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Posted in GNU/Linux, Novell, SLES/SLED at 6:11 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Lenovo returns empty list on choice, denies changes
Many GNU/Linux aficionados have already seen this report from Henry at Ziff Davis. It claims that Lenovo has “ditched” SUSE, but there are refutations going on at the moment.
Gorman continued, “We will continue to certify Novell and Red Hat Linux on our ThinkPad notebooks and ThinkCentre desktops. Additionally, we will be offering Linux on our Think servers, an area we are seeing a greater demand for Linux.”
Background
IBM’s ThinkPad line played an important role in the history of Linux, becoming the first notebook from a major manufacturer to be available both certified and pre-installed with Linux (Red Hat was the flavor of choice back in 1999, and the ThinkPad E600 was the model that everyone wanted, if memory serves). And too, prior to buying IBM’s PC business, Lenovo — even then China’s largest PC maker — offered Red Flag Linux pre-installed on some systems.
SUSE preinstalls are also not available in the UK.
Jolly good! So how come a visit to Lenovo’s UK website offers no Linux options whatsoever?
A couple of months ago we noted that Lenovo had stopped offering these machines without any O/S (FreeDOS rather). Our reader dsmith reported this. Microsoft ‘tax’ became unavoidable, which is grounds for complaints.
“At the end of the day, SUSE/Microsoft tax (patents) is the reason we prefer not to promote those offers from Lenovo.”More recently, InformationWeek reported that IBM had begun negotiations with Lenovo, which might result in Lotus on top of Red Hat, Ubuntu, or SUSE ThinkPads. There has been no word on that since. A recent press release, “Lenovo to Present More Linux-pre-loaded Laptops,” was mentioned here and it talked about SUSE (SLED) specifically.
=> here
At the end of the day, SUSE/Microsoft tax (patents) is the reason we prefer not to promote those offers from Lenovo. The topic was touched on before and contained some explanations in:
=> patents
Samsung is Down, Lenovo Disappoints with ‘Microsoft Tax’Dell, Lenovo to Preload SUSE DesktopsHow Does the Lenovo-Microsoft Deal Affect Novell’s SUSE?
People who thought about buying a GNU/Linux-powered ThinkPad can turn to companies that actually preload GNU/Linux and not some Microsoft-taxed variant of it (‘Ballnux’). Dell, for example, keeps expanding its Ubuntu initiative, but there are other issues there. Microsoft is actively trying to elevate the cost (and therefore viability) of GNU/Linux on the desktop and server. It’s important to put an end to this abuse. █
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