[ILUG] Aldi/Lidl laptops?

[Niall Walsh]

James McDermott wrote:

>Has anyone any experience in using Linux with the laptops on sale
>(sometimes) in Aldi and Lidl? I think Aldi have "Median" and Lidl have
>"Targa". Targa, for one, is unknown here but well-known in Germany.
>The model on offer in Lidl is EUR1500, for which you get an AMD64
>Turion with big specs. But there's relatively little information out
>there (eg http://www.linux-on-laptops.com) on using them with Linux...
>
>Any info would be very welcome.
>  
>
Rehashing a mail I sent to the gpl-violations mailing list to give you 
the urls ...

Looking for more information on

http://www.lidl.ie/ie/index.nsf/pages/c.o.oow.20050613.p.Notebook

I discovered the gpl-violations.org sites admonishment of Lidl for not 
complying with the GPL with their sale of this laptop in Germany.

Interestingly I had already discovered

http://www.gocyberlink.com/english/companybg/pcmlinuxgpl.jsp

 From the targa.co.uk site

http://www.targa.co.uk/cms/targa_2_459.php?produkt_id=383

And now when I had a quick look at targa.de, the homepage itself is 
advertising the Linux GPL info on the Targa Traveller 826T!

....

And another mail to the same list 
(http://lists.gpl-violations.org/pipermail/legal/2005-June/000315.html) 
suggests the Aldi MD95500 also comes with the same software and (at 
least in the Netherlands) a document for Cyberlinks product which 
includes the GPL and a link to where the full source of the GPL 
components can be obtained. (I would suspect all newly built/packed 
laptops with Cyberlinks PowerCinema will include this from now on, but 
no evidence of that yet).

So basically both laptops ship with a Linux system (as well as Windows 
at least for the Lidl machine).   This Linux system is just for Media 
playing though so how much of the hardware it implies works with Linux 
is a good question.

I think that if you wanted to persue a Windows Refund though, these (or 
any machines shipping with the Cyberlink software and Windows) would be 
great machines to do it with.

Hope this helps a little.

Niall

p.s. while material here is being drawn from gpl-violations, I would not 
suggest Aldi or Lidl are in any "trouble", and it even seems that the 
other parties (targa/cyberlink) are taking/have taken the appropriate 
actions.   www.targa.de has a very prominent "Info: Linux GPL Targa 
Traveller 826T" link on their homepage to make up for shipping the 
machines (in germany) not in technical GPL compliance.   It may of 
course yet come out that incomplete sources are available from 
cybelrlink, but as of now it appears all parties are probably acting 
correctly and in good faith.