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Linux Business Businesses Red Hat Software

RedHat, Fujitsu Enter Into Marketing Agreement 137

Posted by timothy from the smartness dept.
andyring writes "According to Cnet, RedHat and Fujitsu signed a partership agreement where the companies will jointly develop and market for Fujitsu's products. Fujitsu hs a strong presence in Asia, a place Microsoft has been trying to cultivate."
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RedHat, Fujitsu Enter Into Marketing Agreement More

RedHat, Fujitsu Enter Into Marketing Agreement

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  • Heh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 ) * on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:06AM (#5917580) Journal
    Used to be when you bought floppy disks, sometimes you could get a bonus floppy disk that had a MS entertainment pack on it.

    Imagine all hard disks coming preloaded with a self-configuring Linux distro. That would be cool. :)

    • Re:Heh (Score:1, Funny)

      by yatest5 ( 455123 )
      self-configuring Linux distro

      Man, you are too funny.

    • "Imagine all hard disks coming preloaded with a self-configuring Linux distro. That would be cool."

      Yeah, and being familiar with real-world (not claimed) MTBF rates for Fujitsu hard drives, you will get to experience that coolness over and over again.

      Talisman
    • Yeah, wouldn't it be cool since it's already trivial?
      Howso? Start installing some distro that configures hardware after setting up all the software and rebooting.
      I've done it with Lindows on my laptop since I lack a hard drive, and it doesn't take much longer than subsequent boots.
    • Dammit I NEED a self configuring Linux distro. Not IT supervision, no user intervention it just boots, configures and works.

      I need one that works for Windows users so that it does not impact their work.

      A related article states 'I'm locking the desktop down...", well I want that too.
  • only hope that fujitsu have improved their hardware choices. they were our standard platform for years before we moved to dell, on the basis that nothing would ever be recognised with the exact drivers that shipped with the system. Video cards being the worst... and we all know what linux is like with odd hardware... or is that just my mate and his new laptop. did he swear.....

    • Re:well i (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Fujitsu has made some really decent high-end equipment, scanners and data storage equipment. Seems only natural to partner with Linux, who's becoming King of the datastore.

    • working with linux may help hardware consistency (Score:4, Interesting)

      by feepcreature ( 623518 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:22AM (#5917671) Homepage
      Fujitsu's working with linux should increase the chance of getting linux-compatible hardware in their business-centred market (it's enterprise server, after all).

      A side effect of this could well be to reduce the variability of hardware and drivers - if only because the lack of specific drivers makes linux less forgiving of random throwing together of components. They'll HAVE to try harder if they want it to work.

    • No probs with my laptop (Score:2, Informative)

      by fille ( 575662 )
      Strange, I own a laptop of Fujitsu-Siemens and Linux (Redhat 8) has no problems with the hardware. Even sound, etc works great out of the box. And it's a very cheap model (Liteline 5133 I think)..
    • you haven't used linux in a few years, have you. It works with everythin. Including stuff i can't find win32 drivers for. Or the win32 drivers don't work. All gold w/ linux.
      • actually, i've been using it for three years, on whatever hardware i've had at the time. and i can guarantee, it does *not* work on my mates new laptop. neither was it too happy with an old AST box of mine, but largely, it's been okay.

  • this could be very good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the-dude-man ( 629634 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:11AM (#5917609)
    This could be a very good for linux....it provides a very large scale devlopment enviornment for linux...and lead to more submissions, and review of code...not to mention more discoverys of bad design and security holes...

    maybe redhat will find out that by having everything tunred on by defaut, and having to work for 2 hours to turn it all off really pisses off sysadmins.

    I've been finding redhat to be a progressivly more and more annyoing linux distro, but this could be their chance to turn things around. Personally i opt for gentoo....small, secure, and works very well. With the amount of attention they will get from devlopment with this, Red hat could follow that line.

    at the very least i hope they will get rid of the "rpm hell" that people go thru when you go to upgrade major components.
    • Are you saying that as amount of Linux users increase so does the amount of people contributing to Linux? I dont buy that. Those people who are interested in messing around kernel already have Linux (or *BSD) installed, those who are the potential growth market for Linux are the people who dont know what is the difference between browser and Internet and dont really care. Now, I dont mean this in a bad way, heck, in a way I'm one of those people. That's just the way it is.

