Dell's New Linux Blog

comforteagle writes "I've just written up an interesting find: Linux engineers at Dell have started their own Linux site and weblog about Linux at Dell. From the announcement: "Welcome to the Dell Linux Community Web. This site is dedicated to providing any information that may be useful regarding your usage of Linux on your Dell equipment. While Dell primarily works with and officially supports Red Hat Linux, many of our customers choose to run other distributions." And perhaps more importantly it appears that the new site and weblog is run and maintained by the engineers themselves. It certainly has that 'made with vi' look." And kudyadi points to this PC Magazine interview with Michael Dell, in which Dell talks "about Dell's expanding product line, the company's late entrance into the Media Center space, and where the PC giant and the industry go from here." He touches on Linux just a bit, too.

Comments

Also toshiba has one

[Yag]

Toshiba has an unofficial linux (and also *nix in general) support site at http://newsletter.toshiba-tro.de/main/ this is a lot useful to find machine hardware spec and linux (netware, *bsd) compatibility.

Re:Also toshiba has one

[chamenos]

i think the least the slashdot community could do to show their support for the dell linux blog is to not slashdot their blog. IMHO of course.

Re:Also toshiba has one

[bruthasj]

Hurry, read the site before the battery runs out in 10 minutes! :P

Re:Also toshiba has one

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you not funney!

Re:Also toshiba has one

[Anonymous Coward]

d00d, you not sarcarstic or witty!

Re:dell plastic cases

[lkcl]

... cos if they haven't, then the U.S. military could buy Dells for their aircraft carriers, install linux, and then they'd have a reliable warship that didn't have to be towed in because windows crashed, and in rough seas the computers would flex as much as the ship.

How long will the blog last

[October_30th]

I just wonder how long this blog will last.

I'm sure Dell (as a company) won't like this at all.

Re:How long will the blog last

[crsgrg]

The blog should last about as long as it takes Michael Dell to take his tongue out of Bill Gate's bunghole.

His position on AMD processors way back when was, "... we don't use them because our customers want to know/see that there is an Intel CPU inside..." (At the time, he was servicing Andrew Grove).

Don't forget about the "looks like a standard ATX power supply, but it's not - HA HA - joke's on you DUDE - pay up!!"

I could go on and on, but I won't.

Re:How long will the blog last

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:How long will the blog last
In the words of stratjakt:

Why do linux zealots interpret everything as an anal sex machine?

Re:How long will the blog last

[cgranade]

Why not? It's not as if they like MS in particular... because of MS, they have to charge their customers money for Windows, Office, Encarta, etc., when selling with a free system like GNU/Linux+GNOME||KDE would lower the price point and attact more sales. Unfortunately, this is counterbalanced by a stigma (not true, but there nonetheless) that "my apps don't run under Linux," as well as the percieved usability issues. Thus, Dell needs MS and their monopoly to survive in the consumer market. If Linux became a powerful force in the home, as well as for servers, then Dell would most likely love to sell Linux pre-loaded systems.

Re:How long will the blog last

[fucksl4shd0t]

The blog should last about as long as it takes Michael Dell to take his tongue out of Bill Gate's bunghole.

From the interview:

I went over to a friend's house the other day. He was having problems with his computer and he asked me to look at it, and I realized he had Windows Me and it's like, oh no--that's your first problem.

In other news, I love Texas businessmen. :) Check this out:

so we're very happy to let the other guys have 100 percent of the 15 percent.

Not that I love Dell, or Michael Dell specifically, just that I really like the way Texas businessmen talk about their competition from time to time. There isn't any of this "we're gonna rule the world" crap. Usually just "as much as I can get, and I can get a lot". ;) (Only New Mexicans want to rule the world, and then they move to Seattle and find the drones to do it with :( )

Re:How long will the blog last

[Anonymous Coward]

I do IT for a university that uses Dell as a preferred supplier. Dell have just agreed (finally) to ship PCs sans Windows - so they're at least willing to discuss an MS free machine now.

Re:How long will the blog last

[timmyf2371]

Unfortunately, this is counterbalanced by a stigma (not true, but there nonetheless) that "my apps don't run under Linux," as well as the percieved usability issues.

Funny you should mention the fact that the notion is untrue - I used a Linux operating system once. The following software I had already invested in didn't work with it:
Microsoft Office Student Edition
Dreamweaver
Fireworks
Photoshop

Champi onship Manager worked most of the time after a lot of tweaking, and even then I wouldn't have classed it as reliable.

I think if you actually look at real world figures and software, you'll see that the opnion of "my apps don't run under Linux" is actually quite true.

Re:How long will the blog last

[melatonin]

From the interview:

I went over to a friend's house the other day. He was having problems with his computer and he asked me to look at it, and I realized he had Windows Me and it's like, oh no--that's your first problem.

As a Mac/FreeBSD user, who understands that people have to use Windows, I have a question. Why do people hate Windows Me specifically? As a product, I realize it's stupid to upgrade to (Win98 + different salad dressing), but if it was just that I don't see why people would hate it so much. From people I've met, it sounds like installing Me is the worth thing you can put on your box; people would rather use 98. Is it just that the removal of real mode DOS causes more problems than it solves or something?

Re:How long will the blog last

[bitmason]

Because "Windows Me is terrible" is one of those pieces of folk wisdom that everyone repeats.

I've had Me installed on a couple of systems for quite a while. Anecdotally, it's never seemed to be any less stable or more problem-prone than Windows 98 was -- which is to say not nearly as good as Windows XP or Windows 2000 but usable enough. (The systems I still have it running on are "light duty" and it's just never been worth the money/trouble to upgrade.) And, no, I can't upgrade them to Linux because they're running applications that aren't available on Linux.

As I recall, Windows Me did have some bugs and such when it first came out which gave it a bad reputation. However, I suspect the biggest issue that a lot of people had with it was that it WAS just Windows 98 with a new paint job--i.e. it wasn't really any better.

Re:How long will the blog last

[Spoing]

1. Why not? It's not as if they like MS in particular... because of MS, they have to charge their customers money for Windows, Office, Encarta, etc., when selling with a free system like GNU/Linux+GNOME||KDE would lower the price point and attact more sales.

...or, keep the price the same (or increase it) and add other services or software. If there is any difference on the cost to Dell, they keep it.

Re:How long will the blog last

[ThogScully]

I once installed it on a box I had for much the same reasoning you're stating, just figuring that the box was running Win98 and WinME was available at no cost, so why not upgrade.

So I went for it. I never got the machine running properly again until a format and reinstall of Win98. I found that certain aspects of the system changed rather drastically enough that some drivers wouldn't work, some feautres were screwed up like multiple displays, and worst of all, any ability to troubleshoot these problems was essentially removed.

It took about a day and 10 hours for me to give up, but then I went back to Win98SE. I'm sure this is only one account of bad WinME against several accounts of it being fine, but there really was no benefit to using WinME over Win98 and it wasn't exactly some obscure hardware or anything that was in my machine preventing it from working. It just didn't work.
-N

Re:How long will the blog last

[fucksl4shd0t]

As a Mac/FreeBSD user, who understands that people have to use Windows, I have a question. Why do people hate Windows Me specifically? As a product, I realize it's stupid to upgrade to (Win98 + different salad dressing), but if it was just that I don't see why people would hate it so much. From people I've met, it sounds like installing Me is the worth thing you can put on your box; people would rather use 98. Is it just that the removal of real mode DOS causes more problems than it solves or something?

Hmm, I'll give it a go, but I may not have it quite right.

Windows ME uses the same HAL as Windows 2000, but it's strapped onto an 'upgraded' win9x kernel, which is the old DOS kernel, as far as I know. True to form, Microsoft didn't quite get it right, so the HAL itself is extremely buggy and prone to failure. Since they were still kicking around the old DOS kernel, they still didn't have a decent threading model, and shit still interfered with one another. The 'improvements' wound up being more trouble than they were worth. I guess I would liken it to backporting Linux 2.6's HAL to Linux 2.0 and patching it with a bunch of untested crap from Siberia, passing it through 4 beta-testers who all just clicked on "My Computer" and said "Works Great!", and then releasing it.

From a usability point of view, it's slower than win98 by a long shot, drivers are few and far between (uses Windows 2000's HAL, but can't use Windows 2000 drivers, so ME requires a special set of drivers that don't work in any other version of Windows), and tends to crash if you have too many processes running. It's less stable than win95, more like the old Amiga OS in the 1.2 days without the cute guru meditations.

Actually, I used it for awhile and didn't experience any of this. Not that I loved it or anything, just that I didn't have any problems that I could directly attribute to WinME. I went to Win2k soon after it, though, because I wanted the NT kernel, and then finally dumped windows entirely for Mandrake Linux. So I haven't really used a Windows computer in 2 years.

Re:How long will the blog last

[stanbrown]

Many years agoa, Dell bought a SysVR4 license, and relased Dell UNIX. I and I'm certain many others bought Dell machines based upon this, and deployed them They hired some very good people to provide support for thier version of UNIX, it was a pleasure to work with these guys. Then one day, after I had not contacted tehm for a while, I discoverd that they had all be fired, and Dell was distancing itslef rom UNIX. I was left with an unsuported OS. This predated Linux, so thier really was no other good choice for an OS for these amchines. I've never bought a Dell product since.

Re:How long will the blog last

[Oliver Aaltonen]

Don't forget about the "looks like a standard ATX power supply, but it's not - HA HA - joke's on you DUDE - pay up!!"

Thing of the past. I can personally verify that the Dell PowerEdge 400SC, Dimension 8300, Precision 360 all use standard ATX power supplies. (These are only the systems I've personally verified... I'm sure Dell has many more that now use standard ATX power supplies.) Actually, very high-quality ones as well. Their 250W rating is actually a mean rating; the PS itself is capable of much more.

I'm as big of an AMD fan as the next guy, and I personally don't care about Dell's deal with Intel. In August I bought a PowerEdge 400SC with an Intel 3.2 GHz CPU and the latest Intel 875P chipset for a grand total of $200. There is no way an AMD solution (from a major system label, nonetheless!) could beat that price to performance ratio.

Re:How long will the blog last

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell doesn't need the MS monopoly to succeed or to compete. It may benefit from it though.

Who would take Dell's market share if MS were to disappear overnight? Would demand for computers suddenly evaporate?

Re:How long will the blog last

[TheSpoom]

From the point of view of someone who still supports WinME systems, there's a few things that make ME the worst of the Microsoft OSes (other than 3.1):

• It still runs on DOS, but Microsoft doesn't want you to know that.
  
  Go into the startup menu of an ME system and you'll see Normal, Logged, Safe Mode, and Step By Step Confirmation. The thing is, it still runs on a DOS architecture, and to fix some of the major common errors with the OS, you need to get into DOS, which means you need a boot disk, which means that if the computer won't start up, you're screwed if you don't have another one at hand.
  
  
• It's about as stable as an earthquake.
  
  Microsoft was mostly working on Win2K when they suddenly felt they needed to provide a consumer-level OS for people to buy so they could make more money from the OEM PC market. So they took 98, threw in some, but not enough Win2K components, and called it ME. As a result (and as was mentioned below), drivers have to be specially built for ME so that they work with it, and a lot of old hardware, and for that matter, new hardware, isn't supported at all, or has very unstable drivers. It feels like something that was released half-complete, which is pretty much what it is.
  
  
• Tools have been removed and replaced with crappier ones.
  
  Microsoft, in their wisdom, decided "Hey, let's not let the user change ANY system files AT ALL," so they created the Windows File Protection mechanism whereby a user couldn't easily change certain OS files that allowed it to run. Of course, viruses and spyware could easily get around this. They also removed the System File Checker program that allowed users and techs to scan the system for altered files (this has since been put back in XP), as they figured it would never be needed. They then replaced it with System Restore, a feature which works, oh, about 40% of the time, and even then rarely solves the problem. (I figure they were beta testing it for the later final version inclusion in XP.) So basically, it's a lot more investigative work than necessary to figure out what went wrong in a system without SFC.

So yeah, use XP if you can, or use 98 if you can't. ME is a hodgepodge of poorly thrown together components that will cause you and us pain and suffering.

Re:How long will the blog last

[drsmithy]

His position on AMD processors way back when was, "... we don't use them because our customers want to know/see that there is an Intel CPU inside..." (At the time, he was servicing Andrew Grove).

I can think of at least one reason not to use AMD CPUs - the number of decent (ie: stable, fast, compatible and reliable) chipsets for AMD CPUs is basically countable on one hand - and that's going all the way back to the K6.

Re:How long will the blog last

[tiger99]

I bought it because I was fed up with the bugs in 98 (with all the latest SPs). The computer press at the time said it was wonderful. The fact is that it was more unstable than everything that went before, or since.

I originally upgraded to 95 because 3.1 was unusable on decent screens (eg 1280*1024, 24 bit colour) because the icons became black rectangles due to the limitations of a 64k segment somewhere, not to mention the fonts...... (and 32 bit should in theory have been faster). 95 was useless, with every SP applied there were still constant BSODs and freezes, the TCP/IP memory leak was never fixed, and lots more. I upgraded to 98. Guess what, NONE of the serious bugs were fixed, and there were lots of new ones.

Meanwhile, I got a laptop with 2000, it also had lots of bugs, including strange freezes for about 10 seconds, but with every SP (totalling about twice the size of the OS IIRC) installed, it was just about tolerable. So, I upgraded the old desktop to XP, which promptly crashed and lost all the passwords so anyone could log in. It now runs Xandros Linux, (rock-solid BTW) with one manual tweak to make it the internet gateway (ICS is about the only thing that Xandros seem to have forgotten, or maybe I have just not found it yet), the laptop is now dual-booted with SuSE 9.0, the new desktop runs only SuSE 9.0, and some old machines run various Linux and xBSD versions.

I am well pleased with Star Office and OpenOffige.org, but a lot of old documents are in Word perfect, which I also like. Once I get Word Perfect 2000 running under Xandros and SuSE 9, all trace of Mr. Gates will be removed, except that I will keep Word 2000 for special occasions, running under Crossover Office, when I want to remember how bad it was.

The common thread running through all of the M$ problems is that they tried, again and again, to be too clever, and as always, failed miserably. The apparent removal of DOS was one of these attempts.I will never again purchase a M$ product. All my trackballs (much better than mice, give one a fair trial if you have not used one before) are the Logitech variety, which M$ made a very poor copy of, and claimed to have invented, so they will not even sell me any hardware. On second thoughts, I may change my mind, I may get some hacked X-boxes, which should make nice cheap, if low performance, web servers, because they are a loss-maker for M$....

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Stuff like this is very important for Linux as a whole and dell as a company.

For instance I would of bought a Dell laptop in a heartbeat if I knew dell supported it and offered a Windows-less or linux OS pre-installed.

I just didn't want to pay the "mircosoft tax".

So I just got a slightly used gateway from Ebay instead.

Desktops I don't care so much about since I build my own computers, but laptops and such are only aviable from manufacturers and linux support is a big plus.

Re:Interesting

[neoThoth]

It will still be a long time before you see consumer level machines roll out with Linux on them. The amount of support required to hand hold dell consumers through something like, oh a kernel recompile would be enormous!

