Toshiba considers installing Linux on notebooks

by Brad Linder May 3rd 2007

The head of Toshiba's Italian division says the company is thinking about giving customers the option of ordering Tecra, Satellite, Portege and Qosmio notebooks with Linux preinstalled.

Luigi Cattaeneo says the move would allow the company to sell notebooks in 500 Euro range, which could help Toshiba compete with European market leaders HP and Acer.

The news comes at a time when Dell is preparing to offer computers pre-loaded with Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. There's no word on whether Toshiba would plan to offer laptops running Linux in the U.S. as well.

[via SlashGear]

Tags: dell, italy, toshiba, ubuntu

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

ben said 1:17PM on 5-03-2007

how much would this drop the cost of an average laptop? I am not really sure how much a windows license adds to the overall cost of a laptop...anyone have an idea?

Todd said 2:44PM on 5-03-2007

Ben the OEMs are at the complete mercy of Microsoft. Licensing wildly fluctuates fiscal quarter to quarter. Where I used to work, they had to renegotiate two and three times a year.

Vista easily adds $100+ per laptop, but that isn't a good indicator of the evil ( and now obsolete thanks to Ubuntu ) licensing costs. The OEMs have to also pay outrageous licensing costs for all the Windows servers used internally - which is also passed onto the consumer.

Bob said 9:04PM on 5-03-2007

go toshiba, you can do it too like dell.
i am already running ubuntu on my toshiba and its perfect. so let's do it

http://mininova.wordpress.com/

Franklin said 11:14PM on 5-03-2007

Hey, the more the merrier, I say.

Diddle said 7:54AM on 5-04-2007

Toshiba should focus their energy on ensuring their laptops don't crap-out instead of worrying about the OS that runs on them.

Clarion said 10:40AM on 5-04-2007

I loved my first Toshiba laptop, and I just recently bought another one. Never had any complaints. Too bad they weren't already planning on doing this before I wanted a new one. =(

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