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[Emil Oppeln-Bronikowski]

Daniel Robitaille wrote:

> "Hewlett-Packard (HP) offers its notebook customers in Europe the option
> to choose a customized Linux version for its products. 

  A little bit off-topic, but I have a word about laptops with 
preinstalled Linux. Two weeks ago father of my girlfriend asked me for 
an assistance on a new laptop purchase. I went to the shop and found a 
quite decent Acer laptop. 1.3Ghz, 256Mb, 60Gb of HDD. Quite cheap. Linux 
preinstalled. Wow, Linux preinstalled! I never had a preinstalled Linux 
device, also, there was no Microsoft Windows price penalty. We've bought it.

  It was loaded with Linpus[1] Linux. But it didn't even worked up to 
init 3. After I did ^C it just dropped me for a Bash. I was pissed:

  * Now I know why MS can claim that selling whiteboxes is just a reason 
for not paying for MS Windows.

  * While I can figure out what to do, I can imagine what would happend 
if Weronika's father would took this laptop to home and stared it 
without my assistance. It's just broken.

  * Next time when someone would mention Linux, he would connect the dot 
between Linux and broken.

  OTOH Linpus is a normal distribution, not a kernel and base utils. So, 
this seems to be work of people who install it at Acer. There's a 
learning in this -- we would love to get Ubuntu distributed with HP 
devices (or any other nice devices) but we need to be sure if they 
actually using it or it's just a hoax to get a nice looking pricetag.

  A little rant, hope you didn't mind.

-- 
  Emil Oppeln-Bronikowski, http://bronikowski.com
  Random order: Work. Sleep. Toilet. Eat.