This is really focused on the enterprise effort (e.g. those who have enormous budgets and would like to make servers cost a lot less). The only possible consumer device that will come out of Dell with linux is a media center device. This is because users don't generally need to muck around with the OS in those set top devices. Servers are also immune from constant tinkering or at least should be.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

For instance I would of bought a Dell laptop in a heartbeat if I knew dell supported it and offered a Windows-less or linux OS pre-installed.

Well the fact of the matter is that Dell don't support Linux on either their Laptops, nor their Desktops. Only their 'high-end' Servers and Workstations.

Having just bought a Dell Inspiron 1100 and a competing product (HP nx9010) at the same time I can tell you that Dell support is lacking. I used each of those laptops to 'road-test' the respective support -- I ended up not buying Dell for a medium-sized company (25 stations) only because their Linux support is so poor.

They will figure it out eventually -- but I suspect HP will have bought them by then.

Re:Interesting

[senatorpjt]

I just didn't want to pay the "mircosoft tax".


I almost bought a Dell laptop, and that was the deciding factor that made me get a PowerBook. Yeah, I had to pay the Apple tax, but somehow that's different. At least I'm actually using OSX.

Re:Interesting

[passthecrackpipe]

Why would a consumer have to go through a kernel recompile? what a ridiculous world view -- linux support for consumers can't happen because of the handholding needed for a kernel recompile. If I buy a supported laptop/PC, with a dell supported OS, there is no need at all for me as a consumer to even know that i could recompile the kernel, let alone do it. Your definition of an enterprise effort is likewise clueless, as is your absolutely nonsensical notion of what dell can and cannot do with Linux. If you would have bothered to visit the site, you would note that dell does indeed ship desktop machines with linux preinstalled. Kernel recompile not required.

Re:Interesting

[whovian]

Places like Dell could roll their own knoppix cd-roms. The customer can try linux and come up to speed before actually installing linux on their machine, which at that point would be at their own risk.

The only problem is lack of driver support. I wonder if Dell doing this would encourage companies to provide at least binary only drivers.

Re:Interesting

[monkeyfinger]

Why would they need to do a kernel recompile?
I've got a few friends who wanted to play with linux, so I installed Fedora and a few extra programs and away they went. I will be very surprised if they start calling me with questions about kernel recompiling!

Re:Interesting

[Daengbo]

It will still be a long time before you see consumer level machines roll out with Linux on them.
Oh, I don't know abou that... Over half the machine in any hypermarket I walk into are pre-loaded with Linux, and one manufacturer, Liberta, even has their own branded version, which now stands at version 1.2 and comes with Pladao, the Thai localized version of OO.o. It has been this way for almost two years.
Consumer level Linux is happening, just not in the places you are looking. Dan

Re:Interesting

[blixel]

For instance I would of bought a Dell laptop in a heartbeat if I knew dell supported it and offered a Windows-less or linux OS pre-installed.

I don't care if they support* Linux or not. Just give me the laptop without the Microsoft tax and I'll do the rest.

* By support I mean that if I have a problem with Linux I don't care if they have people around to help me with my problem. But if you meant that they actually do a little bit of research to make sure the hardware that goes into the laptop works with Linux, then well yeah ... it would be nice if they supported Linux.

In the latter case, here are a couple of places I've found that do just that. Unfortunately their prices can't match Dell's, but at least you know that all of your hardware is going to work with Linux. (or so they claim)

laclinux.com

linuxcertified.com

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I almost bought a Dell laptop, and that was the deciding factor that made me get a PowerBook.

I want a PowerBook *real* bad. I love playing with new Operating Systems and OSX is fascinating to me. I never cared one iota about Macs until OSX came along.

I've looked at Apple's eMacs but they just don't appeal to me. They use slow RAM (PC133) and the whole CRT thing just seems so 1980's. The iMacs are kind of appealing because they have decent hardware (for a Mac) and don't cost a fortune (for a Mac). But I don't think I'd get as much use out of a Desktop Mac as I would a Notebook.

I'm seriously considering getting an iBook though. (Because of the price point.) They still have the G4 processor, use decent RAM, and I found that crucial.com carries RAM for Macs so I don't have to pay Apple's ridiculously inflated memory prices. But I've noticed that the iBooks only have 256kb of L2 cache. I'm wondering if that will make them painfully slow .. like the Intel Celeron?

But I've also read that the PowerBooks aluminium chassis is almost butter soft. That it is incredibly easy to dent it up even with careful use. That worries me.

What is your experience with your PowerBook? Do you feel that OSX is responsive? Have you had any experience with the iBooks? If you had it to do over again, would you still have bought your PowerBook? Do you feel it's worth the money just to run OSX? Are you a CLI guy at all?

Re:Interesting

[0x0d0a]

A good friend has a titanium iBook. He treats it like glass to avoid mars and shattering the display (because the lid bends and flexes so much, it is possible to shatter the LCD display), but a hinge on the thing still broke. He tried to get a replacement, but because Apple ships the things all glued together, he was told that he could not obtain the part from Apple short of a $600 replacement display. He ended up spending hours and hours fabricating a new hinge, and disassembling and reassembling the computer to get the parts into place. The back of the display also seems to have fallen off.

I've been stunningly underwhelmed with the general sturdiness of Apple's laptops.

On the up side, Apple laptops had chronic problems for *years* with the port-covering panel breaking off. Apple seems to have fixed this, as the panel is firmly attached on his Mac.

OS X is usable without being incredibly irritating, a la Windows, but it still isn't Linux. You are stuck with a single mouse button trackpad, and you should be aware that purchasing a Mac is more than the initial purchase price -- software and hardware from Apple is pricy and a lot of software that Linux folks take for granted as free are quite expensive packages on the Mac. Finally, the PowerPC isn't what it once was -- the PPC used to be an incredibly cool (thermally cool) processor back in the day, but it's steadily consumed more and more power.

It all depends on what you like in a computer. I would *definitely* use a friend's Apple computer for a while before buying an Apple machine, unless the money really doesn't even measure on your financial radar. You may like the thing. It has plenty of eye candy, a much better UI than Windows, better commercial software support than Linux (well, for typical cubicle-worker stuff), and is fairly straightforward.

While it *does* have a CLI, it lacks the GNU utilities, which is *incredibly* annoying to anyone who has gotten familiar with them. If Solaris or BSD (well, sans GNU utils) drives you nuts with the more limited featureset in the CLI utilities, you are going to be equally irritated with the Mac OS.

If you're aware of what you're getting into, Macs can be a good deal.

Note that, before people get crabby about me bashing Apple, I have a Mac right next to me at the moment, and I've used and coded on Macs for years in the past. I think Apple's done some good stuff, but that people also tend to get an overly rosy view of their products.

Re:Interesting

[klaricmn]

Why would a consumer have to go through a kernel recompile? ....to fix security vulnerabilities as they are discovered. Not to mention that a kernel recompile might be needed to take advantage of upgraded/additional hardware over the lifetime of the computer.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of support required to hand hold dell consumers through something like, oh a kernel recompile would be enormous!


I've been using Linux for two years now. I have never had to recompile my kernel. I can't think of any reason why anyone would need to if they are using a supported distro like RedHat.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would a consumer have to go through a kernel recompile? ....to fix security vulnerabilities as they are discovered. Not to mention that a kernel recompile might be needed to take advantage of upgraded/additional hardware over the lifetime of the computer.

A supported distribution would have an easy to use update tool. On my RedHat 9, I type up2date, click a few next buttons and have updated packages and sometimes a new kernel (after reboot.)

Re:Interesting

[metamatic]

I don't give a flying fuck about software support, or I wouldn't be buying from Dell in the first place. I just want them to sell me a laptop without forcing me to buy Windows.

I'm still looking for the elusive ultraportable with 10" screen and Linux...

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for your information. Very informative.

Regarding the iBook's flimsiness, which iBook line does that apply to? I was under the impression that the current G4 iBooks used a hard plastic outer shell? And that the PowerBooks used the butter soft aluminium casing? (Which is probably great for cooling purposes and certainly aesthetics.)

The single button mouse would be quite irritating but I was also under the impression that you could use a normal 3 button USB scroll wheel mouse? I thought that OSX had the "triggers" in place for it?

The software aspect doesn't scare me too much. I believe the software packages that a new Mac comes with include the lion's share of what I would want. iTunes (I have an iPod), iPhoto (as long as it actually works with my digital camera), Safari, Mail, iChat, and I think iMovie/iDVD alone might make the price worth it (to me) since video editing on Linux doesn't even seem possible, and video editing in Windows is painful. (I'm not a big video editing guy or anything. But I have little, personal pet projects that I like to mess with from time to time.) And I don't care about Photoshop or MS Office. Speaking of Office though, is there an Open Office port to OSX?

Money certainly *IS* an object, but I justify the expense because computers are my passion/hobby and OSX just really intrigues me.

I don't know anyone who owns a Mac personally so I can't use a friend's first. But there is a Mac store around here somewhere so maybe I'll drop down there and get a few minutes of hands on. Who knows, I might take one first hand look at it and wonder why I was ever interested in the first place.

The command line sounds like it might be disappointing. I don't make extensive use of it on my Linux Desktop these days (servers are an entirely different matter), but I love finding CLI programs that I can actually use. I think I'll always have a fondness for the command line regardless of how sophisticated computers get.

Re:Interesting

[Avihson]

I have been running a 450mhz celeron on a server that started out with Redhat 6.2 . It is now running RH8 kernel 2.4.20-28.8

I never compiled a kernel! Up2Date did it all. Different ethernet, different video, motherboard swap, none of this required a kernel compile. I'm not running linux-from-scratch, or gentoo - no need to hand tune the kernel. Security up2dates just work by magic!

I'm a lazy linux user, I load it and it works - I use the gui to configure the server, I don't know vi or emacs, yet I am more productive in linux than I am on a windows box. I don't have to block popups, no need to worry about malicious email or viral macros in my documents.

So, if the user is savvy enough to upgrade the laptop hardware that the grandparent post spoke of, they should be savvy enough to compile a kernel.

I'm using mepis/debian on this Gateway solo laptop, and it has no problem adjusting to the full docking station with extra usb and pci slots, or to the port repicator.
It just works, and works better than the "oem" MS win2k that I keep on dualboot. I needed the gateway driver CD to configure the dock and the port replicator, I didn't need any gateway specific software for the mepis install.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

You can buy laptop pre-loaded with Mac OS X and YellowDog Linux from TerraSoft . I don't think Apple makes money with OS X, they are a hardware company. But I think MS has share in Apple. It could be really difficult to buy good OS-free laptops. Or without giving a cent to MS.

(Note however that you will not be able to run Linux pre-compiled x86 apps (they have PowerPC processors)).

Re:Interesting

[akgoddess]

Although convenient, running UP2DATE in RH is equivalent to running WUPDMGR in MS -- the user has no idea what is going on behind the scenes.

My boyfriend has gone through painful lengths of teaching me 'make menuconfig' so I can update my own kernel (Debian distro). Because of this, I've learned more about hardware than I would have by just clicking a button.

Re:Interesting

[antiMStroll]

True, but not the whole story. From the 'Projects' page:

DKMS

DKMS stands for Dynamic Kernel Module Support. It is designed to create a framework where kernel dependant module source can reside so that it is very easy to rebuild modules as you upgrade kernels. This will allow Linux vendors to provide driver drops without having to wait for new kernel releases while also taking out the guesswork for customers attempting to recompile modules for new kernels.

For verteran Linux users it also provides some advantages since a separate framework for driver drops will remove kernel releases as a blocking mechanism for distributing code. Instead, driver development should speed up as this separate module source tree will allow quicker testing cycles meaning better tested code can later be pushed back into the kernel at a more rapid pace. Its also nice for developers and maintainers as DKMS only requires a source tarball in conjunction with a small configuration file in order to function correctly.

Dell is working on supporting kernel recompiles.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Although convenient, running UP2DATE in RH is equivalent to running WUPDMGR in MS -- the user has no idea what is going on behind the scenes.

That is true. But the comments back a little seemed to indicate that the average desktop user would need to recompile the kernel if they switched to Linux. While recompiling the kernel is a wonderful learning experience, it is unnecessary if you just want your computer to work.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

While Dell doesn't sell laptops with Linux pre-loaded on them, I have to say that Dell laptops are probably among the best out there to run Linux on.

I have an Inspiron 8200 and it runs Fedora like a champ. I have excellent graphics support for my GF4 from Nvidia. I have Cisco utilities for my Aironet wireless card, etc.

So while you didn't pay the "Microsoft tax" by buying a new Dell. You could've accomplished the same thing by buying a Dell from eBay like I did instead of the Gateway.

The fact that Linux runs well on every Dell product since the GX1 desktop is a fact that has kept me as a Dell customer.

Re:Interesting

[tiger99]

The best reason to do a kernel recompile would be to allow source patching, instead of huge binary downloads for every upgrade. Unfortunately most Linux distros don't do it that way, they prefer the huge download of a new kernel and probably a new set of modules every time. They could learn a lot from FreeBSD, for example.

It is much quicker on a modern PC to download some source patches, apply them and recompile, it can be automated, and it might even encourage people to keeep their security patches up to date. If the process is properly managed, it can be much quicker than loading all those interminable patches, and patches to the patches, from the Convicted Monopolist. If the maintenance of Linux is made to be easier than Windoze (it cam be, IMHO), then it will eventually be used more than Windoze. This should be the area where developers focus their attention next.

Re:Interesting

[Wil63]

>>"you would note that dell does indeed ship desktop machines with linux preinstalled. Kernel recompile not required."

Does it? the site says: "Dell does not officially support running Linux on Dell desktops. "

Re:Interesting

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It looks like even the mobile workstations (expensive laptops) seem to require Windows licence. Last I checked, Dell and HP sold desktop workstations without Linux, but the catch is that it often costs an extra $100 vs. the Windows version.

Re:Interesting

[0x0d0a]

Regarding the iBook's flimsiness, which iBook line does that apply to?

Gosh -- I really don't know. A few years ago (i.e. when Jobs came back) Apple decided to start eliminating visible model numbers on their machines with the justification that it was easier to market cohesive products without any customer confusion (Note that Creative Labs does a similar thing with many of their audio products -- there are many, many "Sound Blaster Live" cards out there with few internal hardware similarities. It is what one would call a "titanium iBook". I suspect a hardcore Mac support tech would know what that means, since he has to translate language like this each day.

The single button mouse would be quite irritating but I was also under the impression that you could use a normal 3 button USB scroll wheel mouse? I thought that OSX had the "triggers" in place for it?

Yes, I believe so. If an external mouse is no object (or even desireable) you should be happy. A number of people I know (including myself) just can't stand lugging around an external mouse, however, and find this not to be an acceptable fix.

Speaking of Office though, is there an Open Office port to OSX?

I'm almost certain that the answer is "yes", as I remember some people talking about OS X problems in Open Office at one point when working on some bugs, but I'd check the OO website and google around for impressions first. I haven't used it.

The command line sounds like it might be disappointing. I don't make extensive use of it...

