Gateway Forges Partnership With SuSE

Zardus writes "According to Forbes, Gateway has named SuSE a "strategic partner" and will be offering SuSE Linux on all of their servers. I always thought SuSE would be a nice name for a cow, but I guess I'll have to settle with it being the OS of a spotted server." The article notes: "SuSE has long sought a greater presence in the United States, where rival Red Hat has taken the lead in selling Linux server software to businesses."

Comments

Finally another Linux partner

[Krondor]

I for one have been waiting quite awhie to see a major vendor endorse another distro besides RedHat. Variety helps everyone, as does competition, and I don't see how a choice between linux distros hurts Linux or the vendor.

Good Show

Re:Finally another Linux partner

[Krondor]

.. I'd prefer they use Debian or Slackware or Gentoo or Mandrake or some other fully free Linux.

Of course! Who wouldn't prefer that? However, you have to look at it from the Vendor support level. RedHat was always first on the support level because they did extensive testing and certified hardware as being functional in Linux. This takes a huge load off of vendors, such as Gateway, because they can check off their hardware against the list then guarantee their customers when they sell them a Linux box it will be compatible with Linux.

The problem right now is that a lot of Vendors (excluding IBM) don't generally make their components. They buy a motherboard from MSI, a sound card from Creative, etc.. How are they to know if it is Linux compatible (and what degree of compatibility as some people's definitions seem different), without extensive product testing?

Vendors such as SuSe, RedHat, and Debian (to an extent) do heavy testing and certification of Hardware. Face it SuSe and RedHat are "Enterprise Grade" in their testing processes. Gentoo will likely never be supported as it is constantly evolving to bleeding edge updates maintained by tons of packagers who generally aren't directly employeed by Gentoo.

Debian is different in the size of its userbase, but Debian also does not have the resources for the kind of testing corportate Linux entities can muster. It will likely never have these facilities due to the community nature of the project, but instead relies on user testimony. Ex. "I use this it works". A vendor is going to need something a little more solid then testimony.

Mandrake might have a shot if they could ever become profitable enough to put out some rigourous testing, though you could probably use RedHat's results fairly confidently with Mandrake (or any other Linux distro).

Perhaps what is needed is a Hardware compatibility group that can test and verify hardware compatibility with various Linux distros, Kernel versions, etc..

So to close, I still do not see how being able to choose between RedHat or Suse hurts Linux more then just being stuck with RedHat or nothing. You could argue that Vendors should just carry different Linux distros and not certify that they work, but I'm sure Gateway's legal team would feel queasy at that notion. Keep in mind companies are paranoid of brand association (Gateway sold this so they obviously endorse it).

Gateway actually sells servers?

[PierceLabs]

I thought gateway had been relegated to cheap PCs and consumer electronics. Had no idea they were even still in the server space, which begs the question. In this day and age - who is buying business servers from Gateway? If Gateway had ANY sense (and I've recommended this to Sun as well), they would sell personal home servers. Today's 'connected' home is full of a lot of devices that people want to share data and yet most people are heating their homes trying to use full PCs for the task. Gateway should at the very least look up the old Qube design and turn that into a home server design. Something small, relatively quiet, and light on power consumption that can stream video, audio, etc to all of the 'connected' devices that Gateway makes. But alas I'm sure they'll try to jump on the Linux bandwagon with everyone else, after-the-fact and sell servers to the few companies who would still buy a business server from Gateway (unless I'm just not seeing their servers when I visit companies or something).

How's about pointing us to Reuters Instead?

[!Squalus]

Since the original came from Reuters anyway, why no link to Reuters instead of For-bees, eh?

Follow the source to its destination.

This confused me (hardware and Free Software)

[ciaran_o_riordan]

While our competitors talk around the issue of freedom by discussing the "possible benefits" of "OpenSource techniques" and "Linux-based software", the hardware vendors should be shouting "Free Software" from the rooftops.

With Free Software, the price restrictions drop, and computers become more useful. Hardware vendors don't have to worry if the OS will support their new video card etc. They can hack together their own support.

So anyone can compete, and the software vendors don't hold any controlling cards. I can see why software companies don't get Free Software. They'd have to change their entrenched business models. But hardware companies should be shouting "Users should expect Free Software", and funding FSF, etc.

some people just don't know a good thing when they see it.