Lenovo, which years ago purchased IBM's personal computer business, appears to have quietly stopped offering Linux as a pre-installation option. None of the company's 49 ThinkPad and IdeaPad notebook models -- nor its many ThinkCenter and IdeaCenter desktops -- can currently be ordered with Linux.
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Anybody up to writing good directory software?
Tue, 2007-02-20 11:17 — David JonathanSince the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).
Is better education the key to finding better software?
Sat, 2007-03-03 03:25 — Edward RusselI read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.
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ter
3 years 36 weeks 3 days 18 hours ago
Lenovo and Linux
My personal experience (within last 3 months) attests not just to the denial, but to the hostility on the part of Lenovo personnel to the mere suggestion that a customer may not want M$, nor pay for it. There was nothing quiet about it. Denial of ditching at the top becomes actual hostile ditching at the bottom. Needless to say, I could not remain loyal to the brand.
There are reasonable alternatives. Explore them on your next purchase.
lozz
3 years 36 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago
Lenovo vapourware promises
All this sounds identical to the arguments I had with Lenovo Australia in 2006.
Their site claimed that "Linux" was offered on "selected models". I wanted a Thinkpad without any opperating system so I could use Kubuntu. They said they couldn't do it, but couldn't, or wouldn't, say why.
When I asked about these "selected models" they got very mysterious and claimed that they'd heard of such models being available in Canada, but didn't believe any such models were available from their source in Singapore. In any case, they said, it would involve a special one-off order to the Singapore distributor.
When I pressed them concerning the particular model involved they finally quoted an absolutely top of the line model at over $A5,000. I gave up and finally ended up buying a new Thinkpad from Grays online auctions for many hundreds of dollars cheaper than Lenovo could offer. I still ended up with XP though.
I recently saw a new US-sourced T61 that came with XP, but also included a SUSE 10 disk. Pity they couldn't have included a proper GNU/Linux distro though.