DailyTech - Lenovo Removes Online Sales of Linux-Based PCs

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Gadgets Lenovo Removes Online Sales of Linux-Based PCs
Michael Barkoviak - September 13, 2008 6:57 PM

44 comment(s) - last by jonmcc33.. on Sep 16 at 12:49 PM

Lenovo drops its pre-loaded Linux for PCs and laptops

Lenovo officially stopped online sales of desktop PCs and laptops with Linux as a pre-installed operating system instead of Microsoft Windows XP or Vista. A year ago, the company started shipping select models with the Novell Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop operating system, but online sales simply weren't high enough to keep the program going.

"Our commitment to Linux has not changed," a Lenovo spokesperson told Computerworld. "What's changed is that customers will no longer be able to order Lenovo ThinkPads and ThinkCentres with pre-installed Linux via the Lenovo.com web site."

A small handful of Lenovo workstations and ThinkPads were available with Linux, but interested consumers will now have to purchase Linux-powered Lenovo products through the company's channel organization, which is designed more for business customers and not regular consumers. Suse and Red Hat Linux are already pre-certified for ThinkCentre desktops and ThinkPad laptops, with Canonical's Ubuntu Linux pre-certification in the works.

Computerworld "Cyber Cynic" Steven Vaughan-Nichols showed a certain level of disbelief at Lenovo's decision to stop offering pre-loaded Linux to home users.

"So, for the foreseeable future the first-rate ThinkPads are only going to be available, in the U.S. at least, with, not even a second-rate operating system, but that third-rate piece of operating system offal we call Vista," Vaughan-Nichols wrote. "Lenovo, how could you do this to us?"

Moving forward, the company is working on new Linux-based servers and the IdeaPad netbook over the next six weeks.

Analysts have been baffled by Lenovo's decision, as Dell and other competitors are only increasing the presence of Linux operating systems with the products they ship. In fact, when Dell opened up a suggestion site where customers could offer opinions on what the company could do to help customers, offering pre-loaded Linux was one of the most popular choices.

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A step backwards for Linux...

By quiksilvr on 9/13/2008 8:38:17 PM , Rating: 1

The point of having Linux on consumer PCs were for people to get a better understanding (or realize the existence) of the OS. Business people already know about Linux and know that it is a superior operating system to use, especially when working on servers.

Not a lot of people know that you can install Ubuntu for free online (and people don't really trust downloading such files off the internet, if its on their PC already it's alright to them).

I hope that HP is true in that they will start to make their transition to Linux to compete with other PC companies. For some reason Apple was mentioned directly and not Dell or Acer or the other higher selling PC companies in the world.
http://gizmodo.com/5049061/hp-exploring-shift-to-l...

RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By SectionEight on 9/13/2008 10:58:00 PM , Rating: 3

I think most people nowadays buying a computer have previously owned one. Chances are it was Windows, so therefore all the software they own is for Windows. It's hard to make a switch like that. A lot of people ask me why I went with a PC instead of a Mac (I'm in grad school), and I tell them it's because all the software I own runs on Windows. I don't want to buy another version of Office or whatever. Linux is the same way. I ran it for a while, and ran OpenOffice for a while after switching back to Windows. Linux has it's uses - there is a lot of specialized software that runs on it - but I think most people in the market to replace an existing PC will choose Windows. I think Lenovo made the right choice for their business.

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By raskren on 9/14/2008 11:11:59 AM , Rating: 5

quote:
Business people already know about Linux and know that it is a superior operating system to use, especially when working on servers.

You're kidding, right? Who are these mythical "business people" you speak of?

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By GotDiesel on 9/14/2008 11:37:49 AM , Rating: 3

Me for one.. our company has 60 something servers
all running linux and a few windows servers..
most desktops are xp though..

our it dept has a dozen "windows" experts as the maintenance on windows is very high.. the two linux ppl spend a lot of their day doing nothing as the servers are so reliable..

go figure..

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By raskren on 9/14/08, Rating: 0

RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By twil on 9/14/2008 7:19:31 PM , Rating: 2

I'm sorry the school system failed you in reading comprehension. Its relevance is obvious to all fluent in English.

