HP To Sell PCs With Mandrake 9.1

theoddball writes "HP just announced a new PC model (HP Compaq d220) that's available preloaded with Windows or Mandrake 9.1. The machine appears to be targeted to business users, although it's on the lower-end of the scale - specs are here. Mandrake also has a press release announcing the deal, which will grow to include four other HP models. Is this a sign that top tier manufacturers are taking Linux more seriously, or at least seeing a profitable niche?" We commented on MandrakeSoft's status update yesterday.

Comments

ipaqs

[SKPhoton]

I wonder how long it will take until HP releases iPaq's with linux already installed.

Re:ipaqs

[MerryGoByeBye]

They won't until they figure out a way to not wipe out part of the memory whenever you switch systems in a dual-boot configuration. The iPaq actually has a pretty poor flash-management controller, from what I understand. (Not that CE cares. Hell, it doesn't even know when you install a different boot-loader.)

Re:ipaqs

[treke]

Maybe once there is a reliables set of user applications. The stuff that has been written so far is great, but until someone handles the details like syncing and quality of applications, Linux is going to have a way to go.

Re:ipaqs

[LouisZepher]

That would be like asking a slug if it was wet or slimy...

2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

2.0 GHz is low end of the spectrum? I'm still running a 400MHz PII as my primary!

*weeps into hands*

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[repetty]

"The machine appears to be targeted to business users, although it's on the lower-end of the scale..."

Yes that was a very weird statement.

Just how much power does someone need to type a Word document or send an email?

--Richard

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[deadsaijinx*]

yes, a 2ghz celeron is low end. The keyword being celeron. They are cheaper and slower, much cheaper and much slower.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[sexylicious]

That paperclip needs a lot of CPU cycles.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. It's a real pisser when new mobo's have a FSB that's twice as fast as your processor.

Or video cards.

Hell, you can probably get a sound card with a processor faster than my machine.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[incom]

The Computer appears to be configurable to something more high end.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[incom]

Nevermind, only on this exact model is ML9.1 available, as of now.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[dspeyer]

I'm writing this /. post from a 700MHz Celeron. I put my box through *much* heavier usage than a typical business user. I frequently surf the web in mozilla while my software compiles with OpenWriter and Gimp open on other desktops. I've sometimes wanted more RAM (I have 192Mb) but I don't need a faster chip.

OTOH, I doubt much cheaper than a 2.0GHz Celeron is still made, except for the Via chips without hardware floating point.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[jd142]

Well, I started with a C-64. That's right children, 64k. Then I thought I was doing good with a 512 meg video card. And wow, my p-75 with 4 whole megs of video memory (more than my first real pc) really smoked them. I wait so long between computer updates that my next computer generally has as much or more video ram than my previous one had ram. Right now I'm on an Athlon 1800+ with 512 megs of ram and a 32 meg video card. In a year or two 512 on video card will probably pretty middle of the road. 256 isn't that uncommon now, although the last time I checked, the mid ranges were more around 128.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[Binary Gibbon]

The fact of the matter is that for some time - several years, now - the 'low end' of new PCs is still far and away capable of performing any tasks that a user could want, perfectly - except for games and high-powered media applications. It's really those two markets which propel the hardware side at this point.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[fireman sam]

Actually the C-64 only had 32K of ram + 32K rom. OTOH, the Plus4 had full 64K ram + 32K rom with the rom mapped to the high 32K ram. The two could be switch with an asm flag. If only the Plus4 was compatible with the C-64, but that is all history.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[The Vulture]

Sorry, the Commodore 64 did have 64K of RAM. It also had (I believe) 20K of ROM (8K BASIC interpreter, 8K kernel ROM and 4K character ROM) mapped in at various addresses. However, the RAM "underneath" the ROMs is available, but only in machine language.

The BASIC interpreter is mapped in at $A000, the character ROM is mapped in at $D000 (I think, I don't quite remember), and the kernel ROM is mapped in at $E000. Due to the way that the VIC-II works, being able to access only 16K at a time, the character ROM is also mapped in at $1000 and $9000, but only the VIC-II sees it this way, the 6510 sees the RAM there.

Now then, to map out the ROM's, you need to play with the MMU, which is at memory location 1. Also, like I said, you have to be in machine language, because using any of these methods, you end up mapping out either the BASIC interpreter, BASIC and the kernel, or all of the ROM's, and if you're in BASIC, unless you've copied the ROM to RAM, you'll crash the machine.

These values will work, although you shouldn't just set them, since they also set some of the Datasette lines as well. Set the MMU (memory location 1) to these values to get the RAM:
$36: Map in the RAM under the BASIC interpreter (8K at $A000)
$35: Map in the RAM under the BASIC interpreter (8k at $A000) and under the kernel (8K at $E000)
$34: All 64K of RAM.
There are other values as well, but I don't remember how they work, as I didn't use them very often.

Note that when you map out the kernel or use all 64K of RAM, you MUST disable interrupts. The 6510, when it receives an interrupt, jumps to the vector pointed at $FFFC ($FFFA for NMI's), and for IRQ, this is $EA31 (I don't remember the NMI). If the CPU does it's JMP($FFFC), and there's garbage there, well, your C64 goes off into
never-never land.

Also when you map in all 64K of memory, you only have about 63K of memory. That's because most of zero page (0-255) is reserved, $100-$200 is the stack (you don't want to mess with that unless you really know what you're doing), and $300 contains some semi-important pointers (file I/O, IRQ, etc.). But from $400 up, you're all clear.

Of interesting note... The game Impossible Mission (by Epyx) used all but 1K of RAM. And yes, I'm a former C64 demo coder, I've set the machine to use all 64K of RAM many times.

-- Joe

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

" That paperclip needs a lot of CPU cycles."

The paper clip is very efficient do to it's well integrated design. It takes very little cycles. It's when you try to kill it you suck up cpu as you go through menus and do everything you can to kill it.

OK, well i have to say in office XP one click and he's gone for good. But i know in previous releases he was a bitch, or a bubble, or a dog....

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

" I'm writing this /. post from a 700MHz Celeron. I put my box through *much* heavier usage than a typical business user. I frequently surf the web in mozilla while my software compiles with OpenWriter and Gimp open on other desktops. I've sometimes wanted more RAM (I have 192Mb) but I don't need a faster chip.

OTOH, I doubt much cheaper than a 2.0GHz Celeron is still made, except for the Via chips without hardware floating point."

Hah, when i first read the 700 i was thinking bus speed. My how things have changed. But I know what it's like, i ran a PII 400 with no problem. I upgrade cause i wanted differant computer and needed more CPU for some things.

Also you're correct. low end is in the 2 ghz range anymore cause they don't make the slower ones. and the 2ghz celeron ain't much more expensive then a much much slower older chip. few bucks can get you 1500 more mhz.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[badasscat]

Well, I started with a C-64. That's right children, 64k.

Well, we're all just a bunch of grumpy old men here, aren't we?

I started on an Apple II but so what? You can't get any real useful work done on one now and yes, even the 400mhz and 733mhz CPU's people are talking about in here are getting pretty long in the tooth for business use.

I mean look - I don't know what kind of business work you people are talking about. There's more to running a business then sending email and using Word, which are the only examples I ever see brought up in this kind of argument. My job is producing internet content for a large company; I need to use a motley suite of apps. ranging from Photoshop to Word to Dreamweaver to Flash to Excel and I generally have 10-12 tabs open in Firebird and 4-5 IE windows at once as well. I do such varying tasks as project management, scheduling, light design work, even the occasional DVD authoring. I have to multitask, as has become fairly typical for the American worker these days.

I do all these things on a Dell Dimension 8300 with a 2.6Ghz P4 and 1024MB of RAM. This PC is sufficient for all that I need to do, keeping in mind the multitasking with various memory-intensive apps. And I am not even a designer. Up until about 2 months ago I was stuck on a 733mhz P3 with 512MB of RAM and let me tell you, it was absolutely painful.

There are only a few white-collar jobs I can think of where all you need to do is send email and use Word. Data entry, receptionist, office assistant... that's really about it. Yes, for those people a low-powered machine will suffice - and those are the people in my office who always end up with the hand-me-down computers. Nobody buys a computer with a 733mhz CPU new these days, so it would be pointless to sell them when every company has old ones lying around. To get any real work done, though, you do need a more powerful machine than that, and I would not be a happy camper doing my job on a 2.0Ghz Celeron.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[fireman sam]

I stand VERY corrected

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[Saint Stephen]

Computer power is a wierd thing. Sure, in some situtations, the computer spends most of its time waiting for input. But, give a faster computer a try, and experience the goodness of much faster:

*kernel compiles (unless I am mistaken gcc is typically compute bound?)
*compressing/encoding things -- decoding/playback doesn't need much
*gaming goodness!

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[t0qer]

I had an Atari you insensitive clod!!

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[Zork the Almighty]

You have a 512 meg video card ?! Holy crap !

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[avidday]

I think the statement was more targetted at the fact that the mobo lacks an AGP slot, so the onboard *cough* Extreme *cough* GPU in the north bridge is all you are ever going to have to work with. It also lacks "high end" features like onboard SATA or SCSI, gigabyte ethernet and has only 3 PCI slots.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[egreB]

I started on an Apple II but so what? You can't get any real useful work done on one now and yes, even the 400mhz and 733mhz CPU's people are talking about in here are getting pretty long in the tooth for business use.
Only yesterday I saw a Mac Plus doing its job for a librarian - granted, only for text processing and printing, but still. It did its job. I actually asked wether she would rather like a new computer - there were quite a lot of them around. Of course not, she replied, as the Mac does its job. I beleive the librarian did "real useful work" on that Mac.

Just because you happen to be internet content creation, doesn't mean that your computer would fit everybody else. The reason you see such many "Word and Excel"-arguments around here, is because the majority of business computer users only to text processing, spreadsheet and e-mail. Computers have been able to do that for quite a while, now. In the real world, people look as computers as tools, not as the real work.

I'm a web developer. As I run Linux, my applications ranges from Gimp to web/script/databaseserver to several web browsers, of course in addition to mail and news applications and all the small stuff like XMMS and Gaim. For these tasks, I have an AMD K6-II 400MHz with 128MB RAM and a 16 MB video adapter. I'll upgrade the RAM soon, but the computer is sufficient for my needs, and it's not painful.

I think the definition of real work needs some polishing. I admit that my computer have troubles with the latest games, but I don't linke this trend of always needing the latest and greatest hardware. People did real work on PDP-11, for crying out load!

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[mcrbids]

I'm a web developer. As I run Linux, my applications ranges from Gimp to web/script/databaseserver to several web browsers, of course in addition to mail and news applications and all the small stuff like XMMS and Gaim. For these tasks, I have an AMD K6-II 400MHz with 128MB RAM and a 16 MB video adapter. I'll upgrade the RAM soon, but the computer is sufficient for my needs, and it's not painful.

And until recently, I did the same kind of thing on an AMD K6/2-450 w/512 MB RAM. I too thought it "was enough" until a new contract forced me to run multiple VMWare sessions. Then, I upgraded to an Athlon 1800+/1 GB RAM.

Now, there's no way I'd ever consider going back.

Moz is instantaneous. Kmail can search GBs of email very fast. Big PGSQL queries complete instantly. In short, I love it!

Realize that your time is worth money. Time you spend waiting on your computer is frequently time you're not getting paid for, and is otherwise time your customers are paying for.

A new 2.0 Ghz motherboard/CPU can be had for under $100.

How much do you charge per hour of your time? At my "good guy" rate of $65/hour, this motherboard costs 1.5 hours. I probably save that in billables to my clients in a few days to perhaps a week.

