Inside the Box

117 Comments on “Linux On a Mobile PC”

• Lukas Beeler says:
  September 4th, 2007 3:36 pm

  I think it is great that Linux seems to be improving, even though i mostly work with Microsoft products. Why? Because competition is good, and Microsoft needs competition in the OS market.

  Regarding Power Management: PM sucks under Windows too. Vista can do it more or less decently and even supports group policies, but under XP it’s terrible with any Laptop vendor. I don’t want to install any special support that doesn’t integrate with the OS. Lenovo doesn’t do that, bringing their own “ThinkVantage” tools to Vista again, instead of fully integrating into the OS.

  Now this is my guesswork, a marketing specialist probably knows this better than i do, but i still want to post it.

  If you want to start offering Linux on your laptop, there are two hypothetical users : Enthusiasts and Enterprises which want to evaluate Linux. The Enthusiasts don’t want/need tech support, for the latter it’s an absolute requirement. As such, it makes a lot of sense to support a single distribution fully.

• R_M says:
  September 4th, 2007 3:36 pm

  Since I would like to see lenovo preload linux on it’s machines and fully support it thereafter so I chose number 3.

• Troels Oesteraa says:
  September 4th, 2007 5:53 pm

  I’m an avid T60p 2623-DDU user running a dual boot of Windows XP and OpenSuSE 10.2. I must agree that everthing in windows xp just basically works and you don’t need to know any kernel stuff or compilers to get it running.

  I use Linux for development – since it’s really hard to get into learning how to construct drivers in Windows. It’s simply extremely hard for people who want to grasp the code and work with it.

  One thing i have started to hate is ATi. I would like YOU Lenovo to put further pressure on ATi to develop respectable Linux drivers, because what they have now is not much more than a joke. You can’t hibernate or you’ll risk breaking the fglrx driver and xorg. Wine can’t install with winecfg because it is interfering with fglrx.
  You sold T60ps as Linux-ready, but everything from ATi is just a hog to get working in Linux thanks to fglrx. Can’t you develop your own drivers for SLED for the ATI cards supplied with it? It would really be awesome if you could, but i understand that ATi are very quiet about there hardware specs…

  I really LOVE your ThinkVantage Access Connection tool under Linux – it works very well under OpenSuSE 10.2 although it was designed for SLED 10.0 i think. Kudos for that, and i’d love to see you develop more Thinkpad specific utilities for Linux – but i understand it’s more or less unpaid.

  Basically, i don’t need the tech support at this stage where Linux isn’t more known in the masses than it is. It would require an extreme amount of knowledge and patience from the supporters, and i don’t think they can be helpful enough through a telephone line. Either on-site support or none. And then support for all of your hardware. You proved yourself with SLED and very simplistic but good drivers. I think you could do similarly with the fingerprint reader – because KDE really needs a frontend with the current thinkfinger.

• mgo says:
  September 4th, 2007 7:55 pm

  Three years ago I bought a ThinkPad R51 with no operating system. It was a bargain that way, and I had excellent platform for experimenting.

  I’ve ended up with a dual-boot machine on it with Vista and Ubuntu, and my documents on a 3rd partition in FAT32 so both OSs can read them.

  This setup works super, and I get to have some extra fun learning both operating sytems.

  Ubuntu works great. Fast, easy to download software and patches and highly configurable. What’s more, its indexing and search -really works- compared to the Vista indexing wannabe lameness.

  Hey, I still like Windows. My OneNote program is unbeatable. MS Office 2007 is really likeable in my view. I will stick with Windows for now. But Linux is really getting it’s act together (especially Ubuntu) and MS needs to treat users as valued people rather than suspects, or they will hear slamming doors as custermers head for alternatives.

  It’s nice to see that ThinkPad machines work so well with Linux.

• Elias K Gardner says:
  September 4th, 2007 8:26 pm

  This post was written to attract flamers then you spun us around at the end. Well lets see thanks for your blog ive only been watching a dozen posts but i do enjoy. I just bought a x61 thinkpad and immediately installed ubuntu. No it does not work the same as windows and yes i did do some fiddling but considering im using a prerelease operating system (will be out in a month) I think there is pretty decent support for a new computer and for not being supported or approved by lenovo. I would ask for everyone’s sake to try and separate the facts from fiction in your post. I don’t want to go through it again and pick out all the detail thats not worth anyone’s time but just for example ubuntu which runs gnome by default has had pretty good support for widescreen and has since i got my gateway m680 almost 3 years ago. Thanks for your time.

• Dmitri says:
  September 4th, 2007 10:06 pm

  Linux community have excellent step by step tutorials, and it would be nice to have a vendor who care about compatibility with linux, by providing drivers, or specs.
  It was an offer from community to have peoples devoted for drivers development under NDA – that can save time and money for vendor, and community will get nice, functional drivers.
  Another strategy is to work close with one of the major linux distributers, as I presume you are doing now, by certifying hardware with Novell/SUSE.
  That makes few camps on the market:
  Dell – Ubuntu
  HP – RedHat
  Lenovo – Novell/SUSE
  and i think that would be benefitial for everybody, vendors and community.

  PS: I’m very glad to know that you announced T61 with Linux preloaded.
  I’m waiting for this for a long time. Would you give a hint how I can place an order for a ThinkPad T61 with Linux or FreeDOS. This would be my first laptop and I want it with Linux. I don’t use MS products for past 5 yrs and pretty happy with it.

• Martey says:
  September 4th, 2007 10:39 pm

  I have a T43 (2668) as my personal computer, which I have run with both Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP for significantly long periods of time (single boot; switching between the two multiple times). With the exception of a short period of time after I first bought the computer (when its esoteric features like the PATA-SATA hard drive bridge were not supported by the kernel), Linux has generally worked as well as Windows XP has (for example, the ATI driver in Windows is almost as bad as in Linux – see http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=44931).

  Although my computer runs out of warranty in April, I am already considering its replacement. One reason I bought a Thinkpad was because of what I heard about its Linux support; my previous computer was a Dell Inspiron whose Broadcom wireless card was ridiculously annoying to get working. The fact that Dell sells laptops with Ubuntu preloaded is making me seriously consider them.

• Ethan says:
  September 4th, 2007 11:50 pm

  An accurate assessment of the current state of Linux on laptops, in my opinion. I can’t see a business argument for supporting it. But life can be great on a customized install. A case in point is all of the scripting that can be done and then tied to a single button. You can have a connect/disconnect-this-exact-bluetooth-device button. A just-connect-to-Verizon-and-tell-me-when-I-can-surf button. These can power up/down devices, start and use applications, etc. to accomplish their tasks. The simple fact that almost all programs have a command-line interface is very powerful.

• Brian says:
  September 5th, 2007 12:48 am

  How about RHEL only, one year paid support directly through Red Hat, user pays Red Hat for support after first year, using existing Red Hat support policies. Minimalist utilities for enabling security features, scripts for enabling and disabling whole-disk encryption using existing Linux mechanisms. Integrated graphics only, highest resolutions only, Intel 802.11 a/b/g/n only, WLAN option. Thinkvantage Access Connections and Battery Meter. The user is on the hook for backups, but ThinkVantage system restore is provided. ThinkVantage updates are handled using standard up2date/yum/rpm tools. Option for preinstalled Windows-in-VMWare option.

  Battery life must be the same as the best Windows configuration.

  Street price must be around $1,500-$1,800. I guess your $3,000+ T60p offerings were your top of the line, but I was happy to settle for a $1,400 T60 2613. I couldn’t justify $1,600 extra for slightly better performance and pre-installed Linux.

• Stefan Constantinescu says:
  September 5th, 2007 5:51 am

  I would love it if you sold more ThinkPad’s without an operating system yet offered the drivers (Windows) on your website. For those of us who can score a licence at school for less than $20 it would be great and for countries where piracy is rampant it would be awesome as well.

  Besides, when it comes to Linux I just tell people to run it in a VM. With todays horsepower in something like the T61 there is no performance loss at all.

• Jurjen says:
  September 5th, 2007 6:37 am

  The “support cost” argument you make is bogus. Just release a Thinkpad without any OS on it (no licensing costs to Microsoft), and make documentation of the hardware available so developers of operating systems can develop their own drivers (no driver development costs).

  And when you say that the wireless support on non-Windows operating systems is bad: that’s because hardware manufacturers choose not to release documentation, so developers of non-Windows operating system have to revert to methods like reverse engineering to be able to create a sort-of functioning driver. No wonder driver support is suboptimal.

  Releasing a Thinkpad with a Linux preload is nice and all, but I won’t be impressed until you release a Thinkpad without a preload and with hardware documentation. Releasing the documentation alone would already be great, see http://www.openbsd.org/papers/brhard2007/ .

• z says:
  September 5th, 2007 8:03 am

  I have a T43 and I use OpenBSD. OpenBSD doesn’t have the extensive driver support that Linux has, but everything that I need works on it: wifi, wired networking, sound, DVDRW, etc. I’ve been considering buying a new X61, but find now that sound support is sketchy because it’s using new hardware (azalia instead of ac97).

  Power support is fine, because the T43 uses APM, and APM is fully supported and is known technology. Newer laptops don’t even have APM any more, so of course power management is going to be sketchy.

  Because OpenBSD has a monolithic kernel, I didn’t have to do any configuring or messy set up to get wireless to work (granted, this is for the older T43 and not the newer chipset). I simply configured the interface and everything was working.

  Because video chipset vendors create closed source, insecure, and often buggy kernel modules, Linux users *only* can enjoy some sort of extended/accelerated video support. But this is not perfect on several levels. Everybody else is left in the dark because the video chipset vendors won’t release documentation to driver developers to create better, reliable, and secure drivers — better yet, when bugs are found in the display drivers, they can actually be fixed immediately, instead of petitioning the big video chipset companies to hopefully include a fix in their next release which could be… whenever.

  Mobile Linux/Unix/whatever really isn’t the fault of Linux/Unix/whatever. It is the choice of hardware used in the systems (in which the Thinkpad has traditionally used well supported hardware and implemented functionality in hardware and not in software where specific esoteric drivers are necessary), and the choice of the hardware component vendors to cooperate fully with the open source community to provide documentation so that the community can produce drivers so that their systems will run to the full potential.

  The former option can be addressed by Lenovo by providing further CTO options to people who wish to have the excellent Thinkpad and it’s engineering, so they can custom build systems that will be guaranteed to be supported by the software they wish to run.

  The latter option… well that’s up to the hardware vendors.

• Tsr says:
  September 5th, 2007 9:51 am

  I have z61m with kubuntu feisty and vista. I use kubuntu for everything else but photo management and editing. (read adobe, who apparently hate linux as well. Being that there is no competition for photoshop)

  It’s just that when properly configured, kubuntu is about 4 times faster than the vista in almost everything. I think the biggest problem with vista are the mobile harddrives, that are too just too slow. And the other would be that with vista virus protection is just not an option, and your usual virus scanner hogs damned much of the resources too.

  The big thing here is that you have to do the configuring. Out of the box kubuntu had the wrong resolution, no wlan and no proper touchpad support. And the standby still doesn’t work. Power management though seems to be working quite well, I think that I can get more battery life than in vista because vista just keeps churning the hd all the time. And k network manager is just awesome.

  I voted for the first option because I think the community support for linux especially for thinkpads is very good (thinkwiki). I don’t expect kubuntu to be everyones OS just because people tend to hate the techy stuff.

  Someone said that not everyone would like to build their car from scratch too, but I think that is a lovely sentiment

  I wouldn’t have minded buying the laptop without OS but that option wasn’t available at the time.

  (I’d probably buy macbook pro now for it’s led-backlit tft and os X. The macbook just doesn’t have the keyboard and mouse. Guess there is not a perfect laptop)

• gus says:
  September 5th, 2007 10:28 am

  Why on Earth would you want to run Windows on a mobile platform? What a waste of time.

  I run ubuntu on my T60 because i’m a computer science student and i like to know how my computer works. linux it’s also a great platform for developing and working. If to the last two points you add that you dont have to deal with virus and spyware and that you can get it for free (as in beer) i think i can sacrifice some minutes of battery.

• MM says:
  September 5th, 2007 12:11 pm

  Great to see you’re doing a mini poll – if this follows suit with the Dell Ideastorm I expect we’ll see Lenovo shipping Ubuntu in the next few months.

  I appreciate your comments on the downsides but it’s interesting to note that many of these are down to lack of true driver and notebook support of the distro’s – if you guys follow the Dell initiative and work with a distro that realy has the interest of notebook/desktop users at heart (not just generating cash from server licenses), then perhaps all of the current ‘failings’ of Linux on notebooks could be fixed.

• Michael Geary says:
  September 5th, 2007 12:31 pm

  I run Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS on my T60p, X41 Tablet, and even the old A30p. Everything works “out of the box”; I don’t have any problems with drivers…

  …because I run them all under VMware on the stock Windows XP installation!

