HP Starts Pushing Desktop Linux

iswm writes "HP has supposedly been selling MandrakeSoft Linux on the desktop for a while but has been so quiet about it that for all intents and purposes it's been a stealth operation. That's all about to change, with two new Linux desktops ready for rolling out by HP to the North American SMB market, both boxes to be sold with Mandrake Linux."

Comments

Opensource Income?

[Takara]

The article briefly mentions the fact that Mandrake is going to emerge from bankruptcy and pay off a 3.3 million euro debt. It's made me curious how much Mandrake made from the HP move.
Did HP just take mandrake with a few modifications and put it on, or was a licence purchased?

Re:Opensource Income?

[WaterTroll]

I read the press releases a while ago last year. I recall it being a "worldwide agreement". I dunno much else. the press release from HP is here. i searched for mandrake's too.

Re:Opensource Income?

[SphericalCrusher]

I'm willing to bet that MandrakeSoft will profit from this a great deal. After all, it is their software that runs the system, right? Without software, the hardware is useless. I'm also pretty sure that HP wouldn't want to pull an IBM right yet.

Nonetheless, Linux is rising. Windows is falling. Anything and everything that helps the open-source community is great in my book. I've never really disliked HP, but I've never really liked them as much as I do now either. =)

Year of Linux

[Sla$hd0tSux0r]

I really think this is going to be the Year of Linux!

Re:Year of Linux

[Bobdoer]

Oddly enough, I think this is going to be the year of people stating: "I think this is going to be the Year of Linux"

Re:Year of Linux

[AKnightCowboy]

Oddly enough, I think this is going to be the year of people stating: "I think this is going to be the Year of Linux"

That was 1998.

...and 1999, and 2000, and 2001, and 2002, and 2003... yep, we're comin' out, guns blazing. Pretty soon we may even overtake #2 Apple's 5% desktop marketshare spot. Any day now... I have a feeling 2004 is it... 6% desktop dominance.

Re:Year of Linux

[saden1]

I just install Lindows on a family member's computer because they were sick of all the pop ups and spyware. Lindows is the real deal as far as ease of use. The whole click and run thing worked out nicely. Indeed, Linux as prgressed very fast.

Knoppix is nice too but it had minor problems.

p.s. I know about synaptic and such and I think click and run is easier your average joe.

Yeah but how much?

[Pros_n_Cons]

I question how much they've been selling cause Mandrake Soft surely wouldn't have had a close shave with bankruptcy if HP was throwing even a bit of its weight behind it.

Re:Yeah but how much?

[sumdumass]

They have been selling mandrake workstations for a while (about a year os so).

Their financial troubles began when they changed a marketing model that didn't product what it expected to do. It was like playing poker and they didn't know when to drop back to the nickle slot machines.

Mandrake has always been a financialy sound company, it was just a couple of bad decision by new blood that caused them to dip.

HP and Apple and Starbucks

[fuzzdawg]

Strange alliances indeed. This is prolly gonna scare the craap outta Microsoft.

What's Microsoft gonna do?

[Patik]

Doesn't MS cut their deal with PC manufacturers (i.e., Dell) when they sell Windows-less machines?

Re:What's Microsoft gonna do?

[craXORjack]

The same PCs can be had with Windows XP, by the way.

Thats what I was thinking about too. In the past MS has had exclusionary contracts with the hardware vendors that only Microsoft's Windows would be pre-loaded on a line of computers. So if HP sold Linux or Solaris x86 or whatever on a line of computers then they had to pay full retail for any copies of Ms Windows they sold with that line. (IIRC about $200 for full license of W9x as opposed to ~50 OEM pricing.) Are those kind of exclusionary contracts prohibited now by the anti-trust settlement?

Re:What's Microsoft gonna do?