In other words, get the right tool for the job.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[zero_offset]

I started on an Apple II but so what? You can't get any real useful work done on one now and yes, even the 400mhz and 733mhz CPU's people are talking about in here are getting pretty long in the tooth for business use.

Until very recently, a guy I know ran a $3M/yr business on a Z80 based Northstar computer which dates from the late 70's or thereabouts. It was slow, and the printer clacked out information on 132-column greenbar fanfold, but it did everything he needed. He only upgraded to a PC when he couldn't find replacement printer ribbon any more and the ribbon in the re-inked cartridges started falling apart.

(Yes, he's a cheapskate, but like many cheapskates, he's mind bendingly wealthy.)

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[cshark]

I wish I had some monkey to give them. A new Mandrake box with support would be a nice addition to my home network.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[kupci]

I remember reading, I think in one of Robert X. Cringley's books, that one of the PC pioneers, maybe Scott McNealy, kept an ancient workstation from PARC days, on his desktop, to keep his perspective. It had a GUI, ethernet connection, mouse, printer - pretty much everything modern workstations have. Cringley also noted a study where Lotus contacted some of the first buyers of Lotus 1-2-3 (or maybe the Apple version), and found that most were still perfectly happy with it.

I think the trend is driven more by wintel, but it's getting harder and harder to justify.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[Sayjack]

Moz is instantaneous. Kmail can search GBs of email very fast. Big PGSQL queries complete instantly. In short, I love it!

You should credit the software providers as much as the hardware providers. It sounds like the 1 GB of memory made more difference than the CPU upgrade on the hardware side. Big hardware can make naive algorithms run faster, but there is no substitute for efficient software. It's a damn shame that there's so little of it out there.

At the risk of going off on a tangent here, I've always felt that the programmer should have to spend a bit time on a sub-standard system so that he/she can achieve a perspective on how the software will behave for the *average* user. Programmers can lose perspective sitting behind their dual CPU 2.0 Ghz P4 machine.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[TheCrazyFinn]

pshaw,

64K on an Apple ][ and loving it.

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron�

[fireman sam]

I wasn't trying to be funny. I actually do stand corrected. It is just that my previous post was so far off, and the above reply was very correcting.

So I stand very corrected.

this....

[deadsaijinx*]

this is not a newsworthy article. Ok, so HP adds another flavor of Linux. Good for it. The already had Red Hat, what's the big deal that They added Mandrake now? Don't get me wrong, I run Mandrake, it's a good OS, but is it news when HP desides to sell a low end computer with a different flavor of Linux than they usually use?

Re:this....

[geekd]

This news is about desktops

Previous HP linux computers were servers.

Re:this....

[mickwd]

Maybe it's news because Mandrake is seen as more of a desktop distro than RedHat (though it also forms a very capable server), and it shows that one of the biggest PC suppliers now thinks Linux is ready for the desktop.

It's also great news for Mandrake, and about time. Well done, Drakes.

Re:this....

[rm_monterey]

might be interesting to see what repercussions this has for Mandrake being recognized as a business Linux solution. Last I heard, Mandrake was just coming out of chapter 11. Was this the boost they need? Ximian says that as soon as your organization has 1000+ machines running some other flavor of Linux (besides SuSE and RedHat), they would consider an XD2 release for that distro. Well, HP's decision could move Ximian in that direction.

Re:this....

[benjamindees]

I'd have to disagree with you. In fact, I think Mandrake is an odd choice for a business desktop. I was planning on buying some HP desktops and putting RedHat 9 on them, but I'll jump on this opportunity to replace the Microsoft tax with the Mandrake tax and still end up using RH9.

Re:this....

[Strudelkugel]

Linux (OK, GNU/Linux) has been ready for the desktop for a long time. The question, though, is which distro? Which window manager? When running a business, this stuff matters far more than license fees, within reasonable limits. When you think about how technically inferior Windows 3.1 was compared to OS/2 and the Mac, let alone the *nix's back then, it would seem to be a wonder that it got anywhere at all. But, considering how cheap it was and the fact that it did its basic job well enough on a huge permutation of PC hardware, its success becomes easier to understand.

Technical superiority has never been the primary determinant of market success, at least in the commercial world.

Now we have you and others comparing Mandrake to RH and <name favorite disto> already, and I sense the same pattern of the OS battles in the early 90s. Sooner or later, /. will become a spectacular arena in which to watch the distro battle/FUD flingfest. How this will resolve itself, I have no idea. But it sure will be interesting to see which Linux distro prevails, and to what extent.

Re:this....

[mickwd]

"Now we have you and others comparing Mandrake to RH and already..."

Read my post again. I deliberately used the words "Mandrake is seen as..." rather than "Mandrake is...".

Re:this....

[Strudelkugel]

Fair enough, I appreciate your point. However, look at the accompanying posts and you can see what is happening. The SCO fiasco may just be the tip of the iceberg. No wonder Tux is a penguin!

"I'm giving it all she's got Jim, but I don't know if the engines can take this much longer! It keeps pulling us in!"

Re:this....

[Surak]

Now we have you and others comparing Mandrake to RH and already, and I sense the same pattern of the OS battles in the early 90s. Sooner or later, /. will become a spectacular arena in which to watch the distro battle/FUD flingfest. How this will resolve itself, I have no idea. But it sure will be interesting to see which Linux distro prevails, and to what extent.

Questions:

1: Where have you been? This has been going on for sometime.

2: What OS battles of the early 90s? Do you mean the bloody beatings that Microsoft did to everyone else in the early 90s? :)

Re:this....

[d3faultus3r]

not true, HP has been selling Red Hat linux desktops for over a month. In fact, I bought one recently.

Re:this....

[BrokenHalo]

I use Redhat 9 every day as my primary workstation and I have to say that its quite capable as a desktop as well.

You can actually say that about pretty much any distribution. Slackware does it very nicely for me, though over the years I have had flings with RedHat, Mandrake and Debian. I'm not going to get drawn into a flamewar as to which is "better"; it's just a matter of choice as to how you like to work.

Re:this....

[BrokenHalo]

A couple of points here (as devil's advocate if you like, since I'm not personally a big fan of mdk):

Chapter 11 doesn't apply in France. If I recall correctly, Mandrake's insolvency proceedings were pretty much a way of ditching costly commitments from the dot-bomb era.

As a business solution it might be quite a good option if they are still bundling StarOffice. I seem to remember they did with 9.0. It seems a lot of businesses are more comfortable with the proprietary office package than with OpenOffice, despite the fact that they are essentially the same thing from most users' perspective, I'm not sure how many distros even bundle OpenOffice (probably SuSE, I guess...).

Re:this....

[sirmikester]

> You can actually say that about pretty much any distribution.

Amen to that, i think that that's what makes linux great! you can configure pretty any much distro to be what you need it to be. However certain distros make life easier for you such as Debian with its apt-get and Redhat/Mandrake with its rpm system. I don't understand why people still use slackware because there isn't any package management built in... does it offer any advantages to the other more recent distros? (out of curiosity)

Re:this....

[BrokenHalo]

...use slackware because there isn't any package management built in... does it offer any advantages to the other more recent distros? (out of curiosity)

Slackware does have a package management system, but it is (deliberately) kept very simple. It's great if you compile a lot of software from source (by which I don't mean a src.rpm). You almost never run into the dependency hell common on other systems.

A lot of people like Slack simply because of the nice BSD-style init scripts which are easier to read and quicker to tweak than sysvinit.

As for other "more recent" distros, the latest version of Slack was released on 2003-03-19, so it's not that old, and Pat keeps it very current. Also, the folks at Dropline package by far the best and most current distribution of Gnome I've seen on any distro.

Re:this....

[McAddress]

Even as a consumer desktop, Mandrake leaves much to be desired. I have been wrestling with it for a month, and it still won't behave like I want it to. Programs don't always open, one program crash can bring down the whole OS. I even once could not boot in without running fsck manually. Try telling a windows user to run fsck from the shell. Mandrake is just not ready for prime time.

Re:this....

[jester]

is newsworthy as its a desktop, but I see that people wanting Mandrake dont get a reduction in the overall price even though the Mandrake pack costs less than XP. Oh well its a start.

Re:this....

[fr0dicus]

HP provide our desktops at work. Linux has been an option for ages. We just recently got quoted on 8.2 and this moved to 9.1 last week. They charge 149 euros for the pleasure, which seems to be the corporate editions price, which would fit.

Re:this....

[vsprintf]

Mandrake leaves much to be desired. I have been wrestling with it for a month, and it still won't behave like I want it to. Programs don't always open, one program crash can bring down the whole OS.

What the heck are you trying to run? I've been using 9.1 since it was released, and the only complaint I have is that OpenOffice takes a very long time to start. I can't recall any programs crashing and certainly not the OS. One warning though, don't use the "upgrade" option - do a full install.

Re:this....

[CmdrGravy]

The only factor currently working in Frances favour is that at least it is not populated by Americans !

Re:this....

[Strog]

My brother-in-law started at Dreamworks months ago and they gave him an HP with Linux pre-loaded. Search HP for Dreamworks and you will see they have been pushing it for a while now on machines other than servers.

Re:this....

[TheCrazyFinn]

I use slack because it lacks the package management system. apt-get is OK but RPM annoys me.

It's also easier to move from Slack to other Unix's, and as I also have an Irix box, a Mac OS X box and a NeXTStep box, this is a win for me.

Oh, and it just feels right. Which is the ultimate reason to pick a distro for personal use.

Re:this....

[Darby]

since I'm not personally a big fan of mdk

How could you not be a fan of MDK?!?

That game was awesome. The parachute and sniper mode were way useful, head shots counted, and your dog would fly in on a bombing run for you.
Now granted it was never networkable, but it was still a great game ;-)

Good. Distro variety.

[arcanumas]

This is also good news that Large companies see Distros other than Red Hat to be of excellent quality. It have many times seen ignorant IT managers telling me how the only way to go with Linux is RedHat. (which is good, but not the only one)
Maybe now i can propose the use of my favorite distro and have "managerial" evidence to back it. :)

Re:Good. Distro variety.

[MisterFancypants]

Whether this is good or not might depend upon if you're a developer considering writing Linux software. While it might not seem that tough to just support "Linux", the minor differences in all the different distros can really balloon into major QA, tech support and release engineering (as each distro tends to have different preferred package handling systems) headaches.

I think this hurts Linux as an application target more than most people realize, and I hope one of the many announced standardization efforts actually produces something other than talk and press releases soon.

Re:Good. Distro variety.

[Surak]

Just a small point, but Mandrake started out as Red Hat+KDE. This is no longer true, of course, but it's still largely a Red Hat clone in many aspects.

Re:Good. Distro variety.

[Afrosheen]

I don't think packaging is such a big deal anymore, but maybe I'm spoiled from using Mandrake for so long. I can find tons of apps just about anywhere, even those with dubious copyrights.

If you're using an rpm-based packaging system you'll hit 90% of the linux desktops out there. The real bitch comes when you get library versions mismatches and whatnot, but that can be prevented by shipping a huge binary with all it's deps rolled into one rpm. Yeah, it sucks, but that's what happens when libs constantly change. The more conservative distros (suse, redhat) generally have older libs than mandrake and some other rpm-based distros and this can cause lots of problems.

At any rate someday there'll be a shakedown and most of the big distros will conclude on a better format for handling deps.

Re:Good. Distro variety.

[leviramsey]

Mandrake aims to be roughly binary compatible with Red Hat.

