Expanded Lenovo Linux Offerings
We 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 announcement. The systems are now available with Intel’s Penryn processors which are built using smaller 45nm technology. In other words, you get cooler operation and better power efficiency by using one of these processors.
In addition you will be able to configure to order a 14″ or 15.4″ widescreen T series and very soon a 14″ R Series as well, so the total number of machines with Linux preloads has expanded.
I appreciated all of the comments and feedback on my prior post and I will try to clarify a few more points that have come up since then. I mentioned in the last post that I was running SLED in a virtual machine on top of Windows. Since then, I have used a pure SLED preloaded machine and had no issues with audio, so it had something to do with how my virtual machine was configured. I thought that was going to be the case, but I am glad it worked out that way in reality.
There have been several comments and questions about whether we are providing our ThinkVantage Technologies as part of this announcement. The answer is no for this generation, but for future releases the plan is to change that to a “yes.” For reader mtl, I think that means that you will not be able to enroll your fingerprints for pre-desktop authentication using this announcement’s preload, since there is not software included to make it work. Theoretically you could use the Windows software to enroll your fingerprints, enable the pre-desktop authentication and then install Linux, but I’m not sure if this would work out or not. It’s probably an experiment worth trying.
There is no plan to ship or sell a separate DVD with the SLED software. Warranty and support entitlement for a system is tied to the serial number and machine type-model number found on the bottom of your system. Unless our IT recognizes a system as having been shipped with Linux, you would not be entitled to support should you need it. Due to licensing terms dictated by Microsoft to all vendors in the industry, a PC must ship with an operating system installed. It can be Windows. It can be Linux. For our large customers, we’ve even shipped a few machines with PC-DOS on them. However, until those licensing terms change, it won’t be possible for us to ship anything to any customer “bare metal.”
I had thought about writing about more of my experiences with Linux here, but there wasn’t much else to say. It is so much like Windows in how it operates, that it is anti-climactic. In other words, stuff just works. If only we had full support for our ThinkVantage Technologies, I could probably give up Windows XP for good – at least on my work machine. (For the observant, yes, I had to downgrade to XP from Vista. With our new IT changes, it just simply wasn’t working out.)
Lenovo Meet the Modder Dean Liou
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Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 1
Lenovo H320 desktop
February 25th, 2008 2:51 pm
Great news! Thank you.
I would love it if you included a link to an internet sale page to buy a Linux preloaded Lenovo laptop. While it isn’t vital, that would be convenient.
February 25th, 2008 2:52 pm
I’m very excited by the offering of thinkvantage software for linux setups, as long as you offer packages for users who plan to install their own distributions (in my case, a few .deb’s for us Ubuntu users).
Hardy Heron has made some strides in laptop support (the mouse control panel allow access to touchpads), and connectivity software is already there (gnome’s network-manager), however providing encapsulated binary packages for ThinkFinger (and gui’s) as well as some custom power management tweaks and multi-monitor (presentation mode) configuration would be an amazing boon to linux on the thinkpad.
February 25th, 2008 3:01 pm
Matt,
Is SLED the only Linux option? What about offering Ubuntu as an option? I also want to take this opportunity voice my opinion that I would very much like to see the Thinkvantage technologies ported over to Linux so long as it’s done in a “distro agnostic” way.
Randy
Happy Ubuntu user on a T60p.
February 25th, 2008 3:55 pm
Please allow us to configure/order Linux ThinkPads from the website instead of just over the phone!
Also, what about reports that identically-configured models are much more expensive with SLED instead of Windows?
Finally, as an X61t Vista user I can agree that Vista really doesn’t work well. I’ve had this machine for many months now and I still can’t get ReadyDrive to work and sleep only works 50% of the time (the other times it just crashes!).
February 25th, 2008 4:25 pm
“Due to licensing terms dictated by Microsoft to all vendors in the industry, a PC must ship with an operating system installed.”
I find it interesting that Microsoft’s licensing terms affect the distribution of operating systems that do not belong to Microsoft. Care to elaborate? It doesn’t seem like a reasonable term for a vendor to agree to.
I’ll second the comment that it would be convenient for the existing ThinkVantage software to be available for download, even if it was only available as SLED packages. It rarely takes much effort to make things work on another distro.
Thanks for your work thus far in this direction.
February 25th, 2008 5:14 pm
@4: It IS available through the website – under T/R series overview (2 distinct pages), click on “linux preloads”.
And to lenovo – what’s with taking down “SLED 10″ option from the Operating system options (the list/table under the photos of the models) in the overviews?! Also, I’ve snapped SLED option TOGETHER with windows last week – why has that been taken down and moved under Linux preloads?
