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IBM Thinkpad 600E to be certified "compatible" 247

Posted by Hemos from the making-steps-in-the-right-direction dept.
dkm wrote to say that IBM has declared their intention of making the Thinkpad 600E named as Red Hat Linux "compatible". Sounds great, right? Well, the fun part is that while IBM wants to get named compatible, the bloody modem still won't work with Linux. Marvelous-compatible, but not really. Apparently they'll be "taking steps" as time goes on to get the modem working.
disclaimer:Hemos owns shares in red hat
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IBM Thinkpad 600E to be certified "compatible" More

IBM Thinkpad 600E to be certified "compatible"

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  • Unfortunately, IBM will probably write a Linux driver for the modem and then release it binary only with no source rather than actually go back to puting decent modems in their laptops. Without source it'l prob rely on some particular set of libraries so you'll have to watch out if you want something other than Red Hat 6.0 or start upgrading this and that. Honest to goodness hardware serial port modems are forever a thing of the past on laptop built-ins. Sigh.

  • Try an OS/2-compatible laptop (Score:3)

    by LordNimon ( 85072 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:39AM (#1683085)
    There are many more systems out there that are tested under OS/2 than under Linux. OS/2 has been around longer than Linux, and large companies use OS/2 a lot more than they use Linux. And since OS/2 has a similar HW support problem that Linux does, one easy way to weed out the non-Linux compatible systems is to look for those that are fully supported by OS/2.

    After all, that's why some OS/2 users do. They buy systems with Linux preloaded, delete Linux and install OS/2. They get a system with more cross-platform support, and they don't pay the MS tax.

    IBM Thinkpads are known for their OS/2 compatibility. Not all of them, mind you. You can't even install OS/2 on the 570 series, for instance. But there are a number of Thinkpads that officially support OS/2.

    I personally purchased an older Toshiba laptop from http://www.usedlaptops.com/ [usedlaptops.com]. Since Linux and OS/2 run better on older hardware than Windows does, you can get more bang for the buck with older systems.

  • Too right, I saw the article title and thought this, you just beat me to it.

    Who just moderated this as flame bait? I think it is a perfectly valid point.

    Oooh, I hope some one lets me meta moderate that comment.


    No matter what it looks like, there isn't a .sig here.
  • Space at a premium??? Like one poster above said, the VAIO's are ~1 inch thick, and they have real modems!!! It's not about space, it's about profit.
  • I ran slackware 3.4 on my thinkpad 310ED for years just fine, just the soundcard was a bit shakey, but the rest of the hardware worked fine, the modem however was a external USR, so it didnt much matter.. but the IBM making a laptop "able" to run "Red Hat" Linux is crap.. I run redhat on my server and home machine, slack on my laptop, debian on another machine, but being forced to run a certain distributions is like being forced to use windows or whatever.
  • A couple years back, I bought a IBM Aptiva. One of those all-inclusive puppies. It had an IBM MWAVE modem/soundcard in it. What a pain. It never DID like Linux. It WAS possible to get the sound to work, by loading up the drivers in DOS then using loadlin, but the modem never did work. If the modem in this notebook is MWAVE, they'll prolly end up replacing it. From what I've read, IBM outright refuses to develop linux drivers for this crappy modem/soundcard combo.
  • As the subject says, chill out. So IBM is basically announcing a product that puts itself on roughly the same footing as all other linux-incompatible laptops. The linux community knows what it likes, and will have the good sense to take their business elsewhere. It opens the way for a lot of great smaller vendors who are *actually* committed to linux to profit from IBM's shortsightedness. Don't get mad at corporate stupidity, take advantage of it.
  • I think this sort of certification falls into the same category as the 'lite' linux [slashdot.org] that was being discussed the other day. If people are inclined to tinker, you can get linux up and running on laptops (for example, there this linux on laptops reference [utexas.edu]). However, there are many people who just want an operating system which works. They don't want to spend hours trying to figure out why it isn't working. If IBM can provide a system which runs linux off the shelf that's a good thing.

    And as long as they are upfront and clear about what is and isn't supported by the "certified" machines, I think this will be good for linux in the long run. If people have sucessful and happy linux experiences, they will be more likely to use linux and to become more sophisticated users.
  • thats because redhat is becoming the standard whether you like it or not. Promote the LSB more agressively and/or join them. This will help make more stuff Linux LSB certified instead of RedHat certified. What really bugs me is most linux developers dont want to work together - witness the KDE/Gnome incompatibilities, no standard way for applications to add themselves to the menus of the wm at install time, no standard package management, no standard help system. its all bullshit.
  • Ok linux compatible.. what libs do you have what libc do you have? I know, when we release something, lets make sure we compile for every release of linux and make sure that if one version doesn't have the correct libraries that we find out what libraries it does have and fix the code for that. Or just release a product with no specs, and when it doesn't run on your 'homebrew' linux instalation you can be pissed off at IBM, I bet they love it when they sell stuff that pisses people off, I bet you didn't know that pissing people of makes your market share go up. Oh ya.. don't forget to make a package for every distrobution too; rpm,tgz,deb.... Think before you open your mouth.
  • FYI my ThinkPad 770ED does not have any Windows keys, and DOES have a third button. While the modem doesn't work everything else I've tried - from the PCMCIA to the serial ports does. It's got a big bright LCD, reasonable battery life, and it's pretty fast. Even the APM stuff seems to work. The most amusing part is that this thing runs Linux way better than NT (which work forces me to use).
  • Well, I read the announcement and the article and did not see the word 'certification' anywhere. What I saw was a pretty good-faith effort to offer information on how to get their equipment to run Linux. Lack of a supported modem is a huge issue, to be sure. I just didn't jump to the comclusion or see any language that IBM was claiming that they were 100% certified compatible with _anything_ (did I really miss that?)

    Now the story with the marketing guy sounded terrible, but the other link actually had some good information, was very upfront with the issues were work was needed, and appears to be a good-faith effort on the part of IBM.

    (just curious, why is this post 'funny'? I don't get the joke, I guess)
  • There is still no way of knowing what kernel and modules are present just because what you are running is called Linux. So there can never be such a thing as Linux compatible hardware. Furthermore, if you think user space code doesn't affect hardware compatibility you should check out the SANE project, which is scanner support in 100% user space code.

  • Re:what a crock (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Our company is developing a driver for a large complex product. The majority of our target markets run RedHat; so we develope on and for RedHat. Our product is _not_ generally Linux compatable because of changes in libc's, init.d layout, and other misc structual differences. Sure we could make it work for Debian, Caldera, S.u.S.E. etc: but we cannot justify the engineering time and money.

    These distributions are rapidly becoming splinterted to the point of multiple O/Ss sharing a common kernel.

