[TriLUG] Lenovo and LINUX

[Mauricio Tavares via TriLUG]

On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 6:04 PM Wes Garrison via TriLUG
<trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
>
> Respectfully, I think some folks are missing the point.
>
> Of course people have run Linux and other *nixes on all manner of PCs and
> laptops for years.
>
> The important differences here are:
> 1) you can order these workstations and P-series Thinkpads with Ubuntu LTS
> or RHEL *preinstalled*.  This opens Linux up to a much larger customer base.

      I can hear the combined groan of the Fedora crowd right from
where I sit. I even know exactly what they will be complaining about,
starting with why ubuntu and not them and then why the "ancient" RHEL
instead of hip and modern fedora. And it will go downhill from there.

I could not resist.

> 2) it is officially supported so all drivers will work, including the
> fingerprint reader

      That is very important. Let's hope the drivers will not be
windows ones with a wrapper around it.

> 3) they are contributing drivers and other software back upstream
> 4) this will benefit other Thinkpads/workcenters, and probably other PCs as
> well.

      I would also add

5) Having a large manufacturer selling a desktop with Linux as its OS
instead of the usual "pay the Microsoft tax and then install Linux" is
significant to the acceptance of Linux as a viable desktop
environment.

>
> If this benefits RHEL, it will certainly benefit Centos.  If it benefits
> Ubuntu, it will probably benefit Debian.
>
> Will all drivers be FLOSS?  Unknown.  But it's a start, and that's welcome.
>
      While I know ubuntu is not very agnostic about FLOSS, I thought
centos was more. I may be wrong, but I do agree that this is
important. In fact it is my main pet peeve with nvidia.

With that said, I probably could get someone technical from Lenovo to
be crucifi... er, give a (virtual) talk at trilug so we can pok... ask
relevant questions. If anyone is interested, let me know.

> -Wes
>