SUSE SLED Linux Available for Order Today
Today Lenovo makes available for order something we announced several months ago – Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED). I think someone in the technology press summed it up best when he said “finally.” I think the wait was worth it.
Since I’ve been one of the people publicly putting together the words “Lenovo” and “Linux” lately, I got an advance copy to try out and play around with. As is now my usual MO, I’ve installed it inside a virtual machine. However, since the version Novell supplied was a VMware virtual machine, I started by installing the VMware player to make it work.
(I don’t want to hijack my own post by talking about virtual machines again, but to those readers who commented that I needed to try out VMware, you were absolutely right. If there’s interest, I’ll do a subsequent post on the topic.)
Unlike when I installed Ubuntu, I didn’t have any initial problems getting up and running. It just worked. The shell looked very familiar to what I am used to in Windows. The Computer button in the lower left hand corner works very similarly to the Start menu in Windows. I’m sure someone out there will tell me that this is because one version has the KDE environment and the other has Gnome, (or something like that). I’m still feeling my way through this, so regardless of which shell is running on top of it all, I was much more comfortable with SLED than I was with Ubuntu.
Performance is fast, even in a virtual machine. I’m sure that the native version would be even faster. Since Lenovo is not providing much customization on this iteration, I did miss a few features, most significantly, the scroll button on my TrackPoint. Also amusing is that the Windows key on my keyboard also brought up the Computer (Start) menu in Linux.
The environment felt so familiar that I decided to go ahead and write this blog post in the included OpenOffice.org Writer within SLED. However, when it came time to post, I did move it over to Microsoft Word 2007, my preferred way to post these blog posts due to its integration with WordPress. Frustration abounded though when I could not drag and drop my newly created file onto my Windows desktop. I guess it is too much to ask for drag and drop between Linux and Windows, but it sure would be nice. Setting up a common “shared” folder between Linux and Windows just isn’t as elegant.
I played around with other preinstalled programs and my only real issue was that couldn’t get audio to work. I know this isn’t a problem on the hardware we are shipping with SLED preloaded, and in fairness to the Novell and ThinkPad teams, this machine technically isn’t a supported configuration.
For those who want to learn all of the configuration details or to order a model, here’s a link to our site. I don’t know final pricing – that’s on the web page, but remember that you shouldn’t expect that you should take the retail price of Windows and subtract it from the list price of a similarly configured Windows model. Part of what you are paying for is getting full support directly from Lenovo. That isn’t free for us. Plus, Microsoft does not charge us retail prices to load Windows on our machines anyway.
Over the next few weeks I’m going to be playing more with this distribution. I instinctively like it.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Folks – I apologize for the confusion. We do not have models on our U.S. website yet, but you can call 1-866-96-THINK and order one of the Linux preloaded machines today in the U.S.
T61 14.1″ widescreen: 7664-1MU (TopSeller)
T7500(2.2GHz), 1GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HD, 14.1in 1440×900 LCD, 128MB nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion, SUSE Linux Ent Desktop 10, 3 year depot warranty
Planned List Price: $1249
T61 14.1″ widescreen: 7659-2UU (Corporate)
T7500(2.2GHz), 1GB RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1280×800, Intel X3100, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion, SUSE Linux Ent Desktop 10, 3 year depot warranty
Planned List Price: $1310
T61 14.1″ widescreen: 7663-3LU (Corporate)
T7500(2GHz), 2GB RAM, 120GB 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1440×900 LCD, 128MB nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion, SUSE Linux Ent Desktop 10, 3 year depot warranty
Planned List Price: $1,684
R61 14.1″ widescreen: 7734-15U (TopSeller)
T7250(2GHz), 1GB RAM, 120GB 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1280×768, Intel X3100, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 4c Li-Ion, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP1, 3 year depot warranty
Planned List Price: $949
R61 14.1″ widescreen: 7733-3BU (Corporate)
T7500(2.2GHz), 1GB RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1280×768 LCD, Intel X3100, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, 6c Li-Ion, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP1, 3 year depot warranty
Planned List Price: $1,185
R61 14.1″ widescreen: 7743-2JU (Corporate)
T7500(2.2GHz), 1GB RAM, 120GB 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1400×900 LCD, 128MB nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, FPR, 6c Li-Ion, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP1, 3 year depot warranty
Planned List Price: $1,459
There are comparable models available through the rest of the world as well. I’m not as well briefed on when those models will be displayed on other countries’ Lenovo website, but you should be able to just go through your usual channels for purchasing and order these new models.