• jorge says:
  September 5th, 2007 2:52 pm

  You’re right, don’t expect to sell many linux laptops with that kind of attitude. I just cancelled my T61 order and will buy a Dell with ubuntu on it instead.

• Andreas Gredler says:
  September 5th, 2007 3:52 pm

  Hi,

  This is not a flame. I simply want to share our experience with you, since we are a company that installed Debian Linux on nearly every thinkpad model in the last years. BTW: This discussion reminds me of the discussion years ago about using Linux on business critical servers

  About the difference between desktops and notebooks: There is not much difference. All notebooks are built upon centrino technology, most with built-in ethernet, Wifi and even WWAN. And in the last years most business customers bought models with integrated graphics, too.
  In other words: A linux installation which runs on a T6x will run on a R6x, Z6x and X6x, too. The only exception might be the ATI card in p models (and nowadays on other models, too). But it’s in your hands to solve this issue with ATI. I think Lenovo buys enough ATI cards to expect a good working ATI driver

  Now some notes about supporting Linux as a vendor:
  Most vendors of Servers manage to support even 2 or 3 linux distributions for their products. Nothing more to say about it.

  About the distribution to choose:
  It doesn’t really matter. If the hardware will run on distribution A, it will most likely work on distribution B, too. If software A runs on distribution A, it will most likely work on distribution B, too.
  In general it’s good pratice to be not to distribution-specific. In most cases this will work without additional work.

  - Battery life:
  I don’t know how you tested, but I’ve never seen such bad results. BTW: As a vendor you have the possibilty to finetune the settings in linux, as Lenovo did with Windows, too. Our test showed that the battery lifetime was the same on the preloaded win and on linux. With sophisticated finetuning the lifetime was even better on linux.

  - Connectivity
  Yes, years ago we had to wait for the first driver, provided by Intel. But they realized how many linux users are out there and in the last years the problem never occured again.
  WWAN works with embedded modems and external modems. You are right, you have to configure it, but a vendor who wants to release his notebooks with linux has the ability to preconfigure it for the customers. It’s preconfigured on the windows platform, too. Without it WWAN wouldn’t work OOTB.
  And Linux supports a lot of useful features which are missing on other platforms (Access Connections implements a couple of them, though)

  - Lack of interest from the vendors
  This is not true. A lot of vendors see the power of open source and take advantage of that.
  Does Lenovo earn so much money for the Thinkvantage tools? AFAIK they are free, too
  Nobody expects a company to support TurboRedSusian v3.6. If you think so you should not put windows on your machines because I could call the support and ask why my Win 3.11 is not working.

  - Enterprise management
  In general you have a lot of enterprise tools for linux. Encrypting HDs is no problem at all. But you are right that some software vendors can’t offer multiplatform software. My advice: Don’t buy it. There might be an multiplatform alternative from another vendor or from an open source project.

  If you don’t like the tools… Ok, please port the whole thinkvantage suite to Linux and you can do your backups, manage your network settings, etc.
  This would be an improvement of Rescue and Recovery, too. Because with Linux USB hard disks would be recognized without rebooting the preboot environment

  I think you mean TPM when you talk about security. Yes, I’d like to see better integration, too. Most features work under linux, of course, but I’d like to have a GUI for it. As Lenovo made the integration for Win, why not make it for linux, too?

  To come to an end:
  I hope that Lenovo will release further model with preloaded linux or without any OS. And hopefully in more countries than they did before and with more marketing. Most customers didn’t know that it’s available.

• Roberto De Iriarte says:
  September 5th, 2007 4:09 pm

  I use Linux as well as FreeBSD as development platforms, also OpenSolaris on ocassion, having tried all of them on a variety of hardware, so i have some tips for an open source friendly notebook:

  a) Either intel integrated or an Nvidia GPU.
  b) I’ve had very good results with the IBM atheros AR5212 802.11a/b/g NIC. (I don’t know if this is the same chipset used on the current 802.11a/b/g card)
  c) Expect to loose about 20% battery endurance unless expertly tuned.

  As Linux distributions go, I’ve found (K)Ubuntu to be a very pleasant ‘just works’ distro for the not technically minded user.

  On the usability problem, keep in mind that it is not difficult to build scripts to automate the configuration, well… almost anything on Linux. Some sort of ‘Thinkpad dashboard’ for linux could be built, that assembles useful configuration commands for mobile users, like those shown on your WWAN example. If i would be assigned to develop something like this, i would not make the resulting application blind (it should be easy to use, but it should be also easy to see how it assembles command sequences, á la AIX smit).

  This ‘Thinkpad dashboard’ should be, IMHO, an expert system based application that:

  1) Help locate/install required kernel modules
  2) Help locate/install useful software (Starting with power management agents)
  3) Help configure
  3.1) Display configuration
  3.2) Connectivity
  3.3) Power management
  3.4) System specific features such as the HDD airbag
  4) Be, within reason, reasonably distribution neutral, vendors encouraged to integrate and distribute the application.
  5) Be developed on a scripted language for ease of extension, speed being a nonissue on a configuration tool.

  The application could be an open source project(*) hosted on a ‘Thinkpads and Open Source’ website that also contains detailed system information that developers as well as advanced users seek, say i want to find out the chipset of the said 802.11a/b/g card.

  From a marketing point of view, such a project should be targeted at making Thinkpads the default choice for mobile Linux Workstations (This might already be partially the case, a good starting point)

  (*) Not only to gain mindshare in the community, but to leverage the community’s expertise as well, perhaps as an extension of the ThinkWiki proyect.

  Regards from Santiago, Chile
  Roberto.

• Roger Binns says:
  September 5th, 2007 4:36 pm

  I strongly recommend reading The Innovators Dilemma. All your old tired arguments that seem to be wanting flames are exactly what companies said before their falls as documented in the book

  http://www.thinkwiki.org is demonstrable proof that people have the desire and success in running Linux on their Thinkpads. I’d be happiest if you supported them better.

  The open source stuff has two aspects. The first is a freedom (as in speech not price). With commercial software you are at the whim of the vendor. They control what, when and how you use their software. For example try using Vista two years ago, getting Office in your regional language or Lenovo System Update to use internal servers with internal certificates. Open source lets customers choose who provides their software, when they provide it, how it is updated etc. And they pay for it. Redhat, Novell/Suse and even Ubuntu do not run on sheer goodwill!

  The other aspect is a distributed development model. Anyone can make any change anywhere. A good example is the Powertop utility Intel released. It shows exactly what is consuming power. See http://www.linuxpowertop.org/known.php for how various programs were then fixed. In the Windows world there is no such tool, and even if there were nobody but Microsoft could fix bad power behaviour by MSN messenger, office, outlook etc, and nobody but Lenovo could fix bad power behaviour in system update, fingerprint software etc. If you run the latest Ubuntu (gutsy) due for release within two months, you’ll find huge power savings because all programs were fixed across the board. Meanwhile Microsoft has to beg developers – http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewth.....54487.aspx

• Sumit Agarwal says:
  September 5th, 2007 5:00 pm

  This is absurd.

  Is it just me, or are the lenovo blogs becoming less of a discussion space and more of an excuses space?

  An inability to get Linux working correctly on a Linux-optimized product series is not a question of adequate resources, but simply a question of a problematic corporate culture.

  Apple Inc ($19 billion annual revenue) manages to create beautiful hardware and software in the computing realm as well as having the resources to dominate much of the home and personal entertainment space. And they’re essentially cooking up all their own software from scratch (ok, ok, I know the kernel is based on NetBSD, but whatever).

  Lenovo’s annual revenue is $13 billion, and I’d venture to guess that their revenue is actually larger than the Apple’s computer revenue. Built upon standard Linux software with the target of full and uncompromising support for a narrow subset of hardware (isn’t that what Apple does? Even most of their ‘desktop’ systems use mobile hardware identical to chipsets in their laptops) I see no reason why we can’t get a meticulously-executed intuitive and stable Linux laptop that kicks some serious butt.

  IBM failed in the past with OS/2, largely because they went it alone. Why not develop an in-house Linux that remixes existing software into something as usable and stunning as OS X?

  Or… just use Ubuntu and get hardware support rock-solid for the particular hardware subset used in ThinkPads…

• Sumit Agarwal says:
  September 5th, 2007 5:25 pm

  One more thing…

  Which distribution? Everyone has their personal favorite?

  Lets get serious. HP + Redhat? ThinkPad + Suse? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Sure, various companies are really good at wanking each other off, but when it comes down to it the people have spoken and the overwhelming favorite is Ubuntu.

  No need to ask which distribution. ‘Built it (with Ubuntu) and they will come’. Some people do prefer, for various logical and illogical reasons, other distros but Ubuntu’s popularity is head and shoulders (and waists and thighs) above anything else out there.

  Apple’s success shows the importance of having a customer base that truly genuinely loves the company. Things used to be that way with the ThinkPad line, but it shows signs of waning. Set yourself apart so ‘ThinkPad’ becomes synonymous with ‘Linux’ the way that ‘Apple’ is with ‘revolution’. I guarantee that the revenue of an expanded and fiercely loyal customer base will more than offset any development and support costs…

• lophiomys says:
  September 5th, 2007 5:29 pm

  I’m happily running Kubuntu Feisty Fawn on a T42p UXGA, dual-boot with WinXp.
  Installation worked out of the box.
  From my end-user experience battery live, performance and temperatures are
  equivalent or better compared to Windows XP SP2.
  The more I get used to Kubuntu, the less I boot into Windows.

• char says:
  September 5th, 2007 6:09 pm

  XP’s power management is better than Vista’s, yet you switched to the new OS. XP’s hardware support is better than Vista’s, yet you switched to the new OS. Etc. pp.
  I want to use Linux on my X61 Tablet because it’s faster than Vista, it (i.e. the desktop environment) is WAY more user friendly than Vista and I need to spend less time for maintenance. But: Neither the volume buttons nor the brightness buttons work. Guess what: It is not Linux’ fault, it’s Lenovo’s.

  There is a project named ibm-acpi (thinkpad-acpi resp.) to address these issues but what I can tell from reading mailing lists and forums they do not get any support from Lenovo, neither documentation nor hardware to ‘play with’.

  http://ibm-acpi.sourceforge.net/

• David Churbuck says:
  September 5th, 2007 7:09 pm

  David Churbuck — VP of Global Web Marketing at Lenovo — here.

  I respectfully disagree with Matt. I run Ubuntu on a T41 and consider it one of the most elegant, stable OS/PC experiences I have come across since my first days at a cub reporter at PC Week running DOS 2.1

  There is an ardent community of Linux users who have selected the ThinkPad as their platform of choice due to its durability and history of consistent, high engineering with long product life. I would use Ubuntu 100% of the time for my computing needs IF I could crack WWAN support and find the time to adapt it to the corporate IT environment, e.g. get going with IBM’s Project Hanover version of Notes, and figure out the VPN dialer.

  I would appreciate full ThinkVantageTechnology support, but respect the intellectual property issues surrounding that code. Lenovo is committed in a big way to Linux, our steps this summer towards providing a preload of SUSE is evidence of that and I hope to drive its spread even further.

  I reject the service/support argument due to the technical expertise one expects from a Linux user. This is a self-service/community service model. Look at the ThinkWiki for proof. The profit issue? There is a niche market for Linux pre-install support and we are meeting that market with a product. Is there a mass market? I doubt it. Enterprise support, power management … I’ll concede the point, but close with this, there is more innovation being done around Linux and the ThinkPad than we can imagine, and we will support it.

• Timber_faller_with_linux says:
  September 5th, 2007 10:32 pm

  I just wanted to toss in my two bits. I have been using an IBM(pre Lenovo) Thinkpad 390X laptop for the past 5 or so years, and it works great, out of the box, with multiple Linux distributions. Its ancient, its a 400mhz celeron, with the max 256mb ram, and a 4.5gb hdd. Its not a speed demon by any means, but I used it at college for basic internet use, word processing, e-mail, wi-fi, what most mobile linux users would use daily I would guess. I used distributions such as Redhat v.9, which it had for the first 3 yrs I used it. And its had FreeBSD on it, DamnSmallLinux, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Debian, and a couple others. Now obviously something this old has easier support, since there has been sufficient time for drivers and whatnot. But the main reason I used it for so long, and resisted buying a different laptop is A.) I like IBM and their laptops, and B.) It just worked with linux. Simple as that. I wanted a Linux laptop that worked and that is what I got. The only thing I had to actually configure was the D-Link wi-fi card, with NDISwrapper in a couple older distributions, but Ubuntu was one that picked it up and worked out of the box. With all the distributions I used battery life was on par with what I would expect out of an old heavy laptop that doesn’t really have much power saving ability. I would get 2hrs. plus of battery life, which isn’t bad considering running stock Mandriva can be a bit bloated, especially on a 400mhz with 256mb of RAM. I used an old slow laptop for years because it simply worked with linux. I think if you guys were to offer a laptop preloaded with a couple of large distros, and have good driver support for all hardware, you would sell more laptops than you might think. Ubuntu would probably be the widely requested distro, but like one of the above posts mentioned, I would vote for RHEL and a 1year support, with remaining support up to the consumer.