Again, if you are not a heavy GNU utilities user, you will probably not have a problem, and if you use Solaris or BSD as your primary UNIX systems, you will probably be comfortable. From the standpoint of someone who doesn't use the CLI heavily on a day-to-day basis, the differences are minor, requiring only a few changes. There are enough annoyances and missing functionality and commands, however, for GNU maves to go absolutely bonkers.

Re:Interesting

[passthecrackpipe]

The top of that same page states:"Currently, all Dell N-Series Precision Workstation desktops are available and supported with Red Hat Linux"

Re:Interesting

[llin]

I've been stunningly underwhelmed with the general sturdiness of Apple's laptops.

I can't speak from an authoritative standpoint, but while most of our work TiBooks have been in and out of the shop over the years, a lot of friends with Pismo's, WallStreets, and IceBooks are humming along fine. I carried around a two year old 1st gen TiBook for a year. Scuffed as hell, but everything remained functional. I've been carrying around a 12" AlBook everywhere for about half a year now. Kept in a Booq bag, no marks, problems (except for the power pin of an old power adapter breaking off).

On the up side, Apple laptops had chronic problems for *years* with the port-covering panel breaking off. Apple seems to have fixed this, as the panel is firmly attached on his Mac.

The new Apple laptops don't suffer these problems at all as all the ports are on the sides now.

OS X is usable without being incredibly irritating, a la Windows, but it still isn't Linux. You are stuck with a single mouse button trackpad, and you should be aware that purchasing a Mac is more than the initial purchase price -- software and hardware from Apple is pricy and a lot of software that Linux folks take for granted as free are quite expensive packages on the Mac. Finally, the PowerPC isn't what it once was -- the PPC used to be an incredibly cool (thermally cool) processor back in the day, but it's steadily consumed more and more power.

The single button trackpad is my biggest bane in day to day use. It's one of the prices you pay. Software however, isn't one of the prices you need to pay if you don't want to. Just about every major piece of open source software runs on OS X, if not natively (Mozilla) then on X. I run Apache, MySQL, gVim, etc. fine. There's also lots of free and Free software available only on OS X (ie, I could run Gaim if I wanted to, but I run iChat or Adium instead). Agree w/ the PPC comment, however Apple's power management still beats the pants off of any Windows/Linux laptop. Apple laptops go to/come out of sleep pretty much as you open it. Whenever I'm stuck on a PC laptop, I really feel the difference. Those extra 5-10 seconds really add up over the course of a day.

While it *does* have a CLI, it lacks the GNU utilities, which is *incredibly* annoying to anyone who has gotten familiar with them. If Solaris or BSD (well, sans GNU utils) drives you nuts with the more limited featureset in the CLI utilities, you are going to be equally irritated with the Mac OS.

The first thing one should install before using the OS X CLI is Fink (well, actually Apple's X11 packages, but then Fink). Fink is also the easiest way to get GNOME and KDE up and running, all with an easy to use apt-get interface.

If you're aware of what you're getting into, Macs can be a good deal.

Agreed.

Note that, before people get crabby about me bashing Apple, I have a Mac right next to me at the moment, and I've used and coded on Macs for years in the past. I think Apple's done some good stuff, but that people also tend to get an overly rosy view of their

I agree that some people can get... overly enthusiastic. And there are bad things about the Macs. But I think a lot of the caveats you mention, while perhaps once were issues, aren't really anymore.

One thing to consider, and this is coming from someone's who used to love tinkering/building his own systems and who currently hacks in front of xterms all day and administers half-a-dozen linux boxes, is that it's quite a refreshing experience to have a laptop that does everything you want and 'just works' (for me, that's letting me do all my development and use all my accustomed Unix tools, but at the same time, handling stuff like attaching to wi-fi networks, projectors, waking/sleeping etc seamlessly).

Also refreshing is that I've literally never had to do a clean OS reinstall on any of my Macs (well, except for that OS X Server that I converted to Gentoo ;)

Re:Interesting

[4of12]

Same boat.

Dell laptops seem to be generally well-made, but the whole winmodem thing and getting X running on weird graphics cards have always made me leery of buying one for portable Linux.

I think there's an amazing number of Linux desktop users that carry around iBooks, though.

Linux/Dell is an expanding platform.

[JPriest]

There is a huge shift right now in several major companies to build servers with Dell rather than Sun/Solaris. I know a few companies that seem to be ordering 2650's by the truck load these days.

Re:Linux/Dell is an expanding platform.

[GaryOlson]

The reason: hardware maintenance contracts. For the annual fee of a Sun maintenance contract, I have purchased a Dell/Linux solution for hardware redundancy (Oracle server). The Sun maintenance contract would have expired in one year; the Dell server has a 3 year warranty. Same 24 hour service for both platforms; but the 3-1 ratio of coverage period is attractive.

This also provides a 3 year window for benchmarking and comparison. As a research institution, I know users will try the Linux platform just for the geek factor. Their feedback will determine whether I continue with Big Iron, Big Iron with Dell hardware redundancy, or Dell with Dell redundancy.

Re:Linux/Dell is an expanding platform.

[WuphonsReach]

There is a huge shift right now in several major companies to build servers with Dell rather than Sun/Solaris. I know a few companies that seem to be ordering 2650's by the truck load these days.

I'll tell you one reason why I'm more likely to buy a Dell for a server:

Web site ease of use.

On the Dell site, it's easy enough to change the configuration around to figure out what your final costs are going to be. Nothing seems "hidden" with regards to what your options are. It only takes me a few minutes to spec out a machine on a "what if" basis.

Most other online stores force me to pick from pre-configured packages, and they do a good job of hiding details about the configurations so I'm not sure what I'll finally end up with.

Re:Linux/Dell is an expanding platform.

[7021]

Careful with the 2650's. The PERC3 has been a sore dissapointment and the aacraid has a bug that is fairly well documented causing undeterministic crasshes.

We are in the processes or trying to work with dell to send our 2650's back and getting 1750's intead. (Note: we run RHEL 3.x)

Re:Linux/Dell is an expanding platform.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you can buy your Windows servers on 2650's too.

Re:Linux/Dell is an expanding platform.

[chill]

Doesnt' the 1750 use a PERC3 controller if you configure RAID-5?

What problems have you been having with the 2650? We've installed Debian Stable on more than a few 2650s, 1650s and now 1750s and haven't really had any issues.

Charles Hill

Clever way to get on-side

[Space cowboy]

Linux people typically prefer blog-type sites than flash-enabled marketroid zero-content stuff that pointy-eared bosses prefer.

Given that it uses a comments section, it'll probably turn into a useful technical resource as well... Could do with a decent search though :-(

Simon

Re:Clever way to get on-side

[Negative Response]

marketroid zero-content stuff that pointy-eared bosses prefer.

Um, so you are implying that marketing drones are likely to have elves as their bosses?

Re:Clever way to get on-side

[Space cowboy]

"you are implying that marketing drones are likely to have elves as their bosses?"

Do you not think that the association with fantasy-land would explain a lot? :-)

Simon

Re:Clever way to get on-side

[transient]

I thought he was talking about highly logical bosses, which is of course a contradiction in terms.

Re:Clever way to get on-side

[m00nun1t]

Maybe "pointy-eared bosses prefer" (the ones that bring enough money into the business to pay your wage) have different priorities to you. I work on the website of a largeish software company and we produce content on our site with the information that different users need.

"zero-content" stuff may contain zero technical content, but not everyone wants the deep technical content. They want to know how our software will help their business. The "pointy-eared bosses" find the content aimed at geeks quite useless.

Re:Clever way to get on-side

[monkeyfinger]

pointy-eared bosses

Isn't that pointy haired bosses? (Dilbert)

Re:Clever way to get on-side

[henrik]

Vulcans...

Re:Clever way to get on-side

[miu]

Non-technical web pages contain much less verifiable information and seem to encourage exaggeration and deception. Non-technical information often masquerades as technical information, as a gee-whiz number in a software product, golly wow trade names for standard capabilities in a hardware product, or meaningless statistics about a golf club.

So it is not that technical people hate any web page that isn't written in technobabble - it's that we prefer substance over style. Those of us who have been in the industry for more than a couple years have a mistrust of any information that is presented in too slick a manner, because it is often specious, hysterically repeats one or two dubious facts, or is omptimistic conjecture regarding the real world behaviour of the system in question.

Re:Clever way to get on-side

[0x0d0a]

You know, at one point I would have felt that your argument was weighty and official-sounding and something that's worth stepping aside for.

The problem is that I've run into an inordinate number of utterly incompetent corporate IT people who throw out lines that read *exactly* like the ones that you just wrote, and are utterly wrong. That doesn't necessarily reflect on your own abilities, but I've found that it's really amazing how often giving people non-sanitized communications with honest and in-depth information seems to make them much happier.

At one point, I thought that corporatespeak, the sort of truly zero-content material that appears on the websites of holding companies, groups of companies, and most investment-related firms was professional and respected by people reading it. Then I discovered that no, it's generally made fun of among everyone. Nobody, not even the PHBs, are in the least intrigued by a webpage that says that a company can promote "knowledge management producing synergy" or similar.

I just read Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line", and have decided that he has an excellent point. Users are *tired* of being fed sanitized, contentless information telling them that the product they have purchased is working fine and has no problems, that they have an "issue", not a "bug", and that the company is glad to continue to provide valuable and useful services to the customer. They don't want to see more stock business clipart of mindlessly grinning models sitting in front of keyboards wearing a telephone headset.

Note that Dell is pretty to-the-point for a company, probably because their primary interface to customers is through their website and if they dick around too much, they lose customers.

Here's a random exerpt from one of those content-free pages:

Excerpts from an exclusive interview with Techieindex

1. How is Business Objects planning to focus on the Global 2000 companies and other packaged application software vendors who have a proactive strategy to reach customers, prospects, partners, and employees using the Internet especially in a global economy that has not yet shown signs of picking up from the slump it has been in for the past two years?
Global 2000 leaders understand that they can use information and the Internet to service customers better, drive cost out of the business and improve their business performance and velocity. This is the fundamental value proposition of Business Intelligence software - helping organizations of all sizes to more effectively track, understand and manage their business. Business Objects will continue to add capability to our best-of-breed BI stack, including the next major release of our product later this year, and help our global customer base of more than 17,000, utilize enterprise BI to see rapid business return.

This sort of crap doesn't actually appeal to *anyone*.

Re:Clever way to get on-side

[miu]

They don't want to see more stock business clipart of mindlessly grinning models sitting in front of keyboards wearing a telephone headset.

Ah c'mon, the vapid models decorating the Microsoft site are actually charming in a 1999 kind of way.

Re:Clever way to get on-side

[jkorty]

This sort of crap doesn't actually appeal to *anyone*.

It appeals to the vanity of the author, or (more important) to those who paid the author to write it.

Blog?

[peterprior]

Looks like the blog is little more than a news feed for new software releases. I doubt they would be able to post any significant stuff about where / how linux is being used within Dell.

Re:Blog?

[brokencomputer]

From their blog/site:
"This site is intended to offer technical information and files related to running Linux on Dell systems. While we primarily partner with Red Hat, we realize many people run other Linux distributions, and wish to offer here information to assist them as well."

Dell Linux Engineering

[tronicum]

It is quite interesting that Dell allows their departments to setup their own information systems in the way the focused customer is used to.

In such big companys there are often rules how to communicate with customers and they have common ways ("old fashioned") stuff like newsletters, discussion boards, press releases. If they now allow them to setup their own way this sounds like a benefit to the customer. Maybe they start a IRC Server next or publish their own set of linux patches (for dell specific needs).

BTW I would not buy a Dell labtop again my Inspiron is so poorly processed, if you press on the left side, it jiggles at the other....

Re:Dell Linux Engineering

[October_30th]

I would not buy a Dell labtop

You spend a lot time on e-bay, now don't you?-)

Re:Dell Linux Engineering

[cgranade]

Nah... he just means lab-counter top computers... you know, those things in the Pbysics labs that let you enter in your lab report whilst your partners are hard and work, then e-mail the report to yourself...

Re:Dell Linux Engineering

[monkeyfinger]

I would not buy a Dell labtop

Sounds like you have a blocked up nose.
:-)

Re:Dell Linux Engineering

[Hanji]

Nah, he's just been spending too much time on ebay recently.

Re:Dell Linux Engineering

[petabyte]

My dad has the same thing with his inspirion but my last two dell's have been latitudes and there is a big difference. The screen broke off of his 8100 twice while my now 4 year old latitude is still going strong (with a little slackware magic). Latitude's are built for business and, I guess not as "general purpose" I would say (mine doesn't have a 3d video card as its an older one), but they're built respectably.

Re:Dell Linux Engineering

[Tokerat]

[isthere]~$ echo "in here"

Hopefully they change things at Dell

[mr_lithic]

This looks promising for those who have tried to deploy Linux on Dell Kit.

The lack of official support for linux on the Dell Desktop and Laptop Hardware has been one of the biggest impediments to rolling out a Linux User Machine in our enterprise.

While many of the development machines and older kit are fully integrated with the Linux OS, the new and less expensive kit is a complete pain to get to work.

One example is the Inspiron 1100 which has a massive problem with the video BIOS and Linux and takes a lot of work to get it right.

If Dell makes moves in the direction of support linux in the desktop, it can only help sales. I would definitely make Linux Desktop Support a part of a purchasing decision.

Re:Hopefully they change things at Dell

[cgranade]

If Dell makes moves in the direction of support linux in the desktop, it can only help sales. I would definitely make Linux Desktop Support a part of a purchasing decision.
That is, until MS decides to nip Linux in the bud and add a clause to the contract that no company which resells Windows OEM may support or contribute to Linux. Remember, MS thinks that we are a viable threat now, and they have been known to do such things... hence the DOJ lawsuits. Speaking of which, they won't mind the cost of being sued again, since it's likely going to be another slap on the wrist.

Re:Hopefully they change things at Dell

[mr_lithic]

That is, until MS decides to nip Linux in the bud and add a clause to the contract that no company which resells Windows OEM may support or contribute to Linux. I know that they did this before with other Hardware Suppliers.

I am wondering why the Anti-Trust people did not look at this aspect of Microsoft activities rather than the link between IE and the OS.

What is the answer to this? I would be deploying Linux on Windows licensed kit since the OS expense is already part of the budget. Also I would not like to have the Software Nazi's show and audit us with more desktops than Microsoft OS Licenses.

The reason for deploying Linux on the desktop is not for price reasons but stability and lowering support load. Therefore, the Microsoft licenses will be bought, but it woiuld still be good to have hardware support for the Linux OS on Dell desktops.

Re:Hopefully they change things at Dell

[neoThoth]

If your running an enterprise what in the name of are you running Inspiron's for? Those are what we call "consumer" laptops and generally for small/medium business and .. well consumers. There's no backwards compatible hardware support in that line, that's why there is Latitude. If your running an enterprise I'd highly suggest going in that direction. Latitudes aren't perfect (I find the 'l' key to get iffy after a year or two) but the beauty is I can get parts all over the place for cheap because the 4 year old laptops can xfer 45%-70% of it's parts to this years model.

Re:Hopefully they change things at Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

"MS thinks that we are a viable threat now"

We? What sort of code does a McD's burger boy contribute to the "movement"

Re:Hopefully they change things at Dell

[mr_lithic]

If your running an enterprise what in the name of are you running Inspiron's for?