The only exception to that is in Europe. There’s been a bit of a delay in the launch process over there unfortunately, so we’re looking at another couple weeks before those models are available through your usual providers.
I hope this clarifies things for people, but feel free to drop availability questions here.
Note: I artificially inserted this comment at the top of the list for visibility.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:54 am
[...] TECHLIVEZ.COM Computers,Latest Technology news ,Gadgets ,Mobile and Gaming news wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt Today Lenovo ships something we announced several months ago – Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED). I think one someone in the technology press summed it up best when he said “finally.” I think the wait was worth it. Since I’ve been one of the people publicly putting together the words “Lenovo” and “Linux” lately, I got an advance copy to try out and play around with. As is now my usual MO, I’ve installed it inside a virtual machine. However, since the version Novell supplied was a VMw [...]
January 15th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I am a long time fan of IBM, and now Lenovo, Thinkpads. I was ecstatic to learn about SuSE being shipped on a Thinkpad because it implied some level of support. What is Lenovo doing to support the Thinkpad-ACPI project[1]?
That project has some really talented developers who have to jump through hoops to reverse engineer BIOS and firmware information just to provide users with a very basic experience. I would request, beg and plead that you put some internal pressure to make available better documentation so that end users can exploit Thinkpad-ACPI for a Windows-equivalent experience.
This is a great opportunity for Lenovo to demonstrate their commitment to users by working with the community. Thanks!!!
[1] http://ibm-acpi.sourceforge.net/
P.S. The project name ‘ibm-acpi’ is a testament to how old the project is.. the Linux driver is named ‘thinkpad-acpi’.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Drag and drop works for me between linux and windows, but when I’m running windows inside VMWare and Ubuntu beneath. Maybe VMWare Tools is not installed in this VM… this is what make the drag and drog possible across the host and guest systems.
I’m glad to see Lenovo shipping TPs with Linux, I wish this happen in Brazil too.
Cheers
January 15th, 2008 at 10:30 am
We tried Suse in house months ago with a T43 and it worked very well. We installed the local SAP client, the Lotus Notes client and a couple of other in house programs we needed. Linux has come very far in the last couple of years since then. The crappy Cisco VPN Linux client took some time to work out, and Im still not happy with it but it works.
Just about the only real problem I had for the time I worked there was with the Lenovo “eclaim” homepage which was IE only and still is I think. Silly to have to resort to VMWare XP installation to visit a rather simplistic warranty page. Other than that, the computer did everything I wanted it to do, and even internet banking worked like a charm. There really is no need to pay the MS tax anymore for most users.
IBM access connection worked like a charm and Active protection as well IIRC. Cant remember if we tried any other ThinkVantage utilities. Hopefully an online Lenovo specific repository will be available, and included with the installation. If Lenovo would make the official images available, that would be terrific as well.
With VmWare machine (glad you ditched MS Virtual PC) you dont get the whole experience Suse has to offer. The biggest change will be the Compiz/Beryl window manager. It means 3D effects on your desktop and an overall smoother feel.
Cheers.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
[...] As you may recall, a few months ago Lenovo and Novell announced ThinkPads preloaded with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop were in the works, and now they are here. [...]
January 15th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Can you enroll fingerprints for pre-desktop authentication using the SLED preload? If so, will Lenovo make the software available for all thinkpads? That’s the one feature I’m missing since wiping Vista off of my X61s.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Will the battery life be similar under SUSE be similar to Windows XP? Why isn’t this preload available for the X series?
