8 ms·

I don't believe it. They said the same thing more than a year ago, it is still announced in their website for the P models (the choice for ubuntu or fedora), b

I don't believe it. They said the same thing more than a year ago, it is still announced in their website for the P models (the choice for ubuntu or fedora), but yet they are impossible to buy. I have harassed the lenovo sales people for months and I have given up in buying a P laptop with linux installed. I do not understand why do they play this kind of stupid games. The only thing that they offer is to buy the laptop with windows, then renounce the windows licence, then follow an online guide to install linux. Honestly, to buy a few laptops for 4000 EUR each, it is fairly insulting to be told that.

kick 7y ago
That's only because you're in a less valuable market. You can purchase pretty much every single option they have with Linux in America. It's still unfortunate, but it's not like they don't sell many devices with Linux pre-installed.
- enriquto 7y ago
  The thing is that the site in France, written in french, announces this option yet it is not available.
  - kick 7y ago
    Sure. It's understandable that'd be frustrating. It's still probably more likely due to poorly-adapted copy than due to a genuine interest in selling Linux laptops in France, or incompetence.
- dubcanada 7y ago
  Which is funny because I believe Linux marketshare is higher in Europe than US (well based on statcounter and other sources).
  - kick 7y ago
    Market-share might be higher, but the market is much smaller, and it's still a minority. Selling to a minority in the US is much more profitable than selling to a minority in Europe, solely because of scale.
    - enriquto 7y ago
      > the market is much smaller How so? The population of Europe is about double the population of the USA. Even if you narrow it down to the european union, it is still larger than the USA. Why should the market for laptops be smaller in Europe? Are you sure?
      - layer8 7y ago
        Country-specific keyboards may be s factor.
        bjoli 7y ago
        Probably not. Most european keyboards are just differenr caps on the iso layout. Modern keyboards in the western world are usually ANSI or iso, and I believe there are one or two prominent layouts used in Asian countries. I have never understood why the ANSI layout is popular. The compromises of the iso layout to cram the extra keys in are hardly noticeable apart from the right pinky if you touch type. The key caps are different, of course, but that can't be very expensive.
      - kick 7y ago
        I'm absolutely sure, yes, especially if we're talking about the EU alone (but I'd prefer to argue for Europe as a whole), that the market for high-end laptops is significantly smaller. Eastern Europe is an order of magnitude poorer, and is the reason Europe's population is higher than the USA's (that said, there is a reason I initiated with "America"; these customizations are also offered in Canada, and North America is conventionally considered a single market). Especially when considering localizations that have to be made, and that the most valuable European countries require you get physical technical goods certified per-country (mainly looking at Germany here), and that they're getting taxed more, the margin that you can get from Europe is much smaller already than in America. It doesn't make sense to offer the same extent of customization (which, too, lessens margin) as in America.
dathinab 7y ago
If you consider that one of the major reasons for them to provide linux is: 1. To "show" that you can nicely run Linux on their hardware. 2. Have a better position wrt. deals with Microsoft. As they always could start promoting Linux on their systems much more widely. 3. Good publicity. Ironically all of this can be archived with "selling" the product officially but then not putting much work/care into the actual sells. ;=) Just hope this gets better.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Good publicity? Are there so many people buying laptops with Linux as a “requirement” that this is a thing? Iirc, Sputh Korea dumped government use of Windows, so I could see a reason for a mfg to support Linux like that but in terms of just “publicity”?
  - modo_mario 7y ago
    Of course it is. Devs, sysadmins, etc using Linux and such don't like it when they have to fiddle around because they need to fiddle to get bluetooth working because some producer was an ass or whatnot. These are also the people that get turned to when the uncle or friend needs a recomendation for a new laptop, etc. It's uncommon enough among major vendors that it's good publicity (and it's uncommon because of shady anticompetitive Microsoft deals)
    - SirLotsaLocks 7y ago
      exactly, buying a PC and putting Linux on it is one thing, but laptops nowadays are very locked down and hard to modify. if you want a laptop with Linux, you better hope the hardware works out if the box because otherwise you are in for days of pain and suffering trying to fix it, at least in my experience as a non Linux expert. personally I look for laptops with Linux either preinstalled or commonly installed. if I'm looking at laptops and I see that they offer Fedora out of the box that's a major point even if I don't run Fedora because I know the support is there.
  - nine_k 7y ago
legitster 7y ago
This is likely something that you have to go through a distribution partner for. A lot of their products are specifically for enterprise customers - they may not bother stocking them for direct retail.
axegon_ 7y ago
As you said, finding any laptop with linux is near impossible. Coincidentally I have become friends with a guy at a large reseller near me, so every time I want a new laptop, I call him up, tell him which ones I've set my eyes on, then I go with a live USB to see which one works out of the box. Manufacturers are obsessed with shoving some half-baked proprietary hardware on their higher end laptops, rendering them unusable for anyone but Windows users. What really rises my eyebrow is the "fedora" part here. I haven't used Fedora since 2015 and for the time being I don't intend to switch to anything new/old. I can't recall a single time I've seen a linux-out-of-the-box laptop that has anything other than Ubuntu(which I truly hate). It would be nice to see someone putting something else and shipping it like that for a change.