    -AC
  • I see it a bit differently. While all these major companies are coming out-and the new buzzword seems to be "RedHat Compatible", but that's all it is...a buzzword. The compatibility issues can only be due to the fact that it uses glibc, and RedHat is not the only distribution that uses it. Let's face it, while there are other distributions out there, doing just as many sales, and are just popular-the GENERAL public is fixed on one-RedHat. RedHat shows them a potential profit margin, so of course everyone is trying to cash in on it right now. What the good thing is, if this "trend" continues to catch on with the larger companies-in the future it may be just as easy to find Linux drivers as it is to find Windows drivers.
  • If they name it as "Linux Compatable" and the modem doesn't work under Linux, someone should sue them. There's probably some truth in advertizing law that covers that.

    From the Hardware Certification Program Program Overview [redhat.com] we read:

    Compatible
    The tested hardware has passed all certification tests, but required some amount of special attention in order to be properly configured. This most commonly means that the system requires special drivers or updates to be downloaded before the system is fully useable (eg, a system that must download an update to XFree86 because the version of XFree86 on the CD does not support their video hardware). In this case, the vendor may call the system Red Hat Linux Compatible in their advertising, but may not use any Red Hat logos or badges on this system. Further, the vendor should take steps to ensure that their standard support services are prepared to answer customers questions intelligently when asked why the stock Red Hat Linux won't operate properly on their hardware (this usually means making sure that the vendor's technical support department is aware of what updates must be performed to make the machine work properly). The information about what updates are needed and any other notes on this system will also be available via the hardware compatibility list on the Red Hat web site.
    Aha! So the WinModem requires "special attention". The notebook can still be labeled as "Linux Compatible" though, but not "Linux Certified".

    As others have mentioned, I presume the marketing department "jumped the gun". I imagine that there'll be drivers for the modem, in due time.

    -Brent
    --
  • You can always map the windows key to compose or something.
  • on the one hand it is good to see that companys care about the fact wether linux runs on certain hardware or not and that consumers get an easy way to find about that (that certificat that ibm wants). i do not think it is a problem that they want a "red hat" certificate. if it works with red hat it will work with debian and suse as well...

    but i hope that they will not get such a certificate from red hat until all their hardware works and that includes that modem..

    furthermore i believe it is inportant that no one gets any certificate for binary only drivers. a binary only driver might work now but might be difficult with kernel 3.2 that is released in 2 years...so i hope there will be no certificates for binary only driver hardware. a newbie might not know why a binary only driver is bad for him..and certificates are there for the newbies in the first place...

    just my ATS 0.02

    mond.
  • ..That RH was recently investing effort in
    protecting the integrity of their trademark, but
    now seem to be auctioning it off to the highest
    bidder.

    [looks over at laptop] Debian time for you.

    K.
    -

  • This is Good News! (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:47AM (#1683114)
    I'm having a little trouble believing all the negative comments I've read here so far! It seems to me that when a hardware manufacturer starts a Linux compatibility program, that is a Good Thing for Linux and all of us. How many complaints have I read in the past that Linux gets ignored by hardware manufacturers who only care about compatibility with Windows?

    I for one would like to express my appreciation to IBM for what it has started. Getting Linux running on laptops has often been a tricky deal, and now we are getting support from a manufacturer. This is definitely good news, and IBM is taking a lead in this area. Hopefully it is the start of something that continues to show improvement.

    Sure, they are targeting Red Hat. What else are they going to do? Target every Linux distribution out there? There are so many, it's hard enough to even get a list of them! They have to start somewhere, and starting with the most popular (or at least most high-profile) distribution is the sensible thing to do. And hey, if it will run Red Hat, it will probably run any decent version of Linux.

    So stop whining and complaining and visualize a world in which hardware manufacturers care more about Linux compatibility than Windows compatibility. Visualize manufacturers dropping Winmodems because they're not Linux compatible. Visualize more manufacturers shipping computers with Linux installed, with your choice of distribution.

    Jay Ts
    http://jayts.cx

  • IBM Thinkpad 600E with Linux (Score:4)

    by zanzar ( 33471 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:48AM (#1683115) Homepage
    This is indeed an amusing announcement, to say the least. Let me give a little background:

    I am a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). This year, they issued every freshman an IBM Thinkpad 600E. The configuration they gave us had an empty partition which basically said "put linux on me." We did. And we discovered the problems with compatability. I daresay this is one of the least compatable laptops with any version of linux. Let me list the problems:

    1. Modem doesn't work at all under linux. Probably a winmodem.

    2. IBM EtherJet CardBus 10/100 ethernet is REALLY hard to get working. After 10 hours of research and tweaking, I managed to get it to run using pcmcia-cs-3.0.14, but only if I tell it to bind to the tulip_cb driver. This isn't necessarily a good solution in 100% of the cases, either, according to one of our local tech guru's at RPI. Apparently the chip in the card isn't exactly the tulip. Oh, and this only works after you've changed the memory addresses that pcmcia scans for.

    3. The number lock key that turns on the "numeric keypad" does not function under linux.

    4. Hibernation mode and suspend mode lock up the laptop. (unless I've set something wrong on my config)

    5. The sound card is a crystal audio CS4239. It's not quite supported by the kernel. ALSA will get it to work, as the rumors go, but I'm still trying on my laptop.


    For this laptop to be "Redhat Linux Compatable", redhat and/or IBM will have to do some serious work on this, or Redhat will lose much credibility.

    -Larry Lansing
    zanzar@nycap.rr.com
  • This model also works (-sound -modem) with *BSD and Beos, although Beos is flaky with the docking station...
  • don't know what you are doing, i triple boot mine with 95 (games), NT (office / exchange) & FreeBSD (work). My colleague runs Beos on his
  • I don't know what standards Red Hat is actually using to define whether or not something is Red Hat Compatible, but for simplicity's sake I hope it means that my mother could install Red Hat on it. I think that would enable Linux (Red Hat at least) to reach more users, if they knew without a doubt that if they stuck a Red Hat 6.0 CD into their drive, all of the hardware in their machine would be auto-detected and have drivers installed for it automatically. I build my own machines, so it wouldn't do much for me, I guess I could make my own stickers, but I still think that certifying certain machines as being 100% Linux compatible would be a Good Thing (tm).
  • Hmph. Yep. Bad move. Must think of the other
    distributions. I normally recommend slack or deb
    to newbies. What other way is there to learn the
    joy of compiling your own software? The kind of
    people who normally buy Thinkpads are certainly
    capable of using any of the popular distros.
  • There are actually even more reasons why mWave technology is good... one of them being seamless - software - upgrades. I had a loaner 600E last week and was able to change back and forth from a 56K modem to a 33.6 modem without even loging out of Winblows NT. On the TP755CDX I used to have I was able to upgrade from a 28.8 to 33.6 to 56K without any expense; that was great. mWave technology has also made it into a few other IBM products btw, including the craptiva line of desktops... so develop it once and you make a LOT of hardware more friendly to Linux.

    Now if only we could get people to STOP calling it a WinMODEM! Oh, and I suspect the reason the lawyers wont let the code out the doors are patent issues... IBM tends to protect it's patents....
  • Call me thick, but how can this machine possibly be certified 'compatible' if one or more components aren't?

    I do hope they don't get that certification until it is 100% compatible, wouldn't do a great deal for Red Hat's or Linux's reputation, now would it?

