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Lenovo To Shun Linux 462

Posted by Zonk from the what-did-tux-ever-do-to-you dept.
dominique_cimafranca writes "CRN reports that Lenovo will not install or support the Linux operating system on any of its PCs. Lenovo is positioning itself as an exclusive partner of Microsoft, several weeks after the companies announced they were 'reaffirming' global market development and cooperation agreements." From the article: "A Lenovo spokesman later said the non-Linux strategy is also applicable for the company's Thinkpad brand of notebooks, although Lenovo will provide advice to customers who insist on deploying desktop Linux systems in some fashion. While Lenovo and Microsoft have had a long OEM relationship that pre-dates Lenovo's takeover last year of the former IBM PC Co., IBM had been supportive of Linux throughout its product line -- including preloading it on Thinkpads -- before the sale to Lenovo."
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Lenovo To Shun Linux More

Lenovo To Shun Linux

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  • That's OK... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04, 2006 @03:30AM (#15465266)

    They'll come crawling back to us when Vista turns out to be a flop.

    • Never thought I'd say this (Score:5, Insightful)

      by StarKruzr ( 74642 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @03:47AM (#15465309) Journal
      but I agree. Vista has *not* impressed me so far. xgl is just as impressive (or at least, just as useful) as Aero Glass, and with Dapper being as gorgeous and capable as it is...

      By the time Vista comes out, Edgy will have been released. I'm seriously considering thoroughly forsaking Microsoft when Vista rolls around.

      • Re:Never thought I'd say this (Score:5, Insightful)

        by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Sunday June 04, 2006 @05:54AM (#15465588) Homepage Journal
        Who gives a shit what impresses you? I don't mean that in a rabid, you're not important kind of way. I mean that in a you'll install what we tell you to install kind of way. Microsoft still calls the shots. You might like living in alternative land but the majority of people like the mainstream, that's a truism, and the mainstream is whatever the hell Microsoft says it is. Maybe one day that won't be the case, but until a good majority of the mainstream are more technically literate, that day won't be any time soon.

        • Eventually it will change. Henry Ford used to say "You can have a Ford in any color you want, as long as it is black." And all Fords were black. Well, today, you can still get a Ford in black, but most people don't.

        • Re:Never thought I'd say this (Score:4, Interesting)

          by SanityInAnarchy ( 655584 ) <ninja@slaphack.com> on Sunday June 04, 2006 @04:01PM (#15467996) Journal
          Microsoft still calls the shots.

          I don't know about you, but I'd like to change that. And the easiest way to change that is to put Linux on as many systems as possible, no matter how much work it might take to get an equivalent system, because that reduces the power Microsoft has over you and the world, and can directly and indirectly impact how easy it will be for other people to slip out of MS's control later.
      • I just installed dapper, and wasted the last 5 hours of my life on it. Let's try to do something simple, which I could do back in Windows _98SE_ in 1 minute: make my 2005fpw 20" lcd my primary monitor, and my t43's sxga+ screen a secondary monitor. In windows, this takes three-five clicks. Display Properties, enable secondary monitor, drag the secondary monitor to the position you'd like, set its resolution. Done. What's more, if you undock the laptop, windows will automatically detect the change, and reve

        • Re:"wonderful" dapper my ass. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by camcorder ( 759720 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @06:13AM (#15465628)
          It's not the distro fault for not being able to dual heads with GUI. You better blame your card vendor for not supporting Linux, instead developing shitload of useless applications for Windows. Just send a mail to ATI and complain about the situation. If you were using NVIDIA chipset card btw, you would have GUI for dual head display, which is not very intuitive but still would do the work.

          Btw, for your peculier problems like dual heads, and sticked usb drives, you can't judge if linux (ie. dapper) not ready for desktop. Vast majority of desktop users do not have dual head display, and for vast majority of the desktop applications Ubuntu desktop is superior than Windows, like having ready ofiice suite, pdf reader, im client and powerful graphic editors etc. Besides these applications you also have a proven security.
        • This is not a problem with X11 or Ubuntu. X11 has excellent multi-monitor support, and excellent support for changing resolutions on the fly. The reason why you can't do it with your hardware is because your vendor didn't supply a driver for Linux. There is nothing anybody other than the vendor can do about this.