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By Samus on 9/15/2008 3:05:15 AM , Rating: 1

server's and workstations are completely different things. if you look at the lenovo site, server's can still be equiped with a linux os, where linux makes sense in business.

from a workstation perspective, linux is a nightmare. it lacks remote managability and deployment, a familiar user interface, and application compatibility.

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By Penti on 9/15/2008 5:27:30 AM , Rating: 2

Actually it doesn't Suse which was loaded on Lenovos desktops has great tools for system management, deployment of software, configuration management ZENworks! It costs money but so does any other system management software.

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 9/15/2008 8:43:06 AM , Rating: 1

ZENworks? Are you kidding me? I've been using ZENworks for years and I will tell you that it is the worst piece of shit ever to grace the IT world. Might as well go with a real solution from another vendor that has a reputable product. If ZENworks is a selling point you are so screwed it's not funny.

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By Hellfire27 on 9/15/2008 10:49:12 AM , Rating: 2

I completely agree. ZENworks is a turd. Our campus had to get rid of it due to the fact it caused more problems than it solved. Me, and the rest of the IT department, rejoiced.

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By Penti on 9/16/2008 8:25:01 AM , Rating: 2

But is there much of a choice? Not sure how well Altiris handles Linux deployment and system management but the other alternatives are essentially just a bunch of scripts. Altiris might be a better choice though.

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By mikefarinha on 9/15/2008 3:47:33 AM , Rating: 1

quote:

"You're kidding, right? Who are these mythical "business people" you speak of?"

Me for one.. our company has 60 something servers
all running linux and a few windows servers..

So you have business people running your linux servers? And since this article is about Linux preinstalled on laptops can I assume that all your linux servers are being ran on workstation grade laptops?

quote:
our it dept has a dozen "windows" experts as the maintenance on windows is very high.. the two linux ppl spend a lot of their day doing nothing as the servers are so reliable..

Most likely your linux servers do one simple task while your windows servers run the bulk of your business.

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By Samus on 9/16/2008 3:35:33 AM , Rating: 1

Linux is great as a server because if all you need is a web or mail server, it's a great price. Free.

What are your other choices? Windows Server + Exchange for what...$3000, with questionable security improvements over Linux? How about Novell Netware + ccMail. Ohh, yea, they've been replaced with Novell/Suse. Mac Server? Give me a fucking break. Mac's belong in schools and homes so kids can't infect the toy computer with spyware.

Linux can be made just as secure (if not more in some ways) than Windows Server, it just required you keep up on the patches and run it behind a decent firewall. Duh.

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RE: A step backwards for Linux...

By jonmcc33 on 9/16/2008 12:49:02 PM , Rating: 2

Sorry, but after working with Windows servers and Exchange for years and comparing them to Linux solutions, the Linux solutions pale in comparison with features and options. Security aside, that's about all Linux has and you can easily secure a Windows server if you know what you are doing. Exchange is the standard for business e-mail, everything else is so far below it that it's not even funny. It integrates perfectly with Active Directory and your client Office suite is unbeatable as well.

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Hire me

By icanhascpu on 9/13/2008 9:19:49 PM , Rating: 1

Look guys. Honestly. Srsly. Let me put a little dropdown menu on your site that has a few options; XP, Vista, Linux.

I'll even put pictures and smilie faces and a little info about each choice.

When someone picks one, Ill install it and you guys can sent it off. Like omg, not everyone likes Linux on their systems? Learn 2 supply and demand. Flexibility in business will help you grow!

RE: Hire me

By raskren on 9/14/2008 11:15:32 AM , Rating: 4

quote:
When someone picks one, Ill install it and you guys can sent it off. Like omg, not everyone likes Linux on their systems? Learn 2 supply and demand. Flexibility in business will help you grow!

This is just fanboy drivel.

It doesn't make sense from a profit standpoint to continue offering unprofitable product lines.

Furthermore, you mention supply and demand. It is clear that there is no demand compared to Windows.

This is just one of several OEMs that at one time responded to the vocal minority of hardcore Linux users that do everything they can to create this fake demand for preinstalled Linux.