  • This was the "insightful" post... not the half witted rant that preceded it.
  • Baby steps are for alcoholics. Let's see some real compatibility. Considering that IBM bought Lotus, another underdog, I held a lot more hope that they'd make a real effort.

  • Linux Compatible? Quit using shitty hardware!@#!@# (Score:3)

    by notbob ( 73229 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:09AM (#1683132)
    We wouldn't need Linux certified machines if companies would stop using crappy winmodems instead of full blown modems, and nice creative labs sound blasters instead of these shitty rip offs they drop in their "name brand" pos laptops. I'd love to have linux on the go, but I deal with morons on a daily basis who shit their pants if it dont say microshaft certified so it must run that evilness of '95. Just a thought from a guy who hates "name brand" hardware with 3rd country rate parts.
  • I've read every darn message posted. (
    Approximately 150.) I have a ThinkPad 500 which,
    as best I can tell, is Linux compatable -- it's running a Slackware-ish hodge-podge. I've owned
    many computers, and for some reason, this little IBM is my favorite. Currently it resides in my kitchen woking as a fancy PDA. Networks quite nicely. Weighing in at 50 mhz, 8 meg ram, 170 meg hd, it'll kick many bigger computers buttocks :)
  • Sure, it would be nice if IBM got the modem working (in fact, it would be even nicer if they just got rid of the MWAVE stuff altogether), but I don't think this is a big deal.

    So, think of the 600E as a Thinkpad without a modem when you are running Linux. You aren't paying a lot extra for the modem, and the built-in Thinkpad modem is a kludge anyway.

  • Should be compat. with all distributions of Linux (Score:3)

    by smkndrkn ( 3654 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:10AM (#1683135)
    While it is nice to see some effort by some of the larger companies in the world to support linux. I'm more than a little worried that there will not be support for distributions other than Red Hat. I'm not so worried that the code they release, drivers for example, will not work with say Slackware ( my favorite distribution :=) ) but this quote scares me:

    "But he couldn't say if the source code of any eventual driver releases would be made available to the general public or kept proprietary."

    Will there be problems getting compiled binaries for Slackware or any other distribution? If there isn't any source code with those binaries what will I do? Now that RedHat's prime focus is building their company and keeping shareholders happy will they try to make deals with hardware makers to ship only binaries that work with Red Hat? I'm not saying that they are trying to do this or that they ever will but I worry about it...
  • Sounds like a bunch of tech-support crap to make you not try anything funny. Think about it - it's all Open Source. At a fundamental level, RedHat and Debian aren't *that* dissimilar, so making the drivers work with both shouldn't be a problem. And if they're binary-only drivers, then don't buy the NetWinder period.
  • First, I own RedHat stock. Second, I'm looking to certify my company's hardware with RedHat.

    Right. Now on to "why RedHat?" The answers are pretty straightforward. They have a high publicity factor and they have a real way of certifying hardware.

    If your company announces support for Debian, it won't get the publicity that support for RedHat does. It's just the way the media works.

    The "Cool it works with Linux" is self-certifying and there's no way to back it up.

    Getting back to "what doesn't work with Debian et all", that doesn't mean that it doesn't work. It's pretty reasonable to assume that hardware that works with Red Hat works with Debian, Caldera, Mandrake, etc. But what this means is that Red Hat was able to test the hardware in their labs and they certify that it works with Linux. Not being stupid, they say "Red Hat Linux" There's nothing from preventing you from saying from that point "Works with Linux".
  • It's great to have it *at least* Red Hat certified.
    But it would be even greater if it was "Linux Compatible"..

    Does maybe the LSB have any plans on certifying third party stuff as Linux Compatible? If anyone can independently certify something as being Linux compatible, I think it must be them.

    Greetings,
    Ivo

  • The missing link (some specs) (Score:3)

    by Emil Brink ( 69213 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:11AM (#1683140) Homepage
    Of course, the news posting would have been a bit more informative if this link [ibm.com] had been included. It's the specs for the Thinkpad 600E, on IBM US's pages. Prices seem to range from $2,709.95 (P-II 300 MHz, 32 MB SDRAM, 4 GB disk, 24X CD, 13.3" TFT, 4.9 lbs) all the way up to $4,011.61 (P-II 400 MHz, 64 MB SDRAM, 10 GB disk, DVD, 13.3" TFT, 5 lbs). I dig those 61 cents.

  • Linux combatable (Score:5)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:11AM (#1683141)
    If Redhat were to declare the IBM thinkpad compatible while it still has outstanding problems (modem!), Redhat would be running it's own trademark through the mud. Redhat "compatible" won't stand for anything if anyone can get a certification that say their product is compatible - anything could be!

    This is why we need a vendor-neutral group like the LSB to certify systems as being not just "redhat compatible", but linux compatible. I want to buy a product and have it work flawlessly under debian, redhat, mandrake, suse - all of them. Right from peg 1. I'm willing to pay alittle extra to make sure that the product I buy will work (right out of the box) with linux. I am not willing to pay even a penny more because redhat stuck a label on a product and sent it on it's merry way without any quality standards.

    --

  • "Certified Linux Compatible"? If something's guaranteed to be compatible with Linux, can I sue if it doesn't work on my 0.99.3 kernel? What if the precompiled binaries disagree with some library included in Joe Bob's Linux Distribution? If something's certified as Red Hat-compatible (or SuSe-compatible, or Debian-compatible...), that gives a definite example of somewhere you can be absolutely assured that the thing's going to work. Remember the whole "accountability" thing that suits seem to like? This is for that.
  • let me tell you what crap this is.
    I was set to buy this puppie when I asked the
    rep to contact headoffice to confirm.
    I was told that IBM DOES NOT CERTIFY THIS MODEL
    TO RUN LINUX.
    I was told because I'm a lawyer and you know the
    next step.
  • Besides having all the hardware be compatible, a linux notebook needs a keyboard without windows keys. Actually, what would be ideal is if they copied the happy hacking keyboard exactly, and just built it into a notebook. That would rock.

    Also, a 3 button mouse for X would be nice, plus a graphics chipset that is accelerated under X.

  • Re:what a crock (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yeah, maybe RH is most prevalent in the States but in Europe I'd say that SuSE has the largest following. Therefore saying it's for RH only may disuade SuSE (or any other distro) followers. This is a typical US company thinking that the rest of the world doesn't exist, and if it's popular then it most be the only one.

    If it needs a custom kernel, ie special patches make the kernel available with the machine. Simple.

  • Re:Marketoids vs Techies (Score:3)

    by Jburkholder ( 28127 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:49AM (#1683147)
    God, ain't that the truth! While I was reading, I just about gagged when I reached this:

    by claiming compatibility on Linux, we maintain the position that Thinkpad is the leader in this industry, period. No. 2, we absolutely see a lot of demand from influential people in the marketplace, particularly in education and in the smaller developer markets. When you look at your route-to-market strategy this is obviously important. Thinkpad is very strong in education and Linux is obviously targeting that. We're right there with them." --Tim Eades, a segment marketing manager for IBM Thinkpads

    Ok, my problem with the first statement is that his empasis is on _claiming_ compatibility, not deivering it.