Easy. Unapproved purchases by the marketing department that had to be integrated.

Inspirons are cheap, nasty and non-standard. They can have up to four different NIC's in them, three different makes of video card and the list goes on. It has made imaging a nightmare and taught the idiots in marketing a lesson. The average turn-around for laptop image is a day - for the boys in marketing it is four days. Now they are looking at getting rid of them despite them being a couple months old. This time they came to me for standard kit specs. At least they are learning.

That is why I was looking at Suse and YAST2 for deployment. Unfortunately, the video bios problem killed it.

Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[lonesometrainer]

So, even Dell offers you *some* kind of installation support for Linux on Desktop Systems and Laptops (read: links to community supported laptop-groups, i bet that there's one or two active dell employees). I bet that there'll be some more support on that page in the future.

And our big linux brother IBM? Nada. At least where I live (europe) the official statement is and has been since 1999: IBM only supports Windows on these systems.

There are good internet resources and mailing-lists, *but* the only way to get there is google (no link at ibm.com, etc.)

IBM is cheating on us.

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Why the hell can't I buy a Thinkpad that is suitable for running Linux on? Everybody knows that Thinkpads are the best made x86 portables - but they are a lot less interesting with the Microsoft tax.

I don't even care if comes preloaded with Lindows (they have an edition specifically for notebooks now) - just get me the hell away from Microsoft (and Apple since MS owns 15% of that company).

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[Requiem Aristos]

IBM has a goodly chunk of linux info on their site.

For example, try this:
Linux for IBM personal systems

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[bruthasj]

What are you smoking? Here in Asia, there are frontend vendors that are "IBM" distributors. They do provide support here and for all kinds of servers. For example, I've setup 4 different x330 series clusters from 15 up to 28 computer racks and the local IBM has given great support, including but not limited to:

1. Setting up the OS.
2. Downloading and recompiling appropriate kernel modules.
3. Setting up monitoring systems.
4. Setting up networking and hostnames.
5. Setting up some services.

Your problem is not IBM, it's the local vendor company who says they are "IBM".

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[222]

Your absolutely right. Spending millions in legal fees for what is inevitably going to be a keystone judgement for Linux is small potatoes compared to a website with installation information.

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[Keiner Niemand]

IBM doesn't officially support Linux, meaning no guarantee it will work, not destroy your files etc., and you cannot buy support (as a "normal" user, servers with linux will get official support)

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[root_42]

So, even Dell offers you *some* kind of installation support for Linux on Desktop Systems and Laptops

And what about this:

http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-48 NT8D.html

It took me not about 3 clicks from the IBM frontpage to get there. The site mentioned above includes some articles about installing RH Linux on ThinkPads and configuring stuff like Bluetooth. I think that's pretty neat and there are also vendors who sell Thinkpads with Linux preinstalled.

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Funniest thing is, Slashdot is linked to under General Linux Resources.

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[Junta]

I think the parent post is referring to IBM desktops/laptops rather than servers. It is clear as day servers have top-notch linux support from IBM, but I'm not sure on the Thinkpad/Desktop systems that is the case.

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell may have a linux section on their website, but IBM hardware (i'm talking laptops, cause that's what i'm most annoyed at) actually support linux.

I have a dell 500m, there's all sorts of little things that just don't work... I've heard of many people with ibm T40's with EVERYTHING working.

I mean, c'mon, i have a 1400x1050 screen and linux just won't read it (dell didn't bother telling the bios of this screen resolution).

They (dell) recently took the laptop linux forum off of the general forum list, only the general one is left (even though you can link to the old one and read it)

Sounds really nice of dell to obfuscate something that costs them nothing to run.

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's my impression that they'll drop you as fast as they pick you up, though. I've got a number of IBM systems running Dynix/ptx (the NUMA-Q systems they bought with Sequent and sold under their own name for a while afterwards). Try to find support for those.

Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM does not, but suse, redhat and other do, so you are wrong. You can buy support just not from IBM, they rely on other vendors:

http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR- 48 NT8D.html

owned.

But don't call Dell they're busy right now!

[badzilla]

Hmm but I'm not convinced that they're really fully behind this!

Re:But don't call Dell they're busy right now!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice troll. The message is entirely in the URL. This is not a Dell inside joke...

Re:But don't call Dell they're busy right now!

[theTerribleRobbo]

But it's a nice little hack/crack all the same, whoever found it (probably not the grandparent poster, I'd hazard a guess). :-)

Re:But don't call Dell they're busy right now!

[moonbender]

It appeared in the current issue of NTK, for one.

Zero content?

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently got promoted to a managerial position and I've begun to understand why us managers may appear like idiots to the code-grunts in the trenches.

We don't have the time to read blogs or address every silly detail in the same way as you do. We deal with the big picture (like making sure you get your salary next month) and delegate the details for you to work them out.

When we want feedback from you we want it on a couple of slides. We don't want to know how you tweaked your code to get 1% performance increase. We want to know how we're progressing and if there are any show-stopping problems.

Web pages you scorn don't have "zero content". It's just information us managers need.

Re:Zero content?

[rainer_d]

When we want feedback from you we want it on a couple of slides. We don't want to know how you tweaked your code to get 1% performance increase. We want to know how we're progressing and if there are any show-stopping problems.

All true and understood, but the real problem is when websites don't contain anything else than marketing fluff.
Just imagine the Oracle website without OTN. Or Microsoft without KB and MSDN. I mean, yes, you could make a buying-decision based on the "fluff" of the corporate pages, but that wouldn't help anybody to actually run the product - or give some of your subordinates a chance to look at it and make sure it actually fits your business needs and give you your beloved Go/No-Go answer ;-)

That's the real problem most people have with websites with "zero content".

Rainer

Re:Zero content?

[0x0d0a]

When we want feedback from you we want it on a couple of slides. We don't want to know how you tweaked your code to get 1% performance increase. We want to know how we're progressing and if there are any show-stopping problems.

Okay. This raises the question of why, if the primary task of a manger is to simply take in input and regurgitate an obvious yes or no based on some simply risk and profit analysis that *anyone* could do, we need more than one manager per twenty engineers.

I just don't see a hell of a lot of functionality provided by most managers, aside from possibly information hiding -- which you could argue really is a useful service.

That doesn't mean that managers are unnecessary (collecting and summarizing information and handing it up the chain *is* a necessary task), just that there are a lot more of them than there should be.

Re:Zero content?

[TheLink]

Don't forget: one of the important tasks of a manager is to help reduce the number of meetings the engineers have to attend uselessly. Note the diff: they're not always useless meetings.

In those meetings the decisions won't be made based on technical reasons, and even if there is any tech stuff involved, your manager would know it (coz you told him) and if it gets more detailed than that, the rest wouldn't know anyway, plus they're probably discussing the wrong thing in the wrong meeting.

Think OSI 7 layers. Even if you don't need all 7 layers, you still need some layers once you get a big enough organisation.

Sure there's going to be some latency and inefficiency, but if you want to get reduce em all, then you need one of those super-CEOs.

Re:Zero content?

[Spoing]

1. Okay. This raises the question of why, if the primary task of a manger is to simply take in input and regurgitate an obvious yes or no based on some simply risk and profit analysis that *anyone* could do, we need more than one manager per twenty engineers.

A good manager with reasonable work loads can handle 20+ people. A good one with a hellish work load and/or pushy upper manager will handle vastly fewer people effectively.

Tip for managers: Don't ask the same damn question of 20 people constantly...sure, check the validity of your info once in a while, but not on every friggen question! Trust people, take a deep breath, and when that trust is broken then work around the 'dammage'.

Second tip: Listen to your techs, and don't impose a 'solution'. This does not mean take everything they say as gold, it does mean don't find someone to validate a decision you've already made, LISTEN FIRST!

Re:Zero content?

[miu]

Okay. This raises the question of why, if the primary task of a manger is to simply take in input and regurgitate an obvious yes or no based on some simply risk and profit analysis that *anyone* could do, we need more than one manager per twenty engineers.

Not all places organize like that. My department has one real management person (who is actually very sharp about the technical capabilities of our products), with three direct reports acting as team leads, those team leads have 30 programmers, 8 testing people, an architect and a program manager.

In my organization the manager does more than make a simple yes or no decision based on what he is spoon fed by underlings - he has to be aware of the regulatory environment, company strategy, employee capabilities, budget, and all manner of other factors... and he hates zero content BS because it obscures rather than simplifies.

That doesn't mean that managers are unnecessary (collecting and summarizing information and handing it up the chain *is* a necessary task), just that there are a lot more of them than there should be.

Keeping VPs away from programmers is important because I know very few programmers who can give reasonable dates, especially in the face of the kind of power games that VPs tend to play. :)

Re:Zero content?

[Space cowboy]

I've done management at the group level in Logica, at the company level in a 40-person company, and currently at the partnership level. I have a good understanding of what management needs, and how differing strata within the business require different input.

Frankly, your post (whilst trivially accurate) is patronising and arrogant. Even back in the distant past when I was a "code grunt", I still had a good understanding of why I was doing what I was doing within the structure I was doing it. Most of my colleagues had the same. Of the people in my research group at College, 3 of us own our own companies, 1 works for NASA, one is TD at Eidos, one has just sold his company for 35 million euros, one is a director at CNN money, and the other is a highly-placed technical manager at Eidos. I think we've all done reasonably well.

My original point was that if you want to appeal to a target market, you need to make the initial contact with that market appealing to that market. Using a blog format in the case of a Linux market seemed like a good idea to me. If I had been targetting large-company takeovers, I would have put a site up with trends, options, deal-brokering and editorial comment. Different markets, different approaches.

To be patronising in return, perhaps when you've settled into your new management role, you'll learn that the best way to get more from your staff (from the cleaning lady to the hotshot programmer) is to treat them as human beings (bring them *into* the big picture!), to listen to what they say ("silly" details?), and to ask for reasonable (ie: agreed, not imposed) targets. You don't have to do what they ask, but you have to have reasonable reasons why not, at least IMHO. This attitude has served me reasonably well over the years.

Oh yeah, and if a coder starts to go over-the-top on the 1% rise in performance (s)he's acheived, (s)he's trying not to talk about something else - you have a problem that you need to sort.

Simon

Re:Zero content?

[Anonymous Coward]

AC got the smackdown.

Re:Zero content?

[cubicledrone]

We don't have the time to read blogs or address every silly detail in the same way as you do

Which makes it all the more curious when you contradict us and make wrong decisions that don't take our input into consideration. In fact, most managers go out of their way to belittle, trivialize and ignore their employees, precisely to remind them of just how worthless they really are.

We deal with the big picture (like making sure you get your salary next month

Really? I had zero managers who gave a shit if anyone got their salary except themselves.

and delegate the details for you to work them out.

Then argue with us when we come to the right conclusion.

When we want feedback from you we want it on a couple of slides.

With lots of bright colors, block letters and a xylophone soundtrack, right?

Re:Zero content?

[cubicledrone]

of the kind of power games that VPs tend to play.

Which is why we have no VPs. They aren't even allowed in the building. We found one in the lobby once, but we had him escorted outside.

Re:Zero content?

[miu]

Which is why we have no VPs. They aren't even allowed in the building. We found one in the lobby once, but we had him escorted outside.

Was he escorted out in a Star Trek style ritual with spooky chanting, tons of mist and a portentous speech about the Outlander or did you all just poke him with a stick?

Re:Zero content?

[stephanruby]

When we want feedback from you we want it on a couple of slides. We don't want to know how you tweaked your code to get 1% performance increase. We want to know how we're progressing and if there are any show-stopping problems. Web pages you scorn don't have "zero content". It's just information us managers need.

Some of us can't see the forest from the trees. That's true, but the same can be said of managers.

The web pages we scorn are too wordy, too positive, and too vague to be of any use.

Vi look works

[POds]

I only saw the first page, but thats one of the nicest web pages i've seen done by engineers...

Plus who says you cant created good webpages with nothing except a text editor of your choice?

Re:Vi look works

[byolinux]

Hmm, references to fonts in the stylesheet suggest it wasn't created by hand.

Maybe that's just me being a skeptic.

Re:Vi look works

[Anonymous Coward]

But look again the source, there is no

Re:Vi look works

[Seehund]

I agree. And I agree with the story submitter; the site certainly does have that "made with Vi" look. ;)

Re:Vi look works

[0x0d0a]

Wow. *That* is an impressive rarity. Kudos to their web designer.

Re:Vi look works

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus who says you cant created good webpages with nothing except a text editor of your choice?

Seems inefficient to me. Like using a single wheel barrel instead of a convoy of asphalt trucks to build a highway.

Re:Vi look works

[lerhaupt]

thanks

Re:Vi look works

[FattMattP]

Plus who says you cant created good webpages with nothing except a text editor of your choice?

No kidding. Style sheets are awesome.

My favorite quote

[watzinaneihm]

From the interview, Micheal dell speaking about windows ME
MD: I went over to a friend's house the other day. He was having problems with his computer and he asked me to look at it, and I realized he had Windows Me and it's like, oh no--that's your first problem.

Re:My favorite quote

[moonbender]

Funny imagining that even Micheal Dell gets calls by friends to fix their computers... I mean, you'd have thought he'd just refer them to his account on the Dell customer support line. Then again, maybe he wants to keep them as friends. :P

Re:My favorite quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael Dell is really just a geek that happens to be an exceptional businessman so this story doesn't surprise me in the least. In the early days Michael's edge was that he actually understood the tech that he was selling. He was always able to do more with less people because he was smarter than his peers.

My crappy Compaq

[hthiefshorty]

I wish Compaq had this type of support.

Re:My crappy Compaq

[Zo0ok]

I think Compaq was bought by some printer manufacturer...

Re:My crappy Compaq

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried www.hp.com/linux - This site has been up and maintained for quite a few years now.

HP (Compaq) supports more distributions and has more driver support. I don't understand all the praise for Dell for finally (this is 2004 folks) putting a linux support page out.

Re:My crappy Compaq

[Anonymous Coward]

HP can go to hell. They killed Tru64, a Unix with a glorious history (formerly known as Digital Unix). Why in the world would they prefer the broken HPUX over that?

Re:My crappy Compaq

[0x0d0a]

Because HPUX is funny. Reading the code compatibility requirements for Mozilla with my friends and picking out all the places that special provisions had to be made to address horrendous flaws in HPUX that all other *IX systems are years beyond is much more funny than reading a Dilbert comic.

Re:My crappy Compaq

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition, HP's CRL runs The Open Handhelds Project.

Dr. Hicks totally rocks.

Licensing issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell's management should immediately shut the site down, lest SCO sues them too. It's too bad filthy Lunix zealots have found sanctuary inside of Dell. Myself, I can't wait till all the Lunix hippies get run out of the country after SCO wins. Then, the US will finally be rid of the socialist software menace.

That's very speculative...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and backed up with no evidence.

Dell's a really open-form company to work for - if you have a great idea, people higher than you are willing to listen and roll with it. Linux is an idea people at Dell will roll with. It might sound crazy, but you really have to look at the way Dell operate as a company; they constantly look for ways to minimize cost for the consumer and maximise profit.

