Re: Should I buy a tablet?
 

You're right, it's not ideal but the components tend to be relatively common compared with smartphone hardware so there's a reasonably chance of drivers being upstreamed. It's still a much better situation than buying a laptop where Linux isn't officially supported and you may be missing some Linux drivers altogether, thus you're unable to use some of the hardware. That said, even if you buy a laptop where the vendor does support Linux, that doesn't mean that they are going to upstream drivers so I don't think the situation is any different.

Since when where we stuck with an ancient kernel on our N900s? :P

The CB30 is an older model. The Toshiba Chromebook 2 (CB35-B3340) supports up to 9 hours.

Really? I got that figure straight from Lenovo's website. I'm not interested in the others you mentioned as they are missing a full HD display.

Meanwhile, the CB35-B3340 has dropped 30USD and is only 300USD from Amazon.

I think you missed the part where I said I won't be running a Google OS on the device.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?
 

Apples and oranges?
I like fruit salads but I don't think MS does. So unless someone (you? me?) brings that to a court I don't think that policy will change.

Maybe that works in LEO, but in Germany every seller is free to decide whether to make a contract with you or not. And I guess after you've returned the 2nd device because you don't want the Windows he'll probably just ignore you.


I'm not worried so much about hardware, but about software.
For Easy Debian Jessie I have to patch glibc because the standard Debian packages don't like Kernel 2.6.28.
And I've heard rumors that Systemd is or will be very specific about which kernel versions it accepts. Now, I don't like Systemd anymore than you do, but the reality right now is that it's kind of hard to get around it.

Not sure if you're right. At least you're not wrong.
Be wary of any Dell laptops that officially come with Ubuntu! There have been reports of acpi tweaks that initially only worked with the Dell-Ubuntu images because of non-free kernel modules.
Afaik it's fixed now because these tweaks have been mainlined, but it took longer than Canonical's support of the respective Ubuntu version lasted. So Users of these Dell-Ubuntus were without any security fixes for quite some time.

The sites I checked [1][2] indicate, that the CB30 is the Chromebook 2. :confused:

Prices on manufacturers websites tend to be higher than in regular shops.
At least with Dell it usually helps to phone them to get a more "reasonable" price. It's like on a bazar. I wouldn't be surprised if it's similar with Lenovo.


[1] http://www.toshiba.de/laptops/Chrome.../chromebook-2/
[2] http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/t...loc=at&hloc=de

Re: Should I buy a tablet?
 

Since about November 2009? :P

I don't think it's apples and oranges. If anything, claiming that an OS is an integral part of a HW is a bigger BS than claiming that any particular application is an integral part of an OS.

I am confident that the claim would collapse in the court like a house of cards. The trouble is, who will challenge it? Other companies with big bucks had a vested interest in challenging Microsoft and IE. I certainly do not have enough resources for a similar challenge, even though I am confident that I would win if I tried. We need someone with big bucks to start the ball rolling.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?
 

I agree. But it's still a separate issue, and therefore separate kinds of fruits. Losing the browser trial did not force MS to stop their OS bundling.
Quite frankly I think the browser trial was a mistake because of its too narrow scope. It should have been about any kind of bundling.
And it should not just have been against MS, but against anyone who forcefully bundles any SW with any HW. Though I'm not sure if that's even legally possible.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?
 

Not if you use a distro that supports non-systemd init.

It looks like in Germany they use a model number that is similar to the original Toshiba Chromebook. Elsewhere CB35 is used.

That's not always the case. The Toshiba US website also lists the CB35-B3340 at 300USD. In any case, negotiating a 50%+ discount with Lenovo seems like I'd be pushing my luck.

It seems you're not familiar with this project. Great progress has been made and continues to be made.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?
 

I intended to write a quite long paragraph here before I realized that it would be off-topic in this context.
Let me just say that Systemd is much more than an init system and that I have a timeframe of like 10 years in mind, which is how long I usually use my computers.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?
 

Just two weeks ago I built a new CLFS installation (C here being cross-compile... my host being a regularish x64 and target being MIPS 64 LSB system...)

Long story short, when building LFS you have 2 major options to go for, you need to make selection between sysvinit and systemd init.
Naturally I selected the sysv based init :D

Re: Should I buy a tablet?
 

I can also have Debian Jessie without Systemd init. But I can't have it without Systemd, the middleware or "2nd kernel" or however you may call it. (Actually I can, but what remains has little to do with what Debian is about.)
That's why I said it's much more than an init system. And most of the discussion totally misses the point because it only revolves around the (comparably insignificant) init aspect.

btw: This is the point where I think this topic should be split.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?
 

Just a heads up, Dell is now selling the 2015 XPS 13 at a discount and running Ubuntu. No Windows license included.

The early criticism so far is that while Ubuntu can challenge Windows 8 from a usability perspective, it apparently suffers at being finger-friendly, being battery efficient, and making most of the HiDpi display. Anandtech are awaiting review units from Dell.

I think the criticism is true, but we'll see how exaggerated it is, once we get some reviews flowing through.

Re: Should I buy a tablet?
 

Apparently that depends on where you're ordering from, I just checked and there's no "No Windows" option for me. The only thing I can customise is which of the expensive extended warranty packages that I want to waste my hard earned money on :D