January 15th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
You mentioned not having the scroll button working on the laptop… here’s the solution that we published on our blog on this very topic: http://opsamericas.com/?p=472
January 16th, 2008 at 12:07 am
> I don’t know final pricing – that’s on the web page
Why are you announcing something that hasn’t even appeared on your website? NOWHERE can a buy a laptop pre-loaded with Linux from the Lenovo website. Are you pulling our leg, or what?
I’ll believe it when I see it.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:07 am
[...] Enfin, nous allons pouvoir acheter des portables avec Linux et ainsi éviter la fameuse taxe déguisée de Microsoft. Ce sont les modèles ThinkPad T61 et le R61 14″ widescreen (modèle 15″ à venir en février). Ces portables se vendront quelque 100$ de moins que ceux équipés avec Windows et seront disponibles partout en Amérique et en France pour l’instant. Vous pouvez lire un article intéressant qui traite de sujet par un des blogueurs de Lenovo : http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=134 [...]
January 16th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
The forum is no longer visible from the lenovoblogs.com homepage. As a result there has been minimal traffic on the forum, in the last few days. I think the abuse you guys is minimal, and its a nice place to talk to users in the know and hopefully Lenovo insiders/developers. I wish you didnt let it die.
January 17th, 2008 at 2:22 am
To Tim Supples:
Tim is it possible to buy a DVD for linux from lenovo instead of buying a whole linux ready notebook? I can’t afford to buy another thinkpad just for the software.
Btw, AVP-R sucked.
January 17th, 2008 at 3:15 am
What about having the choice for CTOs models too? (better if those CTO models are available from France
).
Here, copy/paste works fine with a Debian host and a Windows XP guest. I guess that’s a question of vmware tools not installed.
I’d have preferred a Debian (or a choice) for the Linux distro, but IBM/Lenovo seems to have a good relationship with Novell (and maybe the fact that Novell sold it soul to Microsoft did something there
)
Nice anyway. We saw the last firmware (2.07) on T61 changing the behavior when Linux is booted with osi_acpi=”Linux” so I guess we’ll have some news in the future.
Do you have any clue about brightness key support? It doesn’t currently work on T61 (integrated graphics) and I’m sure that’s something Novell won’t let go
Cheers,
January 17th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
jIERYN — The ACPI project is a very worthy project indeed, and we have been in dialogue with groups like the Free Software Foundation to explore this in more detail. The issue continues to be that in the firmware of ThinkPads is the “special sauce” that makes ThinkPads what they are. If we open this up, then our competitors would also get the benefit of our years of research and know how. There are groups studying this carefully though.
Kevin — THANK YOU!!!!!
MTL – I am pretty sure that you can enroll fingerprints for predesktop authentication since this is done at the hardware level and has nothing to do with what software package is loaded. What will NOT work is passing these credentials to the Linux OS. With this first generation of preload, we are not providing a lot of our own software and customizations. We hope to change that with future iterations.
Battery life should be equal to or better than Windows XP battery life. I asked the Novell team this very specific question and they were very confident that they have implemented advanced power management. As always, your mileage may vary.
To other specific questions, I am hoping to have an actual preloaded machine to try out soon. This will allow me to answer specific questions like the brighness buttons, etc.
We cannot do CTO models at this time becuase we do not have drivers available for every CTO possibility. Then you would be mad at us for shipping another product without full driver support.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:21 am
I would buy one but with openSUSE.
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:08 am
I installed OpenSUSE 10.3 on a T61 7664-1FG, I was not aware of that Lenovo was going to ship with SLED preinstalled, otherwise I would probably have waited for that before getting a new laptop.
Same as mentioned here, I cannot get the audio to work through the speakers. If I use headphones it works fine.
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:49 am
Thanks for the response, Matt. I agree that it should be possible, but there’s no software that I’m aware of to interface with the hardware and enroll the fingerprints for predesktop authentication. For passing credentials to the Linux OS we already have ThinkFinger. Could you submit this request to the ones responsible for putting together the SLED preload?