  Thanks

  -Eric-

  $: End Rant

• Roberto De Iriarte says:
  September 5th, 2007 11:43 pm

  Just some additional thoughts. Sumit Agarwal is right on the mark when he claims that there is a void in the market for ‘full and uncompromising support for a narrow subset of hardware’.

  However, no PC manufacturer outside the server arena has embarked on a full support program for Linux. Instead, all half-hearted efforts have depended on third parties, mostly distribution vendors.

  That’s not the right approach. What you want is to work with the community to develop the required hardware support in-house (kernel modules, ACPI details, basic configuration utilities), not tied to any distribution in particular, then bless a particular distribution as ‘the supported one’ (i agree Ubuntu would be a good choice), without discouraging all others to include support for your systems.

  Make the result easy to purchase as well, nothing fancy, just an additional OS choice on the CTO configuration page would suffice. I assume that the T61 preloaded with Linux is not available yet, as i could not find it on Lenovo’s website.

  You have already unknowingly sold many Linux Thinkpads (four just to me, over the years a 390X, a 600X, a T40 and a T42, and if i can find a way to get a T61p CTO delivered to Chile, you will have sold me a fifth one as well). Last but not least, Open Source users are the ‘ones who know’ asked whenever hardware purchases are made, thus multiplying the effect of winning the community’s loyalty.

• Sumit Agarwal says:
  September 6th, 2007 2:27 am

  I think that the many users who point out the self-service approach have the right idea. Customers aren’t asking a whole lot, they’re just asking for a machine with “Linux-friendly” specs. No ATi, no funky sound/wifi chips. Simple. Given appropriate hardware, Ubuntu practically supports, itself.

  Also, as a current X61t user I can DEFINITELY state that Vista does not “just work”. Holy moly its been a ride, in both 32-bit & 64-bit flavors. Unfortunately there is no good alternative to Vista’s handwriting recognition (which I’m using to pen -literally- this post). It should be noted however that its selective recognition of specific brand & product names is highly suspect and points to unacceptable conflicts of interest unseen in the Linux world.

  Finally, I feel like vendors need to get over the idea that for enterprise desktop Linux to work you must offer a distro with a company like Novell or Redhat standing behind it. why design for a “maybe” enterprise market when you have a “yes!” enthusiast market screaming? At least at academic institutions I’ve found that it is ultimately the enthusiasts who determine the IT strategy of the organization, perhaps why Apple is so prevalent in that sector.

• Yves-Alexis Perez says:
  September 6th, 2007 5:24 am

  Lots of Thinkpad users use Linux on it.
  More: lots of linux users use a Thinkpad, as it’s a known “linux-friendly” brand.
  See thinkwiki.org, lots of tips for running Linux on a Thinkpad.

  If you chose a Thinkpad with integrated graphics and intel wireless card, your basically OK.

• Davidlet says:
  September 6th, 2007 7:53 am

  This year I acquired a ThinkPad that was already set up dual-boot with XP and Xandros Linux. I have been unable to crack the WWAN nut to get my Sierra Wireless 860 AirCard working. I have spent some hours trying to get this to work without avail. Because of this, I have all but abandoned Xandros. I guess I’ll check the Xandros forum from time to time to see if a Xandros expert has figured this out and posted a guide.

  It seems to me, WWAN is an achilles heel of Linux. It’s a shame, I was hoping to finally get around to exploring Linux (Xandros) first hand.

  Regardless of my problems, I do like seeing choices available, and I would like to see some ThinkPads available without an OS for those that like to roll their own. Regarding the poll question, I think number 3 would be the best out of the options listed.

• Dennis says:
  September 6th, 2007 8:56 am

  I bought a T61 recently and i’m running windows xp, vista and (Arch) Linux on it. In my experience battery lifetime is ~30min higher under xp than under vista and under linux i get just another hour (!) out of it.
  If configured correctly, linux has a much greater battery lifetime than any MS OS..

• isri says:
  September 6th, 2007 4:42 pm

  I’ve got Thinkpad T40p and I’ve used Windows XP (originally preinstalleg), Slackware, Debian, Suse, FreeBSD, DekstopBSD and Ubuntu. Everytnig was working exellent with all systems. Only with Slackware and BSD I’ve need more time to configure system. On Linux my Thinkpad works longer on batteries than on Windows. Linux and BSD works and boots much faster than WindowsXP (even fresh installed). Ubuntu and Suse are (imo) best distributions if you don’t want spent time on “making” system.
  For me thereis only one good thing in Windows – Photoshop – but it works better on Mac – so there is no need to use Windows

  Respect for IBM and Linux! Lenovo Thinkpads are still great but Lenovo should follow IBM’s example…

• Joshua says:
  September 6th, 2007 8:09 pm

  Waste of time? For you guys perhaps.

  I do Linux consulting work for IBM, that’s why I not only want, but require for my occupation, Linux support for my laptop. It’s too bad that it appears the attitude at Lenovo is to be actively hostile to the platform. That attitude will make it a lot harder for me to recommend Lenovo for future projects.

• dagus.org » The laptop maker needs your vote (and if you are a ubuntu fan better ;)) says:
  September 7th, 2007 11:19 am

  [...] Kohut (Lenovo Worldwide Competitive Analyst) made a quite controversial blog post asking readers why waste your time using linux on a laptop ? and he realized how far away of the [...]

• R says:
  September 7th, 2007 11:34 am

  Been using Debian on the desktop on thinkpads 380XD and T22 for years. Everything i have tried (infra red, suspend-to-disk, wifi card in the usb, ethernet, etc) is supported and generally easier to use than windows (just plug in the card, no faffing with driver rubbish).

  I dont understand this claim that “it’s not ready for the desktop”, why does no-one say *what* isnt ready? That no-one ever gives specific details suggests they never tried it, which surely can’t be true? perhaps there is some class of apps that I just never use, cos i just dont get it.

  finally, I didnt understand the poll at all, none of the options matched exactly what i wanted. I just want the hardware to have drivers in the mainline kernel. (why? because then it will Just Work which is why linux is easier than windows for me) No need to even mention any distribution: let the distro people do the work of fine tuning, loading modules, writing documentation, etc, just put the support for the hardware in the kernel. Similarly the question of pre-loading this or that distro seems misguided: if all your hardware has drivers it is trivial for people to use whatever they like, which they will do anyway. Whatever distro you put on, people will want/need to change, reinstall (perhaps only because they have a new hard-disk).

• T. Elaine says:
  September 7th, 2007 11:50 am

  Have been running Debian on ThinkPads now for 4 years. Debian has been wonderful. Ubuntu may be an easier choice now. The worst problem has been the quality of the batteries. One battery I bought direct from IBM died on about the 80th cycle when it was supposed to give me about 500 of engineered life. I couldn’t get a response from Lenovo. So it is uncertain whether I ‘ll ever buy Lenovo again. Lenovo had flip-flopped often as to whether they would support (I mean not be unfriendly to) Gnu/Linux. The bipolarity shows even in the choices and wording of this poll. When you have HP with a former Debian leader at the helm of its FOSS effort, and Dell selling machines pre-loaded with Gnu/Linux, you now, or soon will, have other excellent choices.

• callum says:
  September 7th, 2007 12:04 pm

  I’m an X41 2525-3CG user and have a single boot fedora 7 on this laptop (and Fedora’s 4 to 6 on my old X40) – not because of any anti-MS stance or whatever – but because this system meets my requirement for a secure, stable and fully featured system that enables me to do my work.

  This model has full support for all the hardware features – I’m even using this with a tmobile wireless USB 3G modem for internet access. Wifi works, screen’s great, sounds good, bluetooth does what it is meant to etc etc etc.

  Lenovo need to:
  + provide official support for the tmapi battery/drive features project
  + provide the equivalent of the battery montor
  + provide a linux based BIOS update.
  + make it less of a guessing game about which models are supported by the mainstream GPL’d drivers.

  yes, there are open source alternatives – but I’m a business user and whilst I’m happy to tinker with things – I want the IBM/Lenovo seal of approval on my work laptop!

  callum

• Gerhard Horecky says:
  September 7th, 2007 12:28 pm

  I am a Debian user since 2004. At first I used a Acer Travelmate; and now I own a HP Compaq nb4400. My OS is Debian stable (with a newer kernel).

  My main selection criterium was – and will be – compatibility with Linux, preferably with Debian.

  So, if Lenovo has not a Linux possibility, their notebooks will not be an option for me.

  If Dell comes to Europe with Ubuntu

• Marius Gedminas says:
  September 7th, 2007 2:13 pm

  I’ve been running Linux on ThinkPads (755CD, T23, T42, T61) since 2000. In fact I bought my first laptop (a second-hand Thinkpad 755CD) just because I wanted to run Linux on it.

  Why do I prefer linux? The user interface is the most convenient one I’ve ever used (I like GNOME, except on the 755CD which was a laptop made in 1995 and had less horsepower than a Nokia 770 has today). It is powerful, doesn’t get in the way. If it breaks, I can fix it by figuring out what’s wrong instead of randomly toggling options or reinstalling everything. I don’t have a million useless icons in my system tray. I don’t have a million dialog popups on login. I don’t have to run an antivirus all the time. I can browse the Internet safely without fearing I’ll catch something.

  By the way, my T61 won’t register on your counter. I had to buy it with Vista preinstalled (which I’ve booted exactly once after installing Ubuntu, just to see if it works). I think the Linux option was announced a couple of weeks after I got my laptop.

• Matthew Nuzum says:
  September 7th, 2007 2:51 pm

  I bought a Thinkpad 600e in ‘99 (2645-5au) in part because it came with clear, easy to implement instructions for running Linux. I purchased my most recent laptop, a Toshiba Satellite, because the Ubuntu live cd detected all the critical hardware and ran perfectly. I didn’t have to do anything special to get the wifi working (my ehternet jack has dust in it, I never use it), nor power saving.

  It will be another 12-18 months before I buy a computer again, baring some tragedy of course, and I will again choose a laptop that is well supported running Linux. I prefer Ubuntu, but I know that if it runs at least one distro fine the computer can be made to work with the distro I prefer.

  If I were to buy a computer from your-competitor-who-preloads-Ubuntu, I might choose a model pre-loaded with Windows, even though I use Windows less than 2% of the time. Its enough for me to know that the computer supports Linux well and is blessed by the vendor. Like IBM did with the 600e: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/supp.....IGR-4BP6Q6

• MJ Ray says:
  September 7th, 2007 2:59 pm

  My name is MJ Ray and I run a Linux on my mobile device. Let’s look at the reasons from the post:

  Battery life – my battery life with CPU frequency scaling and so on is comparable to a friend’s same model laptop running Windows.

  Connectivity – it didn’t have built-in wireless (just too old), but the add-on device works just as well if you avoid the known-bad ones (Broadcom!). The ethernet worked fine. The Winmodem didn’t, but who uses a modem now we have wireless?

  Specialized hardware – only other specialised thing is a touchpad, which presents itself as a mouse, and some extra keyboard buttons I didn’t care about.

  Enterprise management – I don’t bother with this, but ISTR Unix-based enterprise management tools are pretty mature.

  Lack of interest from the vendors – well, that’s sort of circular, but it’s why I bought hp (who at least support debian with money) rather than Lenovo for my most recent laptop!

  What vendor support does Linux need? Just publish the full specs and don’t try to be a software developer. Concentrate on the hardware if that’s your specialism. The only thing to avoid is requiring your customers to buy Microsoft (I thought that was a type of anti-competitive behaviour anyway?) by refusing to replace faulty hardware or offer a flash upgrade path for them otherwise.

• the debian user » Blog Archive » ATI to open source their graphics drivers says:
  September 7th, 2007 3:37 pm

  [...] that Lenovo is the next hardware vendor shipping Linux on their machines. Read and vote in their blog if you want to support these ongoing [...]

• RF says:
  September 7th, 2007 10:00 pm

  My company is in the market for portable spacecraft-control computers than can be hastily transported in harsh conditions (open sea, via helicopter) during the moments prior to launch. We presently use full Sun workstations, which leave much to be desired w.r.t. portability.

  Our requirement would be something that works well with Debian, with all essential functions (graphics, networking) implemented in well-tested open-source drivers. We would install Debian ourselves (regardless of what’s pre-installed) and require no software support from Lenovo.

  For personal use, I would plan on installing (maybe re-installing) Ubuntu and I would not make use of software support from the Lenovo. I would recommend Lenovo Linux PCs to friends/family if the PCs had pre-loaded Ubuntu and full vendor support.

  So my suggestion is to offer support as an added-cost option.

  Thanks for asking.

