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If you want to buy a computer with Linux preloaded, you can go to Groovix, System 76, or Koobox. If you don't want to buy a new computer, I recommend Linux Mint or Freespire. Both of them are more user friendly to Windows converters and come things like flash and mp3 playback already installed.

As for Dell, they've had shitastic Windows support for years, so they'd be much better off just sending people to Canonical's or Red Hat's or whoever's tech support.

If I buy one of these, and add a wireless network adapter, does Dell help me get it configured? I'd pay $500 just for that.

For most people, it's "I want everything to work the second I plug it, and I want to be able to connect to the tubes to get intarweb".

Hell, I prefer to spend 8 hours trying to get a decent OS running...

>So your mom would have an easier time installing windows? >Well, yes, most likely.

Bullshit. Windows installs are not newb-friendly at all. She'd definately need help when it came to the partitioning part, because Windows only offers manual partitioning and featureless manual partitioning at that (no resizing of partitions, etc). Then there's the issue of drivers. Ubuntu recognizes all of my hardware on install, but XP doesn't even recognize my ethernet. Yeah, a newb is going to figure out what drivers are and where to find them and how to install them, sure.

The author had a rather unique and complex hardware problem. Any OS can have wierd hardware problems. If you don't want to mess with wierd hardware problems then you can always buy a system with that OS preinstalled. Here's some suggestions for Linux:
http://www.koobox.com/
http://system76.com/

in both installing windows and linux the only really difficult part is partitioning the drive. Of course, installing windows over windows is easy, you just install over the top.

In Linux installing over another Linux is easy, there's on option for installing over ext partitions. There's also options for installing over the whole hard drive and installing in empty space. These are just simple radio boxes to click on, much simpler than Window's manual partitioning. Most people installing linux want to dual boot, so they have to resize the windows partition, and put the Linux partition and swap partitions in, it gets confusing for novices who just want to use their computer.

I don't think it's fair to count Linux as harder because some people want to do something harder in Linux. Try resizing your Linux partition when installing Windows. Can't, can you?

Also, while I learned how to manually partition for Linux in class, I've never actually needed to do it outside of class. A Linux newbie isn't going to bother with swap partitions and all that, so once they get past resizing the Windows partition if need be they'd just click "install in empty space" and they'd be good.

on the post install, the main problem is in linux if something doesn't work out of the box, it likely is hardware that is simply not supported and you won't be able to get working. At least in windows if something doesn't work out of the box it came with a CD to get it working.

The only thing I've ever had not work right away in Linux was my wifi card, but it was simple enough to get it up and running. I'd certainly rather try Linux on a random computer than put Windows on and resign myself to days of driver searching. I've had the fun catch-22 of not having Windows drivers for my ethernet card. The drivers are on the internet, but I can't get on the internet without them. I've also had hardware that the manufacturer stopped making drivers for so they became large paper weights under Windows, but now work just fine under Linux.

In the end windows is easier to install simply because the brand new Dell computer Joe User bought already has it there

Joe User could buy a Linspire computer and that would be just as easy, and cheaper, too.

Except one shouldn't have to research anything to do basic things in an operating system.

But shouldn't one research the differences in operating systems and choose one that fits their needs instead of selecting one at random? To use the stupid car analogy, if you were buying a car would you pick up the first one the car salesman showed you and then bitch that it's a two-seater and you have three kids? No, you would take stock of your needs (space for 3 kids | multimedia capabilities) and then pick one that matches that (van | Mepis) instead of one that doesn't (sports car | Fedora Core).

And if you don't even want to do that, then why don't you just buy a KooBox or something and have Linux already set up instead of picking some random distro and then complaining about it? What part of downloading a 5-disk operating system to manually install on your computer seemed user-friendly?

In summary, if you want user-friendly Linux then get user-friendly Linux.

The point is that you can pay a nationally recognized company to build you a computer and install Windows XP on it. It's much harder to find a national OEM vendor that sells machines that have been preloaded with Ubuntu.

Only if their time is worth nothing. If the time to learn how to get Linux working is worth more than the price of a copy of Windows XP and its successor, then the masses will choose Windows XP and its successor.

Here you go.

There are plenty of other companies that sell Linux an (sic) no-OS machines.

http://www.addonshop.com/
http://www.emperorlinux.com/
http://www.ibexpc.com/
http://www.koobox.com/
http://www.linare.com/
http://www.linspire.com/
http://www.linuxcertified.com/
http://www.linuxsyscorp.com/
http://www.microtelpc.com/
http://www.outpost.com/
http://shoprcubed.com/
http://www.sub300.com/
http://www.systemax.com/divisions.htm
http://www.walmart.com/
http://tuxmobil.org/reseller.html
http://www.us.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed
http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/index.html
http://tuxmobil.org/ (general information)

Slashdot's lameness filter is actually pretty... well... lame. Defeating it is usually as easy as adding more text. You know, like this sentence. :-)

There are plenty of other companies that sell Linux an no-OS machines. http://www.addonshop.com/ http://www.emperorlinux.com/ http://www.ibexpc.com/ http://www.koobox.com/ http://www.linare.com/ http://www.linspire.com/ http://www.linuxcertified.com/ http://www.linuxsyscorp.com/ http://www.microtelpc.com/ http://www.outpost.com/ http://shoprcubed.com/ http://www.sub300.com/ http://www.systemax.com/divisions.htm http://www.walmart.com/ http://tuxmobil.org/reseller.html http://www.us.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/index.html http://tuxmobil.org/ (general information)

http://www.addonshop.com/ http://www.emperorlinux.com/ http://www.ibexpc.com/ http://www.koobox.com/ http://www.linare.com/ http://www.linspire.com/ http://www.linuxcertified.com/ http://www.linuxsyscorp.com/ http://www.microtelpc.com/ http://www.outpost.com/ http://shoprcubed.com/ http://www.sub300.com/ http://www.systemax.com/divisions.htm http://www.walmart.com/ http://tuxmobil.org/reseller.html http://www.us.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/index.html http://tuxmobil.org/ (general information) No OS (Sabio made by Quanta, like Dell-latitudes) http://www.avadirect.com/ http://www.asimobile.com/ http://www.powernotebooks.com/