HP has another go at low-cost Linux laptops

HP deal with online retailer Ebuyer to sell low-cost laptops running Ubuntu Linux

HP is having another go at selling Linux-based laptops with a new line of low-cost notebooks based on Ubuntu Linux, which it will sell in the UK via online retail giant Ebuyer. The laptops will be available from the end of the month.

The laptops, which will be priced between £200 and £300, will have 15.6-inch LED displays and one terabyte hard-disk drives, as well as four or eight gigabytes of memory and quad-core AMD microprocessors of varying performance, depending on price. The official tie-up between HP and Canonical means that the operating system is certified for all of the laptop's components.

However, the laptops will have Ubuntu 14.04 LTS installed as standard, rather than Ubuntu 15.04, which was released last week.

Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu distribution of Linux, explained the reason for choosing 14.04 over 15.04: "We always pre-install the LTS version on OEM hardware which, at this point, is 14.04. The LTS version goes through additional certification on OEM devices before it lands on the hardware. The LTS version also provides five years of security patches and updates and this is also another reason why the LTS is the pre-installed version on OEM devices."

"By combining HP notebook platforms with AMD multi-core accelerate processing units and the Ubuntu operating system, Ebuyer.com is bringing to market an offering for small-and-medium-sized businesses and SOHOs [small office-home office] that is competitively priced," said James Blackman, AMD commercial channel lead for EMEA.

It is not the first time that HP has released mainstream Linux-based client devices. Its original HP Mini 2133 netbook featured a crash-prone SUSE Linux implementation, mercifully upgradable to an Ubuntu Netbook Remix version of Ubuntu 10. That was released in 2008 to coincide with the short-lived netbook boom.

Ebuyer also conducted a trial-run last year, selling a low-cost HP laptop pre-installed with Ubuntu, which proved popular. The company said that it plans to offer more devices running Linux in future.

"We trialled and sold Ubuntu preloaded on one device last year with huge success, which precipitated our desire to expand our efforts and offer customers a wider range of Ubuntu preloaded devices moving forward," said Lee Weymouth, general manager at Ebuyer. Other PC makers, including Zoostorm, also sell PCs with Linux pre-installed.

Canonical's push to get Ubuntu Linux onto laptops, especially from HP, one of the largest PC vendors in the world, represents a competitive challenge for Google with its Chrome range of laptops. Unlike Chrome, however, HP's trio of laptops offer more storage and less dependence upon an internet connection - not to mention Google services.