• Chris Waigl says:
  September 8th, 2007 5:48 pm

  I’ve been using Linux as my main OS since 2001, first Debian, then Ubuntu. Currently, I run Ubuntu Feisty on my old T22, which is literally falling apart these days and serves as a testing/file server machine, and my current T60 (with Windows XP on a partition should I really need it). My workplace provides yet another ThinkPad, a T43 right now, which I’ve used to demonstrate Linux live distros to interested geeks during lunchbreak.

  Linux readiness is a major criterion for choosing a laptop. ThinkPads are generally great, but there are still rough edges with suspend/hibernate, some graphics chips, sound…

  I voted like the majority — 100% hardware/driver support is the single most important thing — but I could perfectly see how business-wise, and offer with a (or two) fully functional preinstalled distros & tech support might make more sense. Desktop Linux has made great strides forward.

  Oh and why not an offer with WinXP already installed inside Linux in a VM? (That’s a configuration I’m leaning towards for the future instead of dual-boot.)

• maks says:
  September 8th, 2007 5:51 pm

  the last option should be the first, it is the easiest to support for you guys.

  also if you know that laptop Thinkpad X works on Ubuntu/Suse/Debian/Fedora you can get it easily working on whatever you like.

  also i’d like to chime in that please go the legal way like Dell and only support laptops with free drivers. that puts enough pressure on ATI to react.

  thanks for your questions!

• Theodore Tso says:
  September 8th, 2007 6:48 pm

  It should be noted that IBM’s Open Client solution (http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us...../21060.wss), which was originally designed for IBM employees, and now is available publically, is a complete solution based on Red Hat’s RHEL Workstation distribution that works just fine on a variety of Thinkpad laptops, including the T4x and T60 laptops. I don’t actually use it myself, since I prefer a solution based on Ubuntu — but even there, I can run pretty much all of the desktop tools required of me, from accessing the Intranet using Websphere Everywhere Connection Manager, to filing expense reports using a Java application run out of my firefox browser running under Linux, to connecting to an IBM Bladecenter Advanced Management Module (again via Java application served via the browser).

  And of course, others have mentioned all of the great support at the http://www.thinkwiki.org web site. (Hint: Lenovo should really, seriously think about supporting that website; it’s responsible for a large number of your Linux customers.)

  Finally, with respect to drivers, I’ve had relatively no problems with Thinkpads thanks to careful hardware selection. For example, I favor Intel graphics to Nvidia or ATI because (a) I don’t care about 3D graphics given how I use my system, so the ATI or Nvidia card just because a power hog that kills battery life, and (b) Intel makes open source drivers available. Just last week, ATI has announced they would make source and specifications and their engineers available, so if I needed 3D support, I would choose ATI over Nvidia.

  As far as WWAN support is concerned, IMHO, you’re much better off getting a standalone Cardbus card which supports EVDO, since that way you can use it on multiple laptops (sometimes I use a X41, and sometimes I use a T60p, depending on whether I need the portability more than I need the 1600×1200 display). In either case, it’s really not that hard to get EVDO working — as proof, my former manager (who was a director-level guy reporting to a VP) was able to figure out the PPP chat script on his own. Obviously, having a canned set of scripts would be better, but that’s easily less than a PM’s worth of work to package up something as an RPM or a dpkg. It would just simply be a matter of getting some interns in Brazil to do a small amount of packaging.

• Alexey Parshin says:
  September 9th, 2007 9:17 am

  I’m a software developer. I’ve been using Gentoo Linux on IBM and Lenovo laptops for around seven yrs by now. I used TP600, TP22, TP30, TP42, and Lenovo 3000 N100. For all the TP series every piece of hardware is supported by Linux kernel flawlessly. With Lenovo 3000 N100, there are some small problems with sound card (requires some manual configuration), and the embedded video camera isn’t supported. For the sound card, I actually sent a patch to 2.6.15 (it was included in the kernel). For the Sonic video camera, I guess there is the lack of specifications. The http://mxhaard.free.fr project is getting closer every day, but a support from Lenovo could really help. In that case, all the Lenovo 3000N100 hardware would be supported. That includes, BTW, on-board WiFi.

• Gael Varoquaux says:
  September 9th, 2007 10:29 am

  Why on Earth run Linux on a Laptop ?

  Well I am a scientist. I process data and do a lot of numerical simulations. I obviously use Linux on my desktop. It works great in our lab for number crunching, gives me all the free and commercial applications I need to do my work, and does not get in the way (unlike Windows, which can be a pain when trying to do automatic or distributed tasks). So I am really used to Linux. I have all the applications I use under Linux. Switching to Windows, even if its only for my travels, make me loose all my productivity.

  I have to by Windows on my laptops. I hate it, but I have no choice. I keep it around and dual boot, just in case. Usually after a year or two it stops booting, or something stops working. I don’t know why. Probably a virus, or something, I don’t do any maintenance, as I hardly use it (once every few months). So I just let it sit, dead.

  The answer really is that people make different choices based on personal preferences, but the reasons for using Linux on a laptop are as good as the reasons for using windows on a server: you use what makes you productive. Who cares if you loose one hour of battery life, if during the two remaining hours you get twice more work done than under Windows.

• Z. Omaha says:
  September 9th, 2007 11:21 am

  The ideal solution in my book is a quite clean, optimised rpm or deb-based distribution with drivers for all hardware. I believe that manufacturers rather easily can provide good specs for e.g. Vista and still be fully Linux Compatible. 3 items easily forgotten is Bluetooth, IR and webcam. Although I do not use neither, choosing compatible high quality components makes things so much easier.

  I regard wireless more or less troublefree and uses WIFI and HSDPA with my laptop. As regards OpenSource drivers, that should be encouraged. On the graphics side the main choices Nvdia, ATI and Intel triggers obvious tradeoffs a regards OpenSource.

  To choose ATI at this stage more or less prevents the user from the full benefits of Linux. Despite of the lack of proper OpenSource drivers from Nvidia, they still have done far moore for Linux than ATI. I believe it has been profitable too. (My choice of Nvidia Graphics for almost a decade has been because of Linux compability.) I will gladly revisit ATI when they deliver what they promise.

  The “Clean Install” in my book means that server software (needed by som users) should be stripped out, together with duplicate officebundles and drivers for internal hardware that is not actually inside the laptop. On the other hand, drivers for exteral addons is a good thing. After all – it’s all easily available for those who needs it.

  It’s nice that there are many softwarepackages available, but I prefer to add what I need myself.

  I’we tested many different distros and some are packed to the rim with software I do not need. Even in Linux additional software / Services slows down the laptop and schrews battery.

  That is one reason I would choose Fedora over OpenSuse and Gnome over KDE. It is far better with a clean startingpoint to add to, than removing packages and switching off services with the risk of breaking dependencies or otherwise loosing functionality.

• /* basquiat’s lovely winter riot */ says:
  September 9th, 2007 1:41 pm

  [...] »Why on Earth would you want to run Linux on a mobile platform? What a waste of time« bilanziert Matt Kohut (seines Zeichens Lenovos “Worldwide Competitive Analyst”) etwas naiv in die Runde, um [...]

• all.bets.off says:
  September 9th, 2007 6:36 pm

  Brilliant idea! Bash open source and then ask if you would be willing to buy it. Not from Lenovo. Get a Dell dude.

  Oh, and Matt…you’re fired.

• notebook shopper says:
  September 9th, 2007 11:12 pm

  I’ve always loved Thinkpad notebooks. Part of it has been the fact that they’ve been the easiest to get Linux to work on.

  I have an “ancient” A22 Thinkpad and am looking to replace it. With Dell pre-loading Ubuntu (although not yet in Canada), I was looking in that direction. But if Lenovo is pre-installing Linux on Thinkpads, I would much rather go to my notebook “first love”.

  So if Lenovo makes Ubuntu Thinkpads available in Canada, you’ve at least sold one!

• Niki Mistry says:
  September 10th, 2007 4:42 am

  I am currently running Xubuntu 7.04 on a Thinkpad 560X and have installed Ubuntu 5.04/6.06/7.04 on a Thinkpad 600X (which is waiting collection from its buyer).

  I would like Lenovo to consider offering help and instructions on how to install and troubleshoot linux on older Thinkpad Laptops.
  Linux can increase the lifespan of these devises way beyond that of the pre-installed Microsoft OS (the 560x was bundled with Win 95/ the 600x was bundled with win 98).

  I have had to deal with a lot of conflicting information in my quest to get both laptops to run video and sound correctly (in the 560x sound still does not work) and official advise from Lenovo would be help – even if it means installing Open SUSE.

• Tim Aretz says:
  September 10th, 2007 4:50 am

  The reason why I have Kubuntu Linux running on my T60 is simply because once it’s set up, it’s more comfortable than Windows. Maybe Linux was not ready 5 years ago, but it’s definetly now.
  Not only do I like the userinterface better (multiple desktops), but also technical aspects (read network connectivity. Ever had to work with Webfolders on Windows servers? With Windows, it’s a hassle, with Linux it works flawlessly). Connectivity is better than with Windows.

  Thanks to Powertop, my Batterytime is longer than with Windows. True, that required finetuning, but it would be the point of a pre-loaded linux to avoid that, wouldn’t it?

  The only things which don’t work well are the special keys (FN+), Video hotplug (I need to connect a projector and then reboot for presentations) and powersaving+3D environment (where my workaround is: AC-connection: 3D Desktop; Battery: No 3D). However, I see the source for these problems at Lenovo (and ATI), not with Linux.

  Oh BTW, I am no tech-geek but a historian. And whenever I give presentations, people come to me afterwards and ask how they can configure Vista to look as beautiful…

• Knux says:
  September 10th, 2007 5:26 am

  I think major notebook vendors like Lenovo could improve Linux’ standing in two ways:

  - First, use Linux friendly components. You are important for those guys creating the hardware just as we consumers are important for you. If you demand Linux friendly hardware, they will sell it. And Lenovo has probably a bit more leverage on hardware vendors than, say, the us Mandriva fans.

  - Second, make sure I can get all of your features under Linux. Complying to standards it one way to do it. It is distempering if I have to install Windows just to make the BIOS update which let’s me run Linux, to mention an extreme case. I think it would be best if you collaborated with some major Linux distribution (be that Mandriva, Suse, Ubuntu or Fedora) to create all these nifty tools you offer for Windows, too.

• Björn Abheiden says:
  September 10th, 2007 5:48 am

  I’ve bought a ThinkPad in February 2007 and Windows XP Pro fall down with “blue screens” all the time. Then I install Ubuntu and I’m happy with it.

• single.boot.linux says:
  September 10th, 2007 6:59 am

  We have Lenovo desktops and laptops at work, and I never have Windows partitions on mine – single boot Linux. I might run VMware with a virtual disk for a few legacy apps on Win2K, but Debian testing or Ubuntu are what we boot. Windows is a waste of time and space.

  Just because you sell laptops with Windows – don’t think that they are all being used that way. The Linux market is largely hidden – the alleged “lack of demand for Linux” is more “no idea what the customer is doing”.

• Mahangu says:
  September 10th, 2007 7:09 am

  Go go go debian!

• Jari says:
  September 10th, 2007 9:44 am

  I have also single-boot-linux and laptop as my primary computer which I use for development, teaching and consulting. Currently a 3 year old HP nx7010 but Lenovo X61 Tablet is waiting for me already on the next floor. Reason for buying X61t was Intel’s decision to open up with the drivers and Wacom tablet interface. In my mind I am getting good laptop. Hopefully X61t will not dissapoint me.

  What comes to powersaving: my HP _gained_ an extra hour when I switched from Windows to Linux. VMware performance is also much better with Linux than Windows, probably due to memory management. And there are just things that you cannot do with Windows like any kind of rapid development related to networks, automation systems and web. Try to install any wiki environment into Windows, especially using IIS – takes at least three times the work than with Linux.

• Richard Cunningham says:
  September 10th, 2007 12:21 pm

  I have used Linux exclusively on both my main desktop machines (home and work) for a few years now. I put off buying a laptop for several years because I couldn’t find one that would definitely work with Linux, in the end I found that Centrino systems with Nvidia graphics work well and that coupled with information on the Ubuntu Wiki stating that the Dell Inspiron 6400 works well, so I bought one of those. Also the fact that at the time Dell was planning it’s Ubuntu pre-load program also helped.

  I never booted the Windows that came with my laptop and I installed Ubuntu on top of it straight away, and it works fine, the wireless, sound, graphics etc. except I can’t use WPA which is no big deal and I expect that will be fixed soon.

  The battery life on my laptop is around 2.5 – 3hours which seems fine to me, in fact i’m often surprised at how long it does last. I expect this will improve further with the work done by the PowerTop people and with the tickless kernel.

• Rob says:
  September 10th, 2007 1:17 pm

  Even if Linux on a laptop was in as bad as you say (battery life, wifi, etc) it would still be worthwhile to offer it because it means you respect your customers enough to not force upon them your choice of OS.

