I'm thinking of purchasing an IBM ThinkPad soon, and I'd like to know how
easy it is to return Windows XP Pro to IBM for the Windows refund, as
stipulated in the EULA.  Does anyone know what the refund price is?  Has
anyone had to take IBM to small-claims court?  If so, what happened and what
was the end result?  Thanks.

On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:52:35 +0000, MH wrote:

> I'm thinking of purchasing an IBM ThinkPad soon, and I'd like to know
> how easy it is to return Windows XP Pro to IBM for the Windows refund,
> as stipulated in the EULA.  Does anyone know what the refund price is? 
> Has anyone had to take IBM to small-claims court?  If so, what happened
> and what was the end result?  Thanks.

As a practical matter you have a couple of choices, buy it with XP Home
which means you waste less money but you get an unusable version of
Windows, or buy a different laptop. You would be crazy to spend your time
trying to collect a $100 refund that they have no intention of giving you.
HP is now selling a laptop with SUSE 9.1 installed. It's a Pentium M
laptop so it's pricey but it's competitive with Thinkpads. There are also
a bunch of Taiwanese laptops that you can buy with no OS, but when I
priced them they were more expensive then the equilvalent HPs and Compaqs,
they come with better graphics chips but that's of no consequence to Linux
users because we don't have DirectX. BTW most HPs and Compaqs are nearly
identical but the Compaq versions are significantly cheaper because HP
bundles less software with them so for Linux users there is less money
wasted although you are still forced to buy the Windows with unless you
buy the one model that comes with SUSE (which you can find under the
business laptops on the HP site).

General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:52:35 +0000, MH wrote:
> 
>> I'm thinking of purchasing an IBM ThinkPad soon, and I'd like to know
>> how easy it is to return Windows XP Pro to IBM for the Windows refund,
>> as stipulated in the EULA.  Does anyone know what the refund price is?
>> Has anyone had to take IBM to small-claims court?  If so, what happened
>> and what was the end result?  Thanks.
> 
> As a practical matter you have a couple of choices, buy it with XP Home
> which means you waste less money but you get an unusable version of
> Windows, or buy a different laptop. You would be crazy to spend your time
> trying to collect a $100 refund that they have no intention of giving you.
> HP is now selling a laptop with SUSE 9.1 installed. It's a Pentium M
> laptop so it's pricey but it's competitive with Thinkpads. There are also
> a bunch of Taiwanese laptops that you can buy with no OS, but when I
> priced them they were more expensive then the equilvalent HPs and Compaqs,
> they come with better graphics chips but that's of no consequence to Linux
> users because we don't have DirectX. BTW most HPs and Compaqs are nearly
> identical but the Compaq versions are significantly cheaper because HP
> bundles less software with them so for Linux users there is less money
> wasted although you are still forced to buy the Windows with unless you
> buy the one model that comes with SUSE (which you can find under the
> business laptops on the HP site).

He could try something like Linuxcertified as well.

I have been using a laptop from them for the past few months and am happy
with it.

They give you a choice of Fedora or Xandros, and were working on a Debian
installation as well.

I had a Thinkpad before this one, and though I miss the trackpoint
sometimes, an inexpensive optical mouse ($12 on buy.com) really makes a
difference.

I have also heard of a company that sells Linux tablet PC's for fairly
reasonable prices.

On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 15:09:48 -0400, Madhusudan Singh wrote:

