price this SUSE TP the same as an XP ThinkPad. So, there will be no real price advantage in buying a Linux notebook and then putting an illegal copy of Windows on it. I could be wrong, but that's my guess.
    • "I know I know. I'm probably trolling"

      You probably are ..

      "people will just put pirate copies of XP on it"

      Straight from fud.central. I see both you and Allchin hold this view.

      "Once they get the hardware home, however, that Linux OS is quickly erased and replaced with a pirated copy of Windows -- often within 24 hours .. Allchin calls the practice of replacing the default OS with Windows flipping [infoworld.com]

      But can we believe someone who once said this?

      "If you're going to kill someone .. you just pu
  • Finally, I had high hopes for Lenovo, especially after IBM's implementation of Linux. Now the only thing to wait for is for more distros to be available.
  • It is great to get support for and exposure to Linux from a major vendor.

    With respect to quality however, it is my long-standing experience with Dell laptops that they are cheap in price, and cheap in quality. IBM-now-Lenovo laptops are superior in general build quality, and I shall never buy another.

    Perchance it will make it easier to get that damned refund for the unused pre-install of Windows too?
    • Dell laptops are certifiable junk. Working in a white box store doing repairs I see more Dell laptops (4x) that any other brand. This is for hardware failure, not crapware removal. The screens can fail in 3 - 6 months (very common), power connector (all brands suck, whoever decided to use the single pin on a laptop should be shot), other video, and motherboard failures are just to common. The Thinkpad on the otherhand doesn't come in until it's 4 or more years old and the owner wants more memory or a bigger
      • Thinkpads don't really cost "so much". They're right in line with the rest of the business class notebooks (not consumer-level junk). Their competition is machines like the Toshiba Tecra or the Dell Latitude.

        The two units on my current "short list" from June 2006 are:

        $2054 Tecra M5 - Core Duo CPU (2-CPUs in one), 2 cores @ 1.67MHz each. 2GB RAM, 1400x1050 14" SXGA+, NVIDIA® Quadro® NVS 110M 128MB video, 60GB HDD, CD-RW/DVD-ROM, 802.11a/b/g, BlueTooth, 3-year warranty. Add $80 if you want t
        • I hadn't looked at the prices lately, they used to run about $500 above the rest and were worth every penny. If Dells weighed enough they would make good canoe anchors.
  • Linux support from laptop manufacturers seems still poor. But there are some independent retail shops which offer Linux pre-configured on laptops and notebooks [tuxmobil.org]. They offer different laptop brands, some of them e.g. Xtops.DE [xtops.de] are specialized in pre-configured Debian or SuSE Linux on Lenovo/IBM ThinkPads [xtops.de].
  • As far as I can see there is no official announcement from Lenovo about Linux on their laptops available yet. The articles at DesktopLinux/eWeek only propose an official announcement in two weeks. And nothing about some important details: would the pre-installed Linux support all the hardware of a ThinkPad, let's say the internal modem? and how well will the hardware be supported, e.g. will 3D acceleration work together with all the suspend-modes and an external projector? will there be Free and Open Source

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