• Kevin says:
  September 10th, 2007 2:25 pm

  A lot IT developers are using Linux to do dev work. XP is just not as powerful as Linux. Vista is really a beta, and it shouldn’t even be released. So what is point for us to pay for crappy Windows if we wipe it immediately and put Linux on it?

  We just want quality hardware, and we don’t need Linux tech support from Lenovo. Lenovo can provide tech suppport for a fee for those who need the support. Most of us don’t need it. As long as Lenovo provides Linux drivers on the download page, we are happy. That is it.

  Ideally, I just want to buy a bare thinkpad with hardware warranty, without any operating system on it.

• El Cerrajero says:
  September 10th, 2007 2:52 pm

  ‘But on a laptop? It just isn’t ready’

  Are you sure? I’m a happy user running Linux on several laptops.

  The key-point is _hardware_

  Remember you’d have problems with Vista too, depending on hardware specs.

• David F says:
  September 10th, 2007 5:45 pm

  I had my previous laptop, an X60s running dual boot Windows with Novell SLED 10 which is the version of Linux that came pre-installed on some T60(p) Lenovo laptops. I had also installed the special Linux utility programs that Lenovo had written for the machines. SLED 10 worked fine.

  It is my understanding that Lenovo used SLED 10 at Intel’s request for running chip design software and that this solution is also used by Cisco.

  With today’s larger hardrives, it would be nice seeing a pre-installed option that included by Windows Vista and Novell Linux SLED 10 run through virtual PC software (e.g. Microsoft VPC 2007).

• Martin Doucha says:
  September 10th, 2007 6:09 pm

  I own a Linux laptop, Asus A6J-Q008. I’ve bought it a year ago with empty HDD and installed Gentoo Linux. Everything WORKS. Wi-Fi, gigabit network adapter, ATi Mobility Radeon x1600, everything since day one. Using conservative CPU governor, the battery lasts for at least 3 hours (tested).

  I didn’t need to do anything like in that Wi-Fi howto to get my Intel Pro Wireles 3945 to work (the howto is not as difficult as it looks, though it may look scary). I’ve just installed a driver package from Gentoo, written ESSID and authentication key into configuration file and it worked.

• Tim Bowden says:
  September 11th, 2007 1:50 am

  Start with full HW compatibility with upstream kernel. Test it thoroughly, then advertise it. It’s the cheapest option that enables you to support linux and be seen to do so. As the market matures, add features like pre-loaded popular distros. That way you can tread the fine line between falling behind the market and getting too far in front.

• Paride Desimone says:
  September 11th, 2007 2:30 am

  I have an asus F3Ja and i have not accept windwos xp license. I had erased it and install Debian.
  If you support Linux, my next notebook will be Lenovo. My favorite distro are Debian or (for commercial support) Ubuntu.

• Alexandru Barloiu says:
  September 11th, 2007 4:26 am

  first of all, great review sort of speak. a bit of background. i have 6 celsiuses in my immediate vicinity. i am quite a good when it comes to operating systems. some of those are dual boot, some are just linux, some are just windows. celsius is a great piece of equipment, but a hell from driver point of view.
  now, from my experience it’s bigger pain to buy xp laptop and install vista on it, then it is to compile new kernel. or, let’s not go that far, finding newer drivers then fsc is willing to offer on their webpage. that sorta means their so called support sux in all departments.
  my point is, linux has it’s flaws, but it’s not broken, it’s just made out of tiny little pieces. the concept at large is great, problem is there is no actual mega company to back it up.
  plus the hardware vendors don’t exactly play smart either. I would like to see ONE vendor making a new model and say: guys, this is open source laptop. we didn’t aim to make greatest/cheapest/fastest laptop on the planet. we gathered all components which are supported in main stream kernel (video card will be pain), and we aiming to make a fully supported machine. i would buy that. i would do it to get rid of fcs panel, of tard ati drivers, touch pad which doesn’t work, bluetooth which doesn’t work (btw bt sux on all platforms – thanks widcomm), wifi with external drivers and so on. i’d like to see ibm or dell or hp or fsc tomorrow saying: ati and nvidia, i’ll use which ever one of you that get’s their drivers open source and into mainstream kernel. i would buy that. but hardware vendors either can’t do that, or wont do that. no clue, not that i care. but the point is, they are not on the users side.
  ONLY WAY TO GET SOMETHING WORKING IS TO GET IT INTO MAINSTREAM KERNEL. if you do that, it will propagate bellow in everything and get supported in all distros equally. providing special drivers (closed source) for a specific distro IS WRONG.
  and as far as battery goes, that statement cannot be true in anyway unless a specific driver doesn’t work properly. linux knows to throttle the cpu when u’re not using it. and you can’t tell me that linux “thinks” more then windows either. and you can’t tell me it uses the hard drive more then windows either. only reason for that hour shaved of the battery is because a specific piece of hardware in the machine doesn’t allow cpu to idle, thus consuming more battery then it should. is it because of video card? is it because of wireless? is it because of something else?
  tell you what, try to rar a 5Gb directory in both windows and linux with your lid closed, on battery. see who finishes first, and see which os has more battery left after it’s done. i tried that. difference is huge. linux wins hands down in both speed and time left on battery. why ? i blame ati.

• FreeSoftNews » Blog Archive » Ubuntu dominates Lenovo Linux distro poll says:
  September 11th, 2007 1:20 pm

  [...] week, Lenovo competitive analyst Matt Kohut wrote a blog entry about Linux on laptops. The blog entry, which included extensive criticism of Linux’s laptop [...]

• Paul says:
  September 11th, 2007 4:00 pm

  In short, I wouldn’t buy a Thinkpad with or without Linux of any flavor installed. I used to be a die hard Thinkpad fan. In fact, I still have a T21, T23, 2 T40p, and a T42p. Due to the sort of work that I do, I need a dual-core processor and one that supports VT. I thought that I would never say it, but I currently am using a Dell laptop to fulfill that need.

  Though the Dell is not as good from a construction perspective as my Thinkpads before it, it is far better than the new T series laptops from Lenovo. Additionally, all of the Dell’s hardware works flawlessly with the upstream kernel from power management to X, Sprint EVDO, and intel wifi.

  I don’t know what happened, but the T60/p, T61/p are the worst Thinkpads that I have put my hands on. They are riddled with failing components, cheap plastics and don’t deserve to have the name Thinkpad on them anywhere. Way to kill a good thing Lenovo…Thinkpads used to “just work”.

• Kevin says:
  September 11th, 2007 6:28 pm

  Paul,

  Which Dell laptop are you using? I am in the market for a Laptop, I will get the Dell if it is more Linux friendly.

• Stuart DeGraaf says:
  September 12th, 2007 8:35 am

  Running any WinDoze OS on any HW is a waste
  of that HW. All I ask is:

  1) Guarantee HW compatibility with Fedora and
  I’ll handle the rest;

  2) Avoid stupid software buttons – make brighness
  and volume buttons function without a “driver”;

  3) Make sure that hibernation/sleep work;

  4) Use more Nvidia graphics cards;

  5) Don’t make me pay a M$ tax. Make it
  OBVIOUS where on your website to get a
  HIGH-END laptop (say T61p) devoid of
  WinDoze and at a price that reflects my
  lack of payment to Redmond. Your mobile
  workstation page proclaims all kinds of
  Linux support — but then takes me to
  a configuration site where I can’t avoid
  purchasing the M$ crapware!

• Idlethought says:
  September 12th, 2007 1:30 pm

  Publish the specs, support the kernel/driver guys, donate as much GPL code as you can.

  Sell the laptop bare, offer preinstalled distro (from a small selection) as a free option.

  Offer a nice 3-year HW support package that is OS agnostic for extra cash – user risks getting a blank HD back

  Offer specific distros + 3-years tech support (for your branded versions of the distro) for extra cash.

  Offer the HW support package + the specific distro support together with decent discount.

  I’ll arrive looking for the blank PC which is linux friendly – if the prices are right on the rest I’ll seriously consider leaving with more.

• Amitabh says:
  September 15th, 2007 3:05 am

  My preloaded Windows XP on thinkpad is completely useless now after just 6 months – take 20 min to boot and load all apps before i can start using anything.
  Wifi has its own mind about connecting/disconnecting or just no networks appearing so have stopped using it.
  Hangs on playing mpeg4 or 720p with really corrupted display artifacts. hdd is completely fragged inspite of defragging everyday. keeps using a GB of pagefile all the time and CPU use of 50-80% is common for helpsvc or svchost for 5-10 min every hour.
  Has to be shutdown with the power button many times. suspend resume is insane – takes more time than boot – when it works which is rarely and then there’s no sound/network after waking up.
  When i need to send an important mail i have started using my mobile phone to do that as i have no idea when windows would boot up.
  Neither my webcam nor a digitizer tablet i brought work yet. admitted these were the cheapest models in the market but at least they should be supported on winxp.

  And please don’t tell me i am a bad user or need to learn how to properly use & maintain win xp – there are no other type of users in the real word.

  Maybe Vista would be better ?

• jeff says:
  September 15th, 2007 4:31 pm

  it’s interesting have two distributions linux different.

  one disto for all people and one distro for education and school users.

  Take theirs two distro is more popular for the all public.

  take the madriva school 2007 for the student and school employers…

• Brian Delaney says:
  September 16th, 2007 8:53 pm

  I have run a small consultancy business for the last 10 years and have in that time watched with interest the rise of Linux. However it is not until recently ( the last 18 months or so ) That I have felt comfortable recommending it to my customers.

  In the last 18 months over 40% of the hardware I have sold have been preloaded (by me ) with Ubuntu Linux. Many customers when given the choice between a high maintenance operating system, which is vulnerable to viral and “ware” attacks and which gets slower over time (Windows ) and one which is stable and secure, with none of the slow downs they will usually go with Ubuntu. The only stumbling blocks are Webcam support and gaming, both of which are being addressed.

  I have successfully installed Ubuntu on Thinkpads (T40’series , R30′ series, however none of the newer “Lenovos” Compaqs (Most new models presario M2000’s etc) Various Dells and HP’s all with no problems. I now do a range of Ubuntu desktop systems in my shop which are selling well.

  I don’t have a problem with battery life on notebooks using Ubuntu, my Compaq Presario M2000 happily runs for over 2 hours on battery as does my wifes, and I have had no complaints from customers running Dells or older Thinkpads either.

  I agree with the previous poster who pointed out that it is almost impossible to load XP on a vista machine or vice versa, ( many of my customers have asked me to load XP on their new laptops for various reasons )forcing many of my customers to migrate to Linux (both SOHO and private users ) where they have been very happy (only one customer has moved back to windows, because he couldn’t live without ITunes) .

  The main problem with widespread Linux adoption isn’t lack of drivers, webcam, support or games. It’s the fact that most people don’t know it exists, they are under the impression that that Windows ( and to a lesser extent Apple ) is the only game in town.

• Street Strategist says:
  September 16th, 2007 9:01 pm

  A Strategy for Linux Feb 2-3 2006 BusinessWorld column

  February 2, 2006 STREET STRATEGIST – A strategy for Linux
  Opinion STREET STRATEGIST
  A strategy for Linux
  Thads Bentulan February 2, 2006
  streetstrategist@gmail.com

  Linux is probably the best operating system for computers in the world today. Furthermore, Linux is free and open – these are its greatest strengths. Linux is free and open – these are its greatest weaknesses. How can a strength be a weakness at the same time? Now comes the Street Strategist with his analysis of Linux on its 15th year anniversary, and his strategy for Linux for the future. And, yes, the Street Strategist is using Linux to write this strategy.

  For background information, here’s an account of Linux from Wikipedia, the open Web-based encyclopedia.

  Linux (or GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system and its kernel. It is one of the most prominent examples of free software and of open-source development: unlike proprietary operating systems such as Windows and Mac OS, all of its underlying source code is available to the public and anyone can freely use, modify, improve, and redistribute it.

  In the narrowest sense, the term Linux refers to the Linux kernel, but it is commonly used to describe entire Unix-like operating systems (also known as GNU/Linux) that are based on the Linux kernel, combined with libraries and tools from the GNU Project and other sources. Most broadly, a Linux distribution bundles large quantities of application software with the core system, and provides more user-friendly installation and upgrades.

  Initially, Linux was primarily developed and used by individual enthusiasts. Since then, Linux has gained the support of major corporations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Novell for use in servers, and is gaining popularity in the desktop market. Proponents and analysts attribute this success to its vendor independence (the opposite of vendor lock-in), low cost, security, and reliability.

  Linux was originally developed for Intel 386 microprocessors and now supports all popular computer architectures (and several obscure ones). It is deployed in applications ranging from embedded systems (such as mobile phones and personal video recorders) to personal computers to supercomputers.