[LnxAddct]

No, Microsoft's policy is that their PC Manufacturers cant sell a computer without an OS. Implying that the only OS that people would want is MS's, if they did what you said, well then they'd have been in court years ago...or wait..they were..but not for this exactly:) Thats why Dell ships some computers with FreeDOS, so they dont break their agreement with Microsoft.
Regards,
Steve

Re:What's Microsoft gonna do?

[Xenographic]

Actually, if I remember correctly, it was that they charge them for a copy of Windows whether they install it or not (and is thus part of the "Microsoft tax" in that it's hard to get around paying for a copy of Windows even if you do not want one at all). So the agreement, insofar as I've heard about them, is that the OEMs buy a copy of Windows for every PC they sell, period, according to their OEM agreement.

The justification for that deal, if I remember right, was that they would under-report the number of PCs they installed Windows on and cheat Microsoft out of their due.

Re:What's Microsoft gonna do?

[Soko]

IIRC, they can't do that or they'll be in direct violation of the deal with the DOJ that Judge Kolter-Kelly approved of.

Microsoft has gotten away with some underhanded skuldudgery it seems (*spares the /. readers a link to a page about SCO*), but punishing HP would be out-and-out defiance. That would bring on a legal smackdown, I think.

Bill and Steve better but some more asprin - I think they'll need it in the not too distant future.

Soko

Re:What's Microsoft gonna do?

[ergo98]

Yes, because if Microsoft cut off HP, customers would just suck it up and start using Mandrake the next time they wanted a new PC, right?

More realistically HP PC sales would fall through the floor as people would just deal with other vendors and save themselves the trouble. To most consumers an HP box is a box just like any -- generally an interchangable commodity part. Claiming that HP holds the power position in such a scenario seems dubious.

Of course this is a silly academic exercise anyways. Microsoft was barred, via the whole antitrust thing, from performing such retaliatory practices. Microsoft doesn't have the option to, as you claim, "cut off their own balls".

Re:What's Microsoft gonna do?

[Vancorps]

Microsoft does that the option to terminate their contract with HP because it is a contract so unless the DOJ is in the business of avoiding contracts I'm fairly certain both parties are still following the lettering. The difference here is the fact the HP/Compaq is a very large OEM, possibly the biggest since the merger. HP/Compaq computers are sold EVERYWHERE. Gateway and Dell's you can't just buy at Best Buy, Fry's, Staples, hell, even Costco.

I think the current head of HP was smart enough to not accept the terms that they can only run one OS primarily because a big portion of HP sales involves HP-UX still... Pretty sure they had enough muscle to remove that clause. It's a position where they both need eachother.

That said, would HP sales fall through the floor without selling Windows? You might just be surprised since most people don't buy a computer because it has Windows but because it is "Internet Ready" or plays DVDs, or any number of things that even a default install of Mandrake is capable of doing.

Re:What's Microsoft gonna do?

[steve_l]

Remember that an HP PC executive was the first person quoted in the MS antitrust findings, "if we had a choice, you'd be second".

There is no love lost between parts of the company, especially the original HP. Compaq, on the other hand, have thrived for years by sucking up to the man, and been very good at it. Yet if you look at the workstation and server lines, they have been certified for linux distros for a while (usually redhat 'premium' stuff), and been orderable with the OS. No retributions yet :)

The biggest risk with MS is that they will cut the company out of some big special, like a new product, like getting so many people on longhorn beta test, etc. They would probably do that today except that MS know they dont have a choice. The HP/Compaq PC line is a big enough chunk of sales that they dont dare walk away.

At the same time, I can imagine a lot of high level voicemails going back and forth :)

Off topic yeah...

[Amiga Lover]

...but every deployment of linux in a large scale like this makes me smile and go "up yours SCO. one more victim to sue to drain your warchest"

So I'm petty. sue me. There's lots like me

HP is on a roll

[Str1derv7]

Wow, HP is really doing everything right so far. Signing deals with Apple, Starbucks, and now Mandrake. My respect for the company has shot up within the last few months.