          Now, I'll give you this much: Gnome still lacks a good GUI for configuring multiple monitors. The reason it's not there yet is probably because there hasn't been a big need for it in the past: m

          • Re:you got it wrong (Score:3, Insightful)

            by drsmithy ( 35869 )

            The reason it's not there yet is probably because there hasn't been a big need for it in the past: most vendors didn't make drivers available, and the few people for whom this mattered spent the 30 minutes to figure it out.

            Well, speaking as someone who can - and has - "figured it out", the experience was enough to keep me away from Linux as a desktop until the situation has *dramatically* improved. It's the tedium and difficulty of these sorts of tasks - which should be trivially easy - that really needs

  • They were right! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MrSquirrel ( 976630 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @03:34AM (#15465273)
    Hmmmm, Lenovo ditching Linux and partnering solely with Microsoft? ...Microsoft being full of security holes... oh look, the US gov't predicted this: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/22/04 36250 [slashdot.org]. Of course, now I see! If they're going to bug PC's, it would be easiest to do through Windows... those crafty Chinese!
    Really though... why are they doing this? Seems like they would lose a decent amount of customers considering they're not sold to no-speaky-tech people at Walmart/Circuit City... isn't Linux gaining market share?... Seems to me if a market is growing, you should capitalize on it rather than shun it.

    • Re:They were right! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by njdj ( 458173 )
      why are they doing this?

      To answer that, you have to ask "Cui bono?", and the answer to that is "Microsoft". So the most logical explanation is that Microsoft has offered Lenovo extra discounts if Lenovo agrees to discourage Linux use; or has threatened less-favorable terms if Lenovo does not agree to discourage Linux use.

      IBM had the clout to resist Microsoft - there are still some big corporations that regard IBM as the gold standard. Lenovo hasn't. So it would come down to ethics and concern for the inte

  • their loss (Score:5, Insightful)

    by m874t232 ( 973431 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @03:36AM (#15465278)
    They have missed a big opportunity. They could have used this juncture to become a leading Linux supplier for the corporate desktop and server market. Instead, they're just handing more and more control over their business to Microsoft.

    And if they think they can always do that later, they're kidding themselves. People already don't trust their brand name and their ability to innovate, and shipping beige boxes to Microsoft specs is going to damage their brand even more.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • there's plenty of Linux vendors (Score:4, Informative)

        by m874t232 ( 973431 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @06:32AM (#15465664)
        For servers and workstations, you can go with companies like Penguin Computing [penguincomputing.com] (there are many more of them) that put together machines out of Linux-compatible components, integrate it, preinstall everything, and ship it.

        For laptops, there are actually plenty of Linux compatible laptops, but there is no single recognizable brand that is consistently Linux compatible, making the problem one of selection, not availability. Fortunately, a number of companies like Emperor Linux [emperorlinux.com] do the legwork for you.

        With hardware virtualization on the new Intel mobile chips, using Windows or OS X as a "bootstrap loader and device driver" for Linux is another reasonable choice. That way, you get all the goodness of a Linux desktop environment on your hardware, but installation is trivial and you can strip down the host OS to its bare minimum.
    • This makes me think...

      Lenovo is a company and companies want to make profits.

      However small Linux sales were, if they stop Linux sales, they will lose business. If they made a profit on Linux sales, they even lose profit by cutting their Linux offer. They will also lose investments they made.

      Companies generally don't want to lose business or profit.

      So, why did they do it?

      MS offered them a deal. Since IBM is a big player, this deal will have cost MS some money.

      So I think this proves MS is at least scared enou
      • First of all, Lenovo is not IBM; IBM was shipping Linux.