  GNU project

  GNU is the acronym for G=GNU’s N=Not U=Unix. (This is a typical engineering fun with recursive functions.)

  In 1983, Richard Stallman founded the GNU project, which today provides an essential part of most Linux systems. The goal of GNU was to develop a complete Unix-like operating system composed entirely of free software.

  By the beginning of the 1990s, GNU had produced or collected nearly all of the necessary components of this system – libraries, compilers, text editors, a Unix-like shell, and other software – except for the lowest level, the kernel. The GNU project began developing its own kernel, the Hurd, in 1990 (after an abandoned attempt called Trix).

  According to Thomas Bushnell, the initial Hurd architect, the early plan was to adapt the BSD 4.4-Lite kernel and, in hindsight, “It is now perfectly obvious to me that this would have succeeded splendidly and the world would be a very different place today.” However, due to a lack of cooperation from the Berkeley programmers, Stallman decided instead to use the Mach microkernel, which subsequently proved unexpectedly difficult, and the Hurd’s development proceeded slowly.

  Meanwhile, in 1991, another kernel – eventually dubbed “Linux” – begun as a hobby by Finnish university student Linus Torvalds while attending the University of Helsinki. Torvalds originally used Minix, a simplified Unix-like system written by Andrew Tanenbaum for teaching operating system design.

  However, Tanenbaum did not permit others to extend his operating system, leading Torvalds to develop a replacement for Minix.

  After that, it gradually evolved into an entire operating system kernel intended as a foundation for POSIX-compliant systems. The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) was released on the internet on Sept. 17, 1991, with the second version following shortly thereafter in October. Since then, thousands of developers from around the world have participated in the project.

  Today, Torvalds continues to direct the development of the kernel, while other subsystems are developed separately. The task of producing an integrated system, which combines all the basic components along with graphical interfaces (such as GNOME or KDE, which, in turn, are based on the X Window System) and application software, is now performed by Linux distribution vendors/organizations.

  Name

  The name “Linux” was coined, not by Torvalds, but by Ari Lemmke. Lemmke was working for the Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), located in Espoo near Helsinki, as an administrator of http://ftp.funet.fi, an FTP server which belongs to the Finnish University and Research Network (FUNET), which has numerous organizations as its members, amongst them the TKK and the University of Helsinki. He was the one to invent the name Linux for the directory from which Torvalds’ project was first available for download. (The name Linux was derived from Linus’ Minix.) The name was later trademarked. Originally, Linus was going to call it Freax for “free” and with the often-used X in the names of Unix-like systems.

  Licensing

  The Linux kernel, along with most of the GNU components, is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL requires that all source code modifications and derived works also be licensed under the GPL, and is sometimes referred to as a “share and share alike” (or copyleft) license.

  In 1997, Linus Torvalds stated, “Making Linux GPL’d was definitely the best thing I ever did.”

  Other subsystems use other licenses, although all share the property of being free/open-source; for example, several libraries use the LGPL (a more permissive variant of the GPL), and the X Window System uses the permissive (non-copyleft) MIT License.

  The Linux trademark (US Reg. No. 1916230) is owned by Linus Torvalds, registered for “Computer operating system software to facilitate computer use and operation.” The licensing of the trademark is now handled by the Linux Mark Institute (LMI). LMI has also sought to enforce the Linux trademark in countries other than the US. In September 2005, Intellectual Property Australia, the trademark regulator in Australia, rejected an application to trademark Linux.

  Litigation

  In March 2003, the SCO Group (SCO) filed a lawsuit against IBM, claiming IBM had contributed some portions of SCO’s copyrighted code to the Linux kernel in violation of IBM’s license to use Unix. Additionally, SCO sent letters to a number of companies warning that their use of Linux without a license from SCO may be actionable, and claimed in the press that they would be suing individual Linux users. This controversy has involved lawsuits by SCO against Novell, DaimlerChrysler (partially dismissed in July 2004), and AutoZone, and by Red Hat and others against SCO.

  Linux: 15 year after

  The Linux of 1991 and the Linux of 2006 are quite different – in looks.

  Allow me to quickly round up Linux in its 15th anniversary. Linux is great. I have been using it for a few months and I am extremely satisfied with the results, but not a perfect experience yet.

  First, since Linux is free and open, anybody can make his own Linux. But instead of creating your own kernel, you simply create compilation, much like LEGO blocks. You may have to create some of your own LEGO blocks in the process.

  Each flavor is known in the industry as a distribution or a distro. A distro could be a full installation or a Live CD version. The latter is a CD that you insert in any computer, even one with Windows, and it runs Linux from the CDROM drive without deleting any files in the computer. Its just like putting a music CD into a CD player and music is played. That is the analogy of a Live CD version. You can test Linux or use it fully without writing anything in the hard disk which may contain Microsoft Windows.

  There are many distro available – more than 350 at latest count. There’s Bayanihan Linux, there’s Red Hat Linux, Mandriva Linux, Debian Linux, and my current favorite Ubuntu Linux.

  How do you obtain a distro? From computer magazines who give out CD inserts. The fastest way is to download it from the internet and burn it into a CD. You need DSL speed because these are large files.

  In the case of Ubuntu, they give you CDs by postal delivery from the UK for free.

  I chose Ubuntu because it is by far the most user-friendly of all the distros, and you don’t have to pay for any “enterprise edition.” How can it afford this free shipping, free everything? Because it is a brainchild of the first African in space, Mark Shuttleworth, who paid $20 million to the Russians for that privilege.

  To be continued

  February 3, 2006 STREET STRATEGIST – A strategy for Linux
  Opinion STREET STRATEGIST
  A strategy for Linux
  Thads Bentulan February 3, 2006

  Continued from yesterday

  In terms of engineering excellence, Microsoft’s Windows is only 60% of Linux. From a software architectural point of view, Windows is an embarrassment. Linux is designed as a multi-user system. It is possible for 10 employees to use only one Pentium computer. Of course, you need to attach 10 keyboards, 10 mice, 10 monitors, but can you imagine the savings in your company, school, or government agency? Note that each of these employees would not know what the other is doing, even whether the others are using the computer or not. This is how we should spend our money, not in some constitutional amendment consultative body.

  Installation in Linux is painless, and you can be connected to the internet right away because of autodetection. It is also faster to install.

  As for Web cam detection, Linux is poor. Printers, modems, routers, etc. are easily detected.

  Installing additional software in Linux that is part of the distro is poor, but with Ubuntu Linux, a software called Automatix helps a lot.

  Again, if your office needs are the normal applications, there is no problem at all.

  With Ubuntu Linux, it is about 90% as graphical friendly Windows. And this is where Windows is really great.

  However, for use in your company, the 10% advantage of Windows is irrelevant. If your company is now using Windows in a network, you can actually replace that system overnight with Linux, and your employees will not suffer any noticeable reduction in productivity. That’s if they are normal employees, using Office applications.

  Linux is 85% user-friendly compared to Windows in terms of adding network printers, Web cams, and peripherals. But remember, Linux is attempting to use add-on hardware that were designed for Windows, not Linux.

  Again, if you are a company with ordinary office needs, Linux is free, Windows is about a month’s minimum wage.

  Virus

  There is no virus for Linux. Why? In Linux, just changing the system clock requires a password, so how can any virus attack without such password? You cannot install a software in Linux without a password. Very difficult to create a virus for a system like that. It can be done, but very hard.

  Speed

  Linux is fast such that when after a few days you go back to Windows, you will be able to discern just how slow Windows is. Linux, by its architectural design, is a lean mean machine.

  Cost

  I saved close to half a million pesos of software licensing (that’s for the operating system alone) by advising a small company to use Linux. Now, since application software such as OpenOffice are free in Linux, the savings are doubled.

  Assuming you have company of 50 computers. If you install Microsoft Office and Windows in each unit, you easily spend P1 million. If you install additional software like Acrobat Writer or Adobe Illustrator, or any graphic software, you need to pay P10,000 to P30,000 per copy.

  Many of Linux software are comparable or even better in quality than their Windows counterpart and are free.

  Software applications

  The Mandriva distro includes more than 2,000 free application software from finance to stock market to engineering to games. And you can download many distros.

  For instant messaging system, in Windows you need to install five or so software for Yahoo, Googletalk, MSN, Jabber, etc.

  In Linux, you need to install only one software which has the capability to talk to Yahoo, MSN, etc.

  Web cam viewing is still poor in Linux, but not because Linux is bad, but because Web cam manufacturers are not willing to share their Web cam’s specs to the community.

  OpenOffice, with the recent donation of Sun Microsystems, is formidable. I have not used Microsoft Office for half a year.

  I have been writing my columns in OpenOffice and e-mailed these to the editors who do not realize they were not touched by Microsoft hands. Yes, OpenOffice has the ability to read and write in Microsoft format.

  Graphics programs, CD burners, etc., there are many of them.

  Linux is poor in audio and video format support because of licensing issues, but there are distros that can download for you, using a few mouse clicks, software with support for those formats that maybe non-free.

  That is why in the community there are the so-called “non-free” software that may infringe some copyrights. For example, the music MP3 format may be copyrighted that the open-source community invented other free formats.

  Overall, a bank or a school can save millions of pesos immediately with only a minor inconvenience as a trade-off.

  Emulators

  So you want to run MSOffice or some Windows program in Linux to save on the cost of the Windows operating system?

  Chances are those Microsoft applications will run. You can use WINE, which is W=WINE, I=Is, N=Not, an E=Emulator. WINE is free and is usually found in any distro.

  Or can be downloaded, as with any open-source software.

  Your in-house accounting software may run under WINE. Try it.

  You can use Cedega, too. Cedega source code is free, you can compile your own, but for those who don’t want the hassle, you can buy it for $5 per month (subscription because of the updates).

  Gaming

  Gaming is an issue because games are designed for Windows. Of course, there are Linux games, but there are tens of thousands of Window games.

  Sure, the games on Flash animation or Java will run in Linux, but we are talking about games that are using DirectX technology of Microsoft.

  Yet, it can be done with some success.

  For example, I have set up 20 computers, some are Linux, some are Windows, in a network and all users can play against each other in a network version of WarCraft using the Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) maps. These are Windows games, but I was able to run them in Linux – with the network version of the game at that.

  Still some failures in the online RPG games is the subject of my Strategy for the Philippine Software Industry.

  Government

  I propose that the government standardizes on Linux and OpenOffice, and open-source software because, currently, Linux is more than capable of meeting its needs. The government does not need gaming or user-installed software.

  It should follow the Massachusetts decision to adopt open standards.

  A poor country has no excuse to pay for hundreds of millions in software if it can be obtained for free.

  Strategy for Linux

  Let me just map out a strategy for Linux.

  Linux should become like Windows before Windows becomes like Linux. What do I mean?

  Linux is free and open. This is great. Linux is configurable and free such that anybody make his own Linux, that therein lies the problem.

  Free and open means chaos, whim, and caprice. This lack of standardization is the Achilles heel of Linux. Its superior engineering is rendered inadequate because of poor standardization.

  Linux should adopt the Henry Ford system: The customer can have any color he wants as long as it is black. Ford’s system is great because it made the manufacturing process uniform, standard, fast. This resulted in drastically reduced cost of production, reducing pricing and more costumers.

  Instead of 300 Linux variants, for Linux to become the world standard for the grandmothers and children, it must be predictable and uniform.

  Windows is universal because it is user-friendly and standardized. For instance, in Windows, to install a software you only need to point-and-click the “setup.exe”.

  In Linux, it is a minor nightmare to install. Wait, wait. Let me clarify. If the software is part of the collection supplied for free by the distro, then there’s no problem. There are menu-based add/remove software for Linux. But if there’s a new software, that’s where the problem arises. There’s no “setup.exe” for Linux.

  This installation nightmare is due to the variants of Linux. If this is not addressed, Linux will never take over Windows as the operating system of the masses.

  Ubuntu community came up with such standardization approach in a small software like Automatix, but the strategic direction is not there.

  The product is there, but not the strategy.

  The success of Ford is that the car was standardized. The success of Windows is that is standardized. The success of Linux is that it will be standardized.

  Linux is free and open. My strategy is for Linux to be free, but closed. When I say close, I do not mean proprietary or copyright.

  Linux must set up a standardization council to keep it as uniform as possible for the benefit of the greater number of users. Grandmothers should be able to attach Web cam to Linux without having to use the “sudo” command.

  This standardization will not remove the configurability of Linux nor reduce its open-source model.

  But to reach a billion people, we must surrender some freedom in exchange for uniformity. Uniformity means standardization. Standardization means acceptability.

  We can start with the “setup.exe” equivalent or the uniformity of menus.

  I know many do not agree with me because of the concept of free and open freedom.

  Ubuntu is leading the way. If Ubuntu continues to standardize, I will start convincing everybody to use only Ubuntu, and then it will become the standard. The community must converge to one or two flavors of Linux, not 300. Standardize now, but keep the configurability option for the nerds.

