[luau] News: Why Linux-loaded laptops have sold poorly

[Dan George]

I strongly disagree. Im IBM certified and have been a tech for almost 20
years.  IBM just contracted with Sherwin-Williams who adopted the IBM Linux
platform.
IBM will be installing over 9,700 of its M41 NetVista desktops in 2,500 of
their stores nation wide. And will run one Linux Server at each store
running Turbo Linux. I would say thats a good deal and a new beginning for a
lot of old businesses who are finally thinking logically for a change.

Dan
----- Original Message -----
From: "W. Wayne Liauh" <LiauhW001 at hawaii.rr.com>
To: <luau at videl.ics.hawaii.edu>
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2002 12:30 AM
Subject: [luau] News: Why Linux-loaded laptops have sold poorly


> I posted a related news a fews ago ("IBM cutting back on Linux") a few
> days ago.  B/c the omission of several critical elements, that article
> is indeed quite misleading.
>
> (1)  IBM is getting out of the PC business altogether.  As such, of
> course they are cutting Linux support on the ThinkPad, b/c they are
> cutting back on everything.
>
> (2)  Let's face it, the Linux kenel was not very "stable" (in terms of
> changes that are needed or anticipated) until 2.4.18.  Furthermore, it
> was not until very recently that we finally have stable versions of
> Mozilla and OpenOffice.  Timing is very different now.
>
> (3)  With the first move by the largest company on earth, WalMart, to
> sell Linux-preinstalled PCs, the manufacturers are going to pay close
> attention to the WinModem/LinModem issue.  This will have one of the
> biggest impacts on the adoption of Linux by the general public.
>
> It is easy to say that IBM is making a mistake, but the truth is that
> IBM is getting out of the PC business.
>
> But more importantly, I would think Linux-loaded laptops should deserve
> a much better attention from our isle business travellers.
>
> A few weeks ago, I finally removed the Win2000 portion of my dual boot
> and installed a Mandrake (8.2) only Linux on my laptop. (Well, I
> cheated--I run some Windows programs under Win4Lin.)  I travel a lot,
> and as we know, everywhere we go, it is at least six or seven hours
> away.  Booting into runlevel3 with a reduced screen size can
> substantially increase the mileage of the battery.
>
> Furthermore, with Linux, I can boot up from a customized Linux CD and do
> my application programs from there.  As we all know, with Windows, if
> for some reason you get stuck, you are dead.
>
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