More on Dell Dropping Linux Support

coolgeek writes: "In this previous Slashdot story, we discussed Dell's claims of slow sales as their reason for dropping Linux support. (article on c|net News.com). Today, this article on Reuters news reports: 'Citing internal Microsoft memos, the nine states also said that in 2000 and 2001 Microsoft pressured Dell Computer Corp. into dropping plans to offer the open-source Linux operating system on some machines it sells.'" Update by HNQ: eWeek got more details about the memos. Update: 03/19 12:26 GMT by M : I think Hetz accidentally changed this story's setting when he added the update above. Fixed.

Comments

Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell is dropping most of its support staff PERIOD. I was just laid off as a Dell Outsourcer, I had been working there 2 years putting myself through college. At least 10 sites of hundreds of techs just got laid off. As outsource agents, there was no big stink on the board and among stockholders because we were contracted, they probably don't even know about it.

If you buy from those thieves (oh, the corporate memos I could recite), expect a nice long wait for tech support now..

Dell was always Microsoft's bitch

[rseuhs]

First they quietly introduce Linux on desktops so that even their own salespeople don't know about it. Of course they only sell to the U.S. and not to Germany where Linux marketshare is several times higher.

Then instead of quietly removing Linux-support, all online-newspapers are running a story about Dell dicontinuing Linux on the desktop.

Am I the only one who thinks this is fishy?

Re:Preloads...

[rseuhs]

2/3 of Windows users are still running Win98, a 4 year onld OS, which is just a minor step up from Win95, a 7 year old OS.

People are not interested in paying for updates and they sure won't be delighted when their "ultra-stable" (LOL) WinXP box dies and they find out they won't get any activation code anymore. (Microsoft didn't guarantee that they will send out codes in 5 years, did they? - Hell they didn't even make a worthless promise.)

PC-makers are not interested in sending an ever increasing share of their revenue directly to Microsoft. 10 years ago, DOS made up less than 2% of a computer's total price, today that number is over 10% and rising every year.

It's just a matter of time, and the first signs are already observable.

Pitty... Dell + Linux works nicely.

[Arimus]

I'm running an old poweredge 6300 with RH 7.2.

Under NT it is a pig to get going with juggling raid driver disks - even though this PEdge has just a standard Perc-2Si raid controller...

With RH7.2 - no problems, 30 mins after starting I had a fully working linux box, 60 mins later a fully working PDC, DNS etc - normally with NT its the best part of a day getting the OS and all patches etc installed and working together (and then put exchange on and watch the whole thing vanish into a big pile of junk).

Wonder whether Dell might reconsider and agree to provide linux on their servers given MS is such a pig to work with.

How the de facto became de facto....

[jawtheshark]

Actually....you have it the wrong way around. Windows (mostly the NT incarnations) are the de facto standard in companies. This is not because of the OS (tough I tend to like NT4), but because of the Office suite. I have a lot of banking experience and many, many transactions are still done with simple terminal screens to big irons protected from the outside world. Heck, I had to make front-ends for these things and the users wanted to have the same look and feel (don't ask!)

Now the point is here that history has made the x86 platform as home computer because back in the days when a an XT was 5000$, the only people who could afford it were the bussiness men who wanted to do a bit of Lotus 123 at home. Of course these bought IBM machines that came with MS-Dos (I'm not kidding you...my dad was one of those loonies..tough it was a PS/2 in later times) All other computer *enthousiasts* were on Commodore 64, Sinclairs, BBC's....heck I'm probably even mixing decades here.
Later on when computers got cheaper (think 486, but were still expensive enough), people started to buy those for home use. You know the primary excuse for a home PC (bought by adults) was back then to do a bit word processing and spreadsheeting. Guess, what that is the stuff they (eventually) did at work and so the choice was clear: buy a PC. Yes, and the computer enthousiasts still used their Amiga's.
Now one could say that times have changed: now people admit they buy the computer for entertainment (surfing/games). I'm not sure if people still select at home what they use at work or if the tides have turned and home usage infuences work usage now. Now imagine businesses would massively switch to Linux (because MS gets even worse with licencing than it now is, and decision makers have the *balls* to say no...which I personally highly doubt) Woudn't this refect automagically into a higher demand for Linux home machines? I think so! People buy what they are used to, not what is good... Joe users dreads to learn about PC's.

I agree that W2k is a fine OS (tough I still prefer NT4), but I woudn't put it on a server....not anymore, I got the feeling of *BSD and for me a good Unix server is a *BSD server. For home usage W2K it's okay: you turn on the puter a couple of hours a day and it's stable enough for that: uptimes simply are not important for home usage. Win 9x kernels however were never suitable for anything... I don't know XP enough (only used one PC with drivers problems at a friends place), but it seemed very very bloated to me. (even more than W2K!)
Personally I have changed, I was an MS-Dos man, hated Win 1.0 to Win 3.xx and loved OS/2 (which died an absurd death). I had to get over to Win 95 and hated NT4 until I learned the strengths of it. Lately I have learned Linux, but I saw the light withing OSX. For me OSX is the machine for home use, if you're not into gaming of course...the only reason I now have to use a Windows incarnation are games and fortunately I'm not a big gamer.

Re:Did Dell even offer Linux? Could have fooled me

[Frater 219]

I have bought several Dell machines through work. You know: "workstations" for engineering and scientific applications. If that isn't where you would run Linux, I don't know where you would.

That is where "you would run Linux". That is also where a few hundred scientists for whom I work run Linux ... on Dells. For a few years now, my employer (a hard-science research institution with about 1000 employees) has been recommending Dell workstations for scientists who want to run Linux. We continue to do so, and Dell continues to ship Red Hat 7.2 on Precision Workstation models and PowerEdge servers -- up to and including the highest-end systems such as the PowerEdge 8450.

The whole "Dell quits shipping Linux" deal has applied to "some machines [Dell] sells," to quote the Reuters article. Specifically, Dell has dropped Linux on "desktop" systems such as the OptiPlex and Dimension models. It has not dropped Linux support on workstations or servers, which you can still quite easily purchase with Red Hat preinstalled -- or with no operating system at all, or even with Novell (ick) -- through Dell's online store. It's true that these workstations cost more than Dell's desktops; this is because they're faster and don't use cheap WinHardware (which doesn't work well in Linux anyway).

(Looking over the number of Dell trademarks in this post, I feel compelled to make it clear that I don't get any money from recommending Dells. I just get fewer support hassles when my clients buy the same hardware rather than going to Joe's Discount PC Clones and Bait Shop.)