Now, they might have had a rocky road recently with regards to their Linux support, but that's for a number of reasons. Firstly, they didn't have any in-house knowledge of the product. By knowledge I don't mean a guy that uses it at home, I mean a truckload of support guys on phones, people who write drivers, people who can alter the Dell install and build process to accommodate Linux. Secondly, Linux is a moving target; which distro, what GUI, how do you support other configs, etc. etc... These are both big questions for a company that's been churning out identical Windows boxes year in, year out.

So, I'd be interested to think why Dell will be pulling the plug on the blog. As someone who's worked for Dell, I'd pretty much guarantee that if the site's there, it's been approved and has resources attached to it. Those pages are corporate Dell pages, not your average blog knocked out by an engineer... someone's taking time and money to get that up there.

Re:That's very speculative...

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who's worked for Dell

So... how's Bangalore treating you?

Re:That's very speculative...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Dell's case, it's not tech jobs that are being shipped off to India, but call center jobs. I left Dell EMEA in mid-2002 because I got a better offer from another company, not because I was outsourced to India.

In any case, call center jobs are ten a penny. Any industry - not just tech companies - will eventually ship off the lower end jobs to cheaper countries. I mean seriously, do you know anyone who actually enjoys working in a support call center and wants to make a career of it? Probably not. And most call center support technicians don't know anything about computers anyway, regardless of where they come from. It's like working at McDonalds; people just do it for the cash...

Re:That's very speculative...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like working at McDonalds; people just do it for the cash...

Uh. Maybe I'm missing something here but I'm not donating 8 hours of my weekdays to my employer for free - I do it for the cash, too.

What's your point?

Re:That's very speculative...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your point?

You see all that stuff above the sentence about working for McDonalds? I imagine you'd find it there.

Re:That's very speculative...

[Anonymous Coward]

not true. While it is true that there have been no lay-offs in Texas (or RR- just to prove I am in dell), Dell has a small IT centre in Bangalore. Some of the support for old hardware and some testing is done from here( I work for dell from bangalore in the software side of things).
BTW I agree with the grandpa poster, Dell has nothing against Linux. I have heard it described as being a OS-agnostic company internally. Whatever the customer demographic wants Dell ships. A whole lot of servers are shipped with Linux but unfortunately very few laptops or desktops. It will change though as soon as more customers want Linux. And really I have never seen anybody mention anything anti-linux at dell eiother

Re:That's very speculative...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh. Maybe I'm missing something here but I'm not donating 8 hours of my weekdays to my employer for free - I do it for the cash, too.

We all work for cash but I know what he is saying. My first job was at a call center answering phones for Sharp Laptop computers. It was an OK job for about a month (actually it was even enjoyable that first month) but it quickly started to *SUCK*. And after about 4-5 months I was dreading going to work like you wouldn't believe. (Granted very few of us actually enjoy or jobs, but the term "going postal" comes to mind about this job.)

All of the guys I worked with fell into two categories. Those of us that wanted to make a career out of tech, and those who didn't. Those of us who did were doing the job for the experience. A stepping stone to something better. Those who didn't plan on doing tech as a career were just there for the "cushy" job. But not one of us had any intention on sticking around any longer than absolutely necessary.

And that's why (usually) 1-800's suck so much. The jobs just don't pay enough to keep those of us around who actually know about and care about technology. And the ones who don't care ... well - they don't care. They sit there doing crossword puzzles and reading gaming magazines while "helping" you with your call. And their only objective is to get you off othe phone as quickly as possible regardless if you have been helped or not. Because they know that if you call back your odds of talking to the same person are nill.

Re:That's very speculative...

[surprise_audit]

if the site's there, it's been approved and has resources attached to it

Besides which, now that the worms are out of the can, so to speak, it's unlikely that any Linux Dell Blog would disappear for long. It might not have a dell.com address, but it would come back in some form. If nothing else, the Dell folks who put it together would become more active in distro-specific forums, in a "not blessed by Dell, but we know what the hell we're talking about" kind of way.

Re:That's very speculative...

[flight666]

No, take it from somebody who knows, the pages at the Blog site are _not_ "corporate Dell pages". These pages are made by the Linux Engineering team, not marketing. They do not have any resources attached to them outside of whatever free time the engineers in that group scrounge up to maintain it.

Re:That's very speculative...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly correct
There are some hardcore supporters of Linux at Dell. I know that every time Micheal Dell mentions Linux in his company speeches a few people at the back get up and do a dance
Also check out Matt Domsch's website. http://www.domsch.com/linux/ Not really dell approved but he does know what he is doing.

Re:That's very speculative...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh. Maybe I'm missing something here but I'm not donating 8 hours of my weekdays to my employer for free - I do it for the cash, too.

What's your point?

I think he is saying, job is not the same as career.

They should call Dell in Sweden

[LarsWestergren]

If they are so damn Linux friendly they should call Dell in Sweden and talk to them.

I was looking for a new computer a couple of months ago. Some of the Dell laptop deals looked pretty good. I called them and said "I'm interested in that model. Is it possible to get it with another operating system, say Linux, installed?"
Dell: "No, I'm afraid that is not possible."
Me: "Would it be possible to get it with a blank hard drive then?"
Dell: "No, I'm sorry, we have a deal with Microsoft. You have the choice between Windows XP home or Pro, that's basically it. You know, you could always reformat the harddrive and install Linux yourself if that is what you want."
Me: "So you will not sell me a computer unless it has Windows on it?"
Dell: "I'm afraid so."

I said thanks but no thanks and hung up. Even if Dell gets Windows at a huge discount, I don't want to pay for software I'm not going to use. Nor do I want to add to Microsoft's false sales statistics.

This is all a very familiar story to all Slashdot regulars I'm sure. I do hope the major PC sellers are starting to come around though.

Re:They should call Dell in Sweden

[Anonymous Coward]

I second !

I wanted to purchase a Dell laptop few weeks ago. But it was not possible to select "no OS" from the web interface. I decided to send an email but got no response.

A more customer lost !

Re:They should call Dell in Sweden

[fred87]

After getting the laptop, contact them saying you don't agree with the MS EULA, which entitles you to a full refund for the software.

Re:They should call Dell in Sweden

[Oggust]

Well, I haven't tried with laptops, but they certainly have good suppoort for servers (we have a lot of 2650/1750/1650 boxes running linux.)

They even sell linux with them on the web, although the swedish pages haven't got RHEL 3 yet, just 2.1, but you can call them and you'll get 3.0. No "MS tax" there.

Desktops, at least some of them also seem well supported, they replaced a batch of emu10k1x-based sblive cards for regular emu10k1 ones about a year ago when the "x" version first turned up.

/August.

Re:They should call Dell in Sweden

[blixel]

I wanted to purchase a Dell laptop few weeks ago. But it was not possible to select "no OS" from the web interface. I decided to send an email but got no response.

Same here. But I did get a (useless) response.

> Problem Description:
I tried to purchase the Inspiron 5100 Notebook online but I noticed that when I selected the option to customize that I was not able to remove Windows XP from the selection. As a long time user of "alternative" Operating Systems (Linux, FreeBSD, and otherwise), I have no desire to pay for an Operating System that I have no intent on using.
>
>
Dear Sir,

Thank you for choosing Dell Online Customer Care.

I apologize for any inconvenience this matter may have caused.

Unfortunately, we are unable to assist you with your request. You will need to contact the appropriate department for additional information regarding your request.

Online Sales Center at 1-800-915-3355 ext 62032 or via e-mail at:

Re:They should call Dell in Sweden

[canavan]

We bought about a dozen Dell latitude notebooks about 2 months ago - and half of them were to come with freedos instead of Windows XP, and that would have been cheaper by about EUR 70 if I recall correctly.

Maybe Dell should switch away from windows on their own servers, as an average uptime of 0 is rather appalling.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?h ost=commerce .euro.dell.com

They had Linux for Thinkpads

[oddityfds]

When I (actually my employer) bought my IBM Thinkpad T20 they did sell it with some kind of officially supported Linux distribution. I ended up getting it with Windows 98 anyway, because at the time I wanted to dualboot. It was nice to know that some kind of Linux would run on the thing, though. I much prefer my Fedora installation nowadays, though.

it's great to see !

[maharg]

EDD Disk Signature patch accepted into kernel 2.6.2-rc1-mm1
Dell engineers have submitted a kernel patch which allows Linux to determine which disk the BIOS believes is the system boot disk. Without this patch, Linux must guess which disk BIOS believes is the boot disk, which is pretty easy in a simple system configuration, but impossible in a system with multiple disks attached to multiple controllers.

Yep. It's great to see people from companies like Intel,IBM, SGI, HP, Dell all contributing.
I would imagine that these guys *really* want linux to succeed so they can stopping sucking up to redmond.
[/zealotry]

Re:it's great to see !

[inode_buddha]

The further irony being that I get my LKML daily-digest from

• lists.us.dell.com

Re:it's great to see !

[Pushnell]

Ok, I admit that I have not touched a Linux box in years. Mainly because I became a necrophiliac. :)

However, I am slightly confused by the link from linux.dell.com to Dell's 2.6.x kernel patch about EDD .... is it completely normal to see code being submitted for possible inclusion with "Copyright (C) 2002, 2003 Dell Inc." attached? How does the licensing work?

Re:it's great to see !

[spektr]

is it completely normal to see code being submitted for possible inclusion with "Copyright (C) 2002, 2003 Dell Inc." attached? How does the licensing work?

If you submit a patch to Linux (or any GPL'd app), then you're still the the copyright-holder of this particular code snippet. But you have to license this snippet under the GPL, so that can be included into the kernel. Clear?

Microsoft will love this

[JonathanF]

So how many seconds will it take before Microsoft pulls its license agreement with Dell and files a lawsuit? :)

Re:Microsoft will love this

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't believe that Dell is doing anything behind Microsoft's back.

Dell's strategy is to stay out of MS's way and benefit from the circumstances they find themselves in. It is not a religous war. Anything that sells machines is what Dell likes but they are more than happy to make deals that lower their costs.

Prior to Linux, Dell had their own SVR3 and SVR4 products and they provided a great deal of early support for what became the XFree86 project. They employed an engineer who for a time was the gcc x86 maintainer. Dell doesn't get itself wrapped up in petty idealogies. It's just trying to sell stuff.

Re:Microsoft will love this

[axxackall]

They'll do it through SCO.

Re:Microsoft will love this

[JonathanF]

It's not Dell we should be worried about, it's Microsoft! I think that if Dell/HP/whoever started selling systems preloaded with Linux, Microsoft's key execs would have a collective heart attack.

Re:What's with the site design?

[twistedcubic]

Many people I know over 50 years old prefer 800x600. Ever watch an older person squint painfully at a 1024x768 screen? More people than you know use 800x600.

Re:Hey Mike, don't dis AMD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael holds out on AMD in order to get best terms with Intel. He doesn't pay the same for Intel parts that you do and there's no reason to believe AMD parts would be cheaper.

Michael is THE businessman. You aren't going to outthink him on cost.

Re:What's with the site design?

[Anonymous Coward]

And these are the ones that will be using Dell's linux pages?

Most people I know that use 800x600 don't actually know how to change i. When I show them they are amazed. I doubt many people over 50 "choose" 800x600 because they prefer it.

Re:Hey Mike, don't dis AMD!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Do you still think AMD is better value for money?

Yes, because unlike Dell workers, I spend 2 seconds to check if the heatsink is properly mounted.

DELL, Linux, RAID and all that

[j.leidner]

Good news. But at the same time, and as usual, this is a grass roots movement, while officials can't be bothered too much.
I asked DELL support about a Linux-related problem and they told me they don't support Linux. They said my laptop was shipped with Windows 2000, so they can't be bothered. While this is certainly true, it's not MY fault that they didn't ship Linux in 2001 when I bought it.
I've also contacted them about RAID systems, and they corporate sales folks I had contact with didn't really know what they were talking about, so I had to get in touch with a RedHat developer to answer my question (which he instantly did).
Maybe here's a good way to make money for distro companies: try get a service contract with hardware vendors like DELL, who haven't got enough inhouse expertise (at support level).
I do hope this engineering effort is part of a wider wave in the company.

Re:DELL, Linux, RAID and all that

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, but Dell won't support other software you install on your own. do you really expect them to support something you didn't get through them?

Re:DELL, Linux, RAID and all that

[nutznboltz]

Get your Linux support from you Linux vendor or community not the hardware dealer that didn't give you Linux.

Re:DELL, Linux, RAID and all that

[j.leidner]

It's often not clear whether a problem is hardware or software (graphics card versus its driver), but that's not my point.

If I am the customer, I demand to be served. If I am willing to pay, I want my problems fixed. It would be fine for DELL to say that they can't do it for free, but my point is they didn't offer any help nor did they seem to have any expertise.

Re:Ask Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

No, dude. You were watching straight porn. Japs are androgynous. It was likely a chick who was flat chested and had man hands. Sorry to disappoint you.

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective...

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it another way:

Dell offer support on all their kit, it's part of the sales procedure. So while you might want Linux on your laptop, it opens them up to a boatload of questions and issues regarding support.

How does a company offer support on a PC sold with a blank drive?

Sure, you could do hardware only, but ascertaining what the problem is usually means ruling out the software/drivers first. If you send your laptop back with a faulty video card, how would they test it and get it back to you?

What I'm saying is that it's all well and good to moan about them not selling you a blank drive laptop, but from their point of view, it's half a product. Dell sell and support laptops with a Windows operating system, and until they can see the market swinging towards a point where a Linux support team is cost-effective and - to be blunt - needed, they aren't going to ship you anything but a Windows laptop.

Incidentally, it's the same with Apple. Have you tried buying an Apple without an OS? You can't, but no-one ever moans about Apple tax...

What about this story?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/29/162924 4&mode=thread&tid=185&tid=187

Or direct to the link that was included http://www.cypherpunks.ca/dell.html

I won't hold my breath waiting for Dell to change this :o7

Re:What's with the site design?

[TeknoHog]

I keep my browser window relatively narrow, usually slightly less than 800 pixels. Reading text is much easier that way, that's why it's often divided into columns.

Re:You're looking at it from the wrong perspective

[Echnin]

Have you tried buying an Apple without an OS?

Actually, I was in the store yesterday, stopping in the fruit section. I saw some great green apples that were on sale (I like the sour taste), and bought about half a kilo. I came home, took a bite -- no OS! Wow.

Re:You're looking at it from the wrong perspective

[moonbender]

Have you tried buying an Apple without an OS? You can't, but no-one ever moans about Apple tax...

Terra Soft, an Apple Authorized OEM VAR (Value Added Reseller) has been granted a unique license to install Yellow Dog Linux on Apple computers and maintain full Apple hardware warranty for home, commercial, education, and government customers.

You're still right, though - while they sell YDL pre-installed, apparently Mac OS is also still installed and you can dual-boot.

Hindi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the blog written in Hindi?

Dell needs to change

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like in Dell pointed haired bosses are getting bribed by M$ to use and sell windoze pc's and server.

I hope Dell will soon sell linux desktops and laptops to home users. If not then Dell is just lip singing and run by the evil empire M$.