      • Re:this could be very good (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dsplat ( 73054 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @10:15AM (#5918368)
        Actually, I do buy the argument because we've been seeing it. I'm using a driver for my NIC that was developed by Intel and nVidia developed the driver for my graphics card. Because of the number of people using Linux, there is a large enough market to make it worthwhile to develop the drivers. Okay, that doesn't add knew core functionality, but it generates a virtuous cycle. New hardware is better supported now than it was a few years ago. That makes adoption of Linux even more attractive for people who don't want to hack the kernel or don't have the time because they are working on other things, like porting apps to Linux. It's the Network Effect. Some products become more useful simply because their user base grows. Communication technologies are the classic example of that.
      • Don't forget that there are a lot of potential future kernel hackers still in diapers right now, and a greater Linux marketshare will result in them being exposed to Linux sooner.
      • Although techhnically you are only "contributing to linux" if your contributing to the kernel, and I'm sure the kernel developers would appreciate a hand. what linux needs is more diverse applications, more choices. These things are often developed by individual and sometimes can only exist with masses.

        ok ok I know people gripe about too many choices. they are griping about too many choices in the wrong places, like window manager. In other areas there are far too few. For instance the only other real o
    • at the very least i hope they will get rid of the "rpm hell" that people go thru when you go to upgrade major components.

      I agree that upgrading major components in an RPM based system can be a pain.

      However, the people that RedHat are trying to sell to usually don't want to do this. They want to buy a system that will run non-stop for five years. They realise they won't get this of course, but the most that they want to do is apply tiny incremental fixes to the versions of the packages that they started

    • Ghost (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Talisman ( 39902 )
      "maybe redhat will find out that by having everything tunred on by defaut, and having to work for 2 hours to turn it all off really pisses off sysadmins."

      The same thing can be said about Windows machines, especially from Win2K forward. They are highly configurable, if you know wtf you are doing, and the MS defaults are often insecure, useless or just annoying. SP3 addresses many issues, but it still requires lots of registry tweaking and time spent using the Admin tools to get everything *just* right.

      S

    • Re:this could be very good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by adamfranco ( 600246 ) <adam@NoSPAm.adamfranco.com> on Friday May 09, 2003 @09:54AM (#5918204) Homepage
      at the very least i hope they will get rid of the "rpm hell" that people go thru when you go to upgrade major components.

      Ahhh, RPM hell, how I've missed you since I switched to...

      ...RedHat? Apt-get and its Synaptic GUI both run on RedHat and Matthias Saou of FreshRPMs [freshrpms.net] maintains a giant archive of currently 1655 packages specifically for RedHat.

      Since I went back to RedHat last November after years with Mandrake and Libranet, I have yet to install an RPM. Every week I just do an
      apt-get update
      apt-get upgrade
      and get all of the patches for security holes posted here on /.

      RedHat should really toss some coin or at least help at FreshRPMs as they make RedHat the perfect compromise for people like me who love Linux (haven't used any Microshaft product in 9 months, with the exception of using Windows to play BF1942 for 3 hours/week), but "just want it work". My flat-mate is a complete Gentoo fan and seems to actually enjoy tweeking his kernel every week or so. Well, actually, he has to keep tweeking his kernal because there always seems to be a problem with USB or Raid or some other problem. So what does he do? He comes over to my RedHat box to download photos from his camera. For me at least (a medium-grade Linux user -- I write a lot of bash scripts...) the RedHat/apt-get combo is the ideal combination of ease-of-use, prettiness, and power.

      In addition, I've found that a pretty KDE setup is one of the best ways to generate Linux converts, especially when you show the the 35seconds it takes to install DVD software (Ogle) or upgrade all the software on your system, all through the VERY pretty and simple Synaptic GUI.

