Xiaomi preps Linux laptops for the post Christmas sales rush Pumped up by a (claimed) $1bn in profit in 2015, Chinese phone-maker Xiaomi will start selling Linux laptops early next year, according to a report. DigiTimes suggests that two models will be built by contract manufacturers, Inventec and Compal, and feature 12.5 inch and 13.3 inch displays. According to the trade paper, …
Don't get too excited. The original report suggests about 250,000 units for the 12.5-inch model and 500,000 units for the 13.3-inch. Those could all disappear within its own China market without troubling the rest of the galaxy. Especially if you are lookng at the costs of internationalisation and certification.
I fear we may have to wait until Xiaomi has cracked their own market and gotten themselves a more memorable brand name before we see 'em over here in serious numbers.
"will they be on sale in the UK?"
Probably, but you may need to go through another company. I've just bought a Linux Desktop computer via Amazon.co.uk directly from a small manufacturer in China (Eggsnow). It came with Ubuntu pre-installed but I put Linux Mint 17.2 on it. Works great. Hight spec solid state drive and reasonably priced too.
I am also a Mint 17.2 user. To whom it may concern: it runs fine on my MXI cx61 laptop. Except that the wireless was poor. To fix that I bought one of these mini dongles
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B010AKMF3Y?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01
which was also poor until I followed the procedure on the following page
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/reserve-7
Rock solid now.
Regarding eggsnow, they have some good stuff. I am tempted by their mini, fanless servers.
Whether this or any other brand, I'm really interested in the availability of new equipment that either isn't tainted with Windows 10 or is otherwise guaranteed to take most Linux distros without fuss. My current 5-year-old laptop should last another 5 years at least, but I'd rather put it onto lighter duties and take on something new and Microsoft free.
@AC Thanks for the link. I half remember reading an article on this a while back. I forgot where it was, but I did pick up on Trisquel GNU/Linux. Its website is a good place to start when looking for hardware. The minifree site seems to be dormant, but still useful, though.
@Chemist I didn't get any clear hits on your reference. Can you be more specific?
This is excellent news.
I would love to see greater public uptake of Linux. I do think it's too bad this seems to necessarily come from China, nothing against the Chinese people or government (in this case). It is almost like capitalism and innovation work best with governmental support, as I expect one might find that any or all of these tech giants have governmental support at some level. It's not only cheap labour that enables low prices. One might call this Social Democracy if not for the lack of the latter in China, and possibly everywhere else to be fair.
The long term thinking afforded to Chinese corporations, of which NA and European corporations no longer appear able, will bury our/those corporations over time. Corporate and political greed in NA and Europe have created this situation and we, the citizenry, will pay for this with a decreased standard of living. Is it pitchfork time, yet?
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