Re:HP is on a roll

[jcgf]

Yeah, well respecting them isn't your God-given right anymore.

Why no high end workstations?

[pdxdada]

What really surprises me is that companies seem to always introduce Linux to their low end computers (Walmart anyone?). A lot of high end Unix workstations are still being sold out there, why aren't more companies pushing a high end Linux workstation?

Re:Why no high end workstations?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the uber-cool super-fast computers get bought by gamers who want to play games and think that Linux is that funny thing that doesn't run any of their favorite games. These guys haven't heard of WineX or the like.

Are you high? Why would I go out and buy a $3K PC to run games, and then turn around and run those games under WineX? That'd be like buying a Mac just so I could run all my Windows apps in Virtual PC... You buy the right tool, and install the right OS, for the tasks you want to accomplish. Unless you're a zealot or something.

Re:Why no high end workstations?

[nelsonal]

Is this not high end enough for you? Kidding aside, the biggest reason more workstations are sold with Linux is that there aren't enough professional applications (design stuff like ProE, The pSPICE family (at least Cadence and Synopsys, etc) haven't all been ported to linux yet. Most made it to Windows a few years back. Keep in mind that it took some time for the software to make it over to the Windows world, and that was for a 50%-75% cost savings. Moving from Windows to Linux doesn't bring the same one time cost savings, and workstation buyers aren't afraid to spend a signficant amount of cash if it means that their employees will be more productive by not retraining on new application software if a different version exists.

i bought one of these last year

[bhny]

mandrake wasn't installed. they just included a mandrake disk.
there was some minimal linux install just so you could boot it.

I''m glad

[Bishop, Martin]

While Mandrake may not be the best distro, it is probably the best for new users, and at least a better alternative than that FreeDOS Dell offers

Re:I''m glad

[ReinoutS]

While Mandrake may not be the best distro,...

Are you trying to start a distro war here? I happen to believe Mandrake is the best distro.

Re:Interesting.

[Nasarius]

You haven't used Mandrake, have you?

derrr what's linux?

[challahc]

Time for Microsoft to crank that brain-wash ray up to full power.

The good with the bad

[KingJoshi]

I've found Mandrake to have the best visual user configuration programs out there. I do think it's the most user friendly. However, I also think it's less stable than some of the other distrobutions because of staying on the edge of new software releases. Obviously we don't want a Debian stable for the desktop user, but I think Mandrake is less stable than Windows XP.

The new users won't necessarily care how far the strides GNU/Linux has made, but realize that it's still not as easy to use as Windows and (IMO) not as stable as XP either!

Re:The good with the bad

[lone_marauder]

I think Mandrake is less stable than Windows XP.

I run XP and Mandrake 10 (beta) on my laptop at work. My experience with using both OS's on a daily basis makes me wonder what facts you base that statement on.

Re:Interesting.

[IAmTheDave]

It's a shame that we keep going back to this. I think there is something here that we can all agree on. Linux - in order to reach true desktop user status - needs to be able to divorce itself in some virtual fashion from the command line. That is - what happens behind the scenes must stay there, and have a pretty GUI on top of every piece of Linux. Heck, my sister was even intimidated by the boot output on my Gentoo distro, simply because it was just lines and lines of text. (Yes, I am aware I can install a boot screen.)

Simply said, I cannot wait until linux has the ability to be a command-line only OS and at the same time, a GUI only OS. Mandrake comes damn close. So do some others. It's right around the corner now...

good thing.......i guess

[TheAxeMaster]

As much as I hate HP desktop machines ....... and believe me I HATE HP DESKTOPS........ this sounds like a really good thing. Maybe they decided that windows had a little too much overhead to run on their crapboxes so they switched to something that ran more efficiently. People will not have a problem with mandrake if they sit down and use it a little.

I have always found it funny when people, especially older people like my parents, shy away from non-windows systems because they think it is too hard to use, and then I have to show them how to use IE in windows and how to dial up (yeah, modem) to the internet.