  Remember that Microsoft DOS did not become the world standard because it was the best. No, sir. Microsoft was merely lucky. It was lucky that IBM chose it as the standard.

  Windows is not the standard because it is the best, but because it continues to hide its faults with its great interface, user-friendliness, predictability and standardization.

  Linux will never become the standard, even if it is free, unless it begins to think like Microsoft: Make it customer-friendly.

  Linux has engineering in mind, not the customer. That is the greatest fault not only in the software industry in particular, but in the world of business in general.

  But that is not probably the greatest fault. The greatest fault is not heeding the mind of the Street Strategist until after you realize how prescient it was, and when you do realize it, the time value of that advanced information is gone.

  streetstrategist@gmail.com
  ___

• MacroRodent says:
  September 18th, 2007 1:19 am

  “but what about up-and-coming technologies like the one N-Trig is offering. How long will it be until a Linux hack is available for that? And it will be a hack.”

  Possibly yes – because so many hardware manufacturers appear to go out of their way to ensure open-source operating systems are hard to support, because of lack of adequate hardware specifications, or specifications available only under conditions unacceptable to open-source developers. So new technologies often get supported only after reverse-engineering efforts.

• buZz says:
  September 19th, 2007 3:06 pm

  It is a good thing that not all Lenovo customers think like you do, or you would sell a LOT less laptops ….

• buZz says:
  September 19th, 2007 3:08 pm

  oh and by the way , i get +6 hours batterytime on linux while i cant get it above 5 hours in windows …

• ChibaCityBlues says:
  September 19th, 2007 7:33 pm

  Right now i’m using a MacBook, and i hate it. To much user restrictions and bad hardware quality.

  I’d love to switch back to Linux. And i’d love to do it on a T Series 15″ widescreen (1920×1200) ThinkPad. But i’m unshure which one to buy. Suspend MAY work, but the nvidia driver might avoid that.

  Trust me, if you would offer a ThinkPad with Linux i’d order one today.

• Kyle says:
  September 20th, 2007 3:21 pm

  I bought a T60p in November 2006 and really wanted to buy it with the Linux Preload SLED 10, but couldn’t afford the extra seven hundred. I’m not whining, just stating that if I could afford it, I would have gotten it. Just the same, my T60p is currently running Fedora Core 6. All of my research work requires Linux.

  I didn’t get a chance to read many of the posts by others, but I hope that there isn’t much name calling and such going on. Because even though you may not have had rosy things to say, at least it’s up for discussion, just like the situation on the border.

  I have some points I’d like to made, if I could. Many of your arguments are well thought out and reasonable. By and large, Linux is not as easy to use as Windows. Configuring my T60p to use it’s Intel IPW3945-ABG Wifi card was quite painful the first time.

  As far as battery life goes, I get a decent amount of battery life, approximately six to seven hours out of my nine cell main and three cell UltraBay. It might be better under Windows, but if my tests with my ThinkPad 600E are correct, Linux gets equal or better battery life compared to Windows 2000, which is by definition more efficient on the processor than even a scaled down XP.

  Linux is still in my opinion a hobbyist Operating System in terms of it’s ease of use. Can there be more done, absolutely. As gruesome as the guide you posted was, it was much worse to install programs and drivers before Red Hat 6.1 came around. In addition, many hardware devices are easy to set up, like the video card. You just have to install the driver and set up your resolution settings as you do in Windows. Sometimes you need to modify xorg.conf but usually easy instructions can be provided.

  On the whole, I think Linux has come by leaps and bounds. It has farther to go, but given time it will improve. IBM’s efforts to do so have been of great help to the community and as a result, many of it’s systems use Linux.

  Three hundred eighty nine (77.8%) of the five hundred systems ranked as the fastest machines in existence run Linux. If it weren’t worthwhile they wouldn’t bother with it. By comparison Windows runs only two (0.40%) systems. Most of the rest are taken up by UNIX systems which are cousin to Linux. Source: http://top500.org/stats/list/29/osfam/

• Tom Derks says:
  September 20th, 2007 8:29 pm

  What i would like to see from all the hardware vendors is a quick start package for linux developers. This package should contain a couple of things:

  - Good Documentation about the specs and technicalities from all the hardware inside the vendors computer.
  - Some working model drivers for all the hardware inside the vendors computer. These model drivers should be released under a non restrictive free license (The gnu license is restrictive since everything made with a piece of code with the gnu licence has to be free en should be have the gnu licence).
  -The source code off this drivers should be open to developers and the linux community. Then all the different linux distros can tweak the drivers at their liking.
  Reverse engineering should not be neede to getthe vendors drivers to get to work.
  -A way for developers to communicate with vendor speciallists who are interested in such a project and have know how of the said computer. (forum, mailing-list).
  The linux community at large should be able to read this communication but should not expect the vendor to solve all his problems. support should come from the developers however the developers will need support from the vendor.

  -Also the vendor should be able to intergrate community/developer projects into his own software (This is where the gnu licence is problematic).

  -End-users / the mass community should not loose warranties when they use the model drivers as released by the vendor.

  The main points here being:
  1 Let the people who are used to develop and support the software system do their thing,
  2 Create internal linux proffesionals which you can use for future/other projects.
  3 Give the people what they want without letting them flood your support department.

  In the end i think a computer vendor can sell some more computers this way with the least amount off fuzz.

• Sumit Agarwal says:
  September 21st, 2007 12:40 am

  “What about other things like digitizers? Wacom is pretty well understood, but what about up-and-coming technologies like the one N-Trig is offering.”

  Is this a subtle hint that the X70 or the X62 Tablet will not be Wacom-based? Me no likie…

• William Barnum says:
  September 24th, 2007 2:55 pm

  If you decide to support only ONE distribution. I do not think it would be harder than to support all versions of Windows.

  I agree with someone above, you can cater to enterprise by supporting ONE distribution only.

  For other people, they do not need support anyway. Like myself, I am posting this with a X31 running my own DIY Linux, and I got all the functions work. It’s fun for its own right. I do not need pre-load, nor technical support.

• Ryan says:
  October 6th, 2007 6:00 pm

  Hardware specs are a must — once we don’t have to reverse-engineer components, we can build drivers that are more reliable and can be safely deployed by enthusiasts and the enterprise alike.

  Surely you must understand the circular problem with today’s Linux systems — the hardware vendors won’t cooperate with Linux because there isn’t enough market for it, and people are reluctant to use Linux because it doesn’t have hardware vendors’ support. Break the cycle and your business prospects look better: anyone who wants to move to Linux and have fully supported/open-spec’d hardware has Lenovo to look to as a natural choice.

• Pietro says:
  October 8th, 2007 5:12 am

  This is the OBJECTIVE truth

  Usually truth is subjective. What follows is not:
  - Everyone is free to use the OS he likes.
  - There must be a separation between HW and SW, i.e. I must be able to buy some HW without SW, i.e. without paying for it.
  - HW manufacturers must make their product’s interface open.
  - This separation must be enforced by international laws.

  This is all I (we) pretend. Is it too much???

  Hey, HW manufacturers: this is in your interest, too!

• Felix Deutsch says:
  October 10th, 2007 3:09 pm

  I run a dual-boot config of XP and Debian/testing with kernel 2.6.22.9 on a T60p.

  Battery life with Linux (using powersave kernel features and some application tweaking with powertop) is generally longer than with XP.

  Connectivity is fine; both my Vodafone HSDPA Cardbus card and the WiFi (both with iwlwifi and ipw3945) just work.

  What’s your problem?

• Think Ing says:
  October 22nd, 2007 8:38 pm

  I have been using gentoo on my t40 for years. Everything works great except for some speed issues with madwifi/wpa (lousy atheros drivers). Of course, I’m a programmer so I like having better control, which Gentoo provides. In case anyone has not already mentioned this, I have found Gentoo boots a few times faster than slow and bloated Windoze on my dual-boot notebook.

• smooth says:
  October 31st, 2007 9:13 am

  i would love 2 see FreeBSD support more than linux

• Aleks says:
  November 1st, 2007 11:38 am

  I’ve read this post after buying a new Thinkpad t61…. and propably if I had done it before buying the computer I would have changed my mind and bought from other company. I feel offended when a person who doesn’t obviously know much about the current state of Linux writes such things. Please do respect Linux users and provide support for them. I understand that Lenovo is a big company, but I think can’t afford to ignore large amounts of enthusiasts or large companies like Peugeut(20.000 computers with Linux) who are very interested in Linux. Also I coun;t find information about linux preloaded on thinkpads. Could someone provide me a link with more details? Dates, the range of support, etc?

• free_milk_cow says:
  November 3rd, 2007 2:25 pm

  ubuntu 7.10 , Debian Feisty and Mandrva 2000 run on my Thinkpad T42 on an hard drive 100GO 7200 RPM

• Igor says:
  November 7th, 2007 7:46 pm

  Ubuntu 7.10 on a Lenovo Thinkpad X62s. Works perfectly with Intel 4595GN wifi.

• Glenn says:
  November 13th, 2007 3:44 am

  I decided against getting a new laptop because I found Lenovo was NOT offering SLED – and my compaq is running happily with openSUSE 10.3 – with the boradcom wiress on at least 4 different networks.

  Personally – I believe the best way is to send out a T series to Linux vendors who will certify them. Get the Cert – display the certs – and sell blank notebooks.

  I know that Novel, Red Hat, PCLinux OS, and I am sure others all have certification programs. Most (all?) of us Linux users have our favorite Distribution for many different reasons. Getting the certs from some of the top players at first will be a great start for many reasons…

  A) we will install our favorite “flavor” of Linux – or BSD
  B) If we need support, say for Red Hat or Novel – we would get that from those companies IF the hardware is certified.
  C) Most of us format the hard drive anyway – and install on our own. Maybe the setting a company would make would not be mine. – as an example – I prefer KDE any day of the week over gnome. It would frustrate me to have to delete Gnome and install all my KDE components. Obviouly there are othersthat do not like KDE, and would prefer Gnome, XFCE, etc. . . I may as well just wipe the computer and re-install.
  D) I Run Linux due to choice of features, and I actually have control of my Operating system. The true sad thing about proprietary systems is you have no control.
  E) Most support is a joke. For example – I can not get my leagal version of Matlab 7 to even run – but I have Octave as my alternative, and it works just fine. So my question – what good is support….. Especially when I have found I know more than the support personnel. It is often faster – cheaper – and easier for many end users to just fix the problem themselves – or get support from the Linux Distributor themselves.

  Points being said – just support the hardware.

• Owen says:
  November 14th, 2007 8:12 pm

  I run Linux on a Toshiba currently and have been thinking of switching to a Lenovo. I consider my self a hobbyist, I saw this post and couldn’t help but post just a few pointers.

  Battery life
  I agree that power management isn’t the best on Linux, but I disagree that you lose an hour’s battery life by switching to Linux. I actually can get a battery life from a full charge on my Portege of > ~5.5 hours (Screenshots on my blog)

  Connectivity
  I agree with wireless drivers, often firmware needs to be downloaded and installed but I do not have connectivity problems once up and running. My connection does not drop where as on windows it is a constant battle to keep it online.

  Lack of interest from the vendors
  I agree with you on this one. One way for them to make money is by support but who wants to pay for support?

  Specialized hardware
  That is funny about the widescreen. Probably a user error.

  Enterprise management
  It depends on your take on this, while lacking GUI functions if configured properly a Linux network can be very powerful although Windows does not like to play nice with it.
  The wpa_supplicant for enterprise Wifi management is phenomenal. Much more powerful then the Windows XP Pro or Vista wireless configuration.

  As for support on Lenovo laptops, my biggest concern is the graphics card support. Lots of manufacturers use low end graphics cards that Linux just doesn’t have the support for yet. So, I would say use decent well used hardware and include an ATI or NVIDIA graphics card. ACPI sleep is a nice feature too, so if this works that is a bonus. They offer a warranty on the hardware so I don’t really believe that hardware tech support is needed.

  Hope that sheds some insight,

  Owen.

• lievtara says:
  November 20th, 2007 2:58 pm

  Hi Linux community.

  hopefully I can find some help here. Im using a T61 15inch wide with intel X3100 graphics. Since I´m neither a technical specialist nor a Linux professional, I´m really looking forward to get advixe here.

  Does anyone has experiences with RHEL 5.0 on a T61? Is there a chance to make work ready thos FN keys? Especially the FN/F7 combination in running mode would help.

  What about the active protection system? How can I activate?

  txs in advance

  tara

• Bret McMillan says:
  December 8th, 2007 1:49 pm

  I’ve been using a T61 laptop for work… Fedora 8 works fine, and I believe RHEL 5.1 works fine as well. RHEL 5.0 won’t have the necessary drivers for the video chip, though, and I think audio may not work in RHEL 5.1.

  F8 has been pretty seamless. Audio, video, and sleep-to-ram (after an xml file fix) all work quite well.