      • I agree. I got several buddies hooked on linux by giving them a copy of RedHat, and a short (as you already know) and easy 3 line install instructional on how to get apt-rpm and synaptic and how to use it. In fact you cant make it any easier. "Hmm, lets install this program here..." CLICK CLICK Waits as modem/NIC downloads the selection and all deps... Tum de dum... Finished. "Alrighty. Now off to Frozen Bubble!"
      • ...RedHat? Apt-get and its Synaptic GUI both run on RedHat and Matthias Saou of FreshRPMs [freshrpms.net] maintains a giant archive of currently 1655 packages specifically for RedHat.

        FreshRPMs does rock yes, but 1665? Where did you get that figure from? If you at the shrike archives, I see 300 odd. Are you adding together all the redhat versions?

        The main problem with things like apt is that unless you're on a distro like Debian or Gentoo the package you want never seems to be available. Even with thos

        • I opened up Synaptic. At the bottom of the screen it says:

          1655 packages listed, 608 installed, 0 broken, 0 to install/upgrade, 0 to remove; 0MB will be used

          I am just assuming that the first number is the number of supported packages...

    • What's really good is that Fujitsu global services is heavily tied to EDS (at least here in Tulsa). EDS contracts support on all it's boxes to Fujitsu, so having them support RHAT is a good thing.
    • I've been finding redhat to be a progressivly more and more annyoing linux distro...

      This is because they are trying to attract people who don't find Windows annoying and want more of the same.

  • RedHat's Asian efforts... (Score:4, Informative)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:12AM (#5917612) Journal
    can be summarised as:
    1. Providing RHCE certfication exams, and certs.
    2. Poor or no mirrors for downloading distros.
    3. Little or no support offerings for their products.
    4. Few relationshipd with h/w vendors that matter in Asia.

    Only the last is being addressed here. Even little known firms like Turbo Linux have a huge base in Asia, by virtue of having strong support base and relationships.

    • Re:RedHat's Asian efforts... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @09:57AM (#5918227) Homepage Journal
      I speak as an Indian, but I imagine the situation is similar in some other Asian countries as well.

      1. Providing RHCE certfication exams, and certs.

      Which is great, because IT graduates here are crazy about things like that.

      Poor or no mirrors for downloading distros.

      Doesn't make much of a difference, considering the bandwidth situation and that the primary method of distribution is CDs.

      Little or no support offerings for their products.

      Well, people don't even pay MS (though that's changing recently), how do you expect them to pay RH??

      Few relationshipd with h/w vendors that matter in Asia.

      This is the thing that matters most. Which is why I'm very happy about this move.

    • "2. Poor or no mirrors for downloading distro"

      What you mean this isn't enough??

      http://www.redhat.com/download/mirror.html

  • Clever RedHat (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:12AM (#5917617)
    It looks like little RedHat is making big powerful friends to deter SCO from even thinking of harassing them [com.com]. That's pretty clever if that's the case.

  • Ambivalence (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:13AM (#5917622) Journal
    I've had nothing but trouble getting linux to work on the three fujitsu laptops that I've owned.

    But, at the same time, maybe this means we'll be able to buy laptops with linux pre-installed again, which would be a wonderful wonderful thing.

    Maybe I'll have to consider fujitsu laptops again, so long as they're not still twice the price of an equivalent Compaq...
    • Again (see above), I own a Liteline 5133 and Redhat works like a charm on it. It recognised almost all devices out of the box. Maybe it was some time ago you tried to install linux? Newer distributions have far better hardware support, I think..
    • I'm writing this on a Lifebook C-6630 running Slackware and having reinstalled both W2000pro and Slack on it, I can say the latter was much, much easier and smoother.

      The one and only glitch I have with it is to have to resample sound to 48k, because the sound card can't handle anything else. The crossfade plugin does this for xmms and mplayer resamples itself.

      -bm
    • You need a Lifebook P-Series. I have a 2120 and it runs winxp pro AND RedHat flawlessly. There is a ton of information at LEOG.net about putting Linux on the little P-Series books.

    • Re:Ambivalence (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Skater ( 41976 )
      I've installed Linux on two Fujitsu laptops. Other than the winmodem in one, they both work well. My 435Dx laptop, which has a Pentium 133 MMX processor, just won't die. Over the years it has had several Slackware versions on it and one Mandrake version. (Okay, I did have to buy new batteries, a new hard drive, and more memory for it.)