Hopefully

[CoolGuySteve]

Maybe other manufacturers and consumers will realize that linux is superior to windows in just about every way possible. It's taken long enough anyways, the average linux Desktop not only looks, performs and is more intuitive than windows' explorer.exe, but also has way more applications available from the start.

Re:Hopefully

[Aadain2001]

say, edit video

Linux may lack the video editing tools that are present in the Windows world, but there are projects out there working on them. I personally use Kino for the small jobs I have, and it does the job.

create artwork

Two words: The Gimp. Very powerful. Very supported. And free. There are many other programs out there, but The Gimp is the most known. Some compare it to Photoshop.

manage source code

This is where Linux shines! It was created by hackers, for hackers, and as such has a great history with development and development tools. I'm constantly suprised that more people don't develope for Linux since it comes with every kind of development tool most will ever need. CVS, IDEs, compilers, linkers, debuggers... Linux has it all and for free!

create product to send out to clients

That depends on the product. Where I work, the Windows boxes are nothing more than a way to use the Exchange Server (which the open source world really needs to come up with a replacement for) and maybe a few office documents. The real work is done on Linux and Unix boxes. Everyone here who is part of the core revenue stream works entirely on Linux. It's more secure, free, and easier to manage when you have thousands of servers. So, as far as producing a product to sell, Linux is definately ready, and has been for a while.

Maybe it's time you actually try doing something real on Linux. I'd think you'd be suprised by how well it works.

Re:Hopefully

[ClosedSource]

This was a test of the Slashdot moderation system.

Here's how the test works: You take a strong statement made by a previous poster that compares the relative value of Linux and Windows and swap the words "Linux" and "Windows" and post it. This should flip the "Troll" bit.

As you can see, Slashdot moderation is working properly. Thank you for your cooperation.

Re:Hopefully

[falsified]

"Here's how the test works: You take a strong statement made by a previous poster that compares the relative value of Linux and Windows and swap the words "Linux" and "Windows" and post it. This should flip the "Troll" bit."

Of course, the reason this gets labelled a troll is that Windows and Linux are not the same thing, so if you interchange the words, you often come up with something that's factually incorrect. Hence the troll mod.

Re:Hopefully

[ClosedSource]

So "factually incorrect" is the definition of "Troll". Gee, I didn't know that.

Re:Hopefully

[falsified]

Well...when the post is intentionally incorrect, then that's a form of trolling, yeah. Of course, an honest mistake isn't a troll, and there are tons of trolls that aren't factually wrong.

Re:Hopefully

[Thoguth]

There's a project for this as well.

"The Courier mail transfer agent (MTA) is an integrated mail/groupware server based on open commodity protocols such as ESMTP, IMAP, POP3, LDAP, SSL, and HTTP. Courier provides ESMTP, IMAP, POP3, Webmail, calendaring, and mailing list services"

Unfortunately, still in beta, but it's very active. There are a lot of people who want to throw out their Exchange box.

Re:Hopefully

[ClosedSource]

I would say the best practical definition of "Troll" is "I disagree". It doesn't have anything to do correctness.

Both the orginal statement and the reverse statement were equally guilty of making very broad claims without proof. The difference is that more people on Slashdot want to believe the postive statement on Linux then on Windows so they mod one as a "Troll" and the other gets a free pass.

My little experiment forced some people to examine their conscience which people generally don't like to do.

Das Slashdot Effekt

[DaddyExcellent]

HP announced today an affordable, high-quality desktop PC for small and medium businesses (SMB): the HP Compaq Business Desktop d220 Microtower, which offers a choice for operating system between Windows or Mandrake Linux 9.1 (please read the press-release below).

It's the first time that an industry leader publicly announces the availability of Linux on a desktop PC.

This is the result of a worldwide agreement between MandrakeSoft and HP. The Mandrake Linux 9.1 operating system, while poor in comparison to Windows, is now available on a complete range of HP desktop PCs. This includes (or will include) the following machines: HP Compaq 220, HP Compaq 230, HP Compaq 325, HP Compaq D330 and HP Compaq D530.

Mandrake Linux 9.1 is recognized to be one of the less crash-prone and primitive of the Linux systems available today, and is a major step towards delivering Linux as a pretend office-desktop solution to small businesses.

More information about Mandrake Linux 9.1 is available at:
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/91/mainfeatur es

The Press-release from HP is available at:
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2003/03070 2a.html

Re:Das Slashdot Effekt

[Sky Lemon]

I remember Dell offering Red Hat on desktop machines... or was that only considered "corporate" desktops vs. home use desktops?

Well

[MisterFancypants]

Well on the one hand this is great news, on the other hand despite what the press release says I don't see any way to configure a system to ship with Mandrake instead of Windows XP on their little site store page that is linked into that press release. All of the d220 models I see listed are shipping with Windows XP with no way to change that option (I was hoping to see what kind of price difference, if any, that option would cause).

Hopefully this is just a case of the press releasing being issued a bit before the website is changed to handle the new systems fully.

Re:Well

[BigBir3d]

Available for sale starting July 7th 2003.

I think it's more not wanting to be left out

[dspyder]

I think what it comes down to is not wanting to lose out sales to someone else. If their competetors are making at least 1 sale with something, most companies will want to try and steal away that sale... almost at any cost!

Of course, it looks like they're not going to put a huge effort behind it until there is some momentum... but then do expect them market the hell out of it.

--D

Re:I think it's more not wanting to be left out

[money_shot]

Actually, it cost a lot more than they sell to bother with. Ie, selling computers does not equal profit.

Most likely, Mandrake is giving it to them for free for the press and also doing the engineering work. HP only has to give someone the product if he wants it. If I was HP, I wouldn't invest a dime into this.

Desktop vs. Office/desktop?

[joestar]

Despite the fact that Linux is apparently not ready yet for "mum" (certainly because of a lack of third-party applications), it really seems there is a growing momentum for Linux on the desktop in the field of corporate environements. My guess is that StarOffice/OpenOffice.org are responsible for that, and also that Mandrake 9.1, with its great desktop environment, offers most things that corporations need for their daily tasks. This includes OpenOffice.org and Mozilla for instance.

Re:Desktop vs. Office/desktop?

[garett_spencley]

Hopefully with more larger companies offering Linux on desktops more people will consider switching and thus more commercial applications will become available.

That and the prediction that Linux will surpass Apple in desktop usage next year.

I have lots of friends that I met from other completely non-tech message boards that I participate on. In the chat rooms I've been asked on many occasion by these people about switching to Linux which has always surprised me because I've never mentioned it to anyone. They know that I work professionally as a computer programmer and that's about it.

A few years ago I used to pitch Linux to everyone who didn't care. I stopped for just that reason... no one cared. Now I find those same people are starting to care. Why? Because they hear about it from companies like Wallmart, HP, Dell etc. so now all of a sudden it must mean something.

This is exciting news ineed.

- Garett

Re:Desktop vs. Office/desktop?

[Aadain2001]

I've experienced the same thing. People use to just roll their eyes and drift off into dream land as soon as I would say the word Linux. Now, these same people are asking me a lot of questions about Linux and how they could switch over. I think the average Joe is finally fed up with Microsoft and is looking for a replacement. When friends that don't even have computers start to ask me about Linux, I know that we have been doing the right thing and the change is a comin!

Re:Desktop vs. Office/desktop?

[wukie]

Note how no-one here at Slashdot ever THANK Sun for buying StarOffice, then putting it out for free (Ver 5x and latter) as OpenOffice.

Sun never gets any credit for anything. They gave us JAVA and made Linux viable.

Re:Desktop vs. Office/desktop?

[BrokenHalo]

...and the change is a comin!

I wouldn't be so hopeful. I know any number of people who, despite the fact that they know that excellent alternatives are available, will just automatically insist on having Windows installed on their next computer purchase. It's like all the idiots who spend the years between elections complaining about their government, and then go and vote the same bozos back in again at election time. (Or don't bother turning up to vote at all, which is worse.)

Re:Desktop vs. Office/desktop?

[badasscat]

I wouldn't be so hopeful. I know any number of people who, despite the fact that they know that excellent alternatives are available, will just automatically insist on having Windows installed on their next computer purchase.

On their next computer purchase, probably. But the one after that? Or the one after that? There's no denying that momentum is building, and it may take a while but you're seeing the future right now.

Hell, I'd insist on having Windows installed on my next PC, and I've become a big fan of Linux. I don't think Linux is quite ready to replace Windows on the desktop but it is getting there and is a suitable replacement for a growing subset of users (I'm just not one of them yet). It's not going to happen overnight. But if current trends are maintained (public awareness and acceptance continues to grow and the OS itself continues to mature and become more user-friendly), it will happen eventually.

Re:Desktop vs. Office/desktop?

[Strudelkugel]

And yet again, I get to ask one of my favorite questions: "What is Sun's business model?"

They gave us JAVA and made Linux viable

Not sure about the last part, at least I sincerely doubt it was Sun's intention to make Linux viable. One thing for certain, though, if I were a Sun shareholder I would not be very happy with management strategy so far.

Re:Desktop vs. Office/desktop?

[fault0]

Make linux viable? Sun pretty much wishes Linux would die a slow painful death. Their OS strategy is still well entrenched around Solaris.

Thats great but...

[paranoidsim]

It doesnt seem you can actually configure a machine with Mandrake 9.1 on it. The customize screen does not allow you to change the OS from Windows. Am I deaf, dumb or blind?

Re:Thats great but...

[jdray]

I couldn't find it either. From reading the spec sheet, it looks like they include Mandrake as part of the base package, so you're buying an XP license whether or not you're going to use it.

Thbbtttttt!!!

Re:Thats great but...

[Repugnant_Shit]

Yes. The press release states that mandrake will be available on ONE MODEL initially, on JULY 7TH.

Retail!!!

[PaulK]

Looking to find out what retailers would be selling this, I did follow their product link.

It's not listed yet, but that's no surprise.

This is probably the ONLY way that people are going to buy this for their homes; a side by side comparison of an MS machine and a (GNU/)Linux machine.

The retail setting is absoluetely imperative. Buying a preloaded sysem online is well and good, but most people will stick to the devil they know, (MS).

Now, people will have the whole "touchy, feely," experience.

Not yet on the store

[LinuxTek]

If you try to buy a d220 microtower, there's no option available yet with Mandrake Linux. If they're going to do a press release, isn't it better to have the actual product first?

Re:Not yet on the store

[joestar]

It seems that these products are mostly targetted to small & medium businesses, so it's likely that most units will be sold by value-added resellers.

Re:Not yet on the store

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're going to do a press release, isn't it better to have the actual product first?

In the computer industry?

Re:Not yet on the store

[babyrat]

RTFA:

From the article:
Customized solutions, available beginning July 7, start at an estimated U.S. street price of $349(1) with an Intel...

Re:Not yet on the store

[opkool]

Mmmm, let's see:
$ date
Wed Jul 2 23:39:11 EDT 2003

And in the Press release says:
"..., available beginning July 7, ..."

So far, nothing wrong. IF they are not available on the 7th, then we can all scream and yell in dispair.

But not just yet.

Peace.

Re:Not yet on the store

[beef3k]

That goes for the d220 microtower in general. The ones configured with WinXP also has a note saying: Estimated ship date: 7/9/2003 (and the usual footnote with "HP has no responsibility for delays" blah, blah)

Sure it is.

[EdgeShadow]

It's newsworthy because Mandrake only just recently climbed out of bankruptcy. The fact that a major computer manufacturer has decided to preload Mandrake on one of their business-line models as an alternative to Windows suggests that the company's future might be brighter than many expected.