    The next tip-off is the "route-to-market strategy" marketing-speak.

    Then he talks about "... Linux targeting that." and "We're right there with them." Sounds like he's talking about some other company's marketing strategy that he's aligning himself with. Maybe he meant to say RedHat vs Linux, that would make more sense but then this brings up the whole distribution-specific support headache.

    I just picture the engineers rolling their eyes reading this as it is obvious that this guy is talking out of his (insert name of bodily orifice here) since the marketing department has obviously gotten _way_ out in frot of the engineers and are making up their own copy.
  • at least this is a step in the right direction. After all, do we want IBM to declare the Thinkpad to be a 'Windows 2000 only hardware design'? IBM has proven that it wants and does deliver GPL drivers for their hardware (check out this [ibm.com]), so lets give them the chance to develop a driver for that modem. Software modems (winmodems) are subtle, their hardware is designed in a way that ties the driver deeply into Windows. It's Windows that actually includes the true 'core' of the modem's functionality - this is why winmodem drivers are easy to write for Windows, and hard to write for Linux. Not to mention the fact that the AT command set and various modem encodings are covered by numerous patents and licenses. In the last 2-3 years Microsoft has rewarded hardware manufacturers for designing pre-specified and Windows-only hardware - winmodems and DVD both have tough license traps.
    Yes, IBM could redesign their Thinkpad hardware, but first things first ;)
  • I disagree - the community is not "falling into a trap". Linux development will go on just fine without redhat certifying a thinkpad as compatible or not. Nothing IBM or Redhat could do would slow down or in any way hamper the development of linux drivers/kernel. If redhat decides to stick to it's guns and not certify non-compliant products, then IBM might release some tech specs (or even better - source for a driver), it might actually speed up development! Even if redhat certifies it, it'll mean nothing - zero gain, zero loss.

    Why this post got moderated up is beyond me...

    --

  • Read IBM's announcement carefully (Score:4)

    by shambler snack ( 17630 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:51AM (#1683151) Homepage
    Before everybody goes and condemns IBM and RedHat, they should look at the document that IBM has published. This type of document from a major manufacturer would have been unheard-of just six months ago.

    Somebody at IBM went to a lot of trouble to pull this together, pointing out the gotchas and the need to perform further mods to the distro (power management, for example) as well as some of the gotchas (suspend/resume problems with the built-in sound chip).

    As far as the built-in modem is concerned, they admit to a lack of support and an attempt to evaluate future support. What more do you want? The great majority of buyers are still Windows users, and it works fine under Windows. If I wanted a modem, I'd more than likely add the additional PCMCIA services required by Linux and add a seperate PCMCIA modem.

    I'd like to see a notebook-only Linux distribution that supports just the notebooks and their peculiarities. The IBM document, and other information on the web, would be an excellent starting point for pulling this together. The distro could focus just on that market to provide the best Linux experience to the grizzled veteran as well as the Linux newby.

    And let's commend IBM and others for this type of work, rather than just picking and grousing at them for the holes. If we (the 'Linux community') keep this up, then where is the incentive for any help from IBM, or anybody else?
  • Would this be "flamebait" on the part of the previous poster? :)

    Still, I think it's wee bit mendacious on the part of IBM. The curse of winmodems (or HSP modems, in Newspeak). Wasn't someone writing an driver layer for these crappy things? Someone care to remind me about this one?

    Right now, the best linux laptop seems to be the Sony Vaio machines.. I have a little Vaio C1 picturebook.. It has a mobile PII/266, a 1024x480 tft screen, and shock, horror, the modem works!

    XFree is more than acceptably nippy on it- unlike accelerated X. Xig cliamed that the machine was "lab tested", yet were unable to provide a demo version which worked with the machine, giving the excuse that "someone else must have configured it when testing, and we don't know what they did" :)

    I had a few problems installing, due to the USB floppy drive being visible to the BIOS, so the boot disk worked, but not to the installer at a later stage to load stuff from the second floppy disk.. The trick seemed to be to install from HD in a totally minimal way, and fix it up afterwards...

    With those caveats, and bearing in mind the very reasonable price tag, I'd have no problem suggesting one of these great little boxen to a potential mobile linuxer. They even look nice, and so have enough of a "wow factor" to annoy ordinary cloneslingers :)

    Ah, I was rambling again.. sorry.
  • IBM's howt o-ish document [ibm.com] implies that the linux kernel erroneously does not inform drivers when suspended/resumed.

    Anyone with technincal insight care to comment?
  • I'm also at RPI, and you would have bought it too if you knew the details of the program :)

    Basically, we all paid $2500 for it (or a lease option if chosen).
    The machine (according to IBM's web page) retails for around $4000.
    (we have a 366MHz processor, 6GB hard drive, 128MB RAM, etc.)
  • >Furthermore, why "Redhat" compatable? Can some
    >explain which parts won't work with SUSE or
    >Debian and why?

    because the different distro's might use different kernels or C libraries, and if it's only a binary-only driver they can use redhat's distro as a reference on what specific libs/kernel it will run on.
  • I recently left Slackware becouse it just didn't keep with the times

    Too bad you did...Slack 6.2 beta is out, and kicks ass...and the old complaint about glibc2 has become totally irrelevant, it's all based on glibc-2.1.2. It's the most stable beta I've ever seen, too :)

  • Neomagic chipsets are fully, free-software supported, by either an XF_Com (using RH/Precision Insight's terms, this means an X server whose license meets the requirements for inclusion into XFree86 proper, but has not yet been included by the XFree developers) or XFree86 >=3.3.3.

    The only problem is the audio (the Neomagic 256AV is a combined video/audio chipset); at least on my Dell Inspiron 3500 [rice.edu], the software mixer isn't fully lined up with the features of the hardware, so I can't, for instance, turn up the volume on my microphone, leaving that particular piece of hardware basically useless on my laptop.

    But graphics work just fine.

  • What does compatible mean any more? The concept has been sufficiently blurred over the last few years that such a designation is dubious at best. Furthermore, why "Redhat" compatable? Can some explain which parts won't work with SUSE or Debian and why?

    Red Hat has their definitions of what certified and compatible means on their Hardware Certification Program Program Overview [redhat.com]. Also keep in mind that being Red Hat compatible doesn't mean that it doesn't work with any other distribution, just that it meets Red Hat's criteria for compatibility.

    Red Hat took the initiative to get a hardware certification program started. This is excellent on Red Hats part. But as others have mentioned, it's not enough. Another organization, perhaps the LSB, need to get a certification program started too. Then we'll be able to see "LSB Certified" hardware too. But Red Hat should be commended for their program, even though, in the future, it should be superceded, if at all possible.

    -Brent
    --
  • No doubt we'll be seeing many people complain that "Red Hat is not Linux". But quite apart from that, there is a greater danger in these sorts of business alliances. If, to promote their name recognition, any distro endorses hardware that is not fully supplied with drivers, Linux will suffer in the long term.