      The other Fujitsu laptop I installed Linux on was a C- series, but I don't remember the exact number. It was even easier than the 435Dx.

      The next laptop I buy will defin

      • Re:Ambivalence (Score:2, Interesting)

        by EmagGeek ( 574360 )
        I had two C340s and one C4235. On the C340s, I couldn't get X working and on the 4235, there was some bug that prevented that particular hard disk from working with that particular controller.. I spent a long horrible time trying to get things to work, but gave up.

        I never managed to get either issue resolved...

        But, on the positive side, I still use one of the C340s with linux to run my webserver (www.ie-ap.org), but it was never usable as a workstation.
    • I concure. My old man has a fujitsu (he really wanted somthing small and light.) I haven't had any problems with his hardware under Knoppix.
  • Isn't Fujitsu the company that ruined their name with all those faulty harddrives? Why would Redhat even entertain the notion of a business agreement, so close after such a major image disaster (que harddrive/"image" pun)?

    • It's good for both parties (and the rest of us).

      Open Source in general can use all the (competent) help it can get - and Fujitsu seems to be contributing development resources. This will help the Red Hat distros in particular, but also linux in general.

      And Fujitsu can only benefit from supplying servers that run a reliable and cost-effective O/S. Increasing their reliability factor can only be a good thing after the disk problems you mention.

    • RTA. This isn't about consumer grade, or even professional grade products. This is about enterprise grade products. Redhat's trying to push into the six figure+ server market, a market that you need marketing agreements to get into, as such a market doesn't want their systems to go down. Ever. Fujitsu, though they're shaking off a bad rep in the drive market, still is pretty well known for their servers.

  • Fujistu has got a past in supporting alterntive OS (Score:3, Informative)

    by OberonX ( 115355 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:20AM (#5917660) Homepage
    I remember Fujitsu being one the first PC companies adding BeOS to their PCs in Japan during the brief glorious of BeOS a few years back. I can't find the story now but it was quite big for the small BeOS community.
  • Are we speaking of this world region where 1 licence is usually enough to cover the needs of thousands of servers ? THE Place where information, if not free, comes dirt cheap at 1$/cd ?
    And you tell me Microsoft is trying to cultivate it's business there ?

    You mean, they sold a cluster and asked themselves why they didn't get that second Advanced Server Licence Order ? 8p
    • " Are we speaking of this world region where 1 licence is usually enough to cover the needs of thousands of servers ?"

      Asians pay exactly what their devalued currencies permit their conscience.

      "THE Place where information, if not free, comes dirt cheap at 1$/cd ?"

      Actually, $1/cd is a bit high. About 30 cents is the current going price.

      "And you tell me Microsoft is trying to cultivate it's business there ?"
      Coupla' months ago, His Billness spent 4 days in Asia, wooing Indians to buy his 'visionary' Tablet
  • Fujitsu hs a strong presence in Asia, a place Microsoft has been trying to cultivate.

    In that case I must say that Microsoft has been fairly successful: the economy of several Asian countries is primarily agricultural...

  • and EMEA (Score:3, Informative)

    by bryam ( 449040 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:28AM (#5917692) Homepage
    Fujitsu have strong presence in EMEA, like Fujitsu-Siemens.

  • Samurai Wars (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Hiigara ( 649950 )
    Microsoft will never expand very well into Asia, they will be stopped by these people first. http://www.samuraiwar.com/page.php?x=2166 Microsoft's main consumer base is because they have no other option they are familiar with. In asia it's the opposite. Microsoft is Linux (The new Guy) and the Asian OSs are Microsoft. Oh my god... did I just say Microsoft was Linux?! Forgive me Linus! Forgive me! *Cuts his wrists*
  • The post says "Fujitsu hs a strong presence in Asia, a place Microsoft has been trying to cultivate."

    The article states "While Fujitsu lacks those competitors' market share, it does have a strong position in Asia, where Red Hat is trying to expand."

    The article doesn't mention Microsoft.

    Looks like someone woke up hating Microsoft today. (I know. This is shashdot. What do I expect?). This just strikes me as unneeded FUD generating bullshit. Of course, I'm a little grumpy myself. I need more coffee.