Re:Dell needs to change

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what the "Intel Inside" and "Designed for Windows" stickers are. OEM's get paid to put those in the boxes.

I don't think Dell is "lip singing" anyone else's act unless it is Sam Walton's.

TrackBack

[anandpur]

Where is TrackBack on Dell's blog? Dell please enable TrackBack so that ppl. can post comments from their own blogs also.

Let's not forget Dell's contempt for desktop Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

When Dell stops this bullshit, and offers a windows delete credit across their entire product line (without invalidating warranties), then you will finally know that Dell isn't paying lip service to Linux anymore (and pocketing the Microsoft tax), and is no longer flagrant in its utter contempt for its customers.

Same old DELL...

[Anonymous Coward]

So I go to check out this new initiative and find that they don't officially support Linux on Laptops or Desktops, but they do have links to various resources. They even host a laptop forum. Sounds great. What do I find in the very first message/FAQ for the laptop forum?

"NOTE: Dell technicians do not answer questions in this forum; it is only monitored for content."

Great! If you work at DELL and you know the answer to a customers question about Linux; you can't tell them. Sounds like DELL is really warming to Linux. NOT!

Re:You're looking at it from the wrong perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

As a matter of fact, I had to send them my DELL laptop (INSPIRON 4000) with a faulty video card. They EXPLICITLY asked me to remove my hard drive before shipping (actually I did not ship it - a guy from some courier service came to my house with a suitable box for an inspiron4000 and took it away). DELL has a number of testing programs on their support web site - as far as I remember their programs do not work in windows, you need to create a dos diskette and boot from it.

Re:What's with the site design?

[0x0d0a]

The right thing to do is to keep the resolution high and increase the font size.

Note that much of this is a problem specific to the Windows API -- it doesn't deal too well with resizing all the fonts. There's too much pixel-level positioning.

GTK apps tend to do a better job.

[ot] look at powernotebooks.com

[gimpboy]

did you consider these guys power notebooks?

they claim to sell alot of the same laptops as the major vendors less the ms tax. i read somewhere on their site that they buy the laptops from the same place as dell or gateway. the major vendors basically stick their logo on them and sell the laptops as their own. they will even preinstall linux, and they have a bulletin board where they answer linux related questions.

since it's not a name brand company, you can check out the reviews at reseller ratings.

i guess i should mention that i'm in no way affiliated with this company. i stumbled across them when a friend asked me where he should buy a laptop without windows.

Made with Vi?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the "made with Vi look" might I ask?

Nothing in particular about the linux page or the blog hint that it was written in Vi. It looks like a normal dell colours and themed page to me?

What is the "Vi look" in general though?--I'd like to know. Is it a page with minimal graphics and a focus on text? Why couldn't notepad or emacs have done it? :P

I don't know... I just figure that its easier to use templates of other pages and use a more graphical editor just for time savings.

Don't get me wrong I use Vi all the time but I don't do HTML in it.

Re:Made with Vi?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the "Vi look" in general though?--I'd like to know.

An incredible inefficient use of computing resources is what it is. If I saw one of my web developers wasting his time designing a page in vi, I'd fire him on the spot. People need to use the right tool for the job and stop grinding their "I'm l33t, yo" axe.

Re:Made with Vi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you are a moron. Any editor is appropriate for editing html.

I see no reason to suspect these pages were written in vi. How does vi impose its "look" on html anyway?

Re:What's with the site design?

[azaris]

More people than you know use 800x600.

So what? I was talking about the idiotic practice of making your columns fixed-width, which means most people will have half-a-page full of white background and then a narrow column of text in the left-hand side. Increasing the font size will simply make the text flow further and further down until you have one or two words on each row. Is this a service to sight-impaired users?

Re:What's with the site design?

[otprof]

Reading text is much easier that way, that's why it's often divided into columns.

Actually, usually it's divided into columns so that they can give us a huge column of ads on the left, a huge column of ads on the right, and several big ads alterating with a thin strip of text in the middle. I also like to keep my browser narrow for reading text, but on most "news" sites this makes the text about 5 characters wide.

Sorry for the rant... just a pet peeve of mine. I always look for the "printer-friendly" version just to get the text that I want to read. I figure it's a matter of time before the printer ink lobby makes that particular type of link illegal (circumventing the advertising schema, or something like that).

Re:What's with the site design?

[macemoneta]

And these are the ones that will be using Dell's linux pages? Most people I know that use 800x600 don't actually know how to change i. When I show them they are amazed. I doubt many people over 50 "choose" 800x600 because they prefer it.

Who do you think is teaching you young whippersnappers how to compile your kernels? Yes, those with poor vision prefer 800x600 (sometimes on a 19 inch monitor). Get back to me after you get cataracts. Yeah, I know, you think you'll be young forever. :-)

You're Smoking Crack

[thelizman]

I used to work for a company who services Dell. My number and codes got me to people who knew what they were talking about. The problem is that you can't hire enough qualified engineers to deal with clueless enduser morons - which is why dell outsourced to india.

"Ellow sur, how ken I be elping yu"
"Yeah, my Dell PowerEdge is beeping and all I have on the screen is a bunch of sad faces"
"...............ellow sur, how ken I be elping yu"

Re:You're Smoking Crack

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, PowerEdge, Precision, Latitude and Optiplex help is back in the US. Too many complaints from the field geeks to Dell about wasting an hour on the phone with Haji trying to spell out their names and not being able to deviate from the script.

IE: hard drive heads banging against side of case. We know the drive is dead, the dell reps in the us know the drive is dead, the squishy salesman in India? nope...got to do the scripts....bastards

One Small Step...

[thelizman]

I don't care what anyone says about IBM supporting Linux, this is how to get it into the mainstream. If this is Dell's segway to officially supporting and offering linux on the desktop, then the next step is businesses leasing linux based PC's from Dell, and people who use Linux at work may begin using Linux at home.

Obligatory SCO reference...

[surprise_audit]

So maybe Dell is lining themselves up for a slice of "kick SCO while we can" action? On the list of mailing lists:

SCO-PowerEdge SCO Unix on Dell PowerEdge Servers discussion

Dell's Privacy Policy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know how good Dell is at respecting privacy? Their privacy policy states:

...or with companies that help Dell fulfill its obligations with you, and then only with partners who share Dell's commitment to protecting your privacy and data.

Which to my mind is equivalent to saying, "I'm only going to share your secrets with three of my very best friends. Trust me."

Superior Style

[Gonoff]

These pages are a much better advertisement for Dell than the complicated nightmares some pages are!

I can well believe that these have been done by the engineers there and have had little or no input from sales staff, graphic designers, clueless PHBs and other people whose job description boils down to "wears a suit".

My place of employment (a hospital) used a lot of Dell kit and I hope that the rest of the site learns a lot from this bit.

This isn't news.

[someguy42]

This story is hardly news. In fact, this site has been up for quite some time now. Dell's had a Linux on PowerEdge(servers) mailing list for quite some time now, and you can purchase a PowerEdge preloaded with RedHat Enterprise. They even mirror the LKML there. And, interestingly enough, a decent chunk of Dell Employees (myself included) subscribe to these mailing lists.

Re:This isn't news.

[someguy42]

And BTW, on the "up for quite some time now" subject, the site says "The Dell Linux Engineering team is pleased to announce the launch of a new web site" on 1/12/04, but they do also mention how much of the information has been out on the web and is migrating to the new site.

Re:You're looking at it from the wrong perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, you could do hardware only, but ascertaining what the problem is usually means ruling out the software/drivers first. If you send your laptop back with a faulty video card, how would they test it and get it back to you?

I work at a computer repair center and I can assure you that it is very easy (and is pretty standard) to NOT test customers **hardware** based on their currently installed O/S.

We use a custom, in-house bootable CD most of the time as it is much easier to get to the heart of any hardware problems that way. (Memory scanner, hard-disk scanner, test the NIC against our echo server, sound test, ports test, modem test, etc..) And we even make extensive use of Knoppix.

If it's truly a hardware issue, we'll find out much faster by avoding Joe User's obnoxious WindowBlinds theme, the 30 items in the system startup, the completely incomprehensible start menu with 100 shareware downloads in it, and so on.

Dell needs to...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Dell is going to promote linux and linux help throughout their web site, then they *need* to start shipping the machines with linux or without windows. I have no idea what deal they have with Microsoft that prevents them from shipping alternative O/S's, but it's ridiculous. Most college kids can get a legal copy of Windows XP for $10 from their university, and open source operating systems are free.

I'd be more inclined to buy a laptop from Dell if I didn't have to drop extra money for an operating system I don't want. Until then, I'll be using my powerbook.

Re:Dell needs to...

[way2trivial]

That's hilarious.. didja even see what you wrote?
and if you don't want OSX?

didja pay for that?
did you have a choice in the matter?

Actually, they do with a little help.

[IANAAC]

If some distro could figure out a way to correctly include Codeweavers' Crossover Office, they'd probably make a killing (charging a modest price, of course). SUSE includes the libraries, but not the entire package (Why?, I don't know).

In any case, All the apps you mention run flawlessly in Crossover Office. The retail cost is about $65USD.

Re:Let's not forget Dell's contempt for desktop Li

[TheLink]

Dell is flagrant in its concern for profit. And face it- people who want to run linux on their notebooks are tiny minorities. Whereas there are lots of customers who want to run linux on their servers, and it shows.

Desktop Linux isn't ready. The darn clipboard doesn't work consistently across the different apps. ctrl-home does one thing in one app, another thing in another. Same for ctrl+pageup, ctrl+c, and tons of other things.

Plus why should they go to the expense of paying a bit more for linux compatible desktop hardware (video, sound, esp notebook hardware) just to make 1% happy and make the 99% pay more, and risk losing market share because you are a bit more expensive? Note Intel gives companies lots of money for the Centrino campaign, and the Intel's "Centrino" wifi NICs aren't very Linux friendly.

Linux on desktop is still only for techies and controlled environments (corporate IT). So as long as their hardware works well with Linux why should you care?

When we get their servers we don't bother about having any O/S preinstalled either - you're going to have shove tons of patches on anyway, so why bother paying extra for "free" software- get more RAM instead.

Heck a large number of those who want linux on their desktops build their own PCs anyway. So that leaves you poor folk who want Linux on notebook pcs. Maybe you should try IBM then (since IBM makes more noise about supporting Linux).

Re:What's with the site design?

[Anonymous Coward]

More people than you know use 800x600.

So what? I was talking about the idiotic practice of making your columns fixed-width, which means most people will have half-a-page full of white background and then a narrow column of text in the left-hand side. Increasing the font size will simply make the text flow further and further down until you have one or two words on each row. Is this a service to sight-impaired users?

From your previous comment:

Do the Dell engineers know that people nowadays use resolutions higher than 800x600? And even then only about 3/4 of the width is actually used!

Even so, most people don't want to read one long line across the full width of the screen.

Re:What's with the site design?

[Pryon]

The right thing to do is to keep the resolution high and increase the font size.

HTML is a markup language (ML?), not a layout language. You have no idea how (or even if!) your content is going to be rendered. Tell the browser what the function of the text is (title, heading, etc.), not how it should look. Taking care of font sizes is a job for the browser, not the content.

If people would spend more time worrying about how their content reads rather than forcing my to render text in 18.2 point VisigothCluster the web would be a better place.

Re:You're looking at it from the wrong perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

...an Apple Authorized OEM VAR (Value Added Reseller) has been granted a unique license to install Yellow Dog Linux on Apple computers and maintain full Apple hardware warranty for home, commercial, education, and government customers.

I hope people won't read this and try to start a flame war over it, but I would sincerely like to know why someone would want to run Linux on their Mac? If you want Linux, why spend so much money on hardware? What are the technical advantages that would justify spending so much more on hardware?

I want to check out OSX bad enough that I plan on spending what I feel is way too much money on Apple hardware so I can use OSX. ($1,500 for a 933MHz iBook with a decent amount of RAM and wireless. Compared to a *stacked* Dell laptop for less.) My hope is that OSX is so good that I won't have to beat myself up over the cost of the hardware. I hope and pray that the "megahertz myth" will prove true.

But there's no way in heck I'd put Linux on a Mac. I can get an Asus motherboard nForce chipset ($120), a P4 3GHz (or Athlon XP3200+) ($220) with 1GB of *high quality* Corsair XMS Extreme Edition Low Latency PC3200 RAM (2x512 in a dual channel configuration) ($250), a WD 7200 RPM 160GB hard-drives w/ 8MB of cache ($59 after rebate in this week's Office Max add [and yes - rebates work!]), CD-DVD-ROM/CD-DVD-RW ($60-$90 at just about any Office Max/Depot), gigabit Ethernet/Serial ATA/USB 2.0/Firewire/sound card (all onboard), 3D video card of your choice ($150 will get a *real* nice one, or $275 for a near top of the line ATI 9800 Pro 128MB) wireless keyboard/mouse ($70 for a good set). All that for around a grand would make a lot more sense to me for Linux than buying a Mac.

This is about Server support, not desktop/laptop

[labradort]

As someone who has been working with Dell to evaluate Dell notebooks regarding a possible 4000+ unit purchase, I can tell you that Dell has no official support for Linux, Redhat or otherwise on anything other than Servers.

Our RFQ specified that Linux support on the laptops they provided was required, and yet they provided a model with the Intel 855GM video chip, which is not released as a driver in recent distros such as Suse 9 and Xandros 2. They are following up with a shipment of an alternate model with a Radeon chipset and this should have no problem working. But if Dell were any different than the other guys with regards to Linux support, we would be seeing recognition of the details in our RFQ saying that hardware support under Linux is required. However on quizzing them on which Linux distro they used to verify it worked with Linux, they would not say anything. Dell=HP=Compaq=Gateway, etc., when it comes to their awareness of Linux and hardware support.
All of the blah blah blah you read about their support for Linux is only on the server line.

Someone at one of these companies has to get off their ass, call up their hardware vendors and DEMAND that all components provided come with Windows AND Linux driver support. If it doesn't, REJECT the component and switch to another hardware vendor. That is the only way the hardware vendors are going to get the message. It isn't a hard concept. It isn't impossible, it just takes a shift in priorities for the hardware vendor which they will be very happy to do once their bottom line is threatened.

Personally, I let Intel directly know that they could be out of sales of 4000+ of their Centrino chipset if they don't release supported drivers under Linux for our timeline.

Re:Bahhh

[Anonymous Coward]

> Last time I checked the extra +200$ for a P4 of equal [and often lesser] performance than an athlon just ain't worth it.

unless you want a stable box, dont get me wrong tho, i like amd cpu's, its just that the mainboards/chipsets for it suck so much (via/sis/nvidia)

Why WinME is SO hated.

[no longer myself]

I'd like to reply to this without getting into the technical issues of the OS itself and just offer something that's actually pretty obvious: People readily eat up marketing propaganda BS.

When Windows 3.x was out, everyone who had a computer was a bit of a computer geek. It was crap, and people said so. Most of us typed in WIN manually only if the toy application we wanted to use required it.

When Win95 came out, there were a few AOL users out there who knew nothing of computers, but for the most part the average user was a geek. Bloat increased by a significant amount, but still, it was program related.