Re:Sure it is.

[endeavour31]

Uhhh. Mandrake is not yet out of bankruptcy. If the new release sells well they may be out of bankruptcy by year end.

So how do I get one, if I wanted it?

[siskbc]

I clicked on the "specs" link, hit configure, and it took me to a page where all I could "configure" was the monitor, warranty, and speakers - not the OS, which seemed locked to windows. Or am I being dense? I suspect I'm being dense. ;)

No, the answer is...

[usotsuki]

Format the drive and install FreeDOS + OpenGEM!

-uso.

Re:No, the answer is...

[ergean]

And now with USB 2.0 drivers from Panasonic for DOS, you can use it with your external HDD.

screw this.

[geekoid]

I'm going to start a band of elite Linux Ninja to sneak in and just start intalling Linux on every computer.
Won't you be my Ninja?

Re:screw this.

[PaulK]

U betcha! I'll start practice throwing with my "bbc cds".

I just wonder if my natural moon tan will be enough camouflage in Compusa.

Re:screw this.

[frodo from middle ea]

If knowing kung-fu is not a pre requirement then count me in.

Re:screw this.

[pizen]

Will your Ninjas have Real Ultimate Power?

Format text :)

[grantsellis]

Ack! That's unreadable. Take a few moments to put the br's in :)

HP Delivers Affordable, Reliable Microtower PC to Small- and Medium-sized Businesses
PALO ALTO, CALIF., JULY 2, 2003

HP (NYSE:HPQ) today introduced an affordable, high-quality desktop PC for small- and medium-sized business (SMB) customers: the HP Compaq Business Desktop d220 Microtower.

The microtower desktop features Intel® Pentium® 4 or Celeron® processors and offers three PCI expansion slots, two double data rate (DDR) memory slots and five drive bays in a compact microtower platform, allowing for expansion or future upgrades.

"Our SMB customers are looking to maximize their IT investment, and the combination of low purchase price and consistent, reliable performance in the HP Compaq d220 provides value-seeking businesses a solid platform choice," said Keith LeFebvre, vice president of business desktop division, Americas, HP Personal Systems Group.

The HP Compaq Business Desktop d220 is designed to keep IT simple, with the choice of customizable or pre-configured solutions optimized for affordability and quality. Customized solutions, available beginning July 7, start at an estimated U.S. street price of $349 (1) with an Intel Celeron 2.0-gigahertz processor, 40-gigabyte hard drive and 128-megabyte DDR SDRAM. Customers also can opt for an Intel Pentium 4 2.4-gigahertz processor, 40-gigabyte hard drive and 128-megabyte DDR SDRAM for as low as an estimated U.S. street price of $499. (1)

For customers interested in pre-configured solutions with an Intel Celeron 2.0-gigahertz processor, pricing starts at an estimated $429. (1) Or, for customers requiring additional processing power, the HP Compaq d220 is available pre-configured with a 2.4-gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 processor, 40-gigabyte hard drive, 512-megabyte DDR SDRAM, integrated Intel Extreme Graphics, DVD+RW/CD-RW combo drive, six USB 2.0 ports and Microsoft Windows® XP Professional - priced at an estimated U.S. street price of only $799. (1)

HP Compaq desktops are available with the latest operating systems from the industry leader, Microsoft, as well as a robust Linux offering from Mandrake. The HP Compaq d220 offers a choice of Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows XP Home or Mandrake's Linux v9.1, providing customers with the versatility needed for today's mixed-use environments.

The HP Compaq Business Desktop d220 Microtower is now available directly from HP or through authorized resellers. More information about the product is available at http://www.hp.com/products/desktops .

About HP
HP delivers vital technology for business and life. The company's solutions span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing for consumers, enterprises and small and medium business. For the last four quarters, HP revenue totaled $70.4 billion. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com .

(1) Actual prices may vary.

Intel, Pentium and Celeron are U.S. registered trademarks of Intel Corp. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the possibility that the market for the sale of certain products and services may not develop as expected; that development and performance of these products and services may not proceed as planned; and other risks that are described from time to time in HP 's Securities and Exchange Commission reports, including but not limited to HP 's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended January 31, 2003, and subsequently filed reports. If any of these risks or uncertainties materializes or any of these assumptions proves incorrect, HP 's results could differ materially from HP 's expectations in these statements. HP assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[civad]

From the Specifications provided:
operating systems included: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional; Microsoft® Windows® XP Home or Mandrake Linux 9.1.
Interestingly enough, there is no mention whatsoever about the difference in price depending upon the OS. If I were someone who hasn't heard of Mandrake Linux, why would I bother selecting it if I am getting a MS OS (something that I am much more familiar with) for the same price? Where is the incentive for me to buy a system with Mandrake installed on it?
From a business perspective IMO, paying for something unkown would be a no-no. One might consider taking a RISK if one buys something unfamiliar at a lower price with some extra incentives thrown in. Include Mandrake's documentation in HARD COPY; free training courses for employees, etc???

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[Arandir]

I don't use Mandrake. Can I just get a fricking HP without any operating system at all? No, I don't want support for something I install, I just want the damn hardware without paying a tax to Microsoft of Mandrake.

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[dspeyer]

It isn't that surprising. Unless MS has changed its contracts, HP is still paying them for a WinXP license on the Mandrake boxen, on the logic that it could have had WinXP installed on it. If the US had anti-trust law, they might get in trouble for this.

Of course, it's still cheaper, because Mandrake comes with office, graphics, networking, and development software that's sold seperately (and expensively) for windows.

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[HiThere]

Better choice: Buy from someone else.

I usually deal with my local computer store. They mostly work with windows, but they have no policy that says what you need to have installed. And they don't charge you for what you don't buy. Also, if you want to, you can *REALL* customize the configuration. I suppose that I could just build it myself, but they're better with a soldering iron than I am, and they get cheaper prices for the parts. So even after labor, their price isn't any higher.

I *REALL* dislike handing money over the Mr. Gates. So I don't.

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[corsec67]

Dell sells very nice servers without an OS.
What you can also do, I think, is to call them up, and order a computer without a hard drive. Since there is nowhere to put the OS, they have to sell it without Windows.

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[unoengborg]

It doesn't really matter if it is the same price. The cost of software licensing is very low compared to maintainance costs during the lifetime of a computerbased information system.

Linux is attractive in corporate settings because of its network centric design, that makes it simple to set up cost saving things like thin client solutions.

Another factor could be that most Linux software uses open file formats that prevents vender lock in, and costs and risks associated with that.

Yet another important thing is that it is a tested preinstalled Linux configuration. That way the PHB will feel confident that the hardware and the Linux software actually works together.

You will also save money as he doesn't need to remove a preinstalled windows system and install Linux instead. The cost of doing that could easily be more higher than the licensing cost of windows.

But of course it would be nice if no money went into the pockets of MS. Let's hope that it is that way. E.g they could spend the money they save by not using MS-Software on Linux development.

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[pyrrho]

Microsoft is supposed to have stopped that as of the 1994 Consent Decree.

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[dildatron]

I've put together hundreds of PC's, and I have never used a soldering iron doing so.

Are you sure you could just build it yourself?

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[unclethursday]

Supposed to, and actually done are two very different things, however.

MS also recently changed their licenses with OEMs forcing them to have some form of OS installed or coming with the computer, because they were afraid people were upgrading their PCs and just using their old OS disks if they could get the PC naked.

As a result most CONSUMER PCs will now come fully instaled with Windows XP. CORPORATE costomers can get other things...like Dell's use of a free DOS OS with each computer... It has an OS, but the PC is naked.

Thursdæ
Pikacthulu! I choose you!

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[leviramsey]

Once you get Mandrake, it's not that difficult to put any other Linux distro on it. FreeBSD will probably work as well.

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[Realistic_Dragon]

Even if it were more expensive than XP I would probably rather pay my OS tax to an OSS supporting company that funds things like FrozenBubble rather than Microsoft who fund things like IP laws and SCO law suits...

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[Arandir]

You missed my point. I don't want to pay for Mandrake, Windows, or any other operating system. I already have one, so why should I go buy another?

Re:Price is the same, no matter what the OS is?

[HiThere]

No, I'm not sure. I think I could. I did it once. But that was long ago, and many things have changed since then. (e.g., the processor was a Z-80).

It's about damn time

[DesScorp]

Just as I was getting worried that Carly was turning the New HP into a pure MS vehicle (all this stuff about 64 bit Windows being Itanium's "killer app"). I was starting to think they'd ditch HP-UX any day now (as they will with PA-RISC, now that they're pushing Itanium). So it's a shock to see them putting Mandrake on a PC OEM style (and a business targeted PC too!). I hope they have stellar success with this. If this succeeds I hope they offer other distros like Red Hat, United Linux, and even something like Lindows on a consumer model, all OEM loaded. Compaq had started to offer Dell-style customization of PC's ordered over the web before the *cough*takeover*cough merger. I wonder if HP still does that? That'd be the perfect place to offer even more choice.

Re:It's about damn time

[dildatron]

Just so you are not spreading FUD, both the 1st and second generation Itaniums will happily run Linux, Windows, or HPUX. They are not just going to ditch HPUX. Get your facts straight. And yes, I have run each OS on Itaniums.

Now, as to whether Carly is pushing HP towards MS, I agree, but for different reasons. (I work there).

Re:It's about damn time

[DesScorp]

Ok, you work there. Good for you. As for HP-UX not going away, I'm pleasantly surprised at that. But I'm not going to bet it will never happen either. And If I hear someone use "FUD" one more time, I'm going to commit mass murder. That's the most abused fucking word on Slashdot

Mixed Environments? Nice.

[Kefabi]

HP Compaq desktops are available with the latest operating systems from the industry leader, Microsoft, as well as a robust Linux offering from Mandrake. The HP Compaq d220 offers a choice of Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows XP Home or Mandrake's Linux v9.1, providing customers with the versatility needed for today's mixed-use environments.

Emphasis mine. Isn't HP like in the top 3 PC sellers in the USA? And HP puts out a press release to businesses that pretty much makes it seem like OS's other than Windows in businesses are becoming pretty damn common.

I tell most my friends around me not to buy MS stock. Because once they lose their enormous marketshare, like dominos they'll lose their monopoly. HP just reinforced my belief that I'll get to see this happen within 5 years, easy.

Good luck to multiple OS's on computers! Go Apple! Go beOS!

Funny you should say that...

[DesScorp]

Because at one time, Systemax WAS offering FreeDOS on their boxes. I was always pissed that they wouldn't offer Linux as an alternative, because they actually sold a server product with a custom Linux OS.

Re:Funny you should say that...

[cscx]

Think of the logistics behind that... that would mean they would have to support Linux too, which is a real financial burden on the company (training the techs, etc).

FreeDOS was a cheap way to ship a machine with no OS... the hidden intent was for you to download Debian and install it yourself! :D

Re:fantastic!

[The Almighty Dave]

One less hungry troll tonight.

Re:With all these demon problems...

[teamhasnoi]

Can't you see the big picture?!

Linux is run by demons! Who cares about Napster, SCO, IBM, pirated mp3s and source code when there are demons in your computer!

I always knew that HP=Hell People. Now at last I have proof that they are putting demons in their computers!

You should spend less time worrying about HP and more time fighting the demons!

Time to make a difference

[mcp33p4n75]

This is a great move for promoting linux. Hopefully it'll lead to OS choice where it really matters: laptops. Nobody should have to pay the windows tax ever again! Even better, be able to buy laptop computers without an OS installed and let the consumer get the ultimate choice.

