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Dell to sell laptops with Linux preinstalled
Now it's official. According to this story on C|Net, Dell is starting to sell notebooks with Linux preinstalled. The laptop models are the Inspiron 7500 and Latitude CPX models. The Latitude models will be available Feb. 4. Prices are the same as with Windows 9x preinstalled. Those models are certified by Linuxcare.
Going to Linux, and they won't go with AMD chips? Tsk, tsk, tsk.
I think it's great they are packaging computer with Linux, this is a good thing..
Alas, Dell refuses to sell computers with AMD which will still hurt them..
People will not payer higher prices for Intel.
I think the price should be lower, after all they won't have to pay MS for licenses. Although they might have to fork over some dough to LinuxCare. However, the support calls should be way fewer with the stability of Linux....
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
ok. who else writes comments on the wrong articles and doesn't realize until after they've hit 'submit'?
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
At least now I can get a laptop that works with linux.
it's *really* nice to see Linux getting recognition as a valid, at least quasi-mainstream operating system... it's about time! and it's great that it's coming from a big-name company like Dell instead of some small, obscure place...
I find it curious that the laptops cost is the same for both windows and linux. Given the cost in windows licenses, I would expect a difference.
I want to know what is happening to the "extra money" that is no longer a Microsoft tax? Is Dell keeping it as a surcharge for installing linux? Do I get a copy of Windows anyway? Do I get the RH package complete with 3(?) months of tech support?
In short, where is my "extra" $100 going?
Eric
With out the licensing cost (for WinBlows) it should be less. Or is the extra $ for the Linuxcare support? I still plan on waiting for one running Crusoe.
Are they (we) still paying the Microsoft/Intel bundle tax? Can someone from Dell comment on this?
Speak truth to power.
me. just discovered i'm not only in the wrong article but on the wrong website. only kidding.
...Yeah, but do they run...oh nevermind... :-)
ObOt: Do those things come with real modems or Winmodems? (I seem to have misplaced the specs)
DOH! RTFA. PCMCIA. Well, great! I guess it's time to go buy a laptop...
(Score:-1 PosterIsIdiot)
Here's my copy of DeCSS. Where's yours?
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
Thanks, Dell! Thanks, Linuxcare!
:) It's a lot less
:( 10 pounds
I've been looking at getting a loaded Inspirion
7500 (512mb ram, 75gb disk, 650mhz pIII, 1400x1050
screen!) as a primary development machine. The
only thing I don't like is the pointing
device, but I suppose I can carry an IBM clicky
keyboard with trackpoint, too.
Has anyone had any luck running VMware 2.0 beta
on one of these beasts? I like to use vmware
to do kernel hacking without losing my
xmms and emacs buffers
annoying to lose a VMware machine than a desktop
to a kernel bug, and disks can be checkpointed.
VMware the company says laptops are a bad idea,
but the Inspirion 7500 is studlier than almost
any desktop!
Remember, these things are heavy
configured, and *big*.
I am pretty ambivalent about this. One of the chief joys of Linux is getting it up slowly, piece by piece on the laptop. Watch it grow. Where's the pleasure in getting a pre-installed system?
OTOH, this means that the hardware works. I could ditch the distro and put Debian on it, without worrying about the hardware not being supported.
loser! You could have told the world how 'l33t' you are, but no, you had to talk about altaista.com...
A few /.ers have complained that the price is the same for Win9X installed. I think this makes a lot of sense, particularly if the computer is certified by Linuxcare.
As anyone who has dealt with Linux on laptops already knows well, hardware support isn't quite as easy as on a desktop machine. You're stuck with the hardware you have, unlike a desktop where you can always swap it out for something compatible. And unless another Linux user has the same hardware (or in some cases) the same exact model, you can be SOL.
Having a machine certified can't be cheap; with Windows you sort of get that by default when your license the OS. Microsoft has already taken the opportunity to certify hardware for use with Windows (think certified drivers). That, combined with the fact that Dell will be using a commercial distribution, would easily account for the cost of the OS for a Linux laptop.
Kudos to tell for taking steps; now if only we could get VA to bring back their models.
Thanks!
Now I can get a laptop with linux supported by an OEM. Now when I have to do something for the boss I can take around laptop and show people on the go how awsome Linux is (And it is supported by Dell!) This will be a big boon for Linux in the corporation.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
I'm glad to see that Dell avoided the problem that plagued IBM's Linux laptops by including a real modem in their Linux laptops. The cost of the modem may partly explain why Dell's Linux laptop costs the same as one with Windoze installed, but the extra cost of the modem can't equal the MS licensing fee for Windoze, so it's not the whole story.