    What? Companies want to sell software? In other news, the sky is blue, the sun is hot, and sex is enjoyable.

    I know this post is against slashdot custom. It doesn't bash microsoft, and it implies that a slashdot member has gone outdoors and has even *gasp!* actually had sex! ;-)
    • "In other news, the sky is blue, the sun is hot, and sex is enjoyable."

      Hey! Whoa! Stop that man! What are you thinking? What are you doing! This is /. man! Geez! ;^P

      "WTF! The sky is blue??!?! Naaaaah. You're joking right... Eh? Sun? Is that this this...daystar you've been talking about? What? Sex? Wuh-min? Uh, dude I think you've spent too much time away from your monitor man. Here, have a foo-bar and some caffeine-loaded beverage."

      (Hint for moderators: No, 's not a troll, I am 'extracting the urine' :^)
    • Yes, that little quip may have been a bit over the top, but your line wasn't any better. Sure it could have probably been written better, but I think the point the submitter was trying to make was that this is gearing up to be a hotly contested region in the next few years. That this wasn't just RH going after some obscure part of the country, this is RH going after one of the major players.

      it implies that a slashdot member has gone outdoors and has even *gasp!* actually had sex! ;-)

      You, know, I already k

    • The article doesn't mention Microsoft.

      So? Microsoft are trying to cultivate Asia, that's why Bill went over personally earlier this year. It's not FUD, it's a pretty well-documented fact. It's not even an anti-MS statement; what's your problem?

      TWW

    • Holding all of Slashdot to blame for Timothy submissions isn't fair or accurate. Of all the editors, he closest fits the goat/grits/Portman style. Need more examples, check out "Windows Security Through Annoyances?" and "RIAA Nightmare: Pro-level Portable Hard Disk Recorder" from the last 24 hours.
    • Hey, I've has sex outdoors while engaging in a sport like activity (Rock Climbing)

      Does this mean I can't read slashdot anymore?
  • Well with any luck this will help RedHat get ever more big iron support. ATM it has support from SGI in the shape of the Altix which scales to 64 CPU's using Itaniums 2's. TBH though I'm not sure of Futitsu marketing at the high end.

    The only think I would like to see improved is RPM in being able to handel downloads and upgrades better rather than having to use apt-rpm. However good on them and good luck for the future

    Rus

  • Fujitsu will fund Linux development (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pchown ( 90777 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:38AM (#5917732)
    This is the more interesting part of the story. Fujitsu are going to pay for some engineers to work at RedHat offices, improving "performance, stability and the ability to run on large servers with heavy processing loads."

    I am very encouraged by the number of companies prepared to take this step, bearing in mind that the GPL forces them to make the changes available for everyone.

    I've long been puzzled as to why a company should pay for improvements to a system, if they then have to make these available to their competitors. I think perhaps there are two reasons. First, Linux is not Windows. Making Linux a better competitor to Windows helps Fujitsu more than they are hurt by having to give code away.

    Secondly, companies focus on their own area. A company that makes, for example, 8-way AMD servers would focus on that area. Their competitors would have access to the code for running well on 8-way AMD servers, but if they don't make them it doesn't help.
    • GPL forces them to make the changes available for everyone.

      No it doesn't. If I take GPL code and use it in my company I don't have to realse it to anyone.

    • This is the more interesting part of the story. Fujitsu are going to pay for some engineers to work at RedHat offices, improving "performance, stability and the ability to run on large servers with heavy processing loads."

      Kind of ironic since the only people who made hard drives less reliable than fujitsu's would be... dun dun dun MICROPOLIS! And we all know how their story ended.

      I know that the unreliability of fujitsu hard drives has nothing to do with anything else but I still find it amusing.

    • I've long been puzzled as to why a company should pay for improvements to a system, if they then have to make these available to their competitors

      Because it solves their problem, and the GPL means they have to release those changes. Of course, if their problem is solved they probably don't really care what happens to the changes, the GPL just makes sure they don't seal it off simply because they can.

    • Is your business selling an OS or something else that happens to need an OS? I think that's all it boils down to.