- tomrod 7y ago
  I switched over to Fedora in 2015 from Ubuntu. Very nice experience. System76 is a well developed hardware supplier with Linux. Dell as well.
- derekp7 7y ago
  I use Fedora as my daily driver, since I primarily work with RHEL/CentOS at my job. The main problem I have with Fedora is their 6-month release cycle, without having periodic LTS versions. The support a version for 1 year, so that means once a year I have to go through the dance of upgrading, and seeing what is different. Fortunately the differences that cause a learning curve are getting fewer with each update. Of course, since RHEL / CentOS is derived from a frozen version of a given release of Fedora, then CentOS can count as an "LTS" release -- it just goes too long between releases (but is great when a new one comes out).
  - Niccizero 7y ago
    I believe the lack of Fedora LTS is maily to increase the sales of RHEL Workstation
    - rbanffy 7y ago
      You can think that RHEL/CentOS is Fedora LTS
josteink 7y ago
> I don't believe it. They said the same thing more than a year ago On the flip side... Does it really matter? I just checked and I could get a $100 off my ThinkPad of choice by selecting “no OS”. To me that’s more than sufficient. I’ll setup my Linux the way I want it anyway, and you better believe that’s going to be from scratch. Edit: from scratch with a vanilla installer. Nothing zealous or crazy. Edit 2: I also found out my (Lenovo) work-computer is seamlessly receiving BIOS- and other FW-updates seamlessly via fwupdmgr in Linux. I have no reason ever to boot Windows on that thing. All in all, happy Linux-using Lenovo-customer checking in.
- enriquto 7y ago
  I also enjoy to install linux from scratch. But having a laptop available with linux installed is a big plus. That way, I am sure that all hardware problems (correct throttling, hybernating, etc.) are my fault and not lack of hardware support. I also have an example install with working drivers. Then, I do the installation from scratch, if it is for me. Or if it is for a new postdoc that just needs a linux laptop I can leave it as it is.
  - passthejoe 7y ago
    I hope you mean Linux from scratch in the generic sense and not http://www.linuxfromscratch.org http://www.linuxfromscratch.org. Though I suppose it's to each his/her own.
    - enriquto 7y ago
      LOL, I meant installing a regular distro such as debian on a new laptop. (I also did the linuxfromscratch.org tutorial on a virtual machine several years ago, and it was an enjoyable learning experience, but this is not what we were talking about.)
- bityard 7y ago
  > and you better believe that’s going to be from scratch Unless you're doing it for the education, this sounds like a form of self-harm.
brudgers 7y ago
Three and a half years ago I looked into buying a Thinkpad with Linux. After not finding it on the web site I called the number listed there. It was a weekend. The person said Linux laptops are under commercial sales and gave me a number to call Monday during business hours. I never did and bought a Dell mobile workstation without Linux because it was a deal on the Dell Outlet. Don’t know if it’s still the case that Linux laptops are via commercial sales. Today, I would just buy a Thinkpad and install Linux if I wanted a Thinkpad with Linux to the point I was ready to spend. It’s a simple problem to solve with little or no money depending on whether a Linux Thinkpad is cheaper. I’d rather spend a few minutes installing Linux than hours of shopping over multiple days. Or to put it another way, Google search doesn’t turn up a lot of pages with Linux on Thinkpad installation horror stories. At worst it will just be the usual Linux on a laptop friction.
- gardnr 7y ago
  They do make them extremely difficult to buy on their website and the linux offerings are generally more expensive when you do find them. Maybe that makes sense in some spreadsheet somewhere that takes long term support into account but when I look at a the same laptop, on with windows and one with linux. When the one with linux is $400 more, it's pretty clear that what the company wants to sell.
  - brudgers 7y ago
    In some corporate environments $400 for preinstalled Linux might be a bargain given the logistics of receiving, unpacking, reconfiguring, testing, repacking, and shipping laptops out across the organization. At the consumer end, I can only imagine what it can be like to support a customer who fears installing Linux on a Thinkpad. It’s not a customer I would pursue with discounts.
    - tormeh 7y ago
      If I could buy a Windows laptop, and be absolutely sure that it's the exact same hardware used in the corresponding Linux model, then sure, I'd save those 400 USD. As it is with laptops, the Windows version might have a Linux-unfriendly network card or something silly and the fun begins. That's why I chose a Dell with Linux pre-installed. Besides, it comes with support, including automatic BIOS upgrades.
pronik 7y ago
I've got a P53 for work and I can think of a thousand reasons why this didn't pan out yet. One major problem is still updating your firmwares. While you can update your BIOS and "embedded controller" (https://fwupd.org/lvfs/search?value=p53 https://fwupd.org/lvfs/search?value=p53), you miss out on firmware updates for your WWAN adapter, your Thunderbolt 3 docking station and several smaller things too. I suppose Lenovo's sales or whoever is in charge listens when the engineers tell them "you will have the following problems immediately, which we are not ready to solve yet". Would be nice if they actually delivered instead of promising, but I'm not mad at them for not rushing it.
- mattdm 7y ago
  The Lenovo engineers I spoke with are concerned about firmware updates for these things too, and will be working with their vendors to make sure they're in the LVFS.
unethical_ban 7y ago
System76 exists. I don't know what your requirements are, and I haven't used them so I won't swear by them. Were I in the market for a new laptop, I would want their Lemur Pro. Open firmware, good specs, decent price. They have a variety of laptops and desktops as well.
JeremyNT 7y ago
I bought the Dell XPS developer edition last time I had a chance. I don't care how good Lenovo hardware may be so long as they pull this kind of stunt. Vote with your dollars. Buy from a vendor who supports Linux.