Re:Time to make a difference

[benjamindees]

Them sounds like fightin' words to me...

Make and model please... What sort of "high-end" laptop could you possibly have that "isn't supported"?

Sometimes, I wonder if Linux-bashers have any experience even trying Linux.

Re:Time to make a difference

[quax]

Last week I visited a Tec retail store here in Germany (called MediaMarkt - at pretty big chain in this country).

I was amazed to find that of the dozen Laptop computers on display two were running Linux (one Knoppix the other Suse).

Re:Someone call Bill

[RedCard]

Seems like this little insignifcant OS is making inroads despite what Bill thinks. Once products like OpenOffice become more mature the game is over and real desktop penetration, coporate side at least, will happen.

Yes, it will, and eventually there is a real chance that linux will supplant Windows as the OS of choice for business...BUT... by the time that happens, MS will most likely have tied a great deal of digital rights restrictions technology into windows.

The upshot? One day, most 'new' media will only be playable on windows, and hence MS will control the consumer market.

It may be that this is exactly what they are planning for. They may have recognized that they're slowly losing corporate mindshare, and are now grasping at straws in that arena. Look at the suspicious influx of money that they gave to SCO, look at their new corporate licensing policies (subscription model) - are these desperation moves?

Of course, this is all just opinion and conjecture. Don't mind me.

Sure pay for windows if you get it or not

[Isaac-1]

This sounds to me like a case of paying for windows if you get it or not. The Classic Deal of the machine being priced the same if it ships with Windows, or ships with a bare drive (or linux in this case).

Ike

Re:With all these demon problems...

[RumpRoast]

Ummm I think the dying variety of BSD is run by demons... Linux must be run by penguins.

Also IBM=Inverted Bowel Movement.

Thanks!

Re:Well (check HP wedsite Monday)

[cyber_rigger]

I think the article said that the Linux offer will be on HP's website Monday.

preloaded all right

[SuperBanana]

available preloaded with Windows or Mandrake 9.1.

Ah, but I bet you only have one choice as to whether the Windows license fee is (does Dr. Evil quote thing) "pre-loaded" to your bill :-)

Bill, is that you? Or is it Darl?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

B-)

old stuff

[abhisarda]

HP has already been selling Compaq desktops with Linux since Oct 2002.

Re:old stuff

[incom]

That appears to be the Indian branch, not sure if that causes any drawbacks like extra shipping costs though.

Electronics Giants Love Linux

[civilengineer]

FORBES.COM

Re:Is it fair to say Mandrake is the desktop Linux

[MerryGoByeBye]

How do you expect them to make profits if they just keep giving their product away? Are you just going to label every distro that gets business-oriented a sell-out?

Either you want Linux to go bigtime and you deal with taking a back seat to the big boys, or you can have your little community of free support which will always be seen as too technical for the masses. Take your pick. You can't have both.

Microsoft Tax

[heli0]

If you choose a machine with Mandrake loaded do you still pay the Microsoft tax?

Anyone find figures for identical systems with the two OS's?

Re:Microsoft Tax

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia HP/Compaq PCs have been available with Mandrake for several months now, not just on low end machines, but also the D510 & D530 mainstream corporate machines.

And NO, you do not pay the MS tax, they are cheaper (by approx $150 AU) than the equivalent Windows box

You should always point the finger yourself.

[msimm]

It's not bad spelling its a glitch in your system. ;-)

For about 5 minutes....

[gilesjuk]

Then Microsoft puts its foot down and it's replaced with XP.

No major vendor seems keen to only sell Linux desktop boxes, so the Linux option won't happen until competition law smacks Microsoft on the hand.

It's only if and when Linux takes the lead over Windows on the desktop that you will see vendors confident to ditch Microsoft.

Competition is being offered a choice, Microsoft can cry all they like about recent governments coming up with Open Source legislation that only stipulates the use of Open Source, it's them who started all this silly anti-competitive rubbish and vendor lock-in in the first place.

Dell Flirted with Linux desktop machines and promptly withdrew them. Microsoft needs to stop bullying the OEMs.

Re:For about 5 minutes....

[whoever57]

Dell Flirted with Linux desktop machines and promptly withdrew them

Desktops perhaps, but they still sell "workstations" loaded with RedHat Linux. What's more, on one system I tried configuring, the price dropped a massive $23 when I selected RedHat Linux instead of XP.

Re:For about 5 minutes....

[Aadain2001]

IIRC, there was this little trial a few years back about something similar to this. Something about a large software company that was using its monopoly illegally to remove all hope for competition. It seemed to be big news, and then it just suddently disappeared. I wonder what ever happened to that company? What was its name...

Re:For about 5 minutes....

[gilesjuk]

They probably still selling you a Windows license.

Re:For about 5 minutes....

[dalslad]

Figuratively speaking, five minutes might be a little long for this event.

The Press Release is an insideous manuver to set Linux up. The primary reason for the release involves a large order HP received for X stations. They have turned that into a publicity front not stunt to look like they plan to retail the product.

Few people know that they've done the same thing in Europe and Korea with the Presario. They are available through account representatives for business accounts. This isn't a retail offering at the store front level.

Insideous: Moving in a slow and inapparent manner with evil inentions.

Mandrakesoft: The least likely company to sue and the one which HP could terminate the easiest. I even wonder if they have penalty clauses in the contract.

Mandrakesoft's primary source of income hasn't changed since inception. Macmillan has sole distribution rights in North America. That guarantees Mandrakesoft revenue. That's the only source of revenue on which Madrakesoft bases its business model. Other efforts to establish markets in Europe, Africa and South America failed and that's why they had to reorganize their business.

Great enterpreneurs, Mandrakesoft is not.

The venture money raised by Mandrakesoft went to ward the company's bet they could succeed in other markets outside North America. Unfortunately, they did not have instant distribution which is what they expect whatever they do. Distribution channels take up to five years to mature and show profits. Mandrakesoft has significant financial and management weakness resulting from various efforts to create markets. It's difficult to adjust to reality when the first deal came so quickly (Macmillan).

HP's biggest money maker is NSI, its service provider. The primary product of NSI is rolling out Microsoft Exchange and doing migrations from NT to Windows 2000 and 2003 server. They have the largest staff of MSCE's in the world. They also have the largest percentage of the Exchange market.

In fact, HP sold its highly rated OpenMail product for peanuts to Samsung. That operating unit's former personnel actually found Samsung and pursuaded them to buy OpenMail. They live in England. But they were laid off and desperate for a period of serveral months. The former unit members found the Samsung deal, not HP.

Meanwhile, HP corked its own mail system and installed Exchange on a company wide basis. Why? To please Compaq and Microsoft.

HP has no incentive to make Linux great vs Microsoft. They do have an incentive to replace Sun and SGI rendering farms. They've done that well.

That's also a bit of a set up since Windows 2000 Pro and XP have found their way into those rendering farms. I personally know of bait and switch deals. One large engineering firm sold me a nice SGI workstation as it auctioned its fleet. They reason, they went over to Windoze.

Do not underestimate the lengths to which either M$ or HP will go with their business practices now that they're under the radar of a federal government focused on the aftermaths of 9-11-2001.

HP and compaq have never been a consumer's friend. They have a long history of selling cheaply at the storefront and charging more than the original cost of a machine for upgrades. That's right, they do that. Put a non-HP memory stick in your computer and find out how quickly your warranty goes away.

Dell did a similar thing. Michael spoke as a keynote at LinuxWorld. They invited me to Austin to discuss an OEM deal and financing shortly afterward. I put a team of developers in motion for a speculative drive to produce an application in which they had interest.

I called to order several Laptops only a couple of days after the Austin trip. The specialist on the phone said "We don't do Linux!"

I don't believe that it's because Microsoft put its foot down. My read from the people with whom I worked at Dell was simply, "we know who butters our bread and pays us bigger marketing rebates (spiffs) than we expect to earn in any Linux venture."

Five minutes. It hurts me deeply, but we don't even have 5 minutes.

Re:For about 5 minutes....

[gilesjuk]

I'm sure I've heard that some OEM contracts include a lock out clause. So it's Microsoft or nothing.

Computing has to be one of the most anti-competitive markets going. You can almost see why people 'get a life' and take up rock climbing or skiing etc..

The Microsoft tax

[JCCyC]

Now that you mention it, I wonder. How do we know HP is not paying the Microsoft tax anyway on those Mandrake PCs? The press release says nothing about price differences.

Not available yet for complete review - d330

[beacher]

Okay I wanted to see what the windows tax was and the d220 didn't have Mandrake available in any of the customization options.. Searched for Mandrake and found the d330. Looking side by side.. there's no cdrom drive?

The price difference between the 3rd and 5th computer is only $56, but then you have to buy a damn cdrom (no optical drive). Where's the incentive when I'll just have to go buy my own CDRom and bump the price up to the Windows price - Where's the incentive to the end user (not me the gentoo user)? There's supposed to be some kind of price break here...

What gives?
B

Gimme notebooks first ! (RE: ipaqs)

[InodoroPereyra]

Yes, I hope so too. But first of all I want to see them sell Linux preinstalled notebooks. It would be a winner situation for HP, to sell a full line of Linux-preinstalled hardware: servers, desktops, notebooks and handhelds. RedHat, Mandrake and SuSE are all excellent candidates ...

Re:Gimme notebooks first ! (RE: ipaqs)

[steve_l]

yes, notebooks are the trouble spot. I have one of the new compaq designed xw8000 'workstations'; ordered it with rh7.3 preinstalled, and boosted it to rh9.0 the moment I got it -then downloaded the nvidia drivers for decent 3d performance on xscreensaver.

Which leaves the laptops. The problem here is that (a) they all come from compal or quanta in taipei, and (b) you cant pick and choose cards to get proper display, modem and wlan. The PC vendors could qualify them for linux under commercial pressure, but without that pressure they are not going to bother. And frankly, the ./ community are not the premium purchasers of kit that can justify such a move. Either its because the corporates want it, or because the vendors discover they can do ultra low cost laptops with linux that sell in EU and north america.

Re:Gimme notebooks first ! (RE: ipaqs)

[Forge]

Agreed. But different distributions for different systems. Mandrake is quite literally the best distro for a power users laptop. Servers and Handhelds are different beasts entirely. Isn't it cool that you can do this sort of thing and still remain compatible ?

Re:Gimme notebooks first ! (RE: ipaqs)

[majorflaw]

Linux preloaded *anything* could make a dramatic difference. The ability to buy a PC designed for your favorite distro (meaning no compatibility issues, of course), and have it work right out of the box can have a big impact on the O/S and software business. How many people do you know who are quite capable of running Linux but gave up due to their inability to install succesfully. How many distros have you given up on out of frustration with the installation process. Once the install is included with the hardware, we may just see some real competition.

Re:Gimme notebooks first ! (RE: ipaqs)

[Jucius Maximus]

"How many people do you know who are quite capable of running Linux but gave up due to their inability to install succesfully."

Actually, my dad has the opposite problem. He partitions his laptop and installs Mandrake quite easily. (Well, I learned about partitioning from *him* when I was 12 or something) but whenever he has to change something simple like a network gateway setting, he reinstalls the OS and enters it during the installation wizard instead of changing the config file. I try to convince him otherwise, but he finds that that's faster than learning where everything is to configure it. Go figure!

What Linux Buys You

[mcgroarty]

Also on HP/Compaq's site, I was marveling at the pricing on the first two configurations here. RedHat costs more than Windows!?

Then I noticed one other "slight" difference in the configuration. :-) Hell, I know which option I'd take!