      It might not make sense for Microsoft, but I'd wager it makes sense for most other computer companies.
    • "I've long been puzzled as to why a company should pay for improvements to a system, if they then have to make these available to their competitors."

      True, but the GPL doesn't play that much of a role IMHO, after all, if Fujitsu has a similar arrangment with MS the public will not get the code but MS is most likely to use whatever improvement they did for them for other hardware.

      The other reason I can think of right now is that whatever they might invest in this is not as much as what they would have to in

  • Slashdot Stories (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KoolDude ( 614134 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:53AM (#5917805)

    Fujitsu hs a strong presence in Asia, a place Microsoft has been trying to cultivate.

    From the Article:

    it does have a strong position in Asia, where Red Hat is trying to expand.

    I know this is Slashdot, but modification of the article line to mention Microsoft(incorrectly) in the story just for attracting readers is not doing a great deal to improve anything. I like to bash Microsoft with jokes once in a while, but notes like this one are to be criticized, IMHO.
    • What ?!? You actually read the article ? Are you new to /. or what ?
    • Hmm, so? Microsoft are attempting to expand into Asia, this has been covered here many times before. As Redhat and Microsoft are competitors at present, it makes sense to mention this in the context of the story.
    • No, the Slashdot take is correct. MS has been pushing VERY hard over the last couple years to expand in Asia.

      They finally clued in to the idea that all of the piracy was due to the fact that MS had so little presence and support in Asia that it wasn't worth PAYING for their products. They've launched a large campaign to change that.
      • Microsoft has determined that the reason they aren't successful somewhere is because their products and services suck arse... and as a resolution they've decided to improve them???? Surely you jest??? Did hell freeze last night?

        Now... "microsoft has lately been throwing asia paper bones to ensure it makes them it's monopolistic slave like everywhere else so it can suck everybody's pocketbook dry there too" that would be more like it. Let's not confuse who we are talking about here ;)

  • Future for Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by salesgeek ( 263995 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @08:55AM (#5917812) Homepage
    I like what RedHat did - and what Fujitsu did even more. Looks like buyers of Fujitsu servers can expect good hardware support on Linux-based systems. I'm impressed that Fujitsu hired RedHat to do the work, and I'm equally impressed that RedHat had the brains to seek out a new revenue source.

    I'm not sure this article has much to do with the SCO situation though.
  • Maybe Fujitsu support Primecluster [fujitsu-siemens.com] on RedHat Enterprise Linux AS?.

    This product is one of the Oracle RAC architecture certified but only with Solaris.
  • Fujitsu has 128 Sparc compatible cpu / Solaris server in its line up. Hopefully, Joint effort between Fujitsu and RedHat would improve Linux capability on that front (I mean the capability to harness more CPU).
    Here is a news release [slashdot.org] to announce that they will update server line-up with new SPARC compatible 1.35 GHz CPU in an attempt to take back No1 spot of TPC-C benchmark.

    Fujitsu's CEO Mr. Akikusa has recently predicted that every chip will finally implement Linux.

    The bad thing is Fujitsu is anothe

  • That's a shame. In the years I worked in sales and tech support for a computer store in Florida we considered Fujitsu the RMA king because they had such a high percentage of new drives that were DOA. We eventually stopped offering Fujitsu drives.

  • Microsoft tax (Score:1, Interesting)

    by RoboOp ( 460207 )
    Fujitsu makes great laptops. Moderately priced, light and very well built.

    They could sell far more if they allowed you to purchase them without Microsoft products on them. It would be great if this new partnership allowed them to experiment with selling machines with RedHat preinstalled.

    • i'm sure there's some MS exclusive distribution kickback scheme in place to prevent that. These anti-competitive (I know, I know, it's hard to believe) schemes are the main reason why you can't walk into BestBuy and get a PC loaded with RedHat/Lindows whatever.

  • The Nature of Fujitsu (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 09, 2003 @10:01AM (#5918264)
    Just a little background tangent I hope might be enlightening...

    Often one gets the impression that all Japanese (mega) corporations are all alike, the monster grade zaibatsu of cyberpunk [alt.cyberpunk] litterature [accanthology.com]. Even Western financial companies gets this wrong; I have gotten badly """researched""" prospectus from my bank on investing in Japan and have seen this many other places.