    What is the single most horrific event in the life of a Windows user? Hardware incompatibility. As everyone knows, each release of Windows is bedeviled by PR disasters when 2% of modems, ethernet cards, whatever, fail to work properly. These things harm Windows' image, cause stress, and reduce sales.

    But consider how much worse it is with Linux. Newbies who already are nervous about command-line interfaces and only have hazy recollections of "dir" to help them navigate through the guts of the machine will have no chance - absolutely none - at understanding why their modem/ethernet/insert-noncompliant-hardware-here fails to work. Their obvious (although incorrect) answer will be.... are you ready...

    "Linux sucks"

    This is not what we want to hear from newbies. Yesterday there was a proposal posted about Linux Lite, and many of you agreed it was helpful to build a distribution that would "just work" out of the box. I consider hardware like the Thinkpad 600E the antithesis of that idea.

    -konstant
  • I'm using a Dell Inspiron 7000 which I've set up to triple boot NT Server, Win 98 and RH 5.2 at the moment. It works pretty well. However I despaired of getting LILO or NT Boot Manager to work correctly with all three, so I got a copy of PowerQuest's BootMagic. BootMagic is a truly cool program and supports just about any OS you want. I haven't had a problem since. You can also use it to dynamically hide/unhide partitions from particular OSes.

    I thoroughly recommend it over the alternatives.

    Mikester.

  • How many complaints have I read in the past that Linux gets ignored by hardware manufacturers who only care about compatibility with Windows?

    True. But unlike the windows world, there is no central body to create de facto standards. This is why it is important right now to enforce some level of standards on hardware/certification. If we don't, we may wind up with far worse things than plug'n'pray, or microsoft beta releases.

    And hey, if it will run Red Hat, it will probably run any decent version of Linux.

    True again. But redhat puts it's files in non-standard funky locations. For example, if you need to run a daemon at startup.. do you put it in /etc/rc.d/rc.local, or /etc/rc.d/init.d/mydaemon ? There are some subtle, yet profound differences, between distributions. Standardizing on just one condemns us all to that standard.

    So stop whining and complaining and visualize a world in which hardware manufacturers care more about Linux compatibility than Windows compatibility.

    Oh brave new world.... I'd rather have hardware that works, than hardware that's "certified" and flaky. Aren't one of the hallmarks of linux quality, not quantity?

    --

  • Most likely being 'RedHat compatible' means essentially 'compatible with Linux running kernel and libs about the same version as current RedHat (might work with other)'. I think it'd currently mean kernel 2.2.x and glibc 2.0.

    Why RedHat compatible? RedHat is willing to use money on some certification procedure (eg. IBM works on the hard and soft, then delivers to RedHat, where a small team hacks it for a while to see if it works with RedHat linux and if they can integrate possibly needed changes to RedHat (and release under GPL)).

    They use money -> they get the name. Good for them (most people see "RedHat compatible" leads to them buying it with RedHat linux) and good for Linux and other distributions (released under GPL -> just take the code, integrate it to the distro and it works).
  • Are there ever a LOT of posts on this topic.

    Here's some clue-food. I have a 390E, which is the internal, IBM version of this laptop. (Or at least, really, really darn close.)

    I work for IBM.

    IBM and Red Hat, in case no one has noticed, are about 2 miles from one another. They work together a lot.

    My Thinkpad runs linux. The modem does not work. That particular thinkpad has the Texas Instruments PCMCIA bridge, which is an absolute bitch. I hear that the new PCMCIA card services fix the problems related to it, tho.

    X on an external display at any decent resolution with this Thinkpad is really weird. I was not able to get it to work on the monitor I used. It either wasn't outputting a real signal, or the one it was sending was of such a high refresh rate that the monitor wouldn't synch. I'm also pretty sure that the display chipset has 2.5 MB of RAM, making it a wee bit odd. Afterstep, however, looks damned nice on mine. The built-in display on those laptops is _awesome_.

    APMD works great. The infrared and USB ports don't work, at all with linux as far as I can tell. I've only spent about 20 minutes with each, tho, so I'm not an expert.

    Red Hat 6 installs like a champ off of the CD-Rom, no problems, boots and runs. Yay redhat.

    Any other questions about it, feel free to e me.

    --
    Blue
    it's marmot.raleigh.ibm.com, for anyone in IBM/RTP :)
  • 6.2? They didn't do some new math to turn 4.0 into 6.2, did they?
  • This is definately not a beginners project. Writing this driver would require simulating the functions of a DSP chip on a general purpose CPU. It would require excellent understanding of how modems work at the signal level. It requires hard real time for acceptable performance. The reason no one has attempted reverse engineering one is that doing so would be very specific to a certain winmodem, and the work involved would be orders of magnitude greater than required for just about any other driver.
  • Fah - I've seen laptops with the NT sticker that won't even boot standard NT (only some bizarre and unavailable factory image.)

    Microsoft's standards for the "Designed for Windows NT" sticker have gotten pathetically bad. In the old days, they appeared to actually do hardware compatiblity testing, but now it looks like they are running the program just to gouge some extra dollars out of the hardware business.

    (At this point the Win2000 HCL looks a little more serious, but that could be only because all the kickbacks haven't rolled in yet.)
  • my brother, except for the grace of Jah there goes I. I was about to buy this puppie when I read an article on Slashdot. I phoned the in-house geek at the local thinkpad emporium and told him that I requested he check with his masters at the great Blue Box in the Big Supermarket.
    He told me, and I quote--"IBM DOES NOT CERTIFY THIS THINKPAD TO RUN WITH LINUX."
    So either I buy it and use the wonderful '98 or I don't--hard choices.
  • I have seen plenty of advertising over the years reguarding items are 100% compatible. Very little of it has ever been true. Look at all of the software that claims to be 100% Compatible with Windows 95/98? Many of them increase your rate of system crashes substantially, and are unstable. Sounds more like it's partially Win95 compatible.

    Also, with computers being 100% Windows compatible. How often have you installed a fresh copy of Windows on your laptop or desktop just to realize that none of your peripherals work, even after downloading the latest drivers for them? That WinModem that could change IRQs at will is now a Hayes 2400 on IRQ 7 and won't move. That's why I gave up getting preassembled machines and construct my own. The preassembled ones with all of their cheap/proprietary BS just hork what they claim to be compatibe with.

    Once I see a machine consistantly have no hardware issues after a reinstall (aside from general configuration), I'll buy into this 100% compatibility thing.

    Mike
  • Eades explained IBM's reasoning behind the compatibility announcement as twofold: "No. 1, by claiming compatibility on Linux, we maintain the position that Thinkpad is the leader in this industry, period."

    "by claiming compatibility we maintain the position that thinkpad is the leader..."
    Just plain marketing sleaze. They know full well that their view of compatibility is opposed to the users view. There is nothing worse than deceiving your users/customers for short-term gain. I have to agree with the other posts that state that the marketing dept must follow the Engineers and not the other way around.

  • Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought IBM had invested a significant amount of money in Red Hat back before the IPO.