Re:What Linux Buys You

[whoever57]

Then I noticed one other "slight" difference in the configuration. :-) Hell, I know which option I'd take!

Try changing the config -- as far as I could tell, if I make the 2 systems identical apart from the OS, the XP system is a massive $2 more expensive.

Re:What Linux Buys You

[mrseigen]

Hooray, a prettier video card!

Paperclip?

[wildchild978]

I didn't know Mandrake Linux had a paperclip! How do I activate it? ;-)

Re:Paperclip?

[commodoresloat]

Install vigor.

Linux on HPs

[Scott Hale]

The last time I tried to install Linux on an HP (Slackware 9, newer model HP - dont remember the exact number), it would reboot after about thirty seconds uptime. No kernel panic, no error messages to allow me to track down the problem. It just flat out reboot. I never did find out the cause, but I hope these machines will stay up for a little longer than thirty seconds.

Now offer a laptop preloaded with linux

[CowardAnonymous]

And I'll buy one.

Hell, put firewire on it, and I'll buy *TWO*!

Are you listening, Carly????

Perfect News

[KaizerSoze]

This is perfect, especially now that Mandrake faces serious financial problems. This can probable save this distribution from "extinction". All the community needs distributions like Mandrake that advertise Linux! I wish other companies follow the example of HP and adopt Linux as one (and soon the only) choice for OS in new systems.

Re:Someone call Bill

[gilesjuk]

Who knows, maybe Microsoft will buy SCO and then use the so called IP to screw Linux.

Waddya mean, preloaded?

[Handpaper]

Are HP being selective wrt which parts of Mandrake v9.1 are installed, or are they taking the "bung it all on there" route? According to the messages shown when you install 9.1 (and 8.1) any servers installed will be activated at boot time by default. So your basic, office desktop may be running Apache, Samba, sendmail, ProFTP, MySQL, etc. This may make the machine slow, and, over time, vulnerable to new exploits.
Not to mention the boss's reaction when he discovers everyone has the complete KDE and Gnome game collections (how many versions of solitaire?).
I hope it takes off - it deserves too, especially as 9.1 includes OpenOffice ("Hey - I can open all my pre-97 Word ducuments!")

Re:Waddya mean, preloaded?

[Christianfreak]

I haven't installed 9.1, but with 9 if you choose workstation install, I don't think it installs any servers and if you do server install I don't think it installs a lot of the graphical stuff.

And the advanced install warns you about what servers you installed and gives you the option to turn them off.

Word??

[aosgood]

I think this comes down to $$$. When you guys see a high dollar amount (aka full computer) with linux pre-installed by all vendors its time to chear!! Linux has so far been able to reach only, the low $$$ of computer manufactures plans. One day you might get to that point but you might want to unsettle the cattle first and/or create one platform that rocks. The thing that is hurting linux is that too many DISTROS. When you have one vendor bending over after another for a PR RELEASE (that hurts more than windows winning by the way!!) things can get very sour.

-Words of wisdom for a drunk guy

If they hadn't fired Bruce Perens...

[f0rt0r]

I might actually be interested in what they sold.

Re:I hope you're joking

[ripewithdecay]

The install was a piece of cake, way easier than when I installed XP on my new home brew machine.

Pardon? I hope you're joking. What is there to do in the XP install that is way harder in comparison to Mandrake? I'd say they're about equal in difficulty.

What happened to HP an Debian?

[fdawg]

I remember reading (on slashdot?) about a partnership between HP and Debian. Something about Debian being the dist of choice for HP. Does anyone have any info about this? Was it a cruel cruel dream?

Re:What happened to HP an Debian?

[Captain Large Face]

This is merely speculation, but the drive to Debian might have been led by Bruce Perens (Bruce used to be the Project Leader for Debian GNU/Linux) when he was an exec at HP. Now that he's left, it might explain why the association has disappeared.

Yes...

[Funksaw]

...but will Mom buy it?

What Linux needs is a distribution that, by default, makes everything look beautiful and easy. Even if they're not familiar with Linux, making Linux *look* easier than Windows (which still baffles my father after 8 years) would be a humongous step in the right direction.

-- Funksaw

Re:Yes...

[EpsCylonB]

This seems to be the most controversial argument when people talking about linux taking over the desktop.

I predict that linux will come become a mainstream OS in the same way that windiows did. People will use it at work first (corporations will implement it beacuse it is cheaper and has the advantages of being open source), then it will trickle on to people's desktops at home. To think that it will happen any other way seems a bit naive considering how much M$ can afford to spend on making sure home desktops stay windows. In fact I think that we may see both OS's co existing, could be worng tho.

Re:Yes...

[BrokenHalo]

making Linux *look* easier than Windows (which still baffles my father after 8 years) would be a humongous step in the right direction

Sounds like your dad, I'm sorry to say, might be a lost cause. Seems there are just some people who just can't get over their apprehension regarding computers (and it's not necessarily age-related; I know a couple of 80-year-olds who are quite competent).

But let's face it, there are at least two desktop UIs that are prettier and at least as easy to use as Windows (at least when they are not made ugly-by-default, which is a matter of packaging).

Re: Yes...

[Ashtead]

I don't think Mom (or even Dad) raise anywhere as many difficulties as does the 13-year old nephew who wants all the latest games for his PC. Never mind MS-Office vs OpenOffice, all my older folks use only a few key applications, and it is not inconceivable that they could manage to switch from Windows to Linux and still be able to do what they want.

It is the younger crowd who currently has the most problems with stuff not working under one or the other of Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. Throwing WINE on several varieties of Linux into this fray will not really help...

Re:Yes...

[cenobita]

Honestly, I think this is the last thing Linux needs. To hit that goal, I think the only way it's going to happen anytime soon is to basically try to emulate Windows.

This is inherently *wrong*. We should be trying to beat Windows by being better than them..not by being "as good" or "beating them at their own game". I'm not against ease-of-use or making the system more intuitive, but there should be a line drawn between "user-friendly" and "made for retards". To the most amateur of users, easy means things like configuration wizards and pop-up tips that show you what to do because you're too lazy to check things out on your own.

Maybe i'm wrong or out of line, but i've always been attracted to open-source software because it wasn't Windows. It wasn't Corporate America's Vision of The Desktop PC. It was the peoples vision of how to do things. Linux/BSD/etc have a long road ahead, but we can't take the path of least resistance and try to bring users to our side by making it just another MS product to them.

We learned Microsoft and we can unlearn it, too.

Let's hope this saves Mandrake

[wukie]

If you just want to play with Linux, Mandrake should be your only choice.

If you need to test or develop on Linux, Mandrake will have you up and running in less than an hour.

If you need a SERIOUS Linux box, Mandrake can be customized to suit aswell, but here it has few advantages over other distributions time wise. Although you get to work in reverse to say Debian.

I personally can not recommend it over say Suse or Debian for a life-or-death server, but for everyone else, it's just plain awesome. Give it time and Mandrake will give us a brilliant server installation as well.

Simply put, Mandrake ROX, and all the best to them.

Re:Let's hope this saves Mandrake

[cenobita]

I won't argue with you on most/all of this, but none of these are especially unique "features". My first foray into Linux was Red Hat 6.2 and 7.0, at which point I tossed *both* out the friggin' window and went the FreeBSD route. Haven't looked back since.

Since you don't appear to be taking system securing and app installs into account, i'll mention that it takes me about 20 minutes, if that, to get FreeBSD going. This includes setting up my basic firewall, setting up X, and establishing basic security. I'll usually spend more time tightening things down, but we don't seem to be taking that into account..

If I need a SERIOUS system, I can customize whatever the hell I want. The difference is, I don't have to wade through any pre-installed junk; I customize pretty much anything and everything I want to.

Oh yeah, and I can port just about anything I want to from Linux.

I can't speak for Suse or Debian because I gave up on Linux after experiencing the carcrash that was RH 7.

To each his own, though. I'm sure Mandrake works great for you, and that's cool..but I really don't understand why you've been modded so highly for things that could be applied to just about any distribution/OS/kitten/whatever. It's just a matter of how intuitive the system is, or how well you know it. For my needs and my way of thinking, FreeBSD was easy to figure out, easy to customize, and presented the way I wanted things; minimal and free of cruft, so I could do things my way for a change.

trademarks

[kisak]

from the HP press release:

Intel, Pentium and Celeron are U.S. registered trademarks of Intel Corp. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

... and Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds and Mandrake Linux is a trademark of Mandrakesoft. Or does not these trademark matter much to HP?

Re:Someone call Bill

[Aadain2001]

Really? Email me and tell me more about what is wrong, I'll see if I can help.

This is what use true "linux cheerleaders" do: we like to help. It might be that you have weird hardware or miss-detected hardware that it confusing Linux. I've personally never had a problem with Redhat right out of the box, but that's because I'm using very standard equipment (not old and even some fairly new stuff).

Notably Walmart

[bstadil]

I think you are absolutely right

The major Retailer that they are facing is Walmart and their Lindows or Lycoris Line

Re:Notably Walmart

[lunatik17]

Not really. HP's Evo line are business systems, and Walmart's Lindows PCs are consumer systems.

Re:Someone call Bill

[wukie]

Could it possibly be that maybe you have a faulty computer, you can't install Linux properly or both.

And I notice you don't mention any applications. Exploiting a KNOWN bug does not make Linux unstable.

Using your logic, Windows would be absolutely useless, as Windows has ten bugs for every Linux bug.

Re:With all these demon problems...

[Trashman]

Also IBM=Inverted Bowel Movement.

You mean like this?

I followed the link...

[mwillems]

....and it was not obvious to me how NOT to buy the Windows XP version. "Customise" took me to a page that did not allow me to customise, other than the warranty.

Now I only spent three minutes looking but in those three minutes I was clearly pointed towards the XP version. Did I miss it? Or are they deliberately steering me to the XP versions?

Michael

Why the configuration difference?

[Mostly a lurker]

It is interesting that there is a small difference between hardware configurations on HP's Windows XP and Linux solutions. I wonder if they are exploiting a loophole in Microsoft's anti competitive agreements. Perhaps the agreement specifies something about 'the same hardware model'.

Re:WHY MANDRAKE IS IMPORTANT

[biggknifeparty]

not you again...

Anybody notice?

[niko9]

I clicked on the link, and like many other posters, I found out that it's not available yet.

No big deal, it might take a while to update the site.

But did anybody else notice the almost $100 price difference on the same EXACT machine, but preloaded with Windows XP?

Is this really what you save buying a machine minus the MS Tax?

If so, I say to you Mr. Paperclip! You go to Hell! You go to Hell and you die! ;0

Re:this.... *IS* newsworthy to me

[OneArmedMan]

I dont really follow HP hardware in my line of work, but hey ... Brand name PC, with warranty and Helldesk support for a product that isnt MS.

It sounds like a good thing to me, it can only increase competition, and that has to be a good thing.. right?

Sides, this looks to me like its aimed squarely at Joe Average home user , not the Uber Geeks that speend weeks on end compiling Gentoo for the fun of it.

People should be saying *Yay for Linux*, not "Boo this isnt news worthy"

Re:I hope you're joking

[toddestan]

Your kidding, right?

I installed Mandrake 9.0, and I think I had to reboot it once. Longest part was the actual copying of data. Once it started up and booted into KDE, like magic my sound, video, network, modem, etc. just worked. Just about every program I need already installed and ready to go. Just add Opera and Seti@Home. Time spent 60 minutes max.