Every time I hear that Dell is selling anything with Linux preinstalled I can't help but point out that you are still paying the Microsoft tax. Dell's computers with Linux pre-installed cost at least as much, if not more, then the ones with Windows. Besides, all the Dell's ads I've seen are hyping Windows. They do not actively promote Linux. They just have it somewhere on their web site.
No, Dell will never change. They will forever be Intel's and Micro$oft's bitch. Better buy stuff from a company that truely supports Linux.
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Ever see a laptop with an AMD chip? they use the same chip in laptops as whats used in desktops. Gets very HOT! very quick.
Actually they might have to pay MS for the license anyway as part of their larger deal with MS. So you might make ms some money off of linux anyway. The price is wrong...b1tch. Install it your self.
I really don't see the huge significance of having linux pre-installed. It is a step for the community to see some recognition, but to get it preinstalled you have to buy a specific model and choose to have linux put on it. Whereas if you just buy any laptop you want, you can just as easily make a choice later to put linux, or perhaps a multi-boot setup on your system. Both are choices. One just gets more publicity.
Plus, I personally would not want someone else to install linux on my machine for me. Installing it yourself is half the fun, and there's no way I would want a default installation. I don't think anyone else who would be informed enough to know which models to buy with linux installed on them would want a default installation either.
Linux has always been about customization, and the ability to do things for yourself. I do not see how this is such a leap ahead.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
Prices are the same as with Windows 9x preinstalled.
What's up with this? They're not spending as much in making it, yet we're spending the same amount to buy it?
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Most laptops these days have built-in modems, and most are winmodems. What's the deal with these Dell laptops when it comes to modems?
www.altavista.digital.com ALL THE WAY, baby.
I remember back when Altavista was first starting, my friend whose father worked at Digital told me about it, up until that point I had been using Infoseek because you could format the search with quotes and the like. I went to altavista.com, and it's all "hey.. there's no search engine here."
When I finally started using AltaVista, it was just amazing, so many pages.
Too bad it turned into what it has.
LONG LIVE GOOGLE.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
so it's only avalible in the 400+ employee size buisness section. no options as to memory, processor, video, or screen size. it's nice, yes but why? is there some bizare arcitecture that dell uses for 600mhz machines? some propriatary memory access they couldn't get to work with anything other than 128M of ram? whats wrong with neomagic video? why only a 4 meg card?
i hope they sell a million of them. i also hope they will support lots more hardware - one size fits all is not exactly acceptable to me, or the community at large...
I tried to check on the dell website and right now they are offering only Windows OS on any of their laptops.
Well, it was said that they will be offering Linux based laptops only starting with 4 Feb. However I would have expected to see at least a note or a preview or something...
Furthermore, as far as I can see for the Inspiron 7500 model the modem is not an Winmodem. So I guess that since the hardware is the same for both Linux and Windows based systems the price should be smaller for the Linux Laptop. Do I smell some fear that Microsoft will have something to say if they sell cheaper the Linux laptop ? Or perhaps they're just trying to make some extra bucks out of this ?
Though I must say that I did tend to use altavista.digital.com for purely snobbish reasons for ages :-) when altavista.com didn't belong to them and was just that cgi with a link to the real search engine. I felt it made a speed difference, which I suppose was completely illusionary now that I think about it.
C.
I sometimes write stuff
Perens is still on-target with that one.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
> Do those things come with real modems or Winmodems?
I just bought one in November and saved significant money by buying all the extras (ethernet card, modem, carrying case) from 3rd parties.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Microsoft's licensing agreement appears to be per product line. If this is the case, all Dell has to do is re-label a line of their machines and sell them as Linux-only, thus exempting them from the Microsoft tax. Expect this as soon as another manufacturer gets into the arena, making it competitive.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Mine works fine with Linux. It's not as bulky or heavy as the i7500 and the bright, beautiful, perfect display maxes out at 1024x768, but aside from some apmd suspend/standby/resume issues that I have not spent any time on, it is working just fine. The 433MHz Celery is plenty fast(blows the socks off of the 300MHz Gateway PII that I have at work, but then so does the 350MHz K6-2 at home!?!?). Under w98 I do Visual Cafe/Java applets and under RH6.1 I do the server/mysql side.
