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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.
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.
...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.
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.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
IBM has a goodly chunk of linux info on their site.
For example, try this:
Linux for IBM personal systems