        However small Linux sales were, if they stop Linux sales, they will lose business.

        Well, that's not always the case. Shipping or tolerating Linux costs them some money: marketing, support calls, more difficult deals with proprietary hardware vendors. Still, I think all things being equal, Linux is already popular enough so that those costs would have more than been compensated by the sales.

        So, I agree that Microsoft probably pushed them with both a ca
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:their loss (Score:3, Insightful)

      by demachina ( 71715 )
      " People already don't trust their brand name and their ability to innovate"

      I'm kind of curious if people actually have new Lenovo designed and built laptops and what they think of them. Are they actually good designs at a good price, as good as or better than IBM Thinkpads, so there is a reason to go out of your way to buy them?

      IBM Thinkpad was a powerful brand with a lot of market presence, but as nearly as I can tell Lenovo Thinkpad has no cachet at all so this deal basically destroyed the brand and the

  • Is this surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kaiwai ( 765866 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @03:37AM (#15465282)
    Linux like UNIX's in general (including *BSD) aren't, sad to say, in great demand by typical end users; if it isn't the hardware support issue, it'll be an issue of ISV's that provide their software on Linux.

    Some see this as "Microsoft strong arming", but Lenovo is simply asking, "where is the biggest market", and the biggest market is for machines loaded with Windows, and laden with software ontop.

    Is this a set back for Linux on the desktop (on any other UNIX), not really; given that the largest is Dell - who quite frankly, couldn't care less what is loaded onto their machines; start to worry when Dell snubs other operating systems.

    Also, lets remember that 40% of the computers shipped today are from small 'white box', local computer stores not the large mega corporations.

    Ultimately, however, the ball is in Linux's court; opensource is getting there; it just depends on how patient people are; if they're willing to wait (like me), in a few years time, you'll start to see commercial feature rich software opensource software with in the next couple of years - lets remember, the rate at which features are being added to commercial software is decreasing, companies ( Microsoft namely) have reached a point of diminishing returns - every new feature they're adding, is yielding less and less enthusiasm from the 'geek crowd' and their main customer base.

    Its just a matter of time; personally, its going to be the commercial companies who will suffer, they either make the port of their software to alternative operating systems, and gain customer loyalty, or shun these platforms, resulting in opensource software becoming the equal and defacto standard on said platforms.

    Yes, although this is slightly off topic, in the end it all ties back to *NIX/*BSD on the desktop, customer demand, and how that customer demand is derived from whether the operating system can provide the same level of software which they need at home, at the office or on the road.
    • The problem is that by the time the customer demand builds up to some critical level Lenovo might not be able to capitalize on it. Why? Mainly because MS has a history of stabbing it's partners in the back and causing them permanent harm if not corporate death. There is no reason to think that MS will not do the same to Lenovo.
    • "supporting" Linux only has to amount to using standard well documented components [wifi, sound, video, etc]. The OSS community will take care of the rest.

      Look at most Dell laptops. They usually work fine [my 630m does] in Linux because for the most part they use consistent components which are documented. That may be intentional but they really have no overt "support" for Linux on the home user front.

      So all Lenovo has to do is avoid random custom chips for things like sound, wifi, etc and they'll be ok.
  • Lenovo's like a restauranteur, and Microsoft is like a wine waiter. Of course the the restauranteur sends the wine waiter round to see if the clients would like the wine; and lots of them do.

    However, if you force everyone to take the wine, some of them throw it on the floor and fill the glass up with water.

    They're the Linux users; the freedom-loving kinds.

  • The article doesn't say that they are entering into a permenant relationship with Microsoft. All you have is "What you see is what you get. And at this point, it's Windows." And that doesn't mean much. Maybe they will go with BSD instead?

  • Somewhere..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ericdano ( 113424 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @03:57AM (#15465332) Homepage
    Somewhere in Microsoft H.Q., all the chairs are breathing a sigh of relief.