Windows 2000: Install it. Takes like 45-60 minutes. And I am presented with a 640x480 screen with 16 colors, no sound, no network. Couple of hours later, countless reboots. Drivers in. Now Windows update. Many 100's of MB later, and dozens of reboots later, that's done. Now install programs. Several hours later that's done. Also throw in a couple of hours to install video codecs, and getting all the different ones to work with each other without conflict and crashes (UGH!) Time spent: 1 day atleast.

Linux is lightyears ahead of Windows in the install the OS department. I will admit though, installing programs in Windows is easy, so easy that they install all by themselves at times! (heh). Installing software in Linux is tedious and confusing at times.

What I find most amazing is Knoppix. Throw a CD in the drive, reboot the computer, and in 5 minutes I'm sitting in front of a fully functional Linux desktop with all my sound/video/network all working, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and countless applications already installed and ready to go - and it's all running off the CD and ramdisk! Utterly amazing.

Re:I hope you're joking

[ripewithdecay]

Most video cards are installed during the XP installation. And Update doesn't tell you what to install when. And I might be wrong, but I don't remember Windows telling me to reboot after installing Office.

I installed XP with no problems. Took an hour. It depends on what you install, really. Mandrake and RH will take equally as long if you install more stuff. You are right that Mandrake is faster installing, though.

And what's so "hard" about reboots?

I'm not promoting either OS; I use XP, and I like it quite a bit. I'd use Linux if I had the time to learn it, though.

In reality

[denisbergeron]

You can't choose a system without WIndows pre-installed on it.
On the HP website, you don't have the choice of Mandrake, Mandrake is only in the description.

Re:I hope you're joking

[ripewithdecay]

I seem to be the only one with hardware that Windows "likes"...

Re:WHY MANDRAKE IS IMPORTANT

[frodo from middle ea]

You mean this Bill Gates ?

Re:Bill, is that you? Or is it Darl?

[frodo from middle ea]

You mean they are not the same person ?
Darn there goes my conspiracy theory

Re:I hope you're joking

[BrokenHalo]

What is there to do in the XP install that is way harder in comparison to Mandrake?

OK, I haven't used mdk since 8.1, and I'm perfectly happy with Slackware's text-based installer...

But in installed XP on a friend's computer the other day, and it is not always a piece of cake. Given the "closed" nature of the installer, you are fucked if it just doesn't happen to like your hardware, and I'm talking brand-name stuff here, not the no-name crud. But an installer that formats a HDD for you, goes through a few more steps and then decides the drive is no good any more does not qualify as a good one. Especially if when it tries to load the appropriate drivers from CD-ROM it suddenly decides that the drive doesn't exist. I had thought MS would have fixed that bug in win98, but apparently not.

By comparison, my past experience with mdk's installer was that it was very simple and intuitive, and I rather doubt if it has got worse since then.

There's also the bonus that you don't have to keep putting in driver CDs for every single piece of hardware and re-boot every time; unless your hardware is outlandish, it's usually supported out of the box.

Re:I hope you're joking

[LazloToth]

Heh, I know what you mean. Where I work, I supervise a couple of techs who each generally have to do at least 2-3 installs per day of Windows 2000. We don't use imaging because, frankly, we find that it sucks - - quicker to do straight loads of the OS as well as our company apps. Anyway, I or my techs can have four units on a KVM at one time, and we can knock those out in a little over an hour for the whole bunch. I don't know why Linux people seem to have so much trouble with it. ;)

Also, with regard to Windows Update - - it's a good service. I'm an apt-get user myself (Redhat), and, hey, that first distribution update can be plenty big. Nobody should blame MS for putting out updates - - it's what they've needed to do for many years.The rebooting in Windows gets very old, though, without a doubt.

Oh shit.

[BiggerIsBetter]

My first thought was, Hang on - SCO will sue them too. But then I thought, if HP has a SCO license used for HP-UX, presumably that license can be used for Linux too when sold by HP?

If that's the case, is this a cunning plan to take Linux from the masses and place it firmly into corporate ownership? Of course, if the GPL is legally valid, as soon as HP or anyone sells it it's free again, but it just seems very very odd timing.

/me puts tinfoil undies on

Re:With all these demon problems...

[BrokenHalo]

Hah! Fortunately I checked the target before clicking... I really don't need to see that again :-)

Re:Someone call Bill

[spiritraveller]

The upshot? One day, most 'new' media will only be playable on windows, and hence MS will control the consumer market.

What's to prevent a developer from supporting that same technology in Linux?

And what makes you think the media companies would use technology that limits their market to Windows users once they find out that their media is still piratable and pirated?

all mum wants is email

[tjstork]

and linux can do that

oh the pain...

[7-Vodka]

Lindows running as root... on all those machines...

Voddy goes up in flames
the horror, oh the horror.

Did you read your parent post?

[cloudless.net]

He was talking about iPaq, the Pocket PC PDA, not the Compaq desktop. It is definitely not old stuff, because HP never even announced to ship a Pocket PC with Linux pre-installed.

Re:Did you read your parent post?

[abhisarda]

Read the main topic-Linux on PC's. I was *not* mentioning anything about Ipaq's or handhelds. It is the parent post that is off topic.

Re:I hope you're joking

[nathanh]

Heh, I know what you mean. Where I work, I supervise a couple of techs who each generally have to do at least 2-3 installs per day of Windows 2000. We don't use imaging because, frankly, we find that it sucks - - quicker to do straight loads of the OS as well as our company apps. Anyway, I or my techs can have four units on a KVM at one time, and we can knock those out in a little over an hour for the whole bunch. I don't know why Linux people seem to have so much trouble with it. ;)

It's not just the Linux people. The Windows support people around here have similar troubles. They don't even like Linux. Building a Windows machine from scratch, installing all the drivers, loading the "company apps"; that can all take the better part of a day for these guys. I don't know much about Windows but they don't look like they're stuffing around or being lazy. It simply looks like a lot of hard work. Of course, they then use imaging software (Ghost?) to quickly make other machines using the same hardware.

However the real reason I replied was to warn you about your current method of reinstallation. It's a disaster waiting to happen. Especially as you're also loading the "company apps" by hand. You are better off automating the build process; even Win2k can do this. Lower risk of mistakes, less work involved, doesn't require expertise or knowledge for each build, self-documenting and repeatable process, etc. Imagine a programmer who retyped compilation commands instead of using makefiles. It's not a good idea.

Start Here to compare

[ReadAholic]

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF02a/1245 4-64287-89301.html

Re:I hope you're joking

[Christ-on-a-bike]

I'd use Linux if I had the time to learn it, though

Would you be able to learn Linux in the time you could save by not hanging around Slashdot?</joke>

No Microsoft tax

[opkool]

If you check the prices, you will see that they come with no tax:

HP-Compaq D220 with MS-WindowsXP: $429

HP-Compaq D220 with Mandrake 9.1: $349

For MDK 9.1: "Customized solutions, available beginning July 7, start at an estimated U.S. street price of $349"

See price for MS-W-XP: "starting at: $429.00*"

My question is: when will they be available in Europe? Peace!

Re:I hope you're joking

[LazloToth]

Sincerely, I appreciate where you're coming from. Believe me, we've done the Ghost thing, and we've done windiff until it hurt. Because we tend to buy machines in lots of no more than 5 at a time, we end up having a lot of disparate hardware to support.

Now, we've got various tricks for doing application installs (SMS installer packages) - - but, still, we find that debugging Ghost screw-ups takes as much time as doing a load by hand. Of course, we pull service packs, hotfixes, etc., from a gigabit file server, which speeds things up a little. Still, if you've got people taking a day to load a Windows 2000 machine, there's a real problem. I'm not kidding, there's no excuse for that on a regular basis. You might run into a troublesome unit from time to time, but commodity desktops from folks like HP, Dell, etc., should go very quickly. Heck, we even have to wipe off the XP installation before we start, because we do not allow that OS on our network at this point. The longest part of the process is formatting large partitions, and in many cases, we choose to use only a fraction of the available disk bytes.

Different prices, different OSes

[opkool]

See it here for yourself. Already posted it.

Peace!

Old.

[VaultX]

The University system I worked for has been purchasing HP/Compaq machines with Mandrake preconfigured for months now.

Get used to the term "mixed use environment".....

[Dr_Marvin_Monroe]

..cause it's gonna be here all during the battle for market share. As Linux starts pushing MS off the desktop and out of the office/point-of-sale/terminal, that's our secret code word...."mixed use environment"....

"Mixed use"....I like it, it puts an emphasis on working together and should make obvious to everyone the OS that doesn't want to get along with customers/standards/openness....that's the first step...

Still overpowered for business

[jjohnson]

For a clerk in a cube, that's still more machine than they need. Hardware has far outstripped common business needs, and I'm expecting that in two years, the machines I'm purchasing for the office will be better than that for less than $300.

Re:Still overpowered for business

[IndependentVik]

. . . in two years, the machines I'm purchasing for the office will be better than that for less than $300.

And they'll still only have 128 MB of RAM.

*shakes fist at vendors*

Re:I hope you're joking

[badasscat]

Windows 2000: Install it. Takes like 45-60 minutes. And I am presented with a 640x480 screen with 16 colors, no sound, no network. Couple of hours later, countless reboots. Drivers in. Now Windows update. Many 100's of MB later, and dozens of reboots later, that's done.

Ok, reboots are one thing, but just FYI, on my last install of Mandrake 9.1 several days ago I was presented with nearly 300MB of updates and bug fixes after install. This is on a release only a couple months old, mind you - Win2000 has several years worth of updates built up. This is not a selling point for Linux.

I also have a Red Hat demo account (installed RH on another machine) and hardly a day goes by that I don't get some sort of "errata" report from them in my inbox.

What about...

[mog007]

I read on slashdot that HP and M$ were teaming up to make a mac-like computer, more user-friendly than is healthy for ANY computer... is HP pulling our legs, backstabbing M$, or just not picking sides?

Re:With all these demon problems...

[RumpRoast]

Crap! If I was smarter I would've linked that to start with... good thinking.

Re:With all these demon problems...

[Rolo Tomasi]

I thought it was Idiots Building Machines.

Re:I hope you're joking

[oohp]

I find that Mandrake is easier to install than Windows. I think I installed it in like half an hour with package selection and everything.

What "big boys?" MDK, RH, and SUSE are profitable.

[rickst29]

You post sounds FUDsterish.

First, the leading distributors, including MDK, RH, and SUSE, have scored some LARGE maintenance/support contracts lately (you've read about Munich, right?). And unlike M$, which often seems to charge extra incident $$ first and then NOT fix their bugs, FOSS support vendors tend to be capable and responsive (maybe because you CAN go somewhere else when the software is Open Source).

Second, MDK does give away their software, but also offers a very reasonably-priced 'club' for those users who (a) care to support their distro; and (b) agree that the most important thing is free as in Freedom, not free as in Price. I'm a member, proud to have helped them out of the financial woods during the last year.

Can you please tell me who these "big boys" are, and how FOSS users will be forced to ride in the same car with those M$ billionaire criminal monopolists?

Partitioning...

[corkhead0]

available preloaded with Windows or Mandrake 9.1.

I wonder if they'll preload it to dual-boot?

Re:I hope you're joking

[Troed]

I also have a Red Hat demo account (installed RH on another machine) and hardly a day goes by that I don't get some sort of "errata" report from them in my inbox.

And that's bad because .. ?

There are just as many erratas for Microsoft - but they let you wait for the non-critical ones until SP-time.

Myself I like that RHN provided me with updated unzip and PHP-packages yesterday. One click in Opera and ~1 hour later they were installed on my server.