> General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:52:35 +0000, MH wrote:
>> 
>>> I'm thinking of purchasing an IBM ThinkPad soon, and I'd like to know
>>> how easy it is to return Windows XP Pro to IBM for the Windows refund,
>>> as stipulated in the EULA.  Does anyone know what the refund price is?
>>> Has anyone had to take IBM to small-claims court?  If so, what
>>> happened and what was the end result?  Thanks.
>> 
>> As a practical matter you have a couple of choices, buy it with XP Home
>> which means you waste less money but you get an unusable version of
>> Windows, or buy a different laptop. You would be crazy to spend your
>> time trying to collect a $100 refund that they have no intention of
>> giving you. HP is now selling a laptop with SUSE 9.1 installed. It's a
>> Pentium M laptop so it's pricey but it's competitive with Thinkpads.
>> There are also a bunch of Taiwanese laptops that you can buy with no
>> OS, but when I priced them they were more expensive then the
>> equilvalent HPs and Compaqs, they come with better graphics chips but
>> that's of no consequence to Linux users because we don't have DirectX.
>> BTW most HPs and Compaqs are nearly identical but the Compaq versions
>> are significantly cheaper because HP bundles less software with them so
>> for Linux users there is less money wasted although you are still
>> forced to buy the Windows with unless you buy the one model that comes
>> with SUSE (which you can find under the business laptops on the HP
>> site).
> 
> He could try something like Linuxcertified as well.
> 
> I have been using a laptop from them for the past few months and am
> happy with it.
> 
> They give you a choice of Fedora or Xandros, and were working on a
> Debian installation as well.
> 
> I had a Thinkpad before this one, and though I miss the trackpoint
> sometimes, an inexpensive optical mouse ($12 on buy.com) really makes a
> difference.
> 
> I have also heard of a company that sells Linux tablet PC's for fairly
> reasonable prices.

The big guys have such large economies of scale that even with the Windows
tax they tend to be cheaper. I looked at Linux Certified before ordering a
Compaq Athlon 64 laptop. Linux Certified has an A64 laptop with an Athlon
64 2800+, 512M of RAM, 40G disk, DVD + CDRW,  and a 1280x800 display for
$1839. I just ordered a Compaq R3000Z with an Athlon 64 3400+, 1G of DDR,
60G disk, DVD + CDRW, 1680x1050 display, a 802.11g card (which I hope will
work with ndiswrapper), and Windows XP Pro (I spent the extra $49 for Pro
because on those very rare occasions when I need Windows for sometine I
wanted a version that worked), all for $1553. The Linux Certified laptop
has a better graphics chip but I don't see how that's useful on a Linux
Laptop, there aren't any games on Linux anyway and Xemacs will run just
fine with the graphics chip on the Compaq. If there were true whitebox
laptops like there are for desktops then savings would be possible, but
there aren't. Everyone's laptops are coming from the same couple of
Chinese manufacturers, so there is no way for the little guys to be
competitive because they can't get the same prices that Dell, HP and IBM
can.

Windows XP Professional is the only OS available for the ThinkPad T42 I'm
considering, not Windows XP Home.

> As a practical matter you have a couple of choices, buy it with XP Home
> which means you waste less money but you get an unusable version of
> Windows, or buy a different laptop.

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:52:35 +0000 tarihinde, MH dedi ki:

> I'm thinking of purchasing an IBM ThinkPad soon, and I'd like to know how
> easy it is to return Windows XP Pro to IBM for the Windows refund, as
> stipulated in the EULA.  Does anyone know what the refund price is?  Has
> anyone had to take IBM to small-claims court?  If so, what happened and what
> was the end result?  Thanks.

I would buy a Linux pre-installed laptop, not only because of cost, but
more importantly because of warranties.

With a Linux pre-installed laptop, even if you scrap the shipped Linux and
install your own favorite distro, you would be sure that every component
will work with Linux. And you would have the option of bringing it back
for a refund if some part of the laptop is found to be incompatible with
Linux.

With a Windows pre-installed laptop, you are on your own.

-- 
Abdullah        | aramazan@ |
Ramazanoglu     | myrealbox |
________________| D-O-T c�m |