  • They don't have to (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kanzels ( 975208 )
    They don't have to support Linux, I don't remember other vendors really supporting Linux. It will just work as on other hardware...
    • I will second that.

      As a matter of fact IBM used to make similar noises 2-3 years ago especially regarding the Stinkpad including disbanding completely the desktop/laptop Linux team on at least one occasion (and it quietly reappearing later on).

      So as far as policy - nothing new here, move along. We 've all seen that.

      As far as business development they will get steamrolled into supporting Red Flag Linux by the Chinese Govt do they like it or not for a similar reason to the one quoted by many other posters: "W

  • Conclusion is simple (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rehdon ( 25434 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @04:02AM (#15465344)
    Linux users will shun Lenovo.

    rehdon

  • It all about getting a better deal on Windows (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mattcoug ( 873342 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @04:06AM (#15465357)
    Of course this would happen. Lenovo is trying to cut to costs as much as possible. IBM as a brand can for double what Dell sells for, but Lenovo can't. One big way to cut the price, is to make the deal with MS. Cut out Linux support and Windows is suddenly much cheaper....
  • My 2c as a Thinkpad owner (T43:IBM & now a T60:Lenovo)
    Hardware: T60 sucks. Latch is loose when it came, "extended" battery doesn't fit snugly into the slot.
    Its not defective.. its just like how the Dell's and others used to be a few years ago.
    Their quality has gone up and the Lenovo has sunk to new depths. Note its not cheap. Its 2-300 above a similar Dell/Toshiba. Summary: They lost all my future business.

    Linux (Fedora,RHEL,Suse,Gentoo),Solaris on intel,FreeBSD: T43 no sweat

    Havn't bothered with Lin/Sol

  • Gotta wonder how IBM feels about this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by allroy63 ( 571629 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @04:07AM (#15465360)

    I used to work for IBM supporting other IBM employees. We certainly had users who ran Linux on Netvistas, Thinkpads, etc. or who ran AIX. You have to wonder what IBM's feelings are on this - after all, IBM has helped to push Linux out the door in the past. They've offered the OS as an installation option so that you boot into Linux fresh out of the box. They also offer support to clients running Linux - typically on IBM hardware.

    They've also done substantial work developing a href="http://linux390.marist.edu">S/390 Linux [linux390.marist.edu] in partnership with Marist College. S/390 Linux runs on IBM mainframe systems and allows clients to connect to their own Linux "workstation" hosted off the mainframe (think VMWare - but now instead of running an additional workstation in a window on your own machine, you're running an additional workstation on your own machine but all the processing power and resource utilization is hosted on an OS390 mainframe).

    There are a multitude of other places where one can see IBM's support, endorsement, and development of Linux. The big question is where is IBM getting its hardware for its own employees these days? If there's an agreement with Lenovo to purchase PCs from them, I would imagine that this decision will create some serious support problems. It's one thing to have technicians working on laptops that have been designed in house. When the specifications you're working with are open to the communities you serve, you're far more able to create workarounds to specific problems or resolve recurring issues between hardware and OS. If Lenovo is now designing their machines with a commitment to exclusive Windows compatibility, how will this affect the very business that sold the Thinkpad/Netvista etc. names to Lenovo in the first place? What kinds of kinks does this throw into continued IBM development and endorsement of Linux?

    • None, really. 'Business' needs commercial freedom, therefore Linux; 'Home Entertainment' needs ability to play commercial DVDs, therefore Windows.

      IBM can flip its 'internals' to Sony Playstation 3 with the IBM supercomputer-on-a-chip any time it feels like.

      IBM can also try to interest Lenovo in putting these chips in their personal computers.

      The 'layering' is finally right, and we can move on.

    • IBM never seriously pushed Linux on their desktop computers. There was one Linux ThinkPad model (cancelled several years ago, IIRC), and no desktops. Sure, you could pay their consultants to support Linux, but the PC group wasn't pushing it. It's pretty clear that IBM felt Linux was only useful for servers and workstations.