    If this is the case, I'm not too surprised to see them refer to "Red Hat" compatibility. After all, they own part of da' Hat.
  • And how about getting that modem to work too? :)

    It's nice to see that IBM cares whether or not us linux geeks buy their equipment, but this reminds me of when the Corel NetWinders were coming out. They were advertised as coming with a modified red hat linux, when I enquired about debian etc, they said they had "redhat-specific drivers that unfortunately prevent installing a different distribution or recompiling a non-corel kernel".
  • Have you had a look at the language used? His point may be valid (although I disagree), but why does he need the foul-language to support it?

  • Thinkpad 600E: works great, but it ain't perfect (Score:3)

    by urashima ( 44711 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:59AM (#1683179)
    Okay, I've got one of these puppies with all the trimmings (minus the DVD drive), and overall, I *love* the box, though there's a few minor issues.

    1. Yeah, the modem. I just use an ethermodem. Yawn.
    2. Resetting the pcmcia (as in the case of a pcmcia restart or suspend/resume) causes the audio DMAs to mess up. I have scripts to get around this by reslotting the audio drivers. I consider this more important than the modem.
    3. APMD doesn't react properly and has to be disabled.
    4. Samba has a tendency toward keeling when you shuffle eth0 around as I often do.

    Considering the quality and quantity of glitches even the "Designed for NT" notebooks have under that other OS, I think I'd support labelling it "Works with Linux" but not "100% Linux Compatible".

    I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the 600s to anyone looking to build a Linux laptop: we've got five 600s in our department running RH & Mandrake Linux with no complaints (and the owners are users, not gurus), not to mention a few 760s and 770s and a couple of Dell Inspirons.

    Add VMWare to the mix, and you get a notebook that only needs to be rebooted when you upgrade kernels, runs NT in a window with M$ Office (the de facto standard in world freakin' domination, ugh), and moves from network to dialup to network with the grace of a ballerina.

    So IMHO, don't get your collective panties in a bunch. If Red Hat certifies it, though, they'd better release a stack of RPMs to fully enable the kernel and PCMCIA APM for the thing. And IBM had better release full specs if not source code for the modem and at least leave the ball in the Open Source community.

    $0.02
  • If you want the DOS TSR that runs the LT WinModem that I got with my Aptiva a couple of years ago, send e-mail to clawson-at-home.com and I'll blop what I've figured out (not much...) about the LT WinModem & Win95, at least, to you. I have it in a zip file...

    I haven't tested it in DOSEMU in Linux. But if someone were to reverse-engineer it, or if there was a good book(s) on how to RE DOS TSRs and hardware that someone could point me out so I could do it, but that would mean I get to buy the Linux Device Driver book and thus figure out how to write a Linux Device Driver as well... Hmm...

    Hulk confused...

  • Re:IBM is a bureaucracy (Score:3)

    by Louziffer ( 39872 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @02:01AM (#1683181) Homepage

    Plenty of people at IBM read Slashdot. I agree that this attempt is a bit misguided from the viewpoint of your average Linux user, but I don't think IBM is aiming this at Linux users at all. They may or may not know that anyone who has used Linux on any laptop at all can get it working on a Thinkpad ... that isn't the point.

    IBM's main interests have always revolved around business. Their forays into the home user market have never been much more than exploratory for a corporation their size. This recent attempt, successful or not, looks more like an effort to console business owners and CIOs who fear running this "new-fangled" OS on their Thinkpads. IBM simply picked a distro they all had probably heard of and showed how to install it. The fact that they put in caveats regarding the modem and other possible problems and don't put them in fine print is a step up from where IBM used to be in this business.

    I agree that IBM should release specs on their hardware, but there is certainly nothing forcing them to. There is no moral "right" or "wrong" side to stand on, only different points of view. If people really don't like the fact that they'll have to buy a PCMCIA modem, they won't buy a 600E for use as a Linux laptop. The same goes for the closed hardware specs. When IBM sees profit in opening up their hardware specs - more profit than if they don't - they'll jump at the chance. Until then, there are other companies to buy from.

    LouZiffer

  • A driver would be a blessing for those unfortunate souls who bought a winmodem not knowing what they werde doing.
    Of course they are inferior, but some people have them and would like Linux to support them.
    I hope they would release the source of a possible driver though (yeah right...)
  • But it's NOT that it is Red Hat specific, it happens to be compiled to work well with a certain library. That isn't RedHat purposly TRYING to make an incompatibility, as seemed to be the concern of several people.

    And as for the 'car' reference, it just doesn't fit in this equation. Something like glibc is by an external entity, and not RedHat itself. You can hardly say RedHat was/is trying to locking users in by making something RedHat only..
  • Well, it's off topic, but that is the case right now. Slack has ALWAYS been brandy spakin new for their new/beta releases, but it's NOT kept up, and there is NO SIMPLE way to maintain packages without doing it manually. While I despise people being RELIANT on RPM's or .deb's, they DO serve a purpose.

    I'm not going to rely on a distro that I've had a major issue with in the past. I'll probrably never use Slack again.
  • DSP != standard modem.
    Winmodem = DSP only.
    Standard modem = DSP + communications processor.
    A winmodem does Anolog- digital conversion only. A winmodem is similiar to a sound card.
    A 'real modem' processes the output of a dsp to data.
    You can connect a dumb terminal to a 'real' modem.
    A 'real' modem uses 0% of cpu time to communicate. A winmodem uses 100% of cpu time to communicate.
    You cannot print to a winprinter while using a winmodem to browse the internet.

    Monchi
  • DSP != standard modem.

    Winmodem = DSP only.

    Standard modem = DSP + communications processor.

    A winmodem does Anolog- digital conversion only. A winmodem is similiar to a sound card.

    A 'real modem' processes the output of a dsp to data.

    You can connect a dumb terminal to a 'real' modem.

    A 'real' modem uses 0% of cpu time to communicate. A winmodem uses 100% of cpu time to communicate.

    You cannot print to a winprinter while using a winmodem to browse the internet.



    Monchi
  • There are some problems, but overall, I like my TP600E a lot. It's fast, light, and works OK.

    I'm running

    1) oracle, postgres, mysql
    2) apache, apache 2.0, zope 2.0
    3) OpenDX, VTK, and VMD

    on a puny little laptop. That's kind of cool. Next week, fun with vmWare (need to port the Dopewars client to NT). It's a bloody *laptop*... all I really want is SOUND, which *is* a bit of a bitch. But my coworker got sound on his TP570, and I'm pretty close, so I'm hoping this certification nonsense will help me play my CDs through my laptop.

    Suspend is fucked up. apmd will hose up and force a dirty shutdown if you suspend and resume. Keep your windows/FAT partition around (well, at least enough to dump the contents of memory to, in my case 192MB + a little cushion for bookkeeping) to suspend to. Maybe IBM will fix this niggly too.

    CardBus cards suck. Sell yours and get a Xircom RealPort type III card before your X-jack breaks off. The Xircom card I have works like a charm and you don't have to unplug/re-plug it after a suspend. If you insist on using the 3Com card (don't say I didn't warn you), go into /etc/pcmcia/config.opts and change this line:

    include memory 0xc0000-0xfffff, memory 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff

    to

    include memory 0xc0000-0xfffff, memory 0x60000000-0x60ffffff

    and do an insmod 3c575_cb.o (or whatever you have) to force it. Then ping somebody. DHCP appears to be fuct for some reason with this card.