General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 15:09:48 -0400, Madhusudan Singh wrote:
> 
>> General Schvantzkoph wrote:
>> 
>>> On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:52:35 +0000, MH wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I'm thinking of purchasing an IBM ThinkPad soon, and I'd like to know
>>>> how easy it is to return Windows XP Pro to IBM for the Windows refund,
>>>> as stipulated in the EULA.  Does anyone know what the refund price is?
>>>> Has anyone had to take IBM to small-claims court?  If so, what
>>>> happened and what was the end result?  Thanks.
>>> 
>>> As a practical matter you have a couple of choices, buy it with XP Home
>>> which means you waste less money but you get an unusable version of
>>> Windows, or buy a different laptop. You would be crazy to spend your
>>> time trying to collect a $100 refund that they have no intention of
>>> giving you. HP is now selling a laptop with SUSE 9.1 installed. It's a
>>> Pentium M laptop so it's pricey but it's competitive with Thinkpads.
>>> There are also a bunch of Taiwanese laptops that you can buy with no
>>> OS, but when I priced them they were more expensive then the
>>> equilvalent HPs and Compaqs, they come with better graphics chips but
>>> that's of no consequence to Linux users because we don't have DirectX.
>>> BTW most HPs and Compaqs are nearly identical but the Compaq versions
>>> are significantly cheaper because HP bundles less software with them so
>>> for Linux users there is less money wasted although you are still
>>> forced to buy the Windows with unless you buy the one model that comes
>>> with SUSE (which you can find under the business laptops on the HP
>>> site).
>> 
>> He could try something like Linuxcertified as well.
>> 
>> I have been using a laptop from them for the past few months and am
>> happy with it.
>> 
>> They give you a choice of Fedora or Xandros, and were working on a
>> Debian installation as well.
>> 
>> I had a Thinkpad before this one, and though I miss the trackpoint
>> sometimes, an inexpensive optical mouse ($12 on buy.com) really makes a
>> difference.
>> 
>> I have also heard of a company that sells Linux tablet PC's for fairly
>> reasonable prices.
> 
> The big guys have such large economies of scale that even with the Windows
> tax they tend to be cheaper. I looked at Linux Certified before ordering a
> Compaq Athlon 64 laptop. Linux Certified has an A64 laptop with an Athlon
> 64 2800+, 512M of RAM, 40G disk, DVD + CDRW,  and a 1280x800 display for
> $1839. I just ordered a Compaq R3000Z with an Athlon 64 3400+, 1G of DDR,
> 60G disk, DVD + CDRW, 1680x1050 display, a 802.11g card (which I hope will
> work with ndiswrapper), and Windows XP Pro (I spent the extra $49 for Pro
> because on those very rare occasions when I need Windows for sometine I
> wanted a version that worked), all for $1553. The Linux Certified laptop
> has a better graphics chip but I don't see how that's useful on a Linux
> Laptop, there aren't any games on Linux anyway and Xemacs will run just
> fine with the graphics chip on the Compaq. If there were true whitebox
> laptops like there are for desktops then savings would be possible, but
> there aren't. Everyone's laptops are coming from the same couple of
> Chinese manufacturers, so there is no way for the little guys to be
> competitive because they can't get the same prices that Dell, HP and IBM
> can.

Good points.

However, Linuxcertified (and other such "small" guys) gives support and
warranties for its products. For many people, those considerations can be
important.

Second, the price are relatively high because their sales are relatively
low. While it might sound slightly backwards, unless we patronize these
kind of companies, they will find it hard to compete against M$ driven big
boys. The result will be that linux loaded and supported laptops will
remain expensive for everyone. Not something we might like a few years down
the road when time comes to replace that old laptop :)

-- 
 --- from The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 12:53:18 -0400, Madhusudan Singh wrote:

> General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 15:09:48 -0400, Madhusudan Singh wrote:
>> 
>>> General Schvantzkoph wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:52:35 +0000, MH wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> I'm thinking of purchasing an IBM ThinkPad soon, and I'd like to know
>>>>> how easy it is to return Windows XP Pro to IBM for the Windows refund,
>>>>> as stipulated in the EULA.  Does anyone know what the refund price is?
>>>>> Has anyone had to take IBM to small-claims court?  If so, what
>>>>> happened and what was the end result?  Thanks.
>>>> 
>>>> As a practical matter you have a couple of choices, buy it with XP Home
>>>> which means you waste less money but you get an unusable version of
>>>> Windows, or buy a different laptop. You would be crazy to spend your
>>>> time trying to collect a $100 refund that they have no intention of
>>>> giving you. HP is now selling a laptop with SUSE 9.1 installed. It's a
>>>> Pentium M laptop so it's pricey but it's competitive with Thinkpads.
>>>> There are also a bunch of Taiwanese laptops that you can buy with no
>>>> OS, but when I priced them they were more expensive then the
>>>> equilvalent HPs and Compaqs, they come with better graphics chips but
>>>> that's of no consequence to Linux users because we don't have DirectX.
>>>> BTW most HPs and Compaqs are nearly identical but the Compaq versions
>>>> are significantly cheaper because HP bundles less software with them so
>>>> for Linux users there is less money wasted although you are still
>>>> forced to buy the Windows with unless you buy the one model that comes
>>>> with SUSE (which you can find under the business laptops on the HP
>>>> site).
>>> 
>>> He could try something like Linuxcertified as well.
>>> 
>>> I have been using a laptop from them for the past few months and am
>>> happy with it.
>>> 
>>> They give you a choice of Fedora or Xandros, and were working on a
>>> Debian installation as well.
>>> 
>>> I had a Thinkpad before this one, and though I miss the trackpoint
>>> sometimes, an inexpensive optical mouse ($12 on buy.com) really makes a
>>> difference.
>>> 
>>> I have also heard of a company that sells Linux tablet PC's for fairly
>>> reasonable prices.
>> 
>> The big guys have such large economies of scale that even with the Windows
>> tax they tend to be cheaper. I looked at Linux Certified before ordering a
>> Compaq Athlon 64 laptop. Linux Certified has an A64 laptop with an Athlon
>> 64 2800+, 512M of RAM, 40G disk, DVD + CDRW,  and a 1280x800 display for
>> $1839. I just ordered a Compaq R3000Z with an Athlon 64 3400+, 1G of DDR,
>> 60G disk, DVD + CDRW, 1680x1050 display, a 802.11g card (which I hope will
>> work with ndiswrapper), and Windows XP Pro (I spent the extra $49 for Pro
>> because on those very rare occasions when I need Windows for sometine I
>> wanted a version that worked), all for $1553. The Linux Certified laptop
>> has a better graphics chip but I don't see how that's useful on a Linux
>> Laptop, there aren't any games on Linux anyway and Xemacs will run just
>> fine with the graphics chip on the Compaq. If there were true whitebox
>> laptops like there are for desktops then savings would be possible, but
>> there aren't. Everyone's laptops are coming from the same couple of
>> Chinese manufacturers, so there is no way for the little guys to be
>> competitive because they can't get the same prices that Dell, HP and IBM
>> can.
> 
> Good points.
> 
> However, Linuxcertified (and other such "small" guys) gives support and
> warranties for its products. For many people, those considerations can be
> important.
> 
> Second, the price are relatively high because their sales are relatively
> low. While it might sound slightly backwards, unless we patronize these
> kind of companies, they will find it hard to compete against M$ driven big
> boys. The result will be that linux loaded and supported laptops will
> remain expensive for everyone. Not something we might like a few years down
> the road when time comes to replace that old laptop :)

The small guys are always going to be small, the battle for the laptop
market is between Dell, HP and IBM. HP is selling a laptop with SUSE on
it. It's a Centrino machine and it's priced competitively with other
Centrinos. If you want to encourage the Linux laptop market the thing to
do is to buy the HP not a box from Linux Certified. If HP doesn't succeed
with this offering that will effective kill the Linux laptop market
forever.

BTW my A64 Compaq laptop arrived today. Mandrake 10.0 for AMD64 installed
fairly easily, the only thing that I had to hack was the XF86Config-4 file
to get it to handle the 1680x1050 display. I haven't been able to get
Win4Lin installed, the installer needs a library that isn't there. I also
wasn't able to get Gnumeric installed, there were a ton of RPM conflicts.
The 32 bit version of Mandrake 10.0 doesn't work at all, it gets to the
enabling swap partitions section of the boot and then the machine goes
into some sort of infinite loop. I also haven't tried to use the wireless
card. There aren't any 64 bit windows drivers so I can't use ndiswrapper
with the 64 bit Mandrake and 32 bit Mandrake 10.0 doesn't work. I'll give
10.1Beta 1 a try tomorrow. If that works then I might try to get the
wireless card to work with that. 