      For all the advertising noise IBM made about Linux, HP actually has more comprehensive machine support, offering Linux on everything from laptops to desktops to Superdome servers.

    • Note: I work for IBM but not for IBM's IT or support departments, and I have no non-public knowledge of IBM's plans, and may well have misunderstood the public info.

      IBM is slowly moving toward Linux as the standard desktop for internal use. IBM's CIO actually announced in 2004 that IBM's standard desktop platform would be Linux by the end of 2005. That didn't happen because it turned out to be much harder than expected to get all of the internal apps moved to Linux, but IBM has continued the push in a

    • There are a multitude of other places where one can see IBM's support, endorsement, and development of Linux. The big question is where is IBM getting its hardware for its own employees these days? If there's an agreement with Lenovo to purchase PCs from them, I would imagine that this decision will create some serious support problems.

      I don't work for Lenovo or IBM, but I do talk to my sales reps on a regular basis and get to ask some pretty pointed questions. Yes, IBM does have a relationship with Le

  • Lenovo is making its own decisions... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DiamondGeezer ( 872237 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @04:08AM (#15465363) Homepage
    Anyone who has actually dealt with the New Brave Chinese Economy knows fine well that its basically irrational, and not to put to fine a point on it: racist. So it's made it's business decision to ignore a small, growing market and go with the dominant worldwide brand. That's fine. It's made a brave corporate decision. We'll just see some of its customer base inherited from IBM go somewhere else. Especially as its not trying to reassure its customers that it wants what its customers want. I won't be buying Lenovo and nor will I recommend buying them to anyone else.

  • It doesnt make much sense (Score:3, Funny)

    by oztiks ( 921504 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @04:16AM (#15465390)
    They go off and advertise on /. then they tell everyone that they arnet supporting linux? obviously the marketing dept doesnt speak to the support dept very often at lenovo...
  • Unlike IBM, Lenovo doesn't compete with Microsoft on the software end of things, so they don't need to use their hardware to push other products. Also, they want to differentiate their package from the Apple+OS X solution in the high-end laptop market, now that they're both Intel.

    A shame, though -- AFAIK, Thinkpads continue to be sturdy, functional, elegant machines under Lenovo.
    • Lenovo moves to install only Microsoft operating systems on their computers. When asked why, a Lenovo spokesman said "We needed to do something that would really set apart from the rest of the herd".
  • Lenovo isn't evil, just not very smart when it comes to end-users.
    MS is not the only OS out there, and the days are numbered for people who only want to OEM with one brand of OS. Sure, windows will have lots of people buying new pc's and laptops etc. but they will also be the people who don't know if the pc is bad, or there is a virus, or there is an OS problem.

    As the Linux out-of-the-box experience improves, it will become more clear why only supporting one OS as OEM product is really not the right move. T
  • Well I was going to buy another Thinkpad because I've always been impressed with the earlier ones and really impressed with the X series.

    Is there any other laptop out there as good? (And doesn't have those horrible pad mouse things?

    • Toshiba Tecra M4 (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Is there any other laptop out there as good? (And doesn't have those horrible pad mouse things?

      I have a proper IBM ThinkPad, and like yourself, I've always liked them. And I will not buy anything that doesn't run Linux, period.

      However, when I upgraded my laptop just over a year ago, it was to a Toshiba Tecra M4, because it beat Lenovo ThinkPad hands down in MANY areas: cost (only 1000 UK Pounds, astounding for the specs!), 3D graphics (nVidia 6200 Go), display resolution (1400x1050), all-integrated comms

  • The problem is Linux, not Lenovo (Score:4, Informative)

    by jopet ( 538074 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @04:44AM (#15465450) Journal
    I do not see how Lenovo, or any computer seller could possibly support Linux the way it is done with Windows: these companies do not manufacture all of the computers themselves. They assemble components from other hardware vendors. The problem is - there is no stable, working way how these hardware components are supported. Hardware vendors do not provide opensource drivers and Linux does not want closed-source drivers. If 3rd parties provide opensource drivers they often are buggy and lag behind current hardware.