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I certainly welcome this development, and hope “SUSE SLED” will be available on all CTO configurations, particularly upcoming Penryn 15.4 inch T61ps. I thought I would metion some applications that I am looking forward to trying as they will allow me (hopefully) to do some of my work on my laptop and OS of choice a Linux/Thinkpad.
Since many of us rely on applications that can only run under windows, it would be nice if Lenovo would offer and support dual boot systems.
Run CS2 on a Linux system:
http://www.codeweavers.com/
More good Things:
http://www.linuxmovies.org/software.html
January 25th, 2008 at 1:13 am
I’m saddened that this won’t be available on the X serise machines or tablets.
Are we only going halfhearted on our support again?
January 27th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Hi,
Wonderful news!
I have an R40e (2684) and a T42 (2373). Yes, I know, old kit but…
I have used SuSE since 6.3 (many moons ago but that’s another story) and I dual-booted for most of the installations until Open SuSE 10.2 came along.
10.2 will run happily on the R40e (it has 1GB RAM and it’s a Celeron 2.4GHz!!!!) and 10.3 purrs along on the T42 (1.5 GB). I removed the R&R partition, after making 2 sets of recovery CDs for each Thinkpad – belt and braces – and binned XP. I’ve never been happier
OOo runs fine but I prefer Softmaker’s Textmaker and Planmaker for my WP and Spreadsheet. If I need Excel or Access, I run the 2K versions under CodeWeaver’s Crossover (WINE) package.
When will SuSE SLED installed Thinkpads be available in the UK?
Will I be able to order a US-sourced Thinkpad and buy a UK keyboard if Lenovo don’t release the T61 Linux Thinkpads in the UK?
If they are going to be released in the UK, any idea of prices?
I’m currently saving up for a new T61 14.4 inch screen, 7300 or 7500, so should I hang on a little bit longer?
Anyway, it’s brilliant news to have Lenovo and Novell behind this move to Geeko!
January 30th, 2008 at 9:41 am
This is great news. But I agree with Peter that a separate DVD for installation on other Thinkpads would be awesome. I am very happy with my freshly bought T61, and am not prepared to buy a new laptop just for the software.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
So now the link to buy the laptop appeared, but if I actually try to buy it, the page has absolutely NO info on the system features (ie. memory, CPU, hard drive, video card, etc). Not only can a buyer not change those setting, he can’t even SEE what they are before buying.
Not to mention the picture of laptop being a broken link in the slider on the right. Is this a joke or what?
January 31st, 2008 at 8:00 am
No doubt you’ve heard this many times before, but I’d prefer my next computer to come with no operating system or Office software. This is because, over the years, I’ve accumulated a clutter of legitimate installation discs of XP, Vista and Office, which have not been used, and which I’d like to put to use. People like me are no doubt in a minority, but I suspect we’re a sizeable minority. Installing the necessary drivers and manufacturers’ software holds no terrors.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Can I use the all the ThinkVantage software on SUSE just as run on Windows?
February 10th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Elvis: No. Only a few utilities seem to have been ported to Suse.
February 14th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Great news
Please support thinkpad-acpi project!!
February 20th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Lenova and Linux,
This is my New J200 Lenovo Desktop with Vista Home Basic,
I have put on it Ubuntu 7.10 , Kubuntu 7.10 and Mandriva 2007.
I am still setting up the System,
Ubuntu Boots in seconds, The Vista comes up very slowly with too many updates etc…
Sam in Jaffa
February 20th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
This early morning (13:30 CET) SLED option >briefly< appeared in the configuration, see here:
)
http://i156.photobucket.com/al.....ntyone.png (Ignore the url text
A few hours later (17:00 CET), it’s gone – what’s going on?
February 25th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
[...] just expanded our Linux offerings. Several weeks ago we announced systems with preloaded SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED). Lenovo has added a few new options with this [...]
March 15th, 2009 at 1:42 am
i m user of susee linux desktop 10. i had installed windows xp inside the virtual machine. But i cant execute the operating system. Please guide me.