kick 7y ago

That's only because you're in a less valuable market. You can purchase pretty much every single option they have with Linux in America. It's still unfortunate, but it's not like they don't sell many devices with Linux pre-installed.

enriquto 7y ago
The thing is that the site in France, written in french, announces this option yet it is not available.
- kick 7y ago
  Sure. It's understandable that'd be frustrating. It's still probably more likely due to poorly-adapted copy than due to a genuine interest in selling Linux laptops in France, or incompetence.
dubcanada 7y ago
Which is funny because I believe Linux marketshare is higher in Europe than US (well based on statcounter and other sources).
- kick 7y ago
  Market-share might be higher, but the market is much smaller, and it's still a minority. Selling to a minority in the US is much more profitable than selling to a minority in Europe, solely because of scale.
  - enriquto 7y ago
    > the market is much smaller How so? The population of Europe is about double the population of the USA. Even if you narrow it down to the european union, it is still larger than the USA. Why should the market for laptops be smaller in Europe? Are you sure?
    - layer8 7y ago
      Country-specific keyboards may be s factor.
      - bjoli 7y ago
        Probably not. Most european keyboards are just differenr caps on the iso layout. Modern keyboards in the western world are usually ANSI or iso, and I believe there are one or two prominent layouts used in Asian countries. I have never understood why the ANSI layout is popular. The compromises of the iso layout to cram the extra keys in are hardly noticeable apart from the right pinky if you touch type. The key caps are different, of course, but that can't be very expensive.
    - kick 7y ago
      I'm absolutely sure, yes, especially if we're talking about the EU alone (but I'd prefer to argue for Europe as a whole), that the market for high-end laptops is significantly smaller. Eastern Europe is an order of magnitude poorer, and is the reason Europe's population is higher than the USA's (that said, there is a reason I initiated with "America"; these customizations are also offered in Canada, and North America is conventionally considered a single market). Especially when considering localizations that have to be made, and that the most valuable European countries require you get physical technical goods certified per-country (mainly looking at Germany here), and that they're getting taxed more, the margin that you can get from Europe is much smaller already than in America. It doesn't make sense to offer the same extent of customization (which, too, lessens margin) as in America.