February 25th, 2008 5:30 pm
I am pleased that you are increasing the rollout linux systems. All 5 of my thinkpads (X61, X31, X22, 570, 310) have all run linux. It has always seemed a shame to be paying Microsoft for software that I was never going to use, rather than supporting a Linux company. I would love to see Ubuntu supported, but any distribution of Linux is a move in the right direction.
Stephen
February 25th, 2008 6:56 pm
CTO T-series? Excellent! I use 64-bit Ubuntu 7.10 on my CTO T61p and I’m not particularly inclined to move to SLED, but presumably this means stronger driver support. Battery life under Ubuntu is, unfortunately, about two-thirds or half what I get under Windows XP. Also, hard drive antishock (head parking) doesn’t seem to work as far as I can tell. But I still love it.
Just wondering… do Lenovo employees use ThinkWiki? I’ve found it to be a great resource for Linux on the ThinkPad.
February 25th, 2008 7:14 pm
I am an Ubuntu user (exclusively) on my X61s. I have been involved with a start up (Linux based) company, and we have all been relying on our Thinkpads running Linux. A T61p, X61s, T60, and X41. Thanks so much to everyone at Lenovo for supporting Linux.
Seeing all the Thinkvantage software ported to Linux (done in a non distro specific way) would be wonderful. And seeing more distributions supported in the future would be making things even sweeter.
February 25th, 2008 7:49 pm
Excellent.
Now a Solaris option would be wonderful too.
As far as “no operating system” not being allowed by Microsoft, you could offer a “No OS” option but ship it with a preloaded free OS (meets the words if not the spirit of the agreement). Dell offers a No OS option, you could also talk to them to find out how they do it.
February 25th, 2008 7:55 pm
Sorry, but why exactly is Microsoft dictating this condition? I don’t see how it would help their evil empire, except forcing vendors to have either support for Linux or Microsoft tax.
…if only this was the EU…
February 25th, 2008 11:47 pm
Link to our landing page.
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILib.....o/08/Linux
February 26th, 2008 12:57 am
[...] Kohut posted on the Lenovo corporate blogs a very good sign of industry Linux [...]
February 26th, 2008 1:17 am
[...] Inside the Box » Blog Archive » Expanded Lenovo Linux Offerings “Due to licensing terms dictated by Microsoft to all vendors in the industry, a PC must ship with an operating system installed…until those licensing terms change, it won’t be possible for us to ship anything to any customer “bare metal.” “ (tags: lenovo pc os windows linux baremetal installation) [...]
February 26th, 2008 5:46 am
When you get a “No OS” from Dell, you get FreeDos.
February 26th, 2008 2:53 pm
Hi,
I’ve been using Linux for a long term, and on various kinds of machines. I’ve seen that your company/team is planning to add the “ThinkVantage” Software/Technology/? to your Linux Offerings.
Well, I have never used that ThinkVantage thingi, so I might be completely wrong, but I will share my opinion anyways.
My initial Impression is that this is probably just a Piece of Crap-Ware that Windows Machines always come with. Like all those little things that litter up the taskbar, and whose vendors want you to upgrade to some “premium” version. Maybe I am wrong, but I’ll never know, because I tend to not even try a piece of software until I know WHAT it is actually supposed to do.
Additionally, I like to have a software setup that I can completely control, I especially dislike it if a piece of software is tied to a very specific piece of hardware. So even if ThinkVantage would add Value to my Experience on the Laptop, I would never consider it, if I could not run it on my Desktop PC, or if it would not work on another Brand of Laptop Computers.
February 26th, 2008 4:30 pm
“Theoretically you could use the Windows software to enroll your fingerprints, enable the pre-desktop authentication and then install Linux, but I’m not sure if this would work out or not. It’s probably an experiment worth trying.”
That’s exactly what I did on my Z61m, not even knowing how Fingerprint is supported under Linux. After I got it, I enrolled my fingerprints in Windows and then shrunk the Windows partition to the minimum and installed Debian. I don’t know if I set this in Fingerprint software or BIOS itself but every time I turn on my laptop, before it loads the system I get prompted for my fingertip to continue. Now I’m wondering how this works – I mean, would it work if I got rid of both, MS and IBM rescue partitions?
On another note, I’d really like for us existing Thinkpad users to be able to install ThinkVantage Technologies once you develop them and start shipping them with Linux preloaded ThinkPads.
Matt, do you think this will be possible?
February 27th, 2008 9:54 am
I would like to see Ubuntu on Thinkpad.
Ubuntu Ubuntu Ubuntu Please!