• Igor says:
  December 21st, 2007 6:46 am

  To me, the choice of OS is pretty simple. I am a professional astronomer, and all professional astronomical software (MIDAS, IRAF, heasarc x-ray soft, and all soft to work with X-ray data from the modern satellites, etc etc) requires *nix. So I have to use Linux on my laptop. Period.

  This is true that I am not willing to spend endless hours tuning my OS. I had to in the past (use Linux since 1999). That’s why I voted for the item No. 3.

• وبلاگ‌های لنوو : پسر فهمیده says:
  December 28th, 2007 2:10 am

  [...] بازاریابی وب لنوو، است. ایشان حدود چهار ماه پیش در یک پست وبلاگی توضیح داد که چرا لینوکس از نظر فنی و اقتصادی برای [...]

• Aleks says:
  January 3rd, 2008 7:49 am

  Hi lievtara!
  Anyone trying to install linux on Thinkpads should try out http://www.thinkwiki.org . There is lots of advice and usefull information

• Dom Delimar says:
  January 12th, 2008 12:48 pm

  I was thinking… you’re obviously aware of linux hobbyists running Linux on their ThinkPads and of the whole Linux momentum right now so you think you should preload Linux. How do you do that?

  Think a bit: these people have gotten their way without your help anyway and I doubt a large portion of them will buy your newest Linux supported ThinkPad right away. If I bought a ThinkPad today and in 6 months you release a ThinkPad preloaded with Linux, I won’t buy it then. I’ll buy it when replacing my current ThinkPad, and I’ll buy the newest system at that time. I hope you don’t expect anything different. And for others to buy a new ThinkPad preloaded with Linux, it has to be fully functional, just as the one with Windows is.

  So the first step in my opinion would be to give better hardware support for the current systems (and new of course, but these still don’t have to be preloaded with Linux) and gradually provide your most popular ThinkVantage tools for the current systems.

  The second step (after you have most of your hardware fully supported by Linux — at least enough for few fully supported systems because not a whole of your product line has to support Linux at once — and ThinkVantage tools for Linux used by the current users of ThinkPads) would be choosing a Linux distro to preload on new ThinkPads and ship it.

• josvazg says:
  January 14th, 2008 1:00 pm

  You are right, Linux does not make sense on a mobile PC… that is the reason Eee PC is selling so badly… Oooops! but no, its selling great! how come??? how dare Asus not follow your statement???

  Are you losing the UMPC train?

  As low as $200-300 who can include a preloaded Windows?

• Eric P. says:
  January 21st, 2008 1:36 am

  Huh? Power management has problems under linux? I have around 60 minutes more with linux because it runs cooler. All the hardware was recognized out of the box except for wifi; 5 minutes later with Google and wi-fi was installed… OK for the non-profit line but common: I want a functional laptop not one that is slow and sluggish.

• Axel says:
  January 23rd, 2008 3:55 pm

  WTF is this?

  Run a currently supported universal Linux distribution (in my case Debian 3.1 Sarge) on a ThinkPad 760 ED (yes, 12 years old and still working fine) and try doing the same with bloaty XP. I’ve got 2.5h battery life and you will get more done with Linux since XP just won’t work well with only 48 megs of RAM and 133 MHz.

  And even on up to date ThinkPads like the T61 Debian (this time 4.0 Etch) works fine here — I’m currently typing this post on it. And for network or server debugging you just don’t want any OS you don’t have full control over. Here on Linux I do have all the programs and tools I like. Stable, secure, fast, free (free as in free speech, but also free as in free beer) and modifiable. Nobody can give me that with Windows. So why again do people use Windows on mobile PCs? Oh, I remember, because they’re used to it. Well, I’m used to use Linux…

  IMHO laptops with Linux preloaded make not so much sense, though, since you can’t predict which Linux distribution the user likes to use. But laptops _without_ Windows preloaded do make a lot of sense — both because Linux and in general every free OS is mainly about the freedom to be able to choose which OS fits your personal needs best and not which OS the dealer or manufacturer thinks (if they do think at all) fits best (his purse probably).

  So my phrasing of the answer would be: Without preinstalled OS, but only with hardware supported in current vanilla Linux kernels (doesn’t matter if this means not the newest hardware or some work on the drivers instead . I don’t need no support for the software or OS I’m going to install myself, but the hardware should just work, independent of my preferences for OS and software.

  So I’m very happy (and a little bit proud that I got my T61 with no OS preloaded (only a voucher for IBM PC-DOS) and therefore I didn’t have to pay for the sucky Windows I never use. (I paid CHF 125 less.) From all the laptops sold here last semester, about a 10% were sold without OS preloaded, most of them run probably Linux now, maybe some even FreeBSD. Do I see anyone who says this is negligible?

  Oh, and if don’t just think about Thinkpads: Just see the Linux based EEE PC from ASUS: It runs Linux natively and it goes away like free beer and the the community is keen to run on it whatever you can think of. But since the original OS is a Linux, you can easily run on it nearly any Linux distro you like. Or short said: full Linux hardware support from the first sold item on.

  So sorry, but this blog post seems to contain a lot of FUD and does not really do any good to my (and probably many other’s) image of Lenovo as company. I hope this view is the view of a maverick inside Lenovo and not some decision-maker. Lenovo already once pissed off the permanently growing Linux community a few years ago by claiming to stop Linux support which made probably not only me looking for ThinkPad alternatives with good Linux support.

• O.H. says:
  January 25th, 2008 10:00 pm

  I am quite happily running Debian Linux on my T61 and it is the best OS for me; I want to have the option to buy a ThinkPad without a preloaded OS.

• MIGUEL says:
  February 1st, 2008 4:11 pm

  UBUNTU RUNS GREAT INSPIRON 1510 AND ITS A HECK OF ALOT FASTER THAN VISTA WILL EVER BE PLUS ITS NOT THAT HARD TOO RUN, BUT THEN AGAIN I AM A COMPUTER NERD LOL!!!

• DT says:
  March 3rd, 2008 12:37 pm

  I have been running Xubuntu on my dell for about three years, I am in the market for a new laptop, so I have been looking for one where I don’t have to pay the windows tax. I think laptops should be sold two ways, with a pre loaded distro, something smooth easy and light weight, this is a laptop of course or just a simple os that will run when you power the system on in order for the owner to do basic checks before he/she configures it in their own image.

• ex17 says:
  March 3rd, 2008 6:37 pm

  OMG, one thing I don’t like with Windoze supporters is that they always try to find problems with Linux where there aren’t. Power management? Are you kidding? I have at least 45min of battery than vixta could ever give me. I would just advise you not to think getting Linux on a HP, because from personal experience and some friends, most stuff on HP don’t work out of the box and you have to battle a lot to get things working. I now have an Asus-Z53S running Ubuntu Gutsy damn what a speed demon! Just love it. Every thing went working Out-Of-The-Box bang!
  so don’t come telling of Linux is this and that, and come hating it and all. Linux is he s***t! And you know it right? =) You just afraid of switching to the good side
  -ex17

• First Checks on Availability « Linux Laptop says:
  August 2nd, 2008 10:18 am

  [...] found an internal blog on the Lenovo site. I don’t know if it was used in marketing decisions, but there are now laptops available [...]

• Han says:
  September 2nd, 2008 2:50 am

  I am a physicist and I have been using Thinkpad since my first X23. I find myself almost always boot into my Ubuntu partition every morning when I open up my Thinkpad ever since I started to use Ubuntu 2 years ago, although I do keep the Windows partition just in case I want to play some new games.

• david says:
  September 8th, 2008 12:34 am

  A lot of these arguments seem confused. As long as you are talking about a flavor of linux, if the hardware the laptop ships with can be handled by the linux kernel, anyone can use whatever linux distribution they want. If support for some hardware is only included as special code with a given distribution, many linux users will never be happy with the situation. So who would lenovo really be trying to please, or “support?” Only they know the answer to that. On the other hand, if you look at it from the side of the linux development community, there is a large base of capable and motivated people who actively pursue the inclusion of new features into the kernel; give them more to work with in terms of disclosing details — i.e. help them with drivers– and the community, like busy bees, will respond remarkably quickly. The end result for everyone who is just a user of linux will be about the same. Clearly the decision at lenovo rests with their relevant staff; speaking as a linux user, and one who avoids working with microsoft whenever possible, I would simply hope that they do whatever makes the most sense for them as a company, but just do it asap and start executing on the plan. The sooner some help and cooperation is given to the linux community the better.

• jenny says:
  October 13th, 2008 10:05 pm

  Bought my T61p 6457-BQG 8 months ago. I was annoyed that I couldn’t get the T61p version with Linux pre-installed only the lesser graphics power T61 – presumably because of issues with the Nvidia quadro FX 570m but this is odd as it presumably works with SLED as it works fine with OpenSuse it also works with Ubuntu though not out of the box and on many Linux’s with the Nvidia propitiatory drivers or vesa.

  So I had to fork out for M$ which after a little experimentation (just to make sure my machine worked) got wiped for good. This could have been avoided and yes I do hate to pay M$ on principle not just because of the money.

  I use Ubuntu 8.04 and Opensuse 11 mainly. I would recommend OpenSuse 11 (not previous versions) for ease of install and working out of the box ( though you can use nvidia drivers for better performance – easy install) also it recognises the Sierra Wireless which is a first.

  Lenovo – support all the products with GPL’d software please! Linux or BS D or both! go on

  Power conservation is very slightly below that of vista but the system runs faster so you can get your work done sooner!

  I think the Linux / Windows debate is moot now anyway, simply manufacturers who fail to support Linux will be left behind in the sea change of O/S choice in future, for most uses Linux is better than windoze and as soon as the game situation is sorted then windoze will have no edge whatsoever.

  As for which Distro to support, this is pointless, once you support your hardware working with Linux developers the work will be ported to other Linux’s so fast you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.

  Personally if I were buying today I’d get the W series but only if Linux comes pre-installed, as it is I’m waiting for the quad core mobiles with eager anticipation!

• Kelvin says:
  April 22nd, 2009 4:40 am

  I’m runnning Ubuntu 8.04 on my (Lenovo) N200. Running quite excellently. Will be upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 the moment it’s released. Laptop came wiht Vista & installed Ubuntu, now I dual boot with Vista (on very rare occasions when i feel like playing HL2)

  That said, I’m appalled at your attitude towards Linux; the next laptop I buy will *NOT* have a Lenovo logo on it. I’l tell anyone who cares to listen to do the same. but i’m just a ‘Linux fanatic’ (hence an outlier) and I don’t matter, right? Well, most of us ‘fanatics’ have jobs that require us to make recommendations on solutions, I’m just saying.

• Philip Fletcher says:
  April 22nd, 2009 6:30 am

  “…if you’re a business your IT shop will spend far more in support costs, lost user productivity, and sleepless nights.”

  You’re kidding, right? It’s actually the other way around. Do you really want to connect your swiss cheese of an OS to the internet 24×7? And sleep soundly knowing how many zero day flaws are still exposed?

  We’re a 100% Microsoft free web development business, with the exception of virtualized sandboxes to test that other great contribution: IE6/7/8). It’s the best decision we ever made. Negligible support costs (things just work and stay working), highly productive users (little things like not having to reboot and multible virtual desktops) and fewer worries about malware.

  Have you ever spoken to a Linux shop or are you just toeing the party line?

• Charles Hudak says:
  April 22nd, 2009 11:04 am

  For a Lenovo rep you are pretty damn clueless. I’m running Ubuntu on both a T61 and a T400 and it runs flawlessly.

  I’ll think long and hard about ordering another laptop from you guys unless you can either offer me Linux preinstalled or preferrably sell me a laptop without the OS so I can install my own variant. I’m none too happy about having to shell out several hundred dollars for a Windows Vista license when I’ve never actually booted Windows Vista on these machines.

• Jay Adkisson says:
  April 23rd, 2009 7:43 pm

  Ummm… don’t most the major distros provide their own tech support? Some sell it, but others offer community support for free. I’m talking about ubuntuforums.org, the Gentoo Wiki, the Easy Peasy forums, etc.

  These are so much more cost-effective (and just plain effective) methods than phone-based tech support. And yes, you can get individual attention and individual results on the forums.

  You guys don’t have to bend over backwards to provide tech support – just refer everyone to these resources, they’ll be fine.

• HP (Hewlett-Packar… HP Quadro FX… Problems | Hardware in Review says:
  March 17th, 2010 4:51 am

  [...] I have successfully installed Ubuntu on Thinkpads (T40’series , R30′ series, however none of the newer “Lenovos” Compaqs (Most new models presario M2000’s etc) Various Dells and HP’s all with no problems. …… I was annoyed that I couldn’ t get the T61p version with Linux pre-installed only the lesser graphics power T61 – presumably because of issues with the Nvidia quadro FX 570m but this is odd as it presumably works with SLED as it works fine with OpenSuse it also …Read more… [...]

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