“Finally. For years, the holy grail of the Linux desktop has been to get a major computer vendor to commit to preloading a Linux desktop. It finally happened.
On August 4th, we found out that Lenovo Group, the company that has taken over IBM’s Personal Computing Division, had made a deal with Novell Inc. to preload SLED 10 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) on its ThinkPad T60p mobile workstation.
For the first time, a major OEM (original equipment manufacturer) has committed to preloading a Linux desktop”
The huge huge benefit Linux will get from Lenovo preloading it is that people who buy it can know nothing about installing an OS, just turn it on and use it, all ready to go, like they can with Windows, until they get their first piece of spyware, then it’s out the window and off to the shop to buy a new one, which is very ironic as these Windows machine are perfectly good machine, but the OS is compromised like a swiss chease.
All modern Linux distributions are so easy to install these days that everyone who can install Windows can install Linux, but what about the people who can’t install Windows, because they don’t have the knowledge, or maybe don’t wish to have that knowledge, to install it, then they can’t install Linux either, by buying it preloaded and all ready to go, this major roadblock suddenly disappears. I’m confident that Lenovo won’t try to sell this to consumers, but like you can buy SLED 10 from novell.com even if you’re a normal Joe user, you probably will be able to buy one of these ThinkPads, it doesn’t make any sense not making this possible, as more ThinkPad sales means more income for Lenovo.
If anyone from Lenovo is reading this, I’d like to thank you for supporting Linux, and especially thank you for now preloading it! 😀
I think a lot of my fellow Linux users are thanking you as well, you’re certainly on the top of my list for when I need to get a laptop! 😉
This is great news. If Lenovo will also offer SLED on their more moderately priced laptops they will have a customer in me.
🙂