February 27th, 2008 9:11 pm
“Theoretically you could use the Windows software to enroll your fingerprints, enable the pre-desktop authentication and then install Linux, but I’m not sure if this would work out or not. It’s probably an experiment worth trying.”
I think your idea would work. I can use my fingerprint reader for log on password and hard drive password (created in BIOS) after enrolling my fingerprints on that particular machine. Somehow, the fingerprint software exports the fingerprint to the onboard chip and it will run independently of the operating system.
Too bad one cannot get the “sanctioned” Linux for installing on any ThinkPad. Even for a small fee. That money could in fact be used to help support the Linux community, as well as give us users some of the hotkey features we’ve come to know and appreciate in Windows.
As Linux becomes “friendlier”, more and more of us will want to work with Linux more and more.
February 28th, 2008 1:25 pm
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Alinean, Inc.
February 29th, 2008 3:06 am
Thanks for the info, Matt! A good place for the pre-boot fingerprint enrollment software may be the Rescue & Recovery environment (Does the Linux preload come with R&R?). It would still be great to have the functionality as a part of thinkfinger in case R&R gets wiped, but any solution is better than what we have now.
I was able to get pre-boot fingerprint authentication working by using the Windows utility, but after doing the initial enrollment and burning the recovery media, I wiped Vista off the hard drive.
As others have said, we shouldn’t have to pay for Windows if we won’t be using it. I could resell my copy, but there may be a legal problem given that I had to click through the EULA to enroll fingerprints and burn the media.
February 29th, 2008 12:07 pm
Is this basically then an uncustomized install of SLED 10 (w/ SP1?) from DVD onto a bare metal T61? Are there any drivers or other software components that do not come with a retail version of SLED10?
March 4th, 2008 2:24 am
Offering only a pre-loaded SuSe flavor is ill-advised. A significant Linux user market won’t bite. However, if there were the choice between Ubuntu on Lenovo or Ubuntu on Dell, that would be a no brainer.
March 4th, 2008 6:28 pm
This is great news! I’ve been using Ubuntu on my X61 tablet, and it’s absolutely great. I wonder if it would benefit Lenovo to sponsor the development of the Thinkfinger library. It seems to work very well, but it’s not packaged by any distributors or integrated into any GUIs.
March 8th, 2008 2:39 am
Thank you Lenovo! I am waiting for T61 with SLED to be delivered. This is great (at least I hope so).
I’m one of those who was peeking at linux from its early days (early 90ties and floppy disk slackware installs), but never really used it seriously, because of configuration issues. I’m looking forward to get a machine with preinstalled SLED and just use it more or less daily.
March 11th, 2008 4:52 am
To all those wondering about the fingerprint reader and linux, it is fully supported (and working for the most part flawlessly). google the project “ThinkFinger”
64bit Ubuntu 7.10 with everything working
March 20th, 2008 2:19 pm
I am curious why SLED is not offered on T61 machines with T9xxx processors. Is there any way to get such a configuration over the phone? At the end of the day I am reformatting the drive anyhow (I just prefer Ubuntu / Debian) and want to avoid the Windows tax. However, if specifying SLED means I can’t have Penryn, then I will just go with Vista-Basic.
April 7th, 2008 6:47 am
“Due to licensing terms dictated by Microsoft to all vendors in the industry, a PC must ship with an operating system installed.”
Yet another reason why I don’t like Microsoft. I’ve been a user of Linux for more than 10 years. It’s not that I don’t like the Windows operating system, it’s that I just don’t care for the way MS does business. They’re bullies, plain and simple.
I love seeing companies like Lenovo support and embrace Linux. Companies are starting to realize that Linux isn’t going away so they might as well start supporting them.
Thanks for this great offer!
May 16th, 2008 2:30 pm
Just became a proud owner of a brand spanking new Linux T61 (T9300)… but i have to say that I will be definitely switching to Ubuntu because SLED doesn’t really update that often and isn’t really compatible with the newer releases that openSUSE provides.
June 20th, 2008 5:39 pm
It’s mind-boggling that Lenovo was forced to stop offering Windows XP. We rushed to buy ThinkPads for FUTURE use just to get them with XP, and we have now stopped buying ThinkPads.
Linux is wonderful, maybe Wine will let it support more Windows apps. But Windows XP is the mainstream, and Microsoft’s desperate move to force Vista will only speed up the move to Linux where possible, and STOP buying of new Windows PCs for anyone but uninformed consumers.
It seems that Lenovo (and other PC makers) aren’t really independing businesses, they are just members of Microsoft’s Vista sales force. Something to be proud of…
September 12th, 2008 9:45 am
Well, so much for the retail linux Thinkpad experiment.
http://practical-tech.com/infr.....-business/