Plus, it's a great portable mp3 jukebox. The 12G drive has lots of space and I don't have to lug CDs over to my pal's house any more. I just plug in an adaptor cable to his aux inputs, bring up xmms and play random from ~70 CDs with plenty of room for more.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Or do they just seal off the built in modem and 10Base-T ports and offer optional PCMCIA add-ons? (I can't get to the site to see. /. effect).
I'd laugh my pants off if the reason behind the laptop having the same price with Linux as opposed to Windows is if MS have gone the same way as Be and are giving the OS away for free (as in beer, not speech, of course)
:-) (I even got money off my computer when I bought it by asking that Win95 NOT be installed) and I've never had trouble picking up the only other MS stuff that's of any use (Word)
It's basically free anyway, I certainly haven't paid for any MS software
That reminds to bring those VB and VC++ lying about here home! Actually no, I've taken the Xmms source instead, see if I can help the cause, so to speak
Long live Dell!!!!!!!! VA has nothing to go on, no real angle. Customer Support ("services")? XF86 personally configured by Raster and Mandrake? I don't think so!!!!! So look for that stock to drop down real fast now.
It used to be that Dell had a single page with links to all for their systems that you can get with Linux, but when they redesigned their site, it disappeared.
If you would like an easier way to find Dell computers with Linux pre-installed, please visit MetaSystema.org, where they are all laid out on one page:
www.metasystema.org/dell.mhtml
Dell pays between fifteen and twenty dollars a pop for a Windows license (software only, not support). Don't confuse a license as sold to a hardware vendor and one sold as retail; they're entirely different, both in what they cost and what you get.
--
--
There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
...was that it had an 'option' for no modem. I already had pcmcia ethernet and dialup modem cards so why pay for another, especially if it only will work under winXX? I traded the modem for more RAM.
The other was simply because the 3700 is smaller, and lighter. If I need a big screen that bad, I can hook it up to a monitor.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
This could be easy. Except for maybe the modem, the hardware in the Win98 machine will be the same in the linux machine. You're going to have to go get a PCMCIA modem for the linux machine anyways, so no skin off your back. So, just buy the win98 machine, ask for your $100 back because you don't want Windows pre-installed, then go home and pop on your favorite distro. You know it works already, you just don't want to pay their surcharge for certification and licensing with RedHat.
"May the Code bless you and keep you until the day of your Compiling." ~Requiem
Every 2-3 months Slashdot posts a story saying "Linux [laptops|desktops|servers] available from Dell". And every time we have a huge discussion with the following threads:
a) Why does it cost the same as the MS-taxed version?
b) Now we've hit the big time
c) I'm going to buy from them because they support Linux
d) I'm NOT going to buy from them because they DON'T support Linux.
etc, etc, etc
Finally, someone goes to the Dell site and finds out that:
a) It was just a rumor OR
b) It only applies in another country OR
c) They are really selling Linux "certified" machines, but not with Linux installed OR
d) You can only buy them with one config (one screen size, on HD size, etc) OR
e) You can only buy them in lots of 100 and only if you are a business customer.
etc, etc, etc
If Slashdot is going to continue to shill for Dell's crappy deals, can we at least have the stories put in their own category so that I can filter them out?
--
Java banners:
Bad for users because Java kills Netscape
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
...is the dual pointing device setup. It has both the trackpad and two buttons for it near the edge, and the eraserhead trackpointer in the keyboard with two buttons for it right below the spacebar. It's much better than the touchpad when typing. The only drawback is when emulating three buttons/center button with a double button click is pretty difficult and unreliable using the two small buttons under the spacebar.
/. discussions, I've been investigating VMWare although without much vigor. It is looking more and more interesting...
After some other
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Geez, didn't any of you guys take economics?
You seem to be arguing that a given reduction in costs to a retailer should result in the same reduction in the price to the consumer. That doesn't really make sense though. What incentive do they have to reduce the costs that way? If the consumer is willing to pay for the product, Dell can charge whatever they wish for it. Especially since they are one of the only major brands that provide Linux laptops -- that's why this is NEWS in the first place. Since the supply of Linux laptops is low, and the demand is presumably high, the retail price should actually be higher than that of a windows laptop, where the supply is quite high, and the demand is lower.
Also here's a link to the Inspiron page at Dell:
http://commerce.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.asp? order_code=890139&customer_id=04&keycode=6W300
Did anyone notice how a Linuxcare *partner* can make a big announcement like this without raising the ire of the SEC? I like the business sense of companies like this.
I also like the *idea* behind Linuxcare because it allows for the big companies like Dell and Compaq to offer different distros and still have the same tech support. For Dell to be able to sell Linux in a corporate environment, they need solid tech support.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
I'd love to have a laptop so I can hang out on the couch instead of at the desk, but it's not worth that kind of trouble.
Will everybody please quit giving Dell the "cost of distro" excuse? All linux distros are free, which means that they only need to buy one 50$ cd, not one for each laptop. Yes, support costs something, but they need to support their Win laptops to, whetehr internally or w/ a 3rd party. Fuck all you gun-toting hip gangster wannabees - Tool
I'll be impressed when they allow you to pick Linux for the OS choice on ALL system configurations. We have been buying Dell 2300's with hot-swap RAID; now it's not on their product matrix- I have to take what they lame me with. Suffice it to say, we ended up picking a Penguin Computing HA server that does the work for about $1000-2000 less than the system that Dell does sell (sans Linux...)
When Dell offers Linux on everything, I'll be truly impressed.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The extra money is also going towards development of drivers. When dell starts supporting linux on laptops, they can't just expect hardware support to be added by the Linux community before they start supporting it. This means that they will have to hire some developers, to work on drivers for example for their freaking nice complicated video cards. I have a Dell, my only way to have X on it, is to buy a commerical X server, because it is not yet supported. I think alot of those people whining should shut duh hell up, The problem was that Dell was not supporting linux before on their laptops, now they support it, and you start whining? A lot of you have no idea how important this is, there are lots of companies that look up to Dell, if Dell is supporting linux on their laptop, more companies are bound to pick this up.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Smile sold laptops with AMD chips, but they stopped selling notebooks completely. Sad truth, because virtually all chips (usb, sound, I2C, graphic...) are supported. But look around - there are AMD laptops out there...
*Problem exists between keyboard and chair
What about the bundled software? MS Office 2000 Small Edition is not exactly useful to many Linux users. I would definitely want to see a discount if I'm not getting MS Office.
Try configuring one Dell Inspiron 7500 on their web site with Linux (Weee! I'd sure like to have Linux 6.1 like those k-rad Dell guys got!), and one with Win98. Make sure you get the same warranty, the same amount of memory, harddrive space, modems, network cards and whatnot, and that you pick Office 2000 small business instead of the full version.
You'll see that Dell will charge you $99 extra if you want Linux instead of Win98+Office2000 small business...
%japh = (
'name' => 'Niklas Nordebo', 'mail' => 'niklas@' . 'nordebo.com',
'work' => 'www.sonox.com', 'phone' => '+46-708-405095'
This is not true. The MS consent decree expressly forbids the charge of of per CPU licenses regardless of wheter the unit had the OS or not. If you wanna bash MS at least do it with accuracy.
I hate to burst your bubble, but I've been messing around configuring laptops on Dells website under each of their 4 different categories (home/small businesses,large businesse, and government) to compare similar models trying to find out which way offers the best price (they vary widely for the exact same configurations) and Dell has been offering a Red Hat 6.1 Pre-installed laptop under the Large business Category for a while now. It just hasn't been available under the other categories.
A windows license in bulk costs the same as a RH license to Dell. If nothing else, they had to absorb the cost of getting their equipment "certified" for RH Linux.
Since its the same price, I don't see why one would go for Linux. I would go for Windows and then partition the drive for Linux.
My friend spankey thinks that all notebooks should be running GEOS. Boy oh boy, my friend Spankey is really silly.
-A Friend of Spankey
Let's say that I'm a company that sells laptops, and I'm considering supporting Linux. I hear that Dell's going down this road, so I check in to Slashdot to assess the community reaction. What would I conclude?
For one, it appears that the community expects the work to be done for no money. They scream because the machine isn't cheaper with Linux on it, even though the amount of work to be done to get Linux to work decently with laptops is considerable, far more than with desktops, and support costs can be expected to be higher (simply because there are far fewer experts on Linux-laptop issues than for Windows-laptop issues).
Second, the community screams because support for all platforms isn't instantly available, even though many laptop components don't have Linux drivers present.
So, it would appear that neither profit nor good will is available by doing Linux support for laptops. The users don't want to pay for it, and they'll hate you anyway.
Name one device driver that Dell has developed for their hardware, either open source or binary-only. I have a Latitude CPIA, and pretty much all the hardware is supported by the open source Linux drivers (no USB and not using IRDA).
There's been a lot of speculation about where the money goes, but driver development is not it. If they're gonna certify a system for Linux, it's much easier to spec compatible hardware than to write new device drivers.
I bought a 500MHz model for christmas.....
;-)
Actually I'm generally quite happy with it running linux - Under windows the suspend operation has a habit of crashing the machine and MSDOS has recently decided it only want to use 1/4 of the screen. Oh and the DVD drive it ships with is Hardware region locked which is a *major* dilemma for me since I own two DVD's - "The Matrix" R1 and "Blade Runner" R2, how can someone be forced to choose between these films.....
The 1400x1050 graphics works really nicely - I love the screenon the Inspiron 7500 - it's as big as a 15" monitor. OK the machine weighs a tonne, but it's a portable workstation. YOu can also swap out the DVD/Floppy unit and replace it with another battery for those long plane trips....
My only linux problem is that I was informed that the inspiron internal networking hadware wasn't supported, so I purchased a PCMCIA card which I knew was supported. It works great, unless it starts trynig to write to the disk at the same time at which point my data transfer rate under linux goes to about 4kb/sec
Now.... if I'd waited 2 months I could've got the 650MHz PIII.... and Linux preinstalled...
I once worked for a large PC manuf (gord help me) and I to am a bit shocked at people feel that the systems should be cheaper. You also have to consider support costs to the company. They either have to hire and train their own employees or outsource the support, either way that's very costly to start from scratch.
I once worked for a large PC manuf (gord help me) and I to am a bit shocked at people feel that the systems should be cheaper. You also have to consider support costs to the company. They either have to hire and train their own employees or outsource the support, either way that's very costly to start from scratch and goes into the price.
I once worked for a large PC manuf (gord help me) and I am a bit shocked that people feel that the systems should be cheaper. You also have to consider support costs to the company. They either have to hire and train their own employees or outsource the support, either way that's very costly to start from scratch and goes into the price. Support costs for PC manufs are massive. Just try teaching a pile of windows techs basics of Unix/Linux support, it's an UGLY undertaking, I've tried.
Support for such systems is a whole new world and companies accustomed to paying X amount of dollars for X amount of support may take some time to realize how they can't recycle most their current windows support staff resulting is some messes. I think this could be a stumbling block to many companies who's support may poor with windows (to say the least) and then attempt to do support for Linux/Unix. The alternative would be outsourcing, however with a limited # of such outsourcers the costs there will be prohibitive for some companies to start.
I actually have a Inspiron 7500 with a 15" 1400x1050 screen, except that when I bought it, there was no option for a Linux preinstallation.
So I had to do all the "fun" stuff myself. I've installed Linux plenty of times on desktops, by the way, including back when they didn't have nifty user-friendly installation managers like Yast (which I used this time.)
All goes well until the X setup. See that's where the trouble comes in with laptops. Proprietary, unsupported hardware. Couldn't simply type XF86Setup and get this beautiful configuration screen that does everything for you.
xf86config doesn't work either. All because there isn't an XServer that supports this nifty ATI Mobility-P graphics card. (No, XF86_Mach64 does not work.)
Talking with some guys on the Linux on Laptops helpgroups revealed that a lot of people on Inspirons never managed to get beyond 640x480x8bpp. Actually the person I first emailed on the volunteer list had already bailed out and gotten himself a XiG server for $200.
I've been fortunate enough, after a heck of a lot of tweaking I've managed 1280x1024x16bpp, but at an SVGA server performance level.
XFree86 3.3.6 now apparently supports this graphics chip. Support doesn't seem to go above 1024x768 though. Plus, all of a sudden there are RPMs for Linux on the Dell support site, finally supporting the sound card (I've needed to do a Loadlin out of DOS after starting the driver until now.) and the XFree86Config file. I tried that and it doesn't work, presumably because I'm using a model with different modelines than their supported Inspiron 7500 model.
So, conclusion: it is very, very good to have your laptop manufacturer support Linux officially. Plus it probably isn't such a bad idea to get Linux preinstalled and working already.
Dell had to do a bit of work to come up with a linux configuration that worked, they had to get everything installed and tested, they had to do whatever tests were needed to determine, for themselves, that this was a marketworthy distribution.
That cost money, probably a fair amount of money. And there certainly won't be the same number of linux systems going out the door to break this cost down into as there are doze boxes, where any development costs you invest are easily covered by sales.
This is obviously a gimmick that Microsoft concocted with Dell. MS wants this as proof that there's competition in ther DOJ antitrust fight. "Hey, look judge - freedom of choice."
But just like Microsoft's bogus courtroom demo of Windows 98 without Internet Explorer, this is just smoke and mirrors too. M$ is probably still getting their tax. Even if they're not, this makes it seem as though Windows is free. (Transitive law: If Linux is free and Windows costs the same as Linux, then Windows must be free)
Hell, if I had to buy their piece of shit laptop I'd take Windows and load Linux on myself. I could use the Windows in VM Ware within Linux.
M$ is trying to show fake competition hoping that the judge is stupid.
I think we should have a ./ boycott on Dell. They must think that *we* are stupid.
Windows uses nontrivially more floating point than Linux?
The *operating* *system* uses them a lot?
Just wondering.
For an alternative, Tuxtops is now taking preorders for Linux on Laptops, with an expected ship date of February 15th.
A note on pricing, from a somewhat informed view - while Linux is free, there are costs associated with it. The LinuxCare certification, for one. We're in the process of certification right now. It costs $1000/system for a one-time certification, or $10000/system for a lifetime certification, where they'll test upgrades periodically. (I think the second is more useful for a company without a lot of in-house Linux talent.)
Additionally, we've got a deal to offer a free hour of LinuxCare support with our laptops, which costs us $50/system. I'm pretty sure Dell has a similar deal - maybe a better price, since they have more volume, but it's likely comparable to their windows cost. Of course, they don't need to pay support staff for Linux, either. I don't know if they pay MS for systems shipped with Linux as part of a blanket deal. (I do know that we don't pay MS anything at all.)
Why are we better? I haven't yet had my hands on a Dell Linux setup, so I don't know if the product is better or not. Dell has a good reputation and some Linux experience from desktops, so I expect them to be reasonably comparable technically. We ship with things like X, Sound, IR support, and APM working out of the box - I'd be surprised if Dell didn't.
What we _do_ plan on doing, that I doubt dell does, is contributing back to the Open Source community. We want to fund projects that are released under the GPL, including device drivers and good support for winmodems, as well as software that improves mobile computing for linux like a good location manager. We want to offer non-Red Hat distributions - some flavor of Debian, first, in the near future. We'd like to offer a BSD flavor, eventually.
You can read our press release on Linux Today.
-- Kate
I heard they use OpenDK for that.
Thank you.
So even if you get it preinstalled, odds are you'll want to redo it yourself. At least you'll know that it can be made to work, and there's only you to blame if it doesn't... and if you're running Linux, that's the way its meant to be, right?
So think of it as "tested to run Linux."
(*) Ah, a dual Pentium III 550 box, with a GB of RAM - those FFTs really fly now.
Offtopic note: kernel 2.2.5-SMP15 doesn't do too well with the GB of RAM, and it seems to dribble the RAM away to rogue processes until it has a little over 170 MB left. Anyone interested in a remote diagnosis before I blow it away for a new kernel?
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
I must have missed that last round of industry standard proposals for Linux hardware certification...when did Linuxcare suddenly become the know-all-to-end-all authority on Linux installations? I'll probably get flamed on this, seeing as how Linuxcare is a /. darling. But I think it's somewhat irresponsible to throw around statements like "Linuxcare certified" as if that means something.
Jon Katz will punish you for trolling!!!!!11
I'm hoping the suits aren't THIS counter-intuitive, but time will tell ...
"He who questions training trains himself at asking questions." - The Sphinx, Mystery Men (1999)
From the links on the Linux on Laptops page, there is no word yet one way or another as to the current level of support for the SXGA screens.
Anyone know what the current level of support really is for the SXGA screens?
I wanted to put in a suggestion to Dell that they consider Crusoe laptops running Linux (don't much know the diff between full-on and "Mobile Linux") and guess what? Their feedback site neatly organizes the submission categories, then gives a warning when you go to the product suggestion page to let you know that it is for product suggestions only (wow, really?) then wisks you off to a blank (save for the nav bars on top) .asp! What, do I need to run IE to suggest Linux-based products?!
"You point your finger at the moon, the fool stares at your finger."
I am gald to see a major copmputer company selling laptops with Linux pre-insatlled. But why only on their most expensive model? I'm a returning student without a lot of cash to spare and $3500 is out of my range. Other than requiring card modem which is more expensive, Linux's hardware requirements would seem to fairly modest.
Yes, if I had a disposable income or some-one wants to buy me one, the I7500 is nice machine, but I would settle for a more modest and affordable model, A celeron 400, 4GB hardrive, 12"-14" screen...
And BTW at $3500 Dell doesn't list any bundled software, they really ought to be throwing in at least the full versions of WordPerfect and Xess,or Apllxware, and maybe Railroad Tycoon as well.
(see the subject)
;-)
And so do many other people. Now, I don't use it as my workstation -- it is primarily an IP masq gateway for LAN, and also a small-scale www/ftp/mail/samba server, running Debian. The hadrware is AMD 486dx4-100, 32MB RAM, 1.2 Gig HD. It does the job very nicely. In fact it is actually over-powered for what it does. I am not about to get rid of it as it is still a very nice machine.
Admittedly, my workstation is AMD k6/2-300 and I am running Mandrake on it which does appear to be noticeably faster then any other distro I tried. Although most of the performance gain comes from GUI stuff which is quite bloated (*ghm* KDE) -- pentium optimizations sure make a difference there. The majority of the daemons though are rather light weight so the pentium optimization would not make that much of a difference.
So, what I'm saying is that pentium optimizations are indeed very nice, but
1) you cannot just obsolete 486 and 386 -- they are still being used and they might even live for the next 10 years in embedded devices -- who knows?
2) I don't believe the difference in performance of the majority of the daemons would be anywhere near as dramatic as that of KDE. And besides, when it comes to servers you want to make 100% sure they are reliable. 99% is not good enough (ok, now I'm being paranoid, but hey -- only the paranoid survive
___
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
"...throw away the Win 98 and MS Works software that came with it..."
Sell it to someone who would otherwise have purchased it new, or donate to a charity that would be using it anyway and take a tax deduction. That way, you benefit, the other party benefits, and MS loses a sale to someone that was going to be a user either way. Think of it as recycling.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I tried to order one from Dell's web site. I
couldn't find a Linux choice anywhere, so I called
them. Here's the low down:
1. You have to order over the phone. The web
site doesn't support choosing Linux.
2. They won't do a dual boot setup.
OFF TOPIC????? You're OFF TOPIC!!! Idiot.
__ While you sleep, I creep... gaining ground by the week.
Hmmmm - I'm undecided about whether OSS products are going to automatically mean "greater support costs" - Certainly to an experienced *nix hack it is EASIER to maintain an open system than being responsible for the behavior of black-binaries from some dasterdly company that wants hundreds of $$ for support incidents. I've tried out many OSS products where the vendor makes it clear they come with limited support, and for some strange reason I haven't NEEDED any.
However I've another machine we're trying to get Outlook on and it repeated says "There's been a problem that requires you to reboot your PC" - reboot and it says the same thing - which to me says, uh-oh, both the registry AND it's backup are corrupted. Now THATS a support cost in that I'm going to have to spend hours fumbling around in the undocumented bowels of msft, perhaps reinstall everything, to fix. Those are the guys who regularly get dinged for all the "hidden cost of ownership" once you take the bait, at least to those of us who aren't blinded by BS.
Zen Master Jack
Not Responsible for Errors in Other Companies Property
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I think we^H^Hthey are counting the fact that it's more expensive to take a call that very few people know anything about. There's a whole city of support staff that doesn't even know how to support NT. Besides, I don't think they expect many people to take them up on the offer. Maybe one or two large accounts.
I know on Windows it sucks, and on the Mac it's better, but how good is Linux at regulating what's turned on when, and processor cycling and whatever? Are the necessary features included w/ the major distros or what? An efficient preemptively multitasking OS should be best at this, so if people want to work for it, Linux laptops could potentially run a lot longer on a charge...
Where is my mind?
Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
That link shows that a DVD drive is available with the laptop that ships with Linux. I wonder if it ships with DeCCS? :-)
BOO
I don't want no kamikazi athlon chip blowing up my other pc's chips...man thats terrible
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Nicotine free Amish .sig.
Someone who understands economics.
unfortunately, i would do the same. especially that i got 5 linux box, plus one laptop, and the first thing i would do if would receive a preconfigured laptop, would be to tune it... and I say unfortunately, cos even if its better for me, this will shift the sales stats for bill... and this is bad on the long term
"Sell it to someone who would otherwise have purchased it new, or donate to a charity "
Well, yes, I agree. I really didn't throw anything away. In this case, I setup a dual-boot system. I didn't "need" Win98, but having it will be a nice bonus. It supports USB, and consequently works better (faster) with my digital camera than my NT system. So most of the time I boot Linux, but I have Win98 as an option when I need it.
Jonathan
Anyway, the X server doesn't support APM -- so, the X server has to be out of the way when travelling, and forgetting that will result in a hard crash. I'm not sure whether this is because the ATI Mobility chip is too complex to get X right, or if there is a bug in the chip. Whatever the cause, it's annoying, and Windows works just fine (well, at least in this respect :-)
The cool thing about getting Dell to ship real complex hardware like laptops with Linux, is that if Dell gets too many complaints, they'll chat up ATI to do something about the APM problem, and help the Xfree people to bring hardware support up to par with Windows.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
...from the workstation point of view, anyway.
.02 American dollars.
I've installed RH6 on a couple of Dell computers that were previously running Windows -- installation can be pretty brain dead, i.e. for a default install just click through a few menus and you're up and running in no time.
I think it's great that they're offering linux on their laptops -- those thin lattitudes would be nice. Unfortunately, I'd also like to see a laptop with a point stick, rather than that dicey touchpad that seems so popular of late. (I'm running RH6.1 on a Toshiba Satellite 2530CDS, although I'd prefer one of those IBM 600's. Oh for more point stick options! Any with Athlon?)
However, I think that support will be the key issue here. A lot of the configuration and setup that is second nature to *nix users is completely unintuitive to the average end user. People have to RTFM, which can be quite frustrating (especially those coming from the comfy windoze environment). I still believe that linux is a couple years away from mainstream use and that Dell is jumping on the linux hype right now. It may pay off in a year or two, but right now it's just not what the average end user wants (the *average* end user being the type of person who buys a pre-loaded Windows or Mac computer).
I agree that Dell's installs of linux leave a little to be desired. Partitions are a little funny, though they tend to get the hardware *mostly* right. Linux pros will rip apart and put back together the setup before they feel comfortable. Of course, that's because everybody's needs and desires for their computer vary.
Just my
At the university I went to you have to be a member of a student guild to enrol. Each year you have to pay a guild fee of around $200 for services the guild provides. The problem is the guild supports many things which many people don't use, and therefore don't think their money should go towards supporting. To rectify this problem the administration said you were free to choose to pay your guild fee, but if you elected not to you would be charged an "administration" fee of $210. Some people I know did this (even though it cost them more money) just on general principle. To all those in the Linux community who bitch that the price of these laptops is the same as the equivalent windows model, why can't you just be glad that M$ isn't getting it's filthy, monopolistic, "innovative" paws on your $20 (the price of an OEM version of windows, from what other posters have said). You should be glad that it doesn't cost MORE than the equivalent windows model. Putting out a linux laptop might be costing them a bit more than $20 per machine, especially at this early stage. Hopefully as Linux popularity increases prices will drop.
would that mindless moron from trolltalk shut the fuck up?
Recently I've purchased somewhere around 14 Dell Laptops (through work, no laptop beowulf). Out of the box, 4 of the 14 had to be completely or partially replaced due to defective hardware. When I first got the laptops and began testing them, I installed the software I purchased from Dell to go with them, and the laptops began crashing after they were on for over an hour, even after reboots, but never when they were cold. I could stick a laptop on ice and it would run fine, they were clearly overheating and malfunctioning because of it.
I called Dell tech support several times, and their wonderful tech support staff tried to tell me that "The overheating is software related". Regardless of the fact that overheating is not a software problem, even if it were, Dell sold the software.
They sent crappy laptops, and most of their tech support personel were extremely unhelpful about it. If you're going to buy a laptop, go anywhere but Dell, Linux or no Linux.
It makes perfect sense for Dell to start installing Linux on their computers. Dell, being direct-order only, has always appealed to the tech-savvy consumer who wants to customize their computer without building it vs. the All In One iMac. I, for one, am a Dell user and love how fast the machine is, even after a few years of use. With Dell being the power user's computer and Linux being the power user's OS, the pairing is a match made in hard drive heaven.
I can vouch that the 3Com PCMCIA card that I have worked without _any_ setting-up at all, which is more than I can say for Win98.
Suppose you chose to have linux installed. Do they also throw in linux software to play the DVDs????
umm, if you wanna hack perfectly healthy parts of your body off, go ahead, but dont ask me to pay for it with my tax dollars. how is it "more free" when I have to pay for it? and wtf are you posting this on slashdot? and why am i responding? -- must get caffiene.
If it was just one dollar cheaper, some hardassed business'es would have to justify the purchase of something that 'costs more'. Beancounters. It would also imply to some that MS OS was worth only one dollar or 10 cents - so may start asking then why are we paying xxxx thousand for our servers... Furr would fly. So please mr Dell, 10 cents - please....
"Was" and "were" can both be used to signify the subjunctive. Fowler's "The King's English" was debunking your myth as far back as 1921.