Windows 98 was a patch for all the evils of Win95. Computers that shipped with 98 came with some "extras", but it was still pretty clean. Marketers still thought of computers as "geek territory" and not worth panning for gold.

When Windows ME finally hit the scene, the OS itself was not bad. It was more or less a few extra features, some patches, and a more modern appearance. Sadly some fo the new features did not work as well as hoped. That's not to say the old stuff didn't work, but the new stuff was pretty rough around the edges. Another difficulty it faced was that people never learned from the past that YOU NEVER UPGRADE WINDOWS. You gotta install from scratch to get the best stuff. If you insert an upgrade disk you can count on your system being hopelessly caught in schitzo-limbo land. Also, computers that came pre-installed with WinMe were hopelessly bogged down with crap-ware, spy-ware, mal-ware, bloat-ware, and anything that a marketer could shove onto the 10GB hard drive as the box was headed out the door. It came with enough pre-loaded junk to destablize Debian.

ME had been set up by greedy marketers, stupid upgraders, and untested feature creep. So naturally the final nail in the coffin came from Redmond itself.

Believe it or not, the only way Microsoft can actually sell their latest version of crap is to launch a smear campaine against their current crap. People won't change willingly, so they quickly and viciously started bashing their own product by telling consumers who were experiencing any sort of problem that they needed to upgrade to Windows XP. (Now they encourage you to go WinXP Pro.) Guess what? It worked. It got people to buy XP IN SPITE OF ALL THE PROBLEMS IT HAS CAUSED!

What problems? Let's face it... Those worms have spread through XP faster than a dog hooked on pig shit. Meanwhile, those people still running a modestly firewalled Win98 or Me system have almost nothing to worry about.

So when you ask why people have such a problem with Windows ME, remember that most people who reply with comments about how unstable it is, are Windows XP users who would probably pay eskimos to spread snow on their lawn in the winter because "those guys know what they're doing", or they are "alternative" OS users who just hate "M$" because it makes them look pensive and "kewl".

I'm not saying that ME didn't have problems, but the problems it had have been so hyped that even otherwise intelligent and rational people will show signs of severely caustic brainwashing. Naturally, when I outgrew Windows ME, I realized that XP was a seriously expensive and dangerous lock-in technology I couldn't afford, so I'm not suffering from any of those symptoms... uh oh... Then again...

Well, I'm not really a Linux zealot just yet... I don't tell people to RTFM. :-P

Re:Why WinME is SO hated.

[Xabraxas]

So when you ask why people have such a problem with Windows ME, remember that most people who reply with comments about how unstable it is, are Windows XP users who would probably pay eskimos to spread snow on their lawn in the winter because "those guys know what they're doing", or they are "alternative" OS users who just hate "M$" because it makes them look pensive and "kewl".

No. It really did suck that much. I bought a laptop with WinME preinstalled and it never worked right from day one. In fact, everyone I know that has used it has had serious problems. Eventually it took 4-5 minutes just to boot up and I would be lucky if it actually shut down without having to hold down the power button. I was going to do a reinstall but just threw Win2000 on there instead. That was better but not great. The WinME debacle scarred me though and I eventaully formatted the drive and installed Linux.

Re:You're looking at it from the wrong perspective

[moonbender]

Heh, beats me. :) From what I've seen toying around with my gf's iBook (900 Mhz, bought last Christmas for cheap 1200 Euros since it's a G3) OS X is really nice, and I wouldn't want to run Linux on it, either. Terra Soft have some sort of reasoning why you'd want to, but it's, well, very spiritual.

a GNU picture...

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's no link.....

Everybody seems to want to cash in on the popularity I guess

I'm not sure wether it's a good thing

Re:Bahhh

[tomstdenis]

I dunno. In most of my boxes it's the hard disk + cdrom that die [stupid moving parts] before anything else.

Though I agree the P4 has better thermal management ;-)

Tom

This is great but...

[drwhite]

When I want to buy a Dell, IBM etc laptop or desktop system I want the option of not having to select ms windows as the os on the buying page...

too many companies tout themselves for supporting linux then u find out u cant select linux as the perfered os to install on the damn system!

Dell linux support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude! RTFM!

Micro$oft is dead.

[twitter]

Behold: Intel, IBM, Toshiba, Walmart, Dell.

Six years ago, if you put your head to the ground, you could hear a rumble.

The largest seller of corporate desktops openly embracing and encouraging Linux and free software is about as subtle as a passing freight train. So much for the careful dance Dell was supposed to do to avoid the wrath of Microsoft. Do you think for one instant that Dell wants Microsoft's DRM future to happen and leave them even more in Microsoft's grip? No one does and they are all breaking free. Everyone will follow Dells lead and it's going to go everywhere, the desktop, portables the works.

This leaves Microsoft with very little. With the acceptance of an alternate platform, Microsoft's hardware and software incompatibility extortion is over. As that alternate platform is technically superior, there is little reason to shell out big bucks for legacy software. Why would any company trust it's record keeping to Microsoft formats when free alternatives have widespread comercial support? There is competition in the future and everyone knows it. Standardizing into the upgrade cycle will soon be a thing of the past. Microsoft will compete by improving their code and EULAs or die. Let's see how long it takes them to figure out that their current business model is dead.

Re:Micro$oft is dead.

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

With $40 billion in cash and many extremely successful products, they sure as hell aren't dead yet.

The Microsoft we see in 10 years may be very different from the Microsoft we see today, but it will still be around.

Re:Micro$oft is dead.

[mcrbids]

As that alternate platform is technically superior, there is little reason to shell out big bucks for legacy software.

Sorry, I can't let this go. Linux is nice, Linux generally works, and I won't pretend I'm typing this on anything but my RedHat 9 Linux workstation.

But, Linux is only "technically superior" when you limit "superior" in some way.

Linux is quite stable. Linux has a modest security model. Linux compatability is generally decent. Linux is more modular and flexible than windows, allowing it to run on more hardware platforms.

But Linux is not better at all things than Windows.

For example, the kernel interface for drivers is just the pits. I mean, you either have to have open source drivers to build for your kernel release, or your equipment manufacturer has to have a binary for every possible kernel version and build!

I think that is retarded.

Linux has a very inconsistent UI, so that tech support for "Linux" is very difficult. For example, somebody can't "get online". Are you running Lindows? Mandrake? Red Hat? Suse? Slackware? Gentoo? KDE? Gnome? IceWM? Which version of each? What kernel build do you have installed?

Try walking somebody through setting up email over the phone sometime. And, sorry, if you disagree with me on this point, it's probably because you haven't done it with a Linux setup you didn't install yourself in the first place.

What Linux offers is not "technical superiority" but "political superiority". It's license is a good mix of open and closed.

--) Open enough that people don't get that "vendor lock-in" feeling, and can do what they want with it.

--) Closed enough that it remains cohesive enough that it can continue to grow and expand. (Unlike the BSD licensed Unix systems)

This makes Linux more of a marketplace or an environmental force than a mere product. Selling Linux-related services is becoming an industry in its own right.

In this light, due to the political security that Linux offers, it doesn't need to be "better" than Windows - it only needs to be "good enough" and cheap. It's both, so it will win unless something drastic fundamentally changes the marketplace.

Again, I use Linux routinely, I'm sitting in front of an Athlon, RH 9.0 Linux workstation, and get paid nicely for programming and sysadmin work.

But, I feel I'm also realistic about Linux's weaknesses as well as its strengths.

Re:Micro$oft is dead.

[nutznboltz]

you either have to have open source drivers to build for your kernel release

Well isn't that the point?

Re:Micro$oft is dead.

[4of12]

So much for the careful dance Dell was supposed to do to avoid the wrath of Microsoft.

They're still dancing carefully.

Note Michael Dell doesn't express any particular enthusiasm about Linux even though he sees that it can only help him in negotiating better terms with Microsoft.

Dell also chants the MS friendly explanation of Linux sales which, besides being true, makes MS feel better: "Linux takes sales away from UNIX (i.e., Sun) more than Windows"

The IT marketplace wants commoditization of operating systems and applications just as they've become accustomed to seeing in the hardware arena.

Re:Micro$oft is dead.

[Venotar]

> Linux has a very inconsistent UI, so that tech
> support for "Linux" is very difficult. For
> example, somebody can't "get online". Are you
> running Lindows? Mandrake? Red Hat? Suse?
> Slackware? Gentoo? KDE? Gnome? IceWM? Which
> version of each? What kernel build do you have
> installed?
>
> Try walking somebody through setting up email
> over the phone sometime. And, sorry, if you
> disagree with me on this point, it's probably
> because you haven't done it with a Linux setup
> you didn't install yourself in the first place

Why bother walking them through anything over the phone?

Get their IP address (thankfully, http://whatismyip.com makes that easy for even the least technically savvy), a username/password, and a description of the problem. Hang up. ssh in. Fix the problem. Call them back.

Laptop source.

[twitter]

BTW I would not buy a Dell labtop again my Inspiron is so poorly processed, if you press on the left side, it jiggles at the other....

If you want a nice new laptop, talk to your local AOpen dealer. They will be happy to sell you a solid customized laptop AND NOT CHARGE YOU FOR AN OS because they don't subscribe to the one computer one OS M$ rape. The dealer might even install the OS of your choice and will surely test out something like Knoppix at no charge.

Let your local reseller help you and your business out and ask for free software. You might pay a little more for the hardware, but he'll be there to answer questions and sell you his time for real solutions.

Re:This is about Server support, not desktop/lapto

[pe1chl]

A while ago we bought a Dell laptop at work and it turned out it only ran Windows XP. The video driver had been artificially crippled not to support Windows 2000.
(the original driver from the video chip manufacturer had this support, but Dell had disabled this in the version for this laptop)

It ran SuSE Linux without problem! But not W2K.
Back to Dell it went...

Re:This is about Server support, not desktop/lapto

[Anonymous Coward]

What are doing that requires 4,000+ notebooks? Just curious.

Re:You're looking at it from the wrong perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Incidentally, it's the same with Apple. Have you tried buying an Apple without an OS? You can't, but no-one ever moans about Apple tax...


Apple is a hardware company (like Sun, IBM, etc.).

Yes, they do OS X but it is somewhat difficult to sell hardware without software. I don't think they actually make money on the software itself considering the development cost etc.

OS X is quite a nice OS. I kept it on my iBook even though I am using Debian most of the time. But you can easily remove it if you don't like it.

Packages

[officepotato]

Just a random thought...

Assuming Dell does start pushing home user systems with Linux pre-installed, the traffic to Debian/Redhat/whoever's package servers could increase quite a bit, and the traffic to their forums and support pages would skyrocket, as Linux is introduced to less technical users. The overall quality and useability of those lower-budget/volunteer sites would suffer.

Not saying this is a bad thing, but Dell would have to commit some resources to supporting their new product, beyond just shipping out a different set of harddrive images.

If they did commit to Linux, I'd definately be inspired to purchase a Dell PC sometime down the line, rather than building my own.

Re:This is about Server support, not desktop/lapto

[labradort]

It is for a University where all full time students, and faculty, get a notebook. About 400 of these are set up to dual boot Linux and Windows XP, and we'd prefer to get one model to provide to all of the 4000+ users. Every couple of years we roll over
the hardware and this year is rollover year.

not true

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell's UNIX product started with 3.2, not 4. When Dell discontinued it's UNIX program it did not fire the employees within the group. It transferred them to other areas. I'm highly qualified to comment on this.

Re:What's with the site design?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in my 40's and use 1920x1440 for my linux desktop. You aren't teaching me anything other than how blind and arrogant you are.

Re:Bahhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael will choose to do whatever is best for his business. He doesn't care about "brave or right". He leaves that to Steve Jobs and his paltry market share.

It's unlikely that AMD processors are cheaper than Intel ones in Dell's pricing structure.

Re:This is about Server support, not desktop/lapto

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all -- laptop support in Linux basically sucks. You will never get Windows-level support for power management, docking station, DVD support and so on. This is primarily a Linux or a Distro problem, not a Dell problem (maybe 2.6 will make things a little better) -- If I was an OEM, I'd run like hell from this situation as well.

Someone at one of these companies has to get off their ass, call up their hardware vendors and DEMAND that all components provided come with Windows AND Linux driver support.

If you keep buying 4000 laptops, it will happen. IBM tried a corporate laptop with Linux and had to cancel it due to poor sales.

Try Xandros

[lpret]

Read this story from last month about Xandros 2.0. With the crossover office built in, it's easier than ever to simply select a Windows application you want to install, and it will guide you through it. Check out this screenshot and be amazed at how truly simple this is. I've been using this for the past couple weeks, and I have to say it's the first time I haven't had to go back into Windows to use Dreamweaver -- my primary app. Of course, the crossover office can be used with other distros, but I'm a Xandros convert through and through.

Re:Hey Mike, don't dis AMD!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Michael hasn't made you any money. He makes me all mine. I don't work for him but no one has done better making money for people.

I'd like to see you take on Michael in a business competition. I'm sure your profanity would really help you there.

tiny url

[twitter]

Why not simply post the link instead of the tinyurl redirection? Oh, because you are a troll, I see now. That's the last time I click on a tinyrul link on Slashdot. Next time it will be goat sex which is only half as offensive and pointless as your "joke".

I'm afraid Dell is tired of being screwed around by their buddy, Bill Gates. There's an alternative and Dell has grabbed onto it. No more one PC one OS charges, I presume. I also expect commerce.euro.dell.com to be run off a usefull OS soon. A few years ago, Dell recommended Win3.1, what they recommend tomorrow is clear for all to see.

Re:tiny url

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators: Please note that "twitter" is a known fanatical psycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft bashing. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, twitter is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.

I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.

If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.

For example, in this recent post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.

More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own.

More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, twitter wants to be RMS, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?

FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD, offtopic FUD, and more FUD. This guy is like the Monty Python SPAM skit, but with FUD and more FUD instead of canned meat. Amazed

Just bought a Dell-SuSE server

[PizzaFace]

Dell offers only Red Hat Advanced Server or Red Hat Professional (which is obsolete), so I bought the PowerEdge with no OS. P4-2.4 GHz, 1 GB DDR, 36 GB 10K rpm SCSI for $817 plus tax. SuSE 9 Pro installed without a hitch.

Dell must be moving a lot of these no-OS boxes. Their official support has been quite RH-centric, but the new website has a page that directly addresses other distros. SuSE recently announced that Dell was working more closely with them, and SuSE has certified a bunch of Dell machines.

As for the made in vi look..

[shaitand]

A simple view page source yields that the site was not handcoded at all.

Re:mofos

[Anonymous Coward]

What are _you_ here for?

Just to watch?

Re:The Dell Linux GNU hippies

[jrnchimera]

Wow... internetweekly is a pile of biased "non-facts". I can't believe anybody would read that site for any real political insight. The technology section is good though. Moderate me offtopic please.

More expensive motherboard ==

[Ayanami Rei]

not feasible for Dell to "customize". Still, I wouldn't count on ever being able to swap them unless you have a few cheap $40 microATX boards to sacrifice.

Dell are anti-linux, see Optiplex GX270

[Anonymous Coward]

To me, there's no bigger sign that Dell are anti-linux than the bunch of new GX270's we got. They brought out a specific bios version (A03) that screws up the i865 video so that Xfree won't recognize the card correctly. Of course, windows still works fine.