dathinab 7y ago

If you consider that one of the major reasons for them to provide linux is: 1. To "show" that you can nicely run Linux on their hardware. 2. Have a better position wrt. deals with Microsoft. As they always could start promoting Linux on their systems much more widely. 3. Good publicity. Ironically all of this can be archived with "selling" the product officially but then not putting much work/care into the actual sells. ;=) Just hope this gets better.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Good publicity? Are there so many people buying laptops with Linux as a “requirement” that this is a thing? Iirc, Sputh Korea dumped government use of Windows, so I could see a reason for a mfg to support Linux like that but in terms of just “publicity”?
- modo_mario 7y ago
  Of course it is. Devs, sysadmins, etc using Linux and such don't like it when they have to fiddle around because they need to fiddle to get bluetooth working because some producer was an ass or whatnot. These are also the people that get turned to when the uncle or friend needs a recomendation for a new laptop, etc. It's uncommon enough among major vendors that it's good publicity (and it's uncommon because of shady anticompetitive Microsoft deals)
  - SirLotsaLocks 7y ago
    exactly, buying a PC and putting Linux on it is one thing, but laptops nowadays are very locked down and hard to modify. if you want a laptop with Linux, you better hope the hardware works out if the box because otherwise you are in for days of pain and suffering trying to fix it, at least in my experience as a non Linux expert. personally I look for laptops with Linux either preinstalled or commonly installed. if I'm looking at laptops and I see that they offer Fedora out of the box that's a major point even if I don't run Fedora because I know the support is there.
- nine_k 7y ago

legitster 7y ago

This is likely something that you have to go through a distribution partner for. A lot of their products are specifically for enterprise customers - they may not bother stocking them for direct retail.

axegon_ 7y ago

As you said, finding any laptop with linux is near impossible. Coincidentally I have become friends with a guy at a large reseller near me, so every time I want a new laptop, I call him up, tell him which ones I've set my eyes on, then I go with a live USB to see which one works out of the box. Manufacturers are obsessed with shoving some half-baked proprietary hardware on their higher end laptops, rendering them unusable for anyone but Windows users. What really rises my eyebrow is the "fedora" part here. I haven't used Fedora since 2015 and for the time being I don't intend to switch to anything new/old. I can't recall a single time I've seen a linux-out-of-the-box laptop that has anything other than Ubuntu(which I truly hate). It would be nice to see someone putting something else and shipping it like that for a change.

tomrod 7y ago
I switched over to Fedora in 2015 from Ubuntu. Very nice experience. System76 is a well developed hardware supplier with Linux. Dell as well.
derekp7 7y ago
I use Fedora as my daily driver, since I primarily work with RHEL/CentOS at my job. The main problem I have with Fedora is their 6-month release cycle, without having periodic LTS versions. The support a version for 1 year, so that means once a year I have to go through the dance of upgrading, and seeing what is different. Fortunately the differences that cause a learning curve are getting fewer with each update. Of course, since RHEL / CentOS is derived from a frozen version of a given release of Fedora, then CentOS can count as an "LTS" release -- it just goes too long between releases (but is great when a new one comes out).
- Niccizero 7y ago
  I believe the lack of Fedora LTS is maily to increase the sales of RHEL Workstation
  - rbanffy 7y ago
    You can think that RHEL/CentOS is Fedora LTS

josteink 7y ago

> I don't believe it. They said the same thing more than a year ago On the flip side... Does it really matter? I just checked and I could get a $100 off my ThinkPad of choice by selecting “no OS”. To me that’s more than sufficient. I’ll setup my Linux the way I want it anyway, and you better believe that’s going to be from scratch. Edit: from scratch with a vanilla installer. Nothing zealous or crazy. Edit 2: I also found out my (Lenovo) work-computer is seamlessly receiving BIOS- and other FW-updates seamlessly via fwupdmgr in Linux. I have no reason ever to boot Windows on that thing. All in all, happy Linux-using Lenovo-customer checking in.