When the OEMs cave and actually offer it preinstalled, there's no sales to back up this imaginary demand.

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RE: Hire me

By icanhascpu on 9/14/2008 5:40:10 PM , Rating: 2

Fanboy? I run and prefer windows OS. You're an idiot!

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RE: Hire me

By codeThug on 9/14/2008 6:54:15 PM , Rating: 2

You have to realize that this site is full of L. Ron Ballmer lackies, toadies, and microtologist "tools".

Kool-aid Kool-aid taste great, wish I had a clue can't wait.

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This's stupid...

By zolo111 on 9/14/2008 12:10:50 PM , Rating: 3

Demand is low, huh??? I bought a couple of thinkpads for myself and a family member 6 months ago. I wanted to go with the linux option, but after comparing thier offerings, turned out it cost the same $$ if I go with a vista basic or linux for the same exact specs. So, I picked up the vista basic option for both machines, better resale value!

When they offer linux & vista basic at the same price, anyone with half a brain will go with the vista basic option, then slap a linux distro once they recieve thier machine for free!

Right

By sprockkets on 9/13/2008 9:05:48 PM , Rating: 2

Well, Lenovo is their own company. IBM though is one of the biggest contributors to the kernel, which still though would have done this anyhow.

But let's just put it this way, SuSE Enterprise Linux Desktop is based off an old version of SuSE, and it sucks. The current 11.0 finally sped up some of its faults with package management. So, I wouldn't get the laptop with it anyhow. Nor is it up to date enough to run on new laptops either.

Of course, the blogger pointing this out did quote in a previous article this as far as stability is concerned:

http://gizmodo.com/5035456/blue-screen-of-death-st...

No surprise

By Elementalism on 9/15/2008 11:37:13 AM , Rating: 2

Dell tried this a few years ago and yanked them after almost no sales. I think Dell may be trying this again and will meet a similar fate.

That jounalist quote is amusing. One thing he needs to realize is while they come with Vista they will actually sell now. Which is an important factor in business. Something he probably doesnt understand.

Lenovo: FAIL!

By gevorg on 9/13/08, Rating: -1

RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 9/13/2008 8:52:10 PM , Rating: 5

Or the harsh reality that Linux isn't all that popular pre-installed. Most people that want Linux can install it themselves pretty easily. This was for people that want to try it, but clearly that market was extremely small. The only version that has a noticeable following within the non-geek community is Ubuntu and Lenovo wasn't selling Ubuntu pre-installed. Sounds like business as usual. If it fails to generate revenue, dump it.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By TomZ on 9/13/2008 8:59:17 PM , Rating: 3

Agreed, and I also think the market for "pre-installed Linux" is partly due to those wanting to pirate/recycle XP or Vista licenses.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By Motoman on 9/13/2008 10:20:54 PM , Rating: 4

That's it exactly. Despite all the bluster you get about "people want Linux" the fact of the matter is...they don't.

There's not a sustainable market for it. And as noted, those who do want it are more than capable of installing it themselves, and therefore probably aren't concerned with finding a machine with it preinstalled.

The other 99.999999% of the world's PC buyers have not got the slightest idea what to do with Linux, and even just the fact that it's different scares them - so they're not going to touch it.

Linux is a chicken and an egg. It has no market because it has no apps (seriously...)...and it has no apps because it has no market.

The market is not going to drive Linux. That has been made abundently clear. It therefore falls to apps to drive Linux adoption - which means that software and hardware companies have to put out current versions of current products with *excellent* Linux support.

...but why would they bother, when Linux has no market?

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By gerf on 9/13/2008 10:31:50 PM , Rating: 3

What people want is Linux support, not necessarily pre-installed versions of it. When you get it pre-installed, it means that there's official support for hardware on that operating system. With all the Broadcom and similar crap hardware out there, it's not something unreasonable to want to be sure about.