    That is not quite the case.

    Up to WWII zaibatsu (no plural "S" in Japanese...) were a damper on initiative; many thought that if X was a good idea the zaibatsu would have been doing it already; hence it had to be a bad idea. Enter the US, opening the country with the subtlety on a can-opener. One of the things they succeeded in for a long while was to break up the zaibatsu as an anti trust measure and then you got the right ecology for the new generation fast acting, innovative companies like Sony and Fujitsu.

    OK, so the parts of the zaibatsu merged, terminator 2 style (though with more subtlety) and they are more or less back...

    Anyway, Fujitsu is and remains a company that wants to cultivate innovation and actually goes so far as to say they want people outside the concensus-building norm of Japan. They have openings for foreigners and in spite of current financial climate might very well be an opportunity for sending in a job application to for non-Japanese.

    So seeing them wanting to enter the world of Linux, deep end, is then no surprise.

  • Why this is the best news all week (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajs.ajs@com> on Friday May 09, 2003 @10:38AM (#5918573) Homepage Journal
    Linux is starting to suffer a fate that I feared was coming for a long time. It's no longer cool.

    It was, for a time, cool to run Linux because it was the only fully POSIX (depending on how rigorous your POSIX definition was) OS for home computers that had all of the usual bells and whistles (X, GNU tools, etc) that also had freely available source.

    386BSD came along at about the same time, but was really only usable a bit after Linux so Linux got a bit of a mind-share head start (otherwise we'd all be running one of the BSDs by now).

    Today, progress on Mach still continues under Darwin; HURD is moving to a new Microkernel that's much smaller and "hipper"; Open/NetBSD have adopted a very promising new VM model; and worst of all (in terms of Linux's geek appeal) Linux is a massive corporate success in dozens of large niches.

    This is a huge win for the Free Software cause, but for Linux it means that the now super-broad OS is starting to show its faults. There are very few people who currently seem to be thinking about the big picture in terms of how the whole OS works in any given incarnation. Worse, the hack-value of making the bettter diver for hardware XYZ has reduced significantly, and most of the kernel work I see happening is not on tuning older drivers for new versions so much as incorporating brand new and interesting hardware, or working on kernel-wide systems like VM, security or scheduling

    Red Hat's partnership with hardware companies like Fujitsu (maker of laptops, hard drives and more) is excellent because it brings the hardware vendors to the table to pick up some of that slack and frees Red Hat developers to focus on the big picture. Much as they've taken heat for it, RH has done a lot of good in thinking of the dekstop as a whole rather than as a potential spot to plug in vendors A, B or C (or should I say G, K or W). What they need to do now is keep moving down the chain. Standardize all of the system documentation on ONE format and convert everything to it (personally, I recommend a modified POD, which is what Perl uses, and could easily be modified to produce useful texi and Gnome SGML, while it already produces man, text and HTML). IMHO "man foo" and "info foo" and bringing up the Gnome help viewer should all give access in one, consistent (though UI-distinct) way with the same, complete documentation. Why isn't that the case? Because no one has time to work at that level (Kudos to the LFS people for taking up my challenge on that point last week, and starting to work on a port of the OpenBSD man pages to the Linux tools!)
  • Linux is becoming quite a communism magnet isnt it.
  • ...is seamless linux support on the Fujitsu Lifebook P1000, including the touchscreen and button mouse. Maybe that'll happen, now.

    I don't need no stinkin' tablet PC. Give me a teeny-tiny laptop that (a) runs linux, (b) generates sufficiently little heat that I can actually put it on my lap, and (c) has easy and flexible pointing device options.

  • (subject goes here)
  • I know I called fujitsu in several occasions, and I even emailed them asking for them to support Linux as an operating system with their laptops, or to at least offer a laptop for sale that doesn't provide an operating system.

    The downside is I already sold my fujitsu laptop out of frustration and bought a powerbook.
  • I have a Fujitsu P-series, and it is a d*amn sweet machine. Just installed RH9 on it, and it blows major chunks (sound broken, XFree86 broken, i8253 timer problems up the wazoo...). I'd love to see these two play better together...

    -nik

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