Re:Interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Joe Six Pack looking for a cheap computer

Actually, a friend of mine installed mandrake 9.2 on his computer. He was asking me something over AIM, and I told him to open a terminal, and... He paused and said, "Uh, how do I get to a terminal?"

So see it is possible for an under average computer user to enjoy Linux on the desktop without needing a command line.

Re:Don't trust HP.

[haruchai]

Could you please recommend a trustworthy computer company?
The way I see it, we're forced to play a "least of many evils" game on the way to world domination.

SMB Market?

[V50]

Could somebody explain what an SMB market is? The first thing that popped into my mind was Super Mario Brothers market, but that can't be right. :)

Re:SMB Market?

[manganese4]

Small-Medium Business as opposed to home and enterprise markets

Re:Interesting.

[Grym]

Exactly.

The trouble is that the people who buy HPs (low-end, cheap machines--the desktops, at least.) are not the people who read /. or care to understand why their MS Works (*shudder*) won't install on their new machine.

I'm afraid that, in an attempt to lower their bottomeline they're forgetting their current market, but who knows? Maybe, with this, they'll get a new market. At the very least, it should be really interesting to see how other companies respond and how succeessful HP is in this venture.

-Grym

Re:Don't trust HP.

[manganese4]

And how does this differ from any other publicly traded company that has been around for more than 5 years. Adapt or die.

Linux at the moment.

[Neo-Rio-101]

At the moment, Linux is viewed as good enough for the desktop of people who only use their computers as a glorified communications device. We're talking Internet, Mail, and Office utilities. These users want to do these three things without viruses, spyware, hardware upgrades, and crufty Operating Systems that crash. As for users who want to use a PC for gaming, music, and multimedia... Linux is probably not the best choice. However, when it comes to getting work done without all the nonsense, Linux is where it's at.

Win/Win

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

A distro that constantly gives back to the commmunity, provides free isos for download, concentrates on the desktop, and manages to make a profit? Who'd have thought?
With this corporate support, you can go out and buy a -supported- HP/Mandrake desktop. Which means you have Linux supported hardware if you don't like Mandrake.
All sorts of good things in the future...

Re:Interesting.

[sumdumass]

they aren't really selling this to joe sixpack. they are targeting the average "all i wan't to do is surf the internet and check email or maybe play the card games" crowd. unless your a gamer or need some high end graphics editor, you pretty much fall into this crowd. Even the office worker that needs to write a document or a spread sheet can efficiently use mandrake will little more distress then changing from windows 98 to windows xp.

now in a controled enviroment were the hardware is fixed and your not running every server availible, there is little need to hit the command line any more in mandrake. they have almost eliminitated the need for it in most every day taskor task the "joe sixpoack" would be trying to do.

Putting the cart ahead of the horse.

[dark404]

*Insert Plethora of Pro-Linux, Anti-MS Comments Here*

Mod me down and bury your head in the sand if you can't take the truth, but...

Every time some manufacturer has linux somewhere and it makes the Slashdot news there are always the same comments, but the main hold back for wide adoption of Linux isn't getting manufacturers to sell PCs with it or public recognition. The main hold up is the mantra of any highschool composition class, "Who is your audience?" Who is the audience? Geeks? No, Geeks can and do already use linux. The audience that needs to be targeted is the average user, and no it is not 'joe six-pack', or at least not entirely. The primary audience for wide-adoption consists of your parents, your grand parents, your neighbors and friends who call you to fix their systems, children, etc. People who want to use their computer with a minimum of fuss, and who DO freak out when they get an unexpected pop-up, and DO run anything sent to them in an email, and DO use their first name as their password. Advances in Linux performance and functionality are great, but for wide adoption to ever succeed usability and intuitive design must take precedence. And as long as there is anything that requires a text file to be edited in linux, Windows will remain king.