    Read this article:

    Installing Debian on a Thinkpad 600E [cam.ac.uk]

    I can't think of anything else. X configuration was a drag, but if you read the NeoMagic README it all becomes clear. I assume if you're reading Slashdot, that you already discovered this.

    I want 32-bit color (any resolution) on this thing and would gladly pay up to $250 for the upgrade.

    I can't think of anything else at the moment, but when I get sound working on *my* laptop I will be happy to gloat about it ;-).

    Keep plugging away at it. I wouldn't trade my Thinkpad for anything now that it works for me.

  • Someone should start selling little tiny penguin keys or stickers

    A company called Sandy Lion used to have a sticker line called "Playful Penguins" that were perfect. I've got one covering the Windows logo (AKA the "sigil of ultimate evil") on my Vaio. Unfortunately I can't find a web page for the company, but check your local Hallmark.

    Alternately, there's always Badtz Maru for those with a Sanrio fetish...

  • From the specs this turkey looks like a new version of the MWave DSP that IBM had a few years ago. The thing was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, with sound, modem, and fax support all in one. But IBM never got the drivers written for anything but Windoze, games never worked, and basically the market passed it by - all the marvelous flexibility of the DSP was wasted by incompetent marketing and software support. Now I see they have a separate sound chip, which is probably the only reason sound sort of works under linux, and I doubt if they could get the DSP people even to release the specs for 3rd party driver development.

    Caveat Emptor!

  • Well, as some of the other RPI freshemen commented, we got one of these lovely models. I too strugled to get my network card working, and although it didn't take me as long to get it working as some were commenting, it wasn't a piece of cake, made for begginers, linux install. I'm glad I had a couple of years of linux experience coming in to this.

    If IBM really does want this to work, they need to figure out someway to get the modem to work. That's really rather disgusting that it is a winmodem. I'm not sure how they can do it, but if they can, and they release there driver source, that'd go a long way of convincing me of their intentions. As it is, it seems like they are jumping on the word linux. I'm sure they intend for their computer to work on all linuxes, but they think that (RedHat == Linux) which it certainly isn't. While I have to dislike their misthought here, perhaps it will be the intention that counts.

    Infact, in the end it will be the intention that counts. If they are latching on to this 'Linux' buzzword thing, then they will be remembered for that. If they are really wanting to help, that will show too. I certainly hope they do help. The instalation guide looked pretty decent, a lot like what mine looked like when I wrote one after getting it working on mine (so I could help my friends) but there is enough wrong with these laptops, that I worry about what IBM can do.

    Good luck, IBM. You're going to need it....

    linuxy
    hornp@rpi.edu

  • If they really want to be compatible, they'll need a GPL-ed driver for that modem so that it can become a permanent part of the Linux kernel source and can be maintained in perpetuity. Otherwise, eventually we're going to be stuck with a driver that isn't keeping up with the kernel and can't be maintained as IBM will have moved on to newer hardware.

    So, please IBM, GPL the modem driver.

    Thanks

    Bruce Perens

  • Your getting paranoid. It's impossible to make a RedHat only binary. They ALL RUN LINUX.. Now, if Slackware doesn't provide something that this driver needs, well, that's Slackware's problem.. (I recently left Slackware becouse it just didn't keep with the times)

    You can load any modules you want with any distro of Linux you want, plain and simple.
  • IME, you have the lawyer part pretty much correct. IBM has always had a large fleet of those. Probably works both ways -- historically the lawyers have been needed to avoid getting into antitrust situations (IBM is huge, remember) -- the lawyers were the reason IBM didn't buy out Eckert and Mauchly when their fledgling company (making BINAC/UNIVACs) headed straight for the ground. Watsons Sr. and Jr. prob. would have liked to, and E&M wanted to sell it and go back to doing the engineering work, but the lawyers wouldn't have it.

    FWIW, the MWave modem&sound card was put in a lot of laptops -- IBM doesn't like reproducing engineering. It's pretty much the same as most cards of its type -- basically a DSP, some support circuitry and a driver. It's not even that bad an idea, since a DSP-only modem uses less power and takes up less physical space, both of which are at a premium in laptops. For a long time IBM refused to release the specs to the thing, leading to hacks [flexion.org] to make it work in SB compatibility mode. More recently (and the data on this point is confused a bit), IBM seems to have finally recanted and provided some basic specs for talking to the thing. Dale Wick has been working [adamcon.org] on making the thing work, or at least controlling it a bit, under Linux.

  • Tactically, it might be better to wait a little while and let IBM start marketing their products in a big way as "Redhat Linux Compatible." Once their campaign has momentum, our (The GNU/Linux community) hand is considerably strengthened. That is the point at which it makes sense to start making a fuss about the "misleading advertising," or better yet, claiming that their product is buggy since the modem doesn't work. At that point, IBM has only two real choices:
    1. Declare that they lied and it wasn't compatible after all
    2. Work valiantly to make their modem work with Linux
    Notice that option 1 becomes less and less viable the longer IBM has been claiming "Redhat Linux compatibility." At the moment, they could withdraw that assertion without anybody (including the mainstream media) noticing. So, an appropriately delayed response will probably get us option 2. In fact, if at that point IBM feels pressured to get things done fast, they might even feel a greater pressure to work with existing developers to quickly release GPLed drivers as opposed to binary-only ones.

    It seems like it is worth waiting to me...
  • Well, the thing that bothers me is the doubtful availability of source. If you wind up with binary-only 'support', then you will likely have the issue of mismatched librarues or some such problem that can be fixed by compiling the source on your deb, suse, slack whatever - but you can't cause you don't have source so it doesn't work at all.

  • Red Hat compatable? (Score:4)

    by unixchick ( 82410 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:12AM (#1683256)
    Last time I checked anything relating to money was Red Hat compatible.

    If you check out their site http://developer.redhat.com/certification/cert-ove rview.php3 you can see for yourself that getting a "compatible" rating doesn't take much effort or thought. They can't even use the Red Hat logo on packaging.

    For that matter getting Red Hat certified was very easy. However trying to get RH to improve the certs program is like hitting your head against a brick wall.

  • Red Hat compatible? (Score:3)

    by jabber ( 13196 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:15AM (#1683260) Homepage
    Suck for those of us that didn't install that increasingly flavored distribution, doesn't it?

    First CodeWarrior gets bound to Red Hat, now IBM's hardware 'compatibility' aims for that distro... I think that perhaps Big Business is missing the point of Linux. I'm certain that Red Hat enjoys the notoriety of being the 'originator' of Linux, but we know better. Yes, they're a great contributor to the exposure and success that Linux as a whole enjoys. Yes, they've made it easier and friendlier, and they may be the spear-head on which Linux is delivered into the mainstream, but the big companies out there need to know that Red Hat != Linux.