    But in order for a computer seller to "support" Linux, these things should just work at least to some acceptable degree. Which is not the case really.

    Do you know of any other laptop where *all* hardware components work under Linux as they are supposed to?

    As long as Linux will continue its "opensource only" policy for drivers, this situation will continue. Simply because Linux does not have the market power to enforce anything (as MS does have). It is quite easy for harware manufacturers to simply ignore Linux. Developing good drivers for Linux would cost more money than they would gain by additional sells.

    As somebody who uses Linux 100% of the time, I am not happy about this, but unfortunately, these are the sad facts. Given the current move of Linux advocates against closed source drivers and DRM the situation will get worse in the future. I do not see how it will be possible to play HD/BR-DVDs on a Linux machine or how to handle encrypted HDTV signals.

    Unless there is a drastic change of who Linux is getting developed the gap between Linux and Windows will widen -- no matter how crappy, buggy, or insecure Vista will turn out to be (probably not that much, given the effort that was invested in it).

    • But in order for a computer seller to "support" Linux, these things should just work at least to some acceptable degree. Which is not the case really.

      No, that's not the only definition of support. What I would love to have is information on what works out-of-the-box (or with a work-around) -- then I'd know what I'm buying. Say, a web page with a table of a few linux distributions and hardware features. I could easily see that "Ok, modem won't work, 3D needs fiddling, otherwise everything works on distro X

  • Sightly offtopic but still... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Masa ( 74401 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @04:46AM (#15465454) Journal
    Am I the only one who thinks that newer IBM / Lenovo laptops are just pieces of crap?

    Company I'm working for has a contract with IBM and we are using an IBM hardware. I have an R50 laptop and last week I had a chance to try some X series laptops. I have heard that the T series are (were?) a good laptop brand, but I have no experience of them (I've heard that the T series, T42 to be more specific, is quite a nice machine for Linux). Anyway, my R50 - and every other R50 I have dealed with - is just a huge pile of crap. And now the light-weight X series seems to be following the footsteps of the R series. The thing is, both models are, as far as I know, provided by the Lenovo factories.

    Oh, and the legendary "black IBM design" with well-finished product quality (case and components) is just a joke. Pieces are not fit together well enough and the finishing touch is just missing. Also, the assembly of the LCD screen is just terrible. Every time, I open the laptop lid, it feels like the CD drive and the lid would come off in any minute.

    The worst thing is that most reviewers have been giving absolutely glorious reviews for the R50 series laptops. But maybe drug-abusing is common trait in the laptop-reviewer-circles.
  • ...if I want a laptop that runs a modern linux (say, Ubuntu 6.06) with all the goodies working - suspend and hibernate, wireless networking, power management, external video - without having to compile a new (often patched) kernel like I've had to in the past?

    Do any laptop manufacturers supoprt linux now?

    I guess its back to trawling www.tuxmobile.org....

  • Could it be the fact they don't have or want to set aside resources to support Linux. I mean, for those that want Linux, it's easy enough for them to install it. For those that don't, then they don't have to worry about supporting them. I think what the optimal solution is to be able to buy ThinkPads w/o any OS on it.

    I mean, by allowing users to buy ThinkPads with Linux on it means if there's any problem, they'll have to support it (need it be drivers, or applications, or something that just doesn't work).

  • Distributions should start recommending hardware (Score:5, Interesting)

    by deragon ( 112986 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @05:46AM (#15465564) Homepage Journal
    I think it would be good for distributions to start recommending hardware manufacturers. Imagine Red Hat and Novell recommending HP over Dell, Nvidia over ATI for example. That might give a push to hardware manufacturers to better support Linux.
    • I think youve hit the nail on the head. By doing this the hardware manufacturers could endorse those who openly supports Linux. At the same time it would highlight those who choose to not. Just like the printer recommendations on linuxprinting.org

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @06:19AM (#15465640)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • They don't have reasons to support Linux, IBM had them, Lenovo doesn't.