Re:Putting the cart ahead of the horse.

[Tarantolato]

The primary audience for wide-adoption consists of your parents, your grand parents, your neighbors and friends who call you to fix their systems, children, etc.

For the home market, yes. There are, however, also the business and educational markets. There you have the same users, but they aren't necessarily doing all the install/config themselves.

And as long as there is anything that requires a text file to be edited in linux, Windows will remain king.

Mandrake's visual config is clunky, but it's comprehensive.

Re:Putting the cart ahead of the horse.

[k_head]

You are 100% absolutely wrong. You could not be more wrong if were actually trying to be wrong.

The primary audience is the CEO. Linux desktops are ideal for the corporate environment. That's where they will rule first and foremost. Linux gives businesses more options and more freedom when it comes to the desktop. This means a business may choose to run thick or thin clients, they can centralize all software so upgrades are a snap, they can effectively lock down desktops and won't have to worry about their users clicking on emails or web sites that carry virus payloads. Of course they also get to save a buttload of money and dictate their own upgrade schedule too.

Once the corporate desktop belongs to linux then the home users will also adopt it so they can take their work home.

that's what happened to windows, that's what's going to happen to linux.

Look at what HP is doing, they are selling these PCs at small businesses not Joe Shmoe. IBM and SUN are also selling linux to the corporate desktop.

Here is my prediction. By the end of 2005 Linux will have reached critical mass on the corporate desktop. By that I mean around 20% of all corporate desktops in the world (not the US though) will be running a linux desktop. It will double in 2006 and then the growth will slow down because the US businesses will be very slow to migrate to it.

Hey HP!

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

How about Mandrake laptops? With wireless, ACPI, etc, already supported?

Re:Hey HP!

[jadel]

My 6 month old HP NX9005 is now basically fully supported - CPU throttling, ACPI and 3d acceleration all work fine. I found this pageto be invaluable.

SMB is the old name for CIFS

[tepples]

In this case, it's not Nintendo's Super Mario Bros., and it's not Sega's Super Monkey Ball either. SMB can mean either small-to-medium businesses or server message block.

I for one do not welcome our Linux newbie underlor

[utahjazz]

Someday, someone will explain to me why 'We' want linux to be adopted by the other 95% of the market. 'we' all lament what has happened to the Internet since 'they' finally found out about it (and thought it had just been invented). We pine about the good old days of the usenet, when it was like, useful.

I dread a scenario where, around 2005, everyone and their grandma is buying a Linux box (that new OS that just came out year or so ago). And it all goes to shit. You just know it will.

Everyone will run as root, open viruses, execute them. All our favorite apps will become add-filled feature-burdened piles of stinking filth rushed to market despite thousands of high severity bugs.

It willl suck hard and we'll all look back fondly on the good old days.

Drivers

[tepples]

Someday, someone will explain to me why 'We' want linux to be adopted by the other 95% of the market.

More market share than, say, Mac OS X means more chance of getting manufacturers of newer peripherals to put effort into writing drivers or at least into providing free software developers with technical information sufficient to write and maintain a driver. Lack of drivers is the primary reason I'm still on Windows 2000, as the copy of Mandrake I tried a few months ago didn't work with my Radeon 9000 card (except in unaccelerated VESA mode), and Microtek denies the SANE developers any information about my scanner (a Scanmaker 4850).

Re:Drivers

[salimma]

the copy of Mandrake I tried a few months ago didn't work with my Radeon 9000 card

Ironic, isn't it? nVidia gets slammed so often for producing closed-source drivers, and now that ATi has followed suit, I actually specced out the last PC I built with a GeForce FX.

Now that both makers are forcing us to use binary drivers to get acceleration, at least nVidia has a better track record at updating drivers (and the open-source nv driver is further along too).

Yes, there are binary-only ATI drivers. No, I don't know how well they work.

