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Michael Dell Sees Future In Linux Desktop

Posted by Hemos on from the could-be-should-be dept.

Robert McMillan writes: "Linux Magazine has just published a pretty interesting interview with Michael Dell -- not exactly widely considered to be a Linux booster. But he is keynoting at LinuxWorld in San Jose tomorrow and he does talk about why Dell is now interested in Linux. Interestingly, he also says he sees good things for Linux as a desktop OS."

6 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Not to sound hypocritial, but..... by vapour · · Score: 5


    "Interestingly, he also says he sees good things for Linux as a desktop OS."

    Yet yesterday, 90% of slashdot readers berate AOL for providing their suite of access products for Linux

    What's it to be ?

  2. Not to put a downer on things by Vanders · · Score: 5

    It worries me slighhtly that so many companies these days are focusing on Linux as the only alternative. Sure, this is great for Linux, but is it good for computer users in general? Bear with me here...

    Out of all the available Operating Systems out there, how many are based on just two standards? There is Win32 (Windows 9x/ME, WinNT), and POSIX (All *nix variants, most BSD's, BeOS, QNX etc). Only two standards? Where is the choice? Where is the inovation?

    It seems to me that all anyone is interested in is twisting and squeezing Linux into ever more bizarre and improbable situations (Linux on palm tops, Linux for embedded devices, Linux for games consoles etc.) Is the market stagnating, where no one dares break away from the pack and try something new for a change?

    Maybe it's envy on my part, but why can't we have an Open Source project that isn't based around some form of Linux or a POSIX kernel? Is there any room for innovation in OSS these days?

    Just had to get that off my chest, sorry.

    --
    Syllable : It's an Operating System
  3. Re:Building a desktop OS from scratch by Florian · · Score: 5
    Apple is building its MacOS X on a similar foundation as Linux (i.e. BSD), so that disproves your claim. We already have advanced multimedia support (think of ALSA and MESA...) and journaling file systems (ReiserFS) in Linux. Please remember that Linux is a kernel. Nobody would stop you to build a distribution that takes away all Unix-inherited complexity. Some ideas:
    • Throw multiuser and files access permissions out of the system. have the user automatically login and work as 'root' just as in windows 95/98/me and in macos. sure, this creates a lot of security issues, but they could be tolerated on desktop machines with dialup-only internet access. by far more simple for unsophisticated users.
    • Simplify the file system structure. If multiuser functionality has been removed, it is only longer necessary to have /home, /sbin, /usr/sbin and to have both global and user-specific configuration files. Join /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, for example. Rename all system directories so that they are easily understandable in natural language: /usr/bin to /Programs, /etc to /Programs/Settings /lib to /Programs/Data. Create /Fonts, /Sounds, /Pictures, /Documents, and so on.
    • Throw out X11 - since no desktop user needs its network functionality - and replace it with a framebuffer-based GUI.
    • Create lightweight desktop applications not with configurability, but simplicity in mind. Avoid redundant functionality (i.e. button bars doubling menu entries). Most of these apps are already there, just port them to a common toolkit (fltk, for example).
    • Reduce inter-application interfaces to classic Unix pipes, sockets and libraries. Avoid bloat and slowdown through Corba and similar interfaces.
    • Adapt and simplify LinuxConf to act as the system configurator
    • Standardize on one scripting language in your "distribution" (for example, Python). Avoid that several bloated scripting languages have to reside on the system just because system utilies (package managers etc.) need them.
    I agree that the resulting system will have litte in common of what we know and appreciate in GNU/Linux. But it would be the perfect system for people who don't want to replace the complexity and impenetrability of Windows with yet another type of complexity and impenetrability. Hammering nice graphical interfaces on top of that complexity won't help.
    --
    gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
  4. History of unix repeated? by w00ly_mammoth · · Score: 5

    And then spaketh the lord, "Let there be unix companies galore, each different from the other, so that the standards can multiply and compete amongst each other."

    And the companies thus arose, and they fought each other, with various wondrous types of software, none of which worked with the other. And everyone saw that there was competition, and it was good.

    Thus began the ten years of drought, when application developers moaned, "Wherefore am I to write my software? None shall buy it, for each is on his own little island, each separate from the rest." And Gates said to them, "Come to me, ye fools! And ye shall be happy, for all my denizens live under one roof. It leaketh sometimes, but ye shall earn gold selling yer stuff." And the developers all flocked to Gates, and the unix companies continued to fling dung at each other, and it was all as it had always been.

    w/m

  5. Dell's think-tank by zzen · · Score: 5

    manager: Gee, Michel, IBM is getting a lot of press for pushing this Linux thing.
    Dell: Nah, Linux sux
    manager: yes, but it gets a lot of coverage lately. We should really come up with something.
    Dell: Nah, Linux sux.
    manager: Michael, you will slashdoted.
    Dell: Darn, you are convicing. Call our PR department...

  6. Building a desktop OS from scratch by vertical-limit · · Score: 5
    Instead of wasting time trying to turn into Linux into a desktop OS, why isn't someone designing a new one from scratch? Sorry to burst your bubble, folks, but Linux just isn't designed to be a desktop OS. Linux is based off of Minix, which was based off of UNIX. And UNIX was designed to run on mainframes, not on my grandmother's PC. Never did any expect that people would be running solitaire games, Outlook, and Instant Messenger on it. It simply wasn't designed for it -- look at all the command-line entry you still have to do, even with using the GNOME or KDE window managers.

    This isn't to say that Linux is a bad OS. It's a terrific OS for servers, routers, and other non-end-user computers. But it doesn't make any sense to try to hack shiny, happy desktop features into it. Everything has its purpose right? Linux's purpose is to be the best server operating system available (whether or not it succeeds is your call), not to battle Microsoft.

    Rather than that constantly remake Linux in order to compete with Windows, it would make a great deal more sense for the FSF to create a brand new operating system designed from the ground up to be a desktop OS. Not only would this OS include all the necessary components for a desktop OS (GUI support built in from the beginning, no CLI, journaling file system, plug-and-play devices, advanced multimedia support, etc.), it would eliminate all the problems seen in current desktops -- licensing problems with KDE; feature bloat with GNOME. And right now, there's simple no free OS that does this -- sure, there's BeOS, but it's only free as in beer, not as in speech.

    Remember P.T. Barnum's famous quote "You can please all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time?" Right now, Linux is trying to please all of the people all of the time, and that just isn't working. It's time to divide and conquer. Leave Linux to the server market and design the efficient, stable, user-friendly, and most importantly, open-source desktop OS that the world has been waiting for.