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Lenovo now shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US

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Re: Lenovo now shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US

#21

Post by mindcrime »

loudmax wrote: post #12
jedieaston wrote: post #2

That’s neat. Does anyone know why they are targeting a 3D animation workload, specifically? Is there software for rendering ran on Linux machines that’s used in industry?

I wonder if this isn't in response to a single large customer. Maybe some film studio has ordered a large number of these and they want official support for the OS of their choice. Since Lenovo is already supporting this configuration for one particular customer, it's relatively easy for them to offer support to anyone else who wants to run the same platform.

FWIW, I was a Lenovo employee up until a couple of months ago, and while I didn't work in that division specifically, you hear rumblings. And there is definitely a sentiment among many within Lenovo that wants to push Linux harder, in order to get out from under Microsoft's thumb. It's a delicate dance though, as Lenovo (like all PC OEM's at the moment) is so dependent on MS. And I don't know if this sentiment goes as high as the CEO or not, but I do know that it goes pretty damn high up the corporate hierarchy.

Re: Lenovo now shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US

#22

Post by tharne »

delfinom wrote: post #3

Wonder what crapware they managed to preload that may be even more difficult to remove on Linux than on Windows without the nuclear option.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted here. This is a very valid concern given Lenovo's history.

Re: Lenovo now shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US

#23

Post by kart23 »

loudmax wrote: post #7

Ships with Windows or Ubuntu. RHEL 7.3 officially supported. Well, this is a positive development. I'd really like to see official support for something in the ThinkPad line, but after jumping through some hoops during installation, I've had zero problems running Arch on my Carbon X1.

Yeah, my t480s has been pretty good with arch as well. Except the wifi is sometimes finicky, but I've experienced stuff like that on nearly any machine. My Dell xps 13 surprisingly had a couple issues, though it was a ~2016. I heard they fixed a lot in later models.

Re: Lenovo now shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US

#24

Post by stusmall »

gonzo41 wrote: post #5

This is great but I'd still just format the drives and load from an image I put onto a thumb drive. Who knows what new glassfish-esq malware they have integrated into the factory OS.

The point is if they are offering it preinstalled it means they are putting more effort and support behind making it work well on their hardware. Linux hardware support has come a long ways but there are still occasional rough patches. At this point in my life I take zero joy in trouble shooting them so official Linux support is a big deal

Re: Lenovo now shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US

#25

Post by mindcrime »

delfinom wrote: post #3

Wonder what crapware they managed to preload that may be even more difficult to remove on Linux than on Windows without the nuclear option.

Probably none. In my experience (and I was a Lenovo employee until very recently) most - if not all - of the Lenovo employees understand that SuperFish / etc. were a huge mistake, and are very diligent about not doing anything that could be perceived as going down a similar path again.

Of course it's a big company and there may be somebody hidden away in some corner planning "SuperFish 2.0", but the people I interacted with with were all pretty committed to not engaging in those kinds of behaviors. Take that FWIW.

Disclosure: I was with Lenovo until recently, and I still have friends who work there, but I have no financial stake of any sort in this discussion.

Re: Lenovo now shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US

#27

Post by yoloClin »

delfinom wrote: post #3

Wonder what crapware they managed to preload that may be even more difficult to remove on Linux than on Windows without the nuclear option.

The positives is that official support means linux/whatever distribution the vendor has chosen is nearly guaranteed to work on the host and pushes for component manufacturers to support Linux if they want to end up in Lenovo workstations. Both are issues which at one point made Linux a difficult option in the past, particularly with vendor built PCs.

If you've ever trusted a vendor install from any manufacturer you've made a bad decision. Lenovo is just the one that got caught doing something silly.

Re: Lenovo now shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US

#28

Post by phito »

gonzo41 wrote: post #5

This is great but I'd still just format the drives and load from an image I put onto a thumb drive. Who knows what new glassfish-esq malware they have integrated into the factory OS.

I think you meant Superfish, glassfish is a Java EE Server (that I wish to never have to touch again)

Re: Lenovo now shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US

#29

Post by throwaway55554 »

OrangeMango wrote: post #8

I went to the linked page and tried to make configuration changes - the same computer with and without Windows. I couldn't find that option. On Dell's website, they let you do this to many of their workstation computers and it appears that the cost of Windows is around $200. What's interesting is that when they are clearing out stock and they offer some basic workstation configurations at $500 or so, you can still de…

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/search?text=ubuntu

> Windows® 10 Pro for Workstations
Ubuntu
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®

I searched for Ubuntu and on the page that comes up, you can see in the description the html isn't quite right, so maybe it's not live just yet?

Re: Lenovo now shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US

#30

Post by RandomGuyDTB »

ilikepi wrote: post #19
OrangeMango wrote: post #8

I went to the linked page and tried to make configuration changes - the same computer with and without Windows. I couldn't find that option. On Dell's website, they let you do this to many of their workstation computers and it appears that the cost of Windows is around $200. What's interesting is that when they are clearing out stock and they offer some basic workstation configurations at $500 or so, you can still de…

I messed with the low-end config a a bit, and it looked like the "Windows 10 Pro 64bit English,Spanish,French" license is more like around $100. Still a nice drop though. Too bad there's no way to choose "No OS installed", but maybe Canonical kicks them a little bit of money to offer Ubuntu.

Didn't Europe (maybe someone else) forbid shipping computers without operating systems? Might be because of that.
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