Oh, sure, there might be some people who put a pirated version of Windows on it anyway. But there's also businesses who have site licenses who will now be paying for two copies of Windows for each computer. My company bought my laptop with Vista Basic, but IT put XP and 2k dual boot on it, as I require.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By gescom on 9/14/2008 2:00:08 PM , Rating: 1

quote:
Linux is a chicken and an egg. It has no market because it has no apps (seriously...)...and it has no apps because it has no market.

well it depends on your needs - digital postproduction for example (Computer Animation, Compositing, Matte paintings,...) is where Linux really shines with high-end applications of course.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By Motoman on 9/14/2008 3:06:53 PM , Rating: 1

...K, I'm confused. How does my post get rated down, when I'm agreeing with the post above that is at a 5 right now?

Teh internet hates me.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By JustTom on 9/14/2008 11:14:56 PM , Rating: 3

I can think of several possibilities: those agreeing with the OP have already used their votes so can't rate you up; someone rated you down in reaction to the first post; someone has a grudge on you.

The real question is: Who cares? I have found no logic behind post ratings. I have gotten 5's for lousy posts and -1's for post that impart real information. Sometimes people just downrate cause you piss them off and they have no real ability to argue their point of view. But it is the internet so don't let it ruin your day.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By Staples on 9/15/2008 9:42:41 AM , Rating: 2

You forgot the biggest sin on dt which will get you a rating of -2.

Speak out against piracy.

It is the number one crime on DT. If you agree that the proliferation of BT sites is a bad thing or that stealing software is actually a crime, you will get down rated very quickly.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By BansheeX on 9/15/2008 10:04:37 AM , Rating: 2

Chicken-egg is not entirely true, that's being too kind to linux. They have a free OS, but they can't get developers on board because... there are too many damn chickens. They took customization to the extreme. Thousands of distros, no "official" distro that mimics Windows as closely as possible, they have no official APIs for sound, video, input, etc. It's a total clusterf**k. How many sound APIs do they have now, like 5? With Windows, it's just DirectX, DirectSound, and DirectInput. Simple, and the documentation is great. How can linux possibly expect hardware and software devs to support all of those variables for such a small marketshare? That's why their gaming market is non-existant, and it isn't getting out anytime soon.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By tmouse on 9/15/2008 12:51:12 PM , Rating: 2

You hit the nail on the head. On a side note Linux users should probably not want too many to get it since that will increase its profile then all of the crap (viruses, trojans ect) hitting Microsoft will start to hit them. It will be worse since you can get all of the inner workings and with the plethora of versions of the components unpatched systems will be far more vulnerable.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By Penti on 9/16/2008 8:46:28 AM , Rating: 2

Huh? Why would commercial vendors care about that, they just have to support one or two distributions, Red Hat Enterprise Linux or/and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Same for workstations but RHEL WS and SLED instead.

As for desktop, well as you said there is no commercial home user linux desktop. There are games around, but it takes effort to port games made for Windows and that takes time (and are usually done by third parties) it's the same for OS X. And Linux (kernel) expect drivers source code and documentation to be release in order to support hardware. And btw do OS X mimic windows? No, why do you think that Linux should then. And that's why there is so many distributions everybody don't agree on how the dist should be. It's just a matter of packaging it the right way and get the right commercial software (Codecs, DVD-players) but those can't be included in a free downloadable distribution. It's really the same as with the old UNIX dialects there were tons of them and there still is Sun Solaris, IBM AIX and HPs HP-UX. And the free BSDs wow, there is FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Dragonfly BSD.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By pauldovi on 9/14/2008 12:09:58 AM , Rating: 2

I agree and disagree. I often wanted to purchase the Linux based Thinkpads because I already have several Windows licenses that I can use so it was cheaper for me. However I never did purchase the Linux variety because Lenovo always offered them with worse hardware. For example, Linux was only offered with 65nm Core 2 Duo's when Windows came with 45nm chips.

So I would agree that there isn't a market for Linux, but there is a market for no license PC's. It is just in this case Lenovo didn't offer even hardware.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By phxfreddy on 9/14/2008 3:27:16 PM , Rating: 2

Well heck yeah! Do you work for free? -- If you do I can use some slaves.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By Penti on 9/15/2008 6:13:11 AM , Rating: 2

Well Linux still doesn't fit the consumer when because of impossible patent licensing conditions for open source software, there still isn't a legal (patent licensed) DVD player offered even when it's sold through OEMs which COULD license a solution if they pay for it. But there isn't any commercial solutions any longer either they are outdated an LinDVD aren't even sold as OEM licensed software any more.