enriquto 7y ago
I also enjoy to install linux from scratch. But having a laptop available with linux installed is a big plus. That way, I am sure that all hardware problems (correct throttling, hybernating, etc.) are my fault and not lack of hardware support. I also have an example install with working drivers. Then, I do the installation from scratch, if it is for me. Or if it is for a new postdoc that just needs a linux laptop I can leave it as it is.
- passthejoe 7y ago
  I hope you mean Linux from scratch in the generic sense and not http://www.linuxfromscratch.org http://www.linuxfromscratch.org. Though I suppose it's to each his/her own.
  - enriquto 7y ago
    LOL, I meant installing a regular distro such as debian on a new laptop. (I also did the linuxfromscratch.org tutorial on a virtual machine several years ago, and it was an enjoyable learning experience, but this is not what we were talking about.)
bityard 7y ago
> and you better believe that’s going to be from scratch Unless you're doing it for the education, this sounds like a form of self-harm.

brudgers 7y ago

Three and a half years ago I looked into buying a Thinkpad with Linux. After not finding it on the web site I called the number listed there. It was a weekend. The person said Linux laptops are under commercial sales and gave me a number to call Monday during business hours. I never did and bought a Dell mobile workstation without Linux because it was a deal on the Dell Outlet. Don’t know if it’s still the case that Linux laptops are via commercial sales. Today, I would just buy a Thinkpad and install Linux if I wanted a Thinkpad with Linux to the point I was ready to spend. It’s a simple problem to solve with little or no money depending on whether a Linux Thinkpad is cheaper. I’d rather spend a few minutes installing Linux than hours of shopping over multiple days. Or to put it another way, Google search doesn’t turn up a lot of pages with Linux on Thinkpad installation horror stories. At worst it will just be the usual Linux on a laptop friction.

gardnr 7y ago
They do make them extremely difficult to buy on their website and the linux offerings are generally more expensive when you do find them. Maybe that makes sense in some spreadsheet somewhere that takes long term support into account but when I look at a the same laptop, on with windows and one with linux. When the one with linux is $400 more, it's pretty clear that what the company wants to sell.
- brudgers 7y ago
  In some corporate environments $400 for preinstalled Linux might be a bargain given the logistics of receiving, unpacking, reconfiguring, testing, repacking, and shipping laptops out across the organization. At the consumer end, I can only imagine what it can be like to support a customer who fears installing Linux on a Thinkpad. It’s not a customer I would pursue with discounts.
  - tormeh 7y ago
    If I could buy a Windows laptop, and be absolutely sure that it's the exact same hardware used in the corresponding Linux model, then sure, I'd save those 400 USD. As it is with laptops, the Windows version might have a Linux-unfriendly network card or something silly and the fun begins. That's why I chose a Dell with Linux pre-installed. Besides, it comes with support, including automatic BIOS upgrades.

pronik 7y ago

I've got a P53 for work and I can think of a thousand reasons why this didn't pan out yet. One major problem is still updating your firmwares. While you can update your BIOS and "embedded controller" (https://fwupd.org/lvfs/search?value=p53 https://fwupd.org/lvfs/search?value=p53), you miss out on firmware updates for your WWAN adapter, your Thunderbolt 3 docking station and several smaller things too. I suppose Lenovo's sales or whoever is in charge listens when the engineers tell them "you will have the following problems immediately, which we are not ready to solve yet". Would be nice if they actually delivered instead of promising, but I'm not mad at them for not rushing it.

mattdm 7y ago
The Lenovo engineers I spoke with are concerned about firmware updates for these things too, and will be working with their vendors to make sure they're in the LVFS.

unethical_ban 7y ago

System76 exists. I don't know what your requirements are, and I haven't used them so I won't swear by them. Were I in the market for a new laptop, I would want their Lemur Pro. Open firmware, good specs, decent price. They have a variety of laptops and desktops as well.

JeremyNT 7y ago

I bought the Dell XPS developer edition last time I had a chance. I don't care how good Lenovo hardware may be so long as they pull this kind of stunt. Vote with your dollars. Buy from a vendor who supports Linux.