Doc Searls, one of the weblogging gods and certified cluetrain guru, is trying the LOTL (Linux on the laptop) experience. I think he is right that if the LOTL experience becomes accessible to "suits" (that's me - I used to be a software engineer but we're about 10 years past the "use by" date on most of my hands-on technical skills) that Linux actually has a chance at starting to displace Windows among non-geeks. As he says:
If you want to talk hardware sex, at least to suits like me, you have to talk laptops. The problem is, you can't leverage nonsexy desktop technology into sexy laptops, not entirely anyway. They're too different, not only in size and performance requirements, but in nature and purpose. This difference goes far beyond form factors and cosmetics..Desktops are appliances. Laptops are instruments. The difference between a Dell desktop and an Apple PowerBook is like that between a Kenmore washer and a Fender Stratocaster. And by that I mean no offense to the Dell. What I want here, by making that comparison, is to motivate Dell to make an instrument of similar quality and utility. For all I know they already do. I have friends who swear by Dell laptops. But Dell makes those laptops, the stickers on them tell me, to run Windows XP. I want one that's made to run Linux or one of your favorite distros. Whatever. Just get serious about it, guys. Now is the time
He's using an IBM T40 ThinkPad as the hardware platform. The T40 is a sweet machine so he's got the hardware dialed in if he's looking to build a LOTL Stratocaster. I've used about six different makes of Wintel laptop - Dell, Compaq (RIP), Gateway, Toshiba, IBM, and Sony - and ThinkPads are the best, without a doubt. And his basis of comparison for LOTL is not Windows on a ThinkPad, it's an Apple OS X PowerBook.
Clearly, PowerBooks are the instruments to beat. And that's exactly what I'm hoping to see happen with this new ThinkPad. No, I don't expect it to do everything the PowerBook does. I expect it to do more. Eventually.
If LOTL can even get close to the OS X/Powerbook combo then MSFT better start worrying. Of course, today it ain't even close. Read the whole thing and subscribe to Doc's Linux SuitWatch newsletter to get the updates on the project.
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