Re:Drivers

[krunk7]

They don't work as well as the nvidia drivers...yet. I do notice a respectable gain in performance with each new release. Enough so that I beleive they are taking the development seriously. The Radeon 9000 is supported by ATI's drivers, I'm rather suprised the parent's card didn't work.

It should be said there is not a single device made that is not supported by linux. Now before the onslaught comes let me clarify. . .There is not a single class of devices not supported by linux. Some particular manufacturers do not support their product so it does take a bit of forethought and planning (e.g. checking supported hardware lists). No, you can't just buy device and bank on the drivers being included on a shrinkwrapped CD in the box.

I'm happy to say that currently I have a fully working color scanner, 9500 pro w/ full hardware acceleration, iPod, CDRW/DVD player, sound cards, network cards (of course :)), ATA 100 expansion cards, digital camera, and other miscelaneous gadgets and hardware. I do know how the parent must feel though, when switching over from Windows I was burned several times by purchasing before planning. Now I've learned that 15 minutes of googling can save hours of migraines.

Re:Drivers

[rokka]

Is that so?
I was under the impression that Nvidia had far better performance in OpenGL than Radeon.

But whatever. Since you allways have to spend at least half a day installing the Radeon drivers while the Nvidia ones are up and running i 7 seconds, it's really not much of a choise anyway.

Re:Drivers

[ameoba]

nVidia's binary drivers smoke ATI's drivers in performance and general quality. I wasn't talking about the 'official' drivers, just that the Radeon 8500/9000/9100/9200 chips are the best chips that have open drivers. They are directly supported by XFree and Mesa (for GL/3D) without having to rely on closed-source binary-only drivers.

The problem is that current-generation Radeons (9500 and up) are almost a completely different architecture and nobody's really figured out how to do much with them yet...

Re:Drivers

[Cereal Box]

I had a Radeon VE, and acceleration wasn't working as well; by following these steps it worked:

searched for mesa libraries in mandrake cd and installed everything;
edited files as follows: /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
Section "Device"
Option "AGPMode" "4" /etc/modules
agpgart /etc/modules.conf
alias char-major-10-175 agpgart
options agpgart agp_try_unsupported=1

What with these major leaps in user-friendliness, I'm convinced that 2004 really WILL be the year of Linux on the desktop!

Re:Changes Nothing.

[Grym]

Hah!

Sadly, I tend to agree. I'll never forget the fury I felt when I opened up my HP Pavilion a few years ago to find that they had combined the soundcard and modem onto one PCI card. This wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't of put a fake PCI cover on the back of the computer to make them look like the two cards were separate, and THAT wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't of put the cover for the fake "modem" right in the way of my only advertised "free" PCI slot.

It was very deceptive. And the only reason was so they could say "one free PCI slot" on the box, knowing damn well that not only was that PCI slot unusable but nearly nobody is going to open it up in the store to figure it out. So the net effect of this ridiculous situation wass was that I had to buy a new soundcard and modem (for a modem issue) and from then on, I tell every person who asks (and that's a lot, since I'm in a tech support position) to avoid HP like he plague.

-Grym

Music and multimedia?

[Sterling Christensen]

Gaming yes, but that's not true anymore w.r.t. music and multimedia.

I watch videos (using Gentoo's win32 codecs ebuild) and play MP3s all the time in Linux. The only thing inferior I have to put up with is the gtk file selector that xmms uses.

Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it illegal to use Linux like that for a commerical purpose (Selling a PC) without licensing from the SCO Group... HP should do this legally.

Re:Illegal

[Neo-Rio-101]

And I bet if SCO told you to jump off a cliff, you'd do that as well.

As an XP user I tried switching to Mandrake:

[Killswitch1968]

I heard Mandrake was one of the easiest distros to use in terms of configuration and drivers. Sp I gave 9.2 a shot after getting the isos on FTP sites.

THE GOOD
1. Much prettier interface. Everything from the icons to the taskbar, to Konