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HP Selling Systems With Linux
jeffy124 writes: "We were all very upset last August when Dell discontinued selling Linux on their machines. Good news - HP's picking up the slack. They're shipping machines pre-installed with Red Hat 7.1. Unfortunately, checking their website shows that only business machines will have a Linux option; home machines are still WinXP only."
"Unfortunately, checking their website shows that only business machines will have a Linux option; home machines are still WinXP only."
The last thing "linux needs" right now is a bunch of unhappy home users with an OS that isn't quite ready for a casual user.... And it just isn't.
Dell is still installing Redhat on its servers/workstations.
here is a link.
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
Unfortunately, checking their website shows that only business machines will have a Linux option; home machines are still WinXP only.
So much for the claim that Linux is only a toy, not ready for the business environment.
Nope, no sig
So what I'd really like to see is the ability to buy an absolutely clean system from a major vendor at a significant discount (i.e. no MS tax).
Imagine a Beowulf... ::head rings as he his slapped collectively by hundreds::
By the way, what is the difference in cost on these machines without the Microsoft Tax?
The speed of time is one second per second.
Who would want an HP 'home machine' anyway? Esp. after the previous Slashdot story with lots of comments about how badly made they are and how clueless / obstructionist the tech support is...
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I get more coffee breaks due to reboots!
The reason that they are shipping a year old system is that that is what they tested with. They confirmed that their hardware will all function fine under that version of Linux. They must have fully tested and configured all aspects of the machine to be confident that what they are selling will work with the minimal amount of fuss.
Since they may have spent six months or more testing, tweaking and then retesting, that is what they will ship. The testing cycle of any new product takes time and care. Simply slapping it together and seeing that is "mostly" works is just not good enough to put your name on something.
HP is probably beginning to test or are nearing completion of testing Red Hat 7.2 on their systems. In another 6 months or so, they will probably have those systems ready to ship.
That is the way that business operates. You will understand when, or if, you get into a position with a company that is looking at updating systems. Knowing that something "works" is not the same as knowing that it works by testing the heck out of it.
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
We keep seein these articles with titles like is linux ready for the desktop?, is linux good enough for business, etc. I think these tend to blind us to the fact that the update of Linux has been nothing short of stunning.
Remember, just four years ago sys admins had to hide their Linux systems so the boss wouldn't find out about them. And now, IBM, HP, Compaq, Sun and other heavy hitters of the IT industry are increasingly basing their strategies around it. And we all know that Sun didn't even really want to, they were forced to by changes in the market. That demonstrates the power of the change that is taking place.
I had a go at using Linux in 1998. From many perspectives, it was, frankly, crap. Look where we are today, less than four years later.
People always assume that everything happens really quickly in the IT industry, but it isn't so. Things take time. Decades sometimes. The amount of mindshare that Linux has got in the last four years is just fantastic. The revolution is happening, and it's happening quickly.
People say that Linux can never compete on the desktop. I'm not so sure. At the moment it's grabbing bites out of virtually every other niche market in a way that Bill Gates must have dreamt about doing in the past. Now it must be giving him nightmares.
I can't wait to see what's going to happen in the next four years.
Our organization is looking at these closely as an possible replacement for Sun machines on the desktop. Running Linux on Intel hardware is very compelling from a price/performance perspective.
The Good Thing® about HP supporting these is the assurance of the big name. Linux may be ready for the enterprise, but no one wants to be the pioneer, anymore than anyone wants to be the pioneer for WinXP in the corporate environement. Conservatism rules.
In corporate IT support, you'd get real nervous rolling out brand X hardware and a Linux distribution whose track record of worthiness is only proven on the desktops of individual expert hackers. When hundreds of newbies pound the keyboards, you want to be reassured and know what to expect to face in terms of support issues.
Enterprise-wide experience coming from a large company like HP (it could just as well have been IBM or Sun) is precisely helpful in this regard. The slightly outdated distribution is actually an encouraging sign that a lengthy test period has gone into the whole setup.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
And i'd like to order Linux. I very much doubt that there'd be too many people accidentally choosing the Linux option.
If anythimg it'll lower the cost of their machines as they get out from the Microsoft tax, making them better options for us system builders.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Linux is most likely more because irregardless of whether you install Windows or not on a box, the OEM has to pay for that Windows license anyway...
HP was gracious enough to loan me one of these machines for a couple of weeks; so that I could write a review of it. I've only had it for a day, but it appears to be everything that one could ask for in a Linux graphics workstation. It's incredibly fast, has unbelieveable graphics, and has a customized RedHat configuration that just works.
HP has seen the light, too, and is running XFree86 instead of the custom Xserver inherited from their HPUX platforms. Their first Linux boxes, released about a year ago, weren't running XFree, IIRC.
More to follow, of course. One line summary -- The machines are real, and they rock.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
and from
I think I'll get the windows version and install debian myself.
You haven't been paying much attention to OEM licensing discussions, have you? Linux Refund Day provided a great object lesson. The per-unit price for Windows is negligible. And that price is already paid whether your unit ships with Windows or not. To avoid the "Microsoft tax", OEMs will have to abandon Windows. And as much as I would like to see OEMs have that option, right now they don't.
Alas, it won't be so. The so called Microsoft Tax amounts to about $100. I was a technical support supervisor for one of the major PC manufacturers, so I had some involvment in cost analysis of the PC's we sold. Our licensing costs on the OS was between $35 and $45 (depending on the version) and Office ran about $45. Why so cheap? Obviously volume plays a significant role, but also Microsoft had no involvment in the manufacturing of the media. We received a "master" set of discs that were in turn shipped to our manufacturer who then made the media that we shipped. Microsoft incurred no costs outside of development.
Another reason that you probably won't see "clean" systems is that most computer manufacturers are seeking to reduce the number of configurations available in order to reduce the cost of building the systems. Before I left my job in the PC manufacturing industry, my company had an exraordinarily broad catalog with substantial overlap between home and business systems, as well as a number of configurations that were rarely selected. That variety costs money...and also leads to mistakes, such as an overly ambitious salesperson who happily bundles a DVD drive, CD drive and CD-RW drive into a desktop system that has two 5.25" bays. But I digress...
The number of systems that customers would order blank is vanishingly small as a percentage of total sales. My company would do it, but only for their "key" customers, organizations that ordered systems by the hundreds. Otherwise, it just wasn't worth it, particularly with the razor-thin margins in the business.
I guess one way of looking at it is that because of the rapacious competition in the industry we're paying extraordinarily low prices for computers today. Sure, the extra $80-$90 that you pay for the OS and application software seems unfair, but on the other hand, the total system price is, quite frankly, a bargain, even with the inclusion of the unwanted OS.
My suggestion (and I'm sure there's no shortage of those similar to it) is that if you want a system with a clean drive, you should build it yourself.
-h-