I can just see the discussion in management.

It is not logical..

[Anonymous Coward]

..to assume that elves are the only pointy-eared possibilities. Oh, if only the Vulcans would come down and assume responsibility for the USPTO. :-D

"Live long and prosper"

I'll bite, troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Desktop Linux isn't ready. The darn clipboard doesn't work consistently across the different apps. ctrl-home does one thing in one app, another thing in another. Same for ctrl+pageup, ctrl+c, and tons of other things.

We've been using Linux on the desktop since Mandrake 8.0, Suse 7.3, and Red Hat 7.1

While StarOffice 5.2 is a painful reminder of how not to release a word processor/office suite (still sitting on a few Suse 7.3 desktops), the last couple of years have shown remarkable improvement at an increasing rate. Vastly superior to Microsoft and other Windows products for at least the last 6 months, for the most part. The benefits are just too many to mention.

Plus why should they go to the expense of paying a bit more for linux compatible desktop hardware (video, sound, esp notebook hardware) just to make 1% happy and make the 99% pay more, and risk losing market share because you are a bit more expensive?

You can't be this ignorant. Dell doesn't manufacture their own laptops. Compal, Quanta, Samsung, Wistron are the oem suppliers to Dell. And except for Samsung, the other oems are major suppliers to many other manufacturers. So the compatibility is there already. Dell isn't pushing anything unique. So they aren't paying anything at all extra, and are saving the Microsoft tax on each unit shipped with Linux. That Microsoft tax isn't cheap. Various sources, including statements made by Ballmer and analysts have placed the tax at $50 per unit and higher. At $50 per unit, that has to be the most expensive cost other than the LCD panels and the faster processors.

Linux, or more accurately, GNU/Linux, costs them absolutely zero. And for support? They'll actually be more profitable with GNU/Linux, because all they have to say is, GNU/Linux? No support. With analysts statements on support calls costing about $20 (a couple of years ago) per, a couple of support calls on Windows are known by everyone to wipe out the profit on desktops and laptops, at least on the lower end. And as you state, if GNU/Linux users are for techies and corporate, they are more likely to know if/which component is bad, and less likely to ship back working components/laptops. And without support, shipment would cost the end user, not Dell, for warranty service where nothing is actually wrong.

The Intel Centrino aren't very Linux friendly? Try they aren't supported at all yet from Intel. At the recent Linuxworld, an Intel rep admitted that they owe the Linux community a driver for Centrino, and they're working on it.

And the Centrino driver not being available yet? That's actually a good thing. Because all the benchmark reports say Centrino sucks. Other wireless hardware is far superior to Centrino. So that's no loss in my book.

When we get their servers we don't bother about having any O/S preinstalled either - you're going to have shove tons of patches on anyway, so why bother paying extra for "free" software- get more RAM instead.

It sounds from your post that you work for a large firm. If you don't get your servers pre-installed with Linux, you're in the minority my little troll. And you're deliberately twisting my post. My post specifically mentioned a windows delete credit across their entire product line.

Heck a large number of those who want linux on their desktops build their own PCs anyway.

And we've built a few ourselves also. But with the pricing dropping like a rock, it doesn't pay anymore. From $200 Lindows subsidized boxes with a 1 year warranty, on up to better equipped boxes, it really doesn't pay anymore to build your own, whether a business or at home, unless you are talking about terrabyte sized file servers where it pays to build your own instead of paying premiums for storage servers from the big boys.

Re:I'll bite, troll

[TheLink]

"My post specifically mentioned a windows delete credit across their entire product line"

Would that really be cheaper for Dell? Would they actually pay Microsoft less if they do that?

They make enough margin on servers and MS server software costs enough more to make it optional.

But desktops and notebooks?

"Linux, or more accurately, GNU/Linux, costs them absolutely zero. And for support? They'll actually be more profitable with GNU/Linux, because all they have to say is, GNU/Linux? No support."

Then that's what you're getting already. No support. Why don't you just imagine you're supposed to be getting Linux preinstalled, and they screwed up and you got Windows instead, and if you call them they say No support, and you have to install Linux yourself.

If you want to spend time to try to get money buy the stuff, refuse to accept the MS EULA and go talk to Dell about it. If enough ppl do it, it might cost Dell enough to make a change.

Re: Refund for Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Go ahead and try..they'll be happy (or maybe after a lawsuit threat) to refund what *they* pay for OEM windoze, which is a tiny fraction of the regular retail price. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/2771. html

Re:Bahhh

[Anonymous Coward]

My DELL computer came with a NVIDIA card... they aren't that tied to ATI... Intel on the other hand, well, hell needs to freeze over...

considering dell does no engineering.....

[Anonymous Coward]

... it's fitting that 'engineers' should be running a linux webserver. what a maroon.

List Price. WTF?

[T-Ranger]

Every time a discussion about Sun comes up I always mention price.

I understand the theory behind why one would want Sun hardware and software. Ultimatly it comes down to insane compatability over the scale of machine, and over time. All Sun hardware is of better quality of build-you-own PC stuff, but there isnt any reason to beleive it is of better quality of Dell or IBM or Compaq 'servers'.

But the hardware is at least 2-3x as expensive as name-brand PC things. Id rather build my scaleability into a cluster of PCs then a single big Sun. Yes, there are some applications where a single big server is necessary, but not 99% of the time. Multiple servers implies availability - even if the components may be more falable then Sun stuff.

Sun supporters always come back with: "Ya, but thats list price!, nobody pays list price!" WTF? If no one pays that price, they why do you list it? Fuck that, Ill take Dells iddiot-proof web shopping cart thing any day of the week and twice on Sunday over talking to a Sun sales droid.

Re:List Price. WTF?

[WuphonsReach]

Sun supporters always come back with: "Ya, but thats list price!, nobody pays list price!" WTF? If no one pays that price, they why do you list it? Fuck that, Ill take Dells iddiot-proof web shopping cart thing any day of the week and twice on Sunday over talking to a Sun sales droid.

Agreed, that's the other half of the equation. Dell's price on the website is the price. None of this nonsense where you have to threaten the salesperson in order to get the best price. If I want to play "guess the price", it isn't going to be over commoditized products like hardware or software.

obviously

[trolman]

written by hand. The author of the home page did not close out the html tag.

Re:What's with the site design?

[0x0d0a]

Yeah -- I was talking about the browser. I didn't really read the grandparent, just the parent. :-)

Though, to be honest, HTML was designed to be a markup language, works best as a markup language, and is now generally used as a flawed layout language due to "features" like pixel-level positioning.

Re: Refund for Windows

[fred87]

So? that still means you haven't paid for it or boosted microsofts profits.

Four quarters to zero.

[twitter]

$40,000,000,000 sounds like a lot of money, but it's not when you are spending about eight and a half billion each quarter. See this story about their last quarterly report. They could, in theory, bankrupt themselves in less than two years.

Re:Four quarters to zero.

[Anonymous Coward]

teh twit's new projection for teh doom of teh M$!!! OMFG!!1! teh numbers tey not lie!!!!1! TEH TWIT IS ON TEH sPoKe!!1!!

doh, wrong link.

[twitter]

see here for a Microsoft numbers. Of 10 in revenue, 1.55 is actual income. With expenses like that, the money can go fast.

Re:doh, wrong link.

[Crazy Eight]

So they make a 15.5% profit. Is that an uncommonly low number for a company?

Re:What's with the site design?

[BillyBlaze]

Even so, most people don't want to read one long line across the full width of the screen.

Yeah, they want banners ads on each side!

Dell FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell is FUD - you can't to this day buy a Linux portable with or without 54g. Thats a fact.

Dell likes the simplicity of a single OS. Something like everyone must be white, except it is to be Microsoft.

That's why I build my computers that run Linux, Solaris or others. Slamming Solaris is a cheap shot. Solaris is a great and stable OS, well documented. And you can get a Netra V100 for $995 and the nearest Dell 1U rack mount is $1600.

The good thing is that people are moving xNIX and open systems. eXtortion Plus (XP) is not working. BTW Sony GRZ portable I have runs Mandrake quite well.

This is a commodity market, low prices and open systems or you will die. PCs are toasters.

Re:Dell FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of FUD... Anyway Dell also happens to be one of the largest (or largest) vendors of Linux servers out there. I am not even going to wast my time quoting Dell systems agains Solaris systems. You can deploy 2 Dell servers for the cost of one simmilarly configured Solaris box. Who cares if Dell does not offer Linux on the desktop, I wouldn't be using the configuration/disto they ship anyway.

Nice modslap, timothy

[Anonymous Coward]

Not enough to do? How about starting up a dupe-patrol?

Re:This is about Server support, not desktop/lapto

[durdur]

They apparently don't support it on servers very well, either.

I was browsing their site the other day to see if you could buy a server pre-configured with Red Hat Advanced Server. Turns out your choices are:

"Linux 9 Professional, Factory Installed [add $169 or $5/month1]"
or
"Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1, Non-factory installation [add $799 or $22/month1]"

What does "Non-factory installation" mean? And what's "Linux 9 Professional"? If it's Red Hat 9, Red Hat doesn't support it any more.

michael dell would have given up by now...

[SethJohnson]

I remember reading sometime ago... before the official release of Mac OS X and the iMac, et. al. that Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he were CEO of Apple. He said that he would liquidate the company and give the cash to the shareholders.

Dell sucks the cocks of shareholders so much, that's just another example of it. All he cares about are the investors. Not the customers. Not the employees. This is evident of his "do anything to reduce the bottom line" business strategy of moving tech support to India (consumer tech support is still based there). Perhaps Dell embracing Linux is a sign of the market demand out there. He sure as F wouldn't be getting involved in Linux because he believes in Open Source or anything about freedom from the monopoly, etc.

Yeah, Dell is on the top 10 list of richest men in the world. But it's not from taking risks. Because of that, I have much more respect for a guy like Steve Jobs.

Don't be so down on free software.

[twitter]

Free software offers both technical and politicaly superior work. The things you describe are problems in the Windoze world too, despite the limited choice. Let me go through them:

For example, the kernel interface for drivers is just the pits. I mean, you either have to have open source drivers to build for your kernel release, or your equipment manufacturer has to have a binary for every possible kernel version and build!

This is true in the windoze world too. Your old 3.1 drivers won't work with NT, might work with 95, won't work with ME or XP. In the free world, drivers get compiled for everything and packaged by the distro maker or by yourself.

Now that the M$ extortion is over, more hardware makers are going to be releasing free drivers. Those that won't sucked anyway and already left you high and dry. That's not the fault of kernel developers. I've been there with a wireless card that promissed "Linux support" but came with a closed binary that was compiled with a specific Red Hat compiler for a specific kernel. It sucked, but that was the card maker's fault. They should have simply released their code GPL and let everyone mirror it. If they were under restraint from a chipmaker, then the chipmaker sucked. The kernel's system of insmod and rmmod is way better than any Windoze junk that makes you reboot for simply looking at it! Add to that Windoze's mindless need for a specific driver for each and every device, even if they have the same damn chipset and are essentially identical. Free software's drivers that easily handle hardware from donzens of branders shows just how needlessly clumsy the Windoze way is.

Linux has a very inconsistent UI, so that tech support for "Linux" is very difficult. For example, somebody can't "get online". Are you running Lindows? Mandrake? Red Hat? Suse? Slackware? Gentoo? KDE? Gnome? IceWM? Which version of each? What kernel build do you have installed?

Once again, the same pain works in the windoze world, despite the seemingly limited choice. Do you know the differences between all the versions of AOL and the hardware requirements with respect to each version of windoze, for example? I know some of them - but each time I have to figure the damn thing out for the user. It's a job each service provider should be doing.

It is easier to fix free software problems. Besides the fact that there are fewer problems to begin with, the remote tools superior - they work better.

Try walking somebody through setting up email over the phone sometime. And, sorry, if you disagree with me on this point, it's probably because you haven't done it with a Linux setup you didn't install yourself in the first place.

Sure, you have to know your set up. I think I pulled out a suitably horrible example of how bad this is in the Windoze world. I'd far rather help someone set up Mozilla, Kmail, Balsa or even evolution than AOL or M$N. The weird settings the weird ISPs themselves have are the source of half of those problems. How those things get translated onto the half dozen Windoze platforms is a true nightmare. When you add the insecurity complication into the equation, 75% of the time, the user has a hosed system that needs to be wiped and reloaded. This is not the case in the free software world where settings are made and stay put.

Think about how much less trouble you have with that Red Hat system than your clients have with their Windoze boxes. Tech support is broken windows, day in, day out. It is precisely this kind of mindless repeated Microsoft support that convinces me that EVERYONE would be better off with free and open software. A Mac would be better and it's hardly free! A really free system offers quality, reliability, flexiblity and freedom from lock-in.

In any case, I agree with you when you say that Windoze is doomed.

Re:Don't be so down on free software.

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators: Please note that "twitter" is a known fanatical psycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft bashing. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, twitter is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.

I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.

If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.

For example, in this recent post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.

More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own.

More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, twitter wants to be RMS, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?

FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD, offtopic FUD, and more FUD. This guy is like the Monty Python SPAM skit, but with FUD and more FUD instead of canned meat. Amazed

Re:You're looking at it from the wrong perspective

[Phroggy]

Incidentally, it's the same with Apple. Have you tried buying an Apple without an OS? You can't, but no-one ever moans about Apple tax...

One of the reasons people don't want to pay for Windows is, they hate Microsoft and don't want to give them money. If you hate Apple, buying a Mac sans OS doesn't really have the same effect.

The other common reason is, Windows sucks and they don't want to use it. Mac OS X doesn't suck in the same way, and most people who want to run a different OS will choose x86 hardware instead.

Re:This is about Server support, not desktop/lapto

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I let Intel directly know that they could be out of sales of 4000+ of their Centrino chipset if they don't release supported drivers under Linux for our timeline.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...ROFLMFAO....BWHAHAHAHAHAHEH EH EHHOHOHOHAHA
You REALLY think they give a shit?!...BWHAHAHA....

btw..DELL SUCKS ASS! short version..bought a dell laptop which had a problem and they promised a fix any month now which never came.

Re:This is about Server support, not desktop/lapto

[mandalayx]

so....what happened?

No Serious Offer Yet

[wehe]

At least with laptops DELL seems to provide almost only links to community sites. No drivers, no detailed technical specifications, no funding, ... See the Laptop Manufacturers - Linux Status Survey at TuxMobil, for details about Linux support provided by laptop and notebook manufacturers. It's a short story ;-)

Re:Hey Mike, don't dis AMD!

[randyflood]

When you are doing just in time manufacturing, having the lowest cost is not always the primary factor in choosing your supplier. You need to have a long term relationship with your supplier. You need to have a supplier that can deliever parts to you at a moments notice. It has to be synchronized very closely with your operation. You might be able to get a slightly better cost on paper by buying parts from another supplier, but did that supplier build a warehouse down the street from you just so they could get you your parts quicker? Does the other supplier have their computer sysems linked into yours, so that they can see your trends in your orders and forcast what parts you will be needing so that they can order them as soon as possible?

It's not as simple as just buying from the loweest cost supplier.