    Am I wrong in the expectation that if this prejudice isn't resolved, Red Hat is going to suffer a backlash from those that believe in the Freedom of Linux?

  • BeOS (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Runs on my Thinkpad 570E just fine.....except for the damn modem!
  • Typical case of marketing pushing for something without first confirming with the engineers. The other second common problem is for marketting pushing for a product release before it is up to par.

    This most commonly happen on organizations with a formal marketing deparment.
  • Scratch the Windows logo off and get a little Penguin key. Someone should start selling little tiny penguin keys or stickers to go over the windows one. Ahh, if I wasn't so lazy.... :-)

    Too late, it's already been done. Just saw this the other day (a Linux-specific keyboard), but don't remember where.

    I'll post the link if I can find it.

  • IMHO, IBM has really come out in the right direction here with the install guide and pointing out exactly what hardware works and what doesn't.

    I wish more vendors would give out explicit details of how to configure their hardware during the install process. Let's face it, Linux works with almost anyting, as long as you know how to configure it (except those idiotic winmodems). I'd really appreciate it if other vendors told you what install/kernel options to choose for their hardware.

    This is a basic problem with Linux, the OS should be capable of determining what hardware is in the computer and choosing a more specialized configuration. We don't really need (or want) hardware vendors to ship us binary drivers, but working up an autoconfigurator script would be very useful.

    Back on topic, the Thinkpad is certainly a good box; a little pricey, but what would you expect from IBM? Nice to see Linux support is being taken seriously. A couple more years and we'll have that world domination thing worked out...
  • Found it. The link is at Linux PR [linuxpr.com], the company is CoolKeyboards [coolkeyboards.com], and you can get 'em at Linux Mall [linuxmall.com] or sales@coolkeyboards.com [mailto]

  • We're falling into a trap... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The community is falling into an unintentional trap. We're waiting for action from corporations AGAIN, before we do anything... This is no the way Linux was made into a usable OS, and it's not the reason it's compatible on so many platforms. IBM should open up the hardware specs and let the developer community go nuts, that way it'd be compatible with everything. Why WON'T this modem work under Linux? I'm assuming it will work under something (OS/2, Windoze), and if it does, it should be possible to make it work under Linux, FreeBSD etc as well... If IBM doesn't want to open up the specs, it's an IBM problem, use hardware that IS open... Idealistic, but it's the best way.

  • Re:Red Hat compatible? (Score:4)

    by kieran ( 20691 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:26AM (#1683301)
    > but the big companies out there need to know that Red Hat != Linux.

    You're missing a large point from the corporate point of view, and that's that IBM and such aren't
    going to waste their effort making things "probably more or less compatible with most distributions,
    really". If you want them to support "Linux" as opposed to just "$distribution Linux", we're going
    to need more from the LSB or other standards body.

    When IBM can go and chat to the LSB and be told "You need to do this, this and this to make your
    system 100% Linux-compatible, which means that it will definitely work on all these LSB-compliant
    distributions", _then_ you'll see the Distribution-independence that you're looking for.

    A backlash against RedHat for this sort of thing would be somewhat misdirected.
  • What does compatable mean any more? The concept has been sufficiently blurred over the last few years that such a designation is dubious at best. Furthermore, why "Redhat" compatable? Can some explain which parts won't work with SUSE or Debian and why?

    I suspect we are past the days of binary, black & white thinking about compatability. We need a more sophisticated "compatability designation" now, don't we? How about something like that geek code some of you sign with. A hardware version could contain all the info you need, and simply be run through a decoder to indicate all the details:
    a) Modem: Winmodem, only works when in another OS
    b) Sound Card: Specs, works with kernels 2.0.x
    c) NIC: Specs, blah blah blah

    Perhaps it could even be expanded to give us a sense of the feel and mood of the hardware - techno-power machine with peripherals duct taped to the side and sitting inside a fridge, or pastel or neon iMac, etc.

    Hmmmm....
  • I'm disappointed to see this post labeled 'insightful'. People see a modem which doesn't work with Linux and immediately scream CRAPPY WINMODEM when there is a significant difference between the dsp-driven modem shipped by IBM and the winmodems shipped by 3com. It would make just as much sense for me to have been yelling WIN-TV-CARD or WIN-SCSI-ADAPTER at my hardware prior to the development of Linux drivers for them.

    The winmodems have no other purpose than to be cheap. Even under windows, they are inferior to a normal modem because they offload processing onto the CPU.

    The Thinkpad, OTOH, uses a DSP to drive their modem and sound (which, btw, is supported by Linux). It has to be initialized at boot-time, but does all the necessary thinking by itself. Just because there is no driver for Linux doesn't change the fact that it's a perfectly wonderful modem.

    There is, of course, an issue about how much support IBM has given developers for this particular project, but please save the "cheap-ass hardware in name brand laptop" rant for elsewhere. IBM's laptops are nearly without peer in their engineering and attention to detail.

  • You can rant and rave all you want. It does not matter. IBM is like the IRS - the people who work in certain depts. get their paychecks for whatever they do. For instance,

    "Early Tuesday morning, says Tim Eades, a segment marketing manager for
    IBM Thinkpads, IBM will set up a Web page for the Thinkpad 600E that will
    include the compatibility announcement"

    Indeed, the article is up and running, and it says that Thinkpad is 'compatible' with linux.

    What this means is another matter. But you can rest assured that if you call up IBM, a drone-like voice will assure you that it is 'compatible with redhat linux'.

    What interests me is - does anybody at IBM actually read /. ? Do they care? And more importantly, is there an email id, or is this the archetype of the faceless bureaucracy?

    L.

  • I think that this is just the beginning of an inevitable homogenization of the operating system for use in the desktop world. One big reason that applications proliferate is the consistency that is imposed by a single point of control. While Red Hat has and will continue to have (I hope) only the best intentions, and they will release all their source code, you cannot deny that they have a leadership position. This position so granted will allow them to introduce consistency in user interface, installation, device support, etc. that user's (new users, corporate users) want. This will happen, however subliminally. Get ready for it, theres nothing that can be done about it. It has to happen.

  • Re:what a crock (Score:3)

    by Teilo ( 91279 ) on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @01:34AM (#1683328) Homepage
    Certifying laptops for use in the business enterprise is what I do for a living, so I know whereof I speak: Appart from a specific distribution, Linux cannot be certified to run on any hardware.

    How can you possibly support Linux in general? You would have no idea what hodge-podge of drivers/libs that any given user has. But, if you stick with a particular distribution, then you would be dealing with a known sub-set.

    Think about it. If you were a major hardware manufacturer, and you were looking to support a particular distribution, which would you choose? Obviously the most prevelant and generally supported distribution, which, for the time being, is Red Hat.

  • Besides having all the hardware be compatible, a linux notebook needs a keyboard without windows keys.

    Steal em.. Where's the code to allow the keys to be used in Linux and potentially reprogrammed to do whatever you want?

    Scratch the Windows logo off and get a little Penguin key. Someone should start selling little tiny penguin keys or stickers to go over the windows one. Ahh, if I wasn't so lazy.... :-)


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