Lenovo Makes the Commitment

Around two years ago, when Novell announced a corporate commitment to move the company completely to Linux-based hardware, their laptop of choice was IBM's ThinkPad. At LinuxWorld Expo and other Linux-related conferences, ThinkPads were about the only brand of laptop populating Novell booths.

Then, after IBM sold its PC division to China-based Lenovo, many wondered if the ThinkPad would survive, or if the company would pay close attention to potential Linux customers. But ThinkPads continued to sell, now with Lenovo instead of IBM printed on their cases. Some users even began waxing enthusiastic about them. In June, Cory Doctorow, the prolific writer of science fiction books and the top-ranked BoingBoing blog, announced that he was switching after many years from Mac to Linux:

I thought about buying a MacBook Pro anyway, since they're nice computers, and they run Ubuntu, but after pricing them out, I realized that I could get a lot more bang for my buck with a Lenovo ThinkPad T60p. If I'm not going to run the MacOS, why spend extra money for Apple hardware? I ordered the machine last weekend, loading it to the max with two 120GB hard drives, 2GB of RAM, and the fastest video card and best screen Lenovo sells: it was still cheaper than a Mac, even though Lenovo makes me pay for a copy of Windows XP that I plan on pitching out along with the styrofoam cutouts and other worthless packaging.

With that kind of writing on the wall, something big was bound to happen. And, at the latest Linux World Expo, it did. Lenovo revealed that it would make the first Linux-based ThinkPad "mobile workstation". It will come with Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, on a Thinkpad 60p, which is built around Intel's new 2.3 GHz Core Duo T2700 chipset. According to Novell PR honcho Bruce Lowry, the new offering is the product of a joint effort between Lenovo, Novell and Intel engineers.

For the last three years, most of my Linux life has been on a ThinkPad T40, most recently running Novell's SUSE Linux desktop. It's been good, but it's also been a hermit crab. You can tell by the "Access IBM" button that only works if the machine is running Windows. Well, on the Linux-equipped Thinkpad 60p, that button gets you the Lenovo Help Center, which covers ThinkVantage Technologies, drivers, basic Linux configuration and hardware issues. Novell handles core operating system issues.

Both companies are working to make sure media run well on the machine too. By the end of this year an upgraded RealPlayer will play Windows media files, the company says. They also say the current Helix Banshee player in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 is the only Linux software that allows encoding of MP3 audio files and burning audio CDs.

I'm looking forward to trying this new configuration out. (As a notoriously clumsy user, I expect to give the help desks a workout.) Meanwhile, look for Cory Doctorow's Mac-to-Ubuntu migration account in an upcoming Linux Journal.

- Doc Searls