    We know Microsoft makes a big issue if a company they have a deal with ships also Linux units.

    Hence, it's less pain, more profit and less tech support issues to just ship exclusively Windows units.
  • WHilst alot of corporations use Windows thru and thru on IBM/Lenvo laptops they do like the option of linux. Now given they now have this option being removed from them in a assured way that they can get linux and support the hardware fully to a usable extent then they will probably end up buying something else so they have the linux option back. WHilst they will carry on running windows, there will be a few who willl run linux and as a corporate buying policey - flexabiulity, longevaty and support are im

  • I guess this solves a problem for me. I have a Thinkpad from a few years back that I have had some wonderful experiences with. It's been a truly wonderful machine. But I'm not in the market for a new machine within the next year.

    But their decision to explicitly not support Linux, which is a not what IBM was doing when I purchased the notebook, has simplified the process. While I am not going to require that a notebook manufacturer sell Linux installed I do appreciate if a company provides even tacit su

  • Linux Users to Shun Lenovo, resulting in record losses for Lenovo's bottom line.
    • Linux Users to Shun Lenovo, resulting in record losses for Lenovo's bottom line.

      Not sure if you meant this sarcastically or not...

      I certainly bought my last two Thinkpads because they were well supported under Linux. It's recorded as a Windows laptop, but is a dual-boot now. I like the Thinkpads, but I have absolutely no brand loyalty to them. In fact, just picked up a couple Dells and a Gateway for testing and they work great.
  • Maybe it's in retaliation for the US Goverment saying Lenova was a security threat because it is made in China. Maybe they think if they put a "secure" operating system on their computers the US will believe they really are secure.

    Of course the problem is, assuming there wasn't a security problem before, there will be now.
  • I guess that would make Microsoft Windows the communist operating system and not Linux.

  • What really pleases Microsoft? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dbkluck ( 731449 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @08:32AM (#15465927)
    This is actually quite telling. I'm living in Beijing at the moment. On a quick trip to one of the many electronics markets, I can find hundreds upon hundreds of Lenova PCs available for purchase--not one of them running a legitimate copy of Windows. Logically, one might think that the way for Lenova to buddy up to Microsoft and "affirm global cooperation" would be to crack down on piracy of MS software in their home market. Au contraire, it appears, what really pleases MS is not the purchase of Windows (they don't care if you steal it, so long as you use it) but rather the non-use of a competing product.
  • Why did Lenovo ever commit to linux in the first place? Do you think they believe in ideals of freedom? No, they are a business, and they lust for profit. Linux *doesn't* pay, Microsoft does. No, the reason Lenovo *threatened* to supply linux PCs is as a bargaining tool against Microsoft, to lever themselves into better substudies.

  • One-Vendor Dependent Company (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JoeCommodore ( 567479 ) <larry@portcommodore.com> on Sunday June 04, 2006 @09:37AM (#15466122) Homepage
    I guess they want to play Monopoly with Microsoft.

    I can see this is probably a knee jerk marketing action to boost sales, but it's like saying "We commit support the platform everyone else is supporting already and are not prepared for any weird change in the industry."

    So in general there is no real news here: "Our offerings have just become more limited than what they had been in the past. the public should be impressed by that fact, and should give us their business."

  • Is this really true? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by metamatic ( 202216 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @10:56AM (#15466435) Homepage Journal
    IBM had been supportive of Linux throughout its product line -- including preloading it on Thinkpads -- before the sale to Lenovo

    Really? I kept looking, and never saw any option for buying a ThinkPad without Windows, let alone one with Linux preloaded.

    Sure, back in the days of the ThinkPad 600 there were a few abortive experiments, but that was a long time ago.

    I think the only difference is that Lenovo have come out and stated what was IBM's unofficial policy for years.

    [Opinions mine, not IBMs.]

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