Seems unlikely

[elronxenu]

A good friend of mine runs a computer shop and he told me today about his aim to sell non-Windoze PCs. This is a direct quote from his email to me:

M$ is putting a lot of pressure on PC manufacturers to bundle Windows WITHOUT the option of removing it. I have had arguments with our main computer supplier to get them to sell me a M$ free computer. They say their records are being audited by M$ and if they can prove all systems were sold with Windows they get a VERY big bonus.

Now if that's not a clearly anti-competitive practice, basically an agreement for restraint of trade, I don't know what is.

The big problem with preloaded Linux is ...

[Jens]

... that you can also get it for "free".

I advocated the purchase of pre-installed Linux boxes throughout my neighborhood and relatives. Well, most people also want a Windows version to play with (literally), and I can understand that.

But why buy a Linux computer for EUR X, and then shell out another $200 for a Windows CD, when you can buy the same computer with Windows preinstalled for EUR X, and download a Linux ISO image from the net? (Assuming you don't want to be a "bad illegal criminal" and just use your neighbor's CD.)

Either the computers need to be significantly cheaper than with Windows preinstalled (and Microsoft is working very hard to prevent this, because they want to gag you into mandatory Windows licensing - their idea of "fighting piracy" is forcing everybody to own at least one copy of Windows!) or Linux needs to disappear from public FTP sites.

Well... what is more likely? :-)

Re:fantastic!

[GnarlyNome]

Now that they're using Mandrake Unix,
It's LINUX
The only thing that worries me is that I heard Mandrake was a French company, and therefore there might be some issues with importing a french operating system into the U.S., given the impending embargo. Also, the French government is pretty strict about their language and culture, so that could be a big problem. I don't think many American Unix users are going to like having to double click on "Mes Documents" to get to their files!
Try it before you slam it
I came over from a windows enviroment using 3 CDs that a friend gave me. Over the last two years Windows was used less and less Mandrake was used more and more when my PDA was able to sync up under Linux I had no more use for windows. Although I am not a power user niether is the mainstream user .

ARRRGH!

[GnarlyNome]

I'm BLIND I'm BLIND I'm BLIND dmmmit.

A New Hope

[Zog The Undeniable]

Grand Moff Ballmer: Tell me the location of the Mandrake base!
Princess Torvalds: It's...it's in France
Grand Moff: You see, Lord Gates, she can be cooperative. Continue the firing sequence.
Princess: But HP is a peaceful supplier! We have no weapons!
(The MS Death Star obliterates HP with a huge laser pulse)

HP is nice

[G3ckoG33k]

((Digital + Compaq)+HP)=HP

That seems to be one very nice partner with growth potential for Mandrake! Congratulations!

Coincidence?

[SgtChaireBourne]

Available for sale starting July 7th 2003.

Coincidence? Or not.

Laptops and mandatory M$ payment?

[Kynde]

Does someone know wether this also means that HP will start to sell laptops without the mandatory M$ fee?

Since M$ forced Dell to stop shipping laptops without Windows it's been practically impossible to buy a quality laptop without the M$ fee. Even IBM, with all it's pro-linux steps it has taken recently, ain't selling a laptop without Windows.

And does someone know wether it's the manufacturers that are in league with M$ or the retailers or perhaps both?

Number anyone?

[Lispy]

I wonder, with all those new Linux boxes on shelfes right now, what the actual sales numbers are? The question we have to ask is:

Is the market adopting the new offer or is it just PC-distributors saving a few cents on the Microsoft tax to raise their profits?

I would really like to know how many Joe Sixpacks are converting and buying the new offer and what their overall opinion about the product is.

Maybe some of them dont even realize that all their Windows games wont run and are totally disappointed by Linux...

cu,
Lispy

Ignoring SCO?

[Stickster]

This is an interesting move by HP given the SCO situation. Is it possible that the majority of solution providers are unfazed by SCO's accusations and warnings against large companies supporting Linux?

Re:2.0 GHz Intel� Celeron?

[mejh]

Nail, meet head.

Nicely said!

(if only I had mod points)

Mandrake Linux an option?

[scorch70]

Has anyone actually went to the web site mentioned and tried to configure one with Linux? When you go to Customize, the only options you get are monitor, and warranty. Every one of those machines says OS = XP Home or XP Pro, and no way to change it, best as I could see.

Good PC for Jr.

[RocketSHE]

DAD: I'm getting you your very own brand new PC to do your homework on.
10YO SON: Yeah! Finally, my very own computer!
DAD: It'll have everything you need for homework: Internet, a complete office suite, a graphics program.
10YO SON: O.K., whatever.
DAD: It'll be an HP with Mandrake Linux.
10YO SON: Linux! No! All my favorite games run on Windows!
DAD: And the problem is ... ?

Not too hard

[CmdrGravy]

Linux is lightyears ahead of Windows in the install the OS department. I will admit though, installing programs in Windows is easy, so easy that they install all by themselves at times! (heh). Installing software in Linux is tedious and confusing at times

I've recently upgraded to Mandrake 9.1 and installing any of the ( hundreds ) of applications on the DVD is a piece of cake using the Mandrake URPMI system. Most of the applications any average user could possibly want are on the DVD so it generaly Linux installation hassles shouldn't effect most basic users.

I do think Linux needs more support from major applications, the likes of Autoroute and other stuff your Mum and Dad use the PC for but this is a gradual thing and HP selling Linux PC's is a definate step toward major vendors considering Linux support.

Windows Keyboard

[Atmchicago]

Shipping Mandrake Linux with a... Windows keyboard! (see specs)

No HT + Mandrake?

[Amer]

Bah, no HT on Linux systems...

Mandrake's hardware compatibility

[dwcasey]

I just installed Mandrake 9.1 on a home built machine with an AMD CPU and nforce2 chipset and everything worked great out of the box. My Epson Scanner and Canon printer, my PDA and my digital camera all worked. I went to Nvidia's site to download the latest nforce drivers for Linux and installed them w/o any issues. Mandrakes new software update utility is the best. As good as or better than apt-get.

Re:coupla hours for video codexes????

[toddestan]

Well I have quite a collection of music videoes. The DiVX encoded ones are not that bad. It's the SVCD ones that cause troubles. It seems about 90% of them will play with just about any codec, but the remaining 10% of them have problems and will only play with one or two codecs. After much tweaking with Zoom Player I can get all but about 2 or 3 to play, even though the player will crash at times.

Xine however plays about anything I throw at it, without me having to do anything. Even the version on the Knoppix CD does great.

Re:Try it with XP

[toddestan]

I suppose I could of done that. But then again I installed Windows 2000 on a 1998-1999 era computer. AMD K6-3 with PA-2013 motherboard if I remember right. Granted there were a whole bunch of PCI cards (Ethernet, ATA-100, USB, something else) - but none of them were really bleeding edge. 2000 didn't see any of them (even the USB, which was a PITA to get working). Linux handled them fine.

Besides, installing 98SE on a 1994 era P75 yeilded the same results (640x480 @ 16 colors. WTF?)

Where is the MDK option?

[Sfing_ter]

I dug a little further to check for the cost comparison, but discovered you can't actually "configure" these setups, and Mandrake is not one of the options on any of the boxen, damn tasing bastards.

Am I missing something?

[edxwelch]

I went to the HP website and see several configurations available - all WinXP, then I select "Customize>>"... I don't see where you can select Mandrake (and save $100). The only thing I can change is the Monitor, warrenty and speakers.

Re:I hope you're joking

[johnnyb]

The only barrier for installing the applications is a good program like Wise or InstallShield. Really the dependency mechanisms in Linux is excellent, it's just that noone builds self-installing packages.

HP reported to offer Linux laptops in Thailand

[midgley]

Recently.

They will pass on the savings.

[red floyd]

According to The Register, the MDK version will sell for $349, about $80 less than the XP version.

Re:You hit it...

[gusilu]

APPLICATION installs are FAR easier on Windows

apt-get install package
How much easier than this can you actually get?

The problem is not so much the difficulty involved, but the fact that the average user doesn't want to learn something new. Once they've automated how to use Office, read their mail and maybe burn a couple of CD's, they'll balk if they have to learn how to do the same thing a different way - even if it's actually easier! Stupid but true.

Re:I hope you're joking

[rikkards]

I am playing devil's advocate (somewhat)
I do agree that installing Mandrake 9 may be easier but look at why.
1. I doubt that Mandrake 9 came out at the same time as Windows 2000 which is going on 2 or 3 years. Try installing some version that came out then and see if everything gets picked up.

2. You mention that every program you practically need is installed. Now if MS included free software (i.e Office or stripped down version (not Works maybe Word and Excel)), how soon do you think an antitrust lawsuit would be set up?

I think this is where MS is most worried about with regarding to Linux. The fact that the rules that should restrain them due to monopolistic behavior doesn't affect the Linux infrastructure.
Course they could always include other companies software but that would be smart.

Re:Someone call Bill

[RedCard]

The upshot? One day, most 'new' media will only be playable on windows, and hence MS will control the consumer market.

What's to prevent a developer from supporting that same technology in Linux?

The DMCA in the USA, and proposed DMCA-like laws the world over. Hopefully, these never come to pass in the rest of the world, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

And what makes you think the media companies would use technology that limits their market to Windows users once they find out that their media is still piratable and pirated?

You're kidding, right? The same companies that have turned CDs into CADs (ie: corrupted audio discs). The same companies that are currently suing their own best customers over file sharing.
Those companies, maybe...

Re:I hope you're joking

[rifter]

And what's so "hard" about reboots?

They are a waste of time, stupid, and indicative of a badly designed system. They also mean you have to start all over again rather than continuing your appointed task. Every time you reboot you have to navigate back to whatever install application you are dealing iwth (like windows update) and then to the next thing in the series. Of course the poster left out the thrilling steps involved in a reboot (reboot, choose os from boot loader, choose os again from second boot loader, log in, wait, wait some more, etc).

Notice in Mandrake the user was able to completely configure the system in one go and the install takes 30 minutes. This is how installers hsoudl work. Also Mandrake's installer give you far more tools and power than any windows installer ever will. You can make any kind of partition and split the os install over multiple partitions spanning multiple disks. You can easily configure the system to deal with as many other OS's as your heart desires. etc, etc. The rebooting and updating and having to install the 5000 applications that do not come with a windows install but do come for free with Mandrake are why XP is harder to get running right.

Maybe if you had more time left from not having to reboot windows frequently, you would have more time to learn abot Linux. Maybe you should install Linux in a dual boot scenario on your machine and next time you are trying to get some useful work done on your computer and windows makes you reboot instead, you should boot into Linux instead an dcontinue your task, continuing to work in Linux until it makes you reboot, then go to windows, switching each boot. I think you will find you won't actually end up going back to Windows and if you do you will be back in Linux again 15 minutes later.

Re:What "big boys?" MDK, RH, and SUSE are profitab

[MerryGoByeBye]

First, the leading distributors, including MDK, RH, and SUSE, have scored some LARGE maintenance/support contracts lately (you've read about Munich, right?).

Of course. And why do you think that happened? It's because all the distros you named have created specific, industry-appealing packages of themselves. You've essentially proven my point. And if these distros continue to move that way, more and more attention will fall to making the distro adapt to business usage and less and less will go to appealing to the home geeks. This is self-evident, no?

Can you please tell me who these "big boys" are, and how FOSS users will be forced to ride in the same car with those M$ billionaire criminal monopolists?

I don't really understand how your question applies to what I said, but the "big boys" are any and all large-cap companies that currently invest huge amounts of money for their IT. In other words, not the home user.

I also admit to a total confusion as to why you feel my post was "FUDsterish".