If you are a geek you can by pass or ignore the patent licensing mess and just install free codecs and players. But such a solutions simply cannot be sold. So no such pre-installed systems. They can just be used by Google and such who use the code and license the codecs.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By Flunk on 9/14/2008 8:11:38 AM , Rating: 2

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By Merry on 9/14/2008 10:30:32 AM , Rating: 2

Seriously, how many people have Linux installed on a desktop or notebook system without a Windows install? While Linux is popular as a server OS it's use on desktop systems is really low.

I would hazard to guess that this is probably because of two things: Poor software support, nothing beats Windows and even Macintosh has better support than Linux. The Linux interface seems to be designed by technical experts for technical experts, someone like my father would go crazy trying to simply install a program.

I do. Its given both my laptop and my desktop a new lease of life and probably saved me about £500 on upgrades and such (I use Ubuntu btw)

As for software support I've never found it an issue. I use Office XP (through crossover) as i found a few annoyances with openoffice. As for everything else its never bothered me, though i'm not going to suggest that for gamers and those using specialist software this'll be the case.

As for the UI, I use gnome. Its very, very easy to use. To me its seems like its been designed by UI experts to be honest.

And as for your last point, this is simply untrue. I gave my girlfriend a Ubuntu desktop (shes not technically minded at all) and she found it fine. Surely it makes much more sense to install something by clicking the add/remove icon than searching the internet, downloading, clicking setup.exe etc....

I've used Ubuntu for 2 years now. I only compiled something once.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By vapore0n on 9/15/2008 8:43:48 AM , Rating: 2

Ubuntu is great but its still not made for the common user, unless a knowledgeable user sets up the PC for the common user, just like you did.

Ive tried it on all my pcs, and there always something not working, and doing the workaround just does not do it for me.

I dont even think Ubuntu(or linux) is an OS that should be used on computers that are shut down after every use.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By majorpain on 9/15/2008 11:51:33 AM , Rating: 2

Im one.
People should really try some great distributions of Linux, such as Ubuntu and its variables, like Kubuntu, wich i use at work and at home.
Someone said something about the lack of applications in Linux, well, the thing thats really confuses me using Linux, is the huge number of appz available to use, and decide wich one to use, ohh well, i can try them all, all free... easy to remove, easy to install, and no fu@#%%@ registry after it... Buy a laptop or desktop with Windows and what do u get? Wheres the free Office appz, the free for one year antivirus, the free CD burning software, etc, etc... Try using google for any software support, pretty sure it will take less than 5 minutes to get it. The community support is huge, and theres always someone nice to help u out. Cheers!

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By rbfowler9lfc on 9/14/2008 12:34:21 PM , Rating: 3

I haven't seen a single unit sold by my company with preinstalled linux to be actually used that way. All the customers, including the 30% that don't want to bundle an OEM Windows license with the notebook, just right away wipe the linux partition and install Windows. The only exceptions seem to be computer science teachers...

Preinstalled linux is just a way manufacturers found to stop people from complaining that their notebooks are completely softwareless. Like that FreeDOS-bundled units from HP: Who the hell uses FreeDOS nowadays, except for very, very specific conditions?

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By rbfowler9lfc on 9/14/2008 12:36:56 PM , Rating: 2

Oh, and another one: also a great way to drop the recovery DVDs (a $0.05 saving on the BOM!) without having to add code to the BIOS, since the recovery images are hidden in the preinstalled partition.

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RE: Lenovo: FAIL!

By Staples on 9/15/2008 9:36:58 AM , Rating: 2

Or maybe, just maybe it is because people see Linux, they buy them because there is a savings of a whole $20 but have no idea what Linux is. They get them and then have no idea why the computer looks funny when you turn it on. Then it costs Lenovo a fortune in tech support.

And for the guy saying that you would like if they offered a computer with no OS, do you strictly use Linux? I think that very few people who buy a new laptop or computer are using Linux only. So your idea is terrible. Don't we all want to pay retail when we can get it at 15% from an OEM? Worst idea ever.

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