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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.
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.
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.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
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
Physicists get Hadrons!
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....
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.
#define DRM chmod 000
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.
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.
Hmm but I'm not convinced that they're really fully behind this!
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
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?
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
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:
In other news, I love Texas businessmen. :) Check this out:
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 :( )
Like what I said? You might like my music
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.
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
...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
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]
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
So how many seconds will it take before Microsoft pulls its license agreement with Dell and files a lawsuit? :)
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.
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...
Lalala
You're still right, though - while they sell YDL pre-installed, apparently Mac OS is also still installed and you can dual-boot.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
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.
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.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
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.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
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.
Like what I said? You might like my music
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.
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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.