If I had it to do over again I would have gotten the smaller screen, the
1680x1050 makes the laptop a little to large. Also if you use standard
font sizes it's too difficult to read. Fortunately Gnome allows you to
increase the font sizes of all of the Gnome related things. The other
thing I would have done differently is to not buy the HP carrying case,
it's pathetic compared to the case for my old Dell. The Dell case opens up
like a suitcase so that it's easy to pack the laptop away. The HP is like
a briefcase, you have to drop the laptop in from the top. Also the HP has
virtually no padding, the Dell case was very well padded.

>HP is selling a laptop with SUSE on
> it. It's a Centrino machine and it's priced competitively with other
> Centrinos. If you want to encourage the Linux laptop market the thing to
> do is to buy the HP not a box from Linux Certified. If HP doesn't succeed
> with this offering that will effective kill the Linux laptop market
> forever.

HP doesn't make it easy to but the nx5000 either.  First, it's being
marketed as a business laptop, through their business sales, not consumer
sales.  SUSE Linux HP Edition 9.1 is listed as being a feature, first
bullet, at
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/321957-64295-89315-321838-f33-395654.html.
However, if you go to
http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/ctoBases.asp?ProductLineId=430&FamilyId=1776&c=HPSMBProd_nx5000&n=D_I_DR_X_T_x_category_buy&t=ad&r=HP_SMBProd_O&r=HP_ProdShowcase_O&n=D_I_DR_X_T_x_GenericNVP&c=HPProdShowcase_hpcompaqbu395654&t=ad&lang=en&cc=us,
and try to customize one of the five base models, only the last model listed
(the $1,505 one) is customizable with SUSE Linux HP Edition 9.1.  Common to
all five models is a 4200rpm drive.  This is agonizingly slow, considering
that the new standard is 5400rpm, and Hitachi drives that run at 7200rpm
(comparable to desktop drives) are quite common.  Pulling up data from a
4200rpm can take a long time.  Even worse (as you can replace the hard
drive) is that all five systems use a shared memory architecture (SMA).
What this means that instead of the graphics chip having its own memory, it
uses system memory instead, which is slower and obviously gobbles up memory.
If you want to use WINE, run native-Linux games, or even just graphics
intensive apps or something like CAD, you're screwed.  Of course, this isn't
upgradable.  What HP did was create an underpowered shitbox, then hope that
business users (as this is what they're aiming at) are too clueless to
figure this out, and that people would pounce on the Linux angle while
ignoring everything else.  That and it uses a glidepad.  (personal
preference there).  As for "killing the Linux laptop market forever," that's
hyperbole.  IBM and Dell both offered and then discontinued Linux laptops,
and the market still exists.  There are a handful (if expensive) laptop
company's that specialize in Linux laptops.  And, of course, you are free to
install Linux on your laptop yourself.  Good luck with the Windows Refund
though, as you're unlikely to get a OS-less laptop from any of the major
OEMs.  Besides, HP isn't playing very hard for the Linux laptop market
anyways.

> 4200rpm can take a long time.  Even worse (as you can replace the hard
> drive) is that all five systems use a shared memory architecture (SMA).
> What this means that instead of the graphics chip having its own memory, it
> uses system memory instead, which is slower and obviously gobbles up memory.

For reading mail and text processing, it works just dandy, tho.  It uses but
a tiny fraction of the overall memory anyway (what? 4MB maybe? 8MB at the
very worst?).  It does have the disadvantage that it uses up main
memory'sbandwidth so it tend to slow down the overall performance, but again
we're talking less than 10%: nothing you'd notice.

Admittedly, it's worthless for games-like stuff, but that's not the
targetted market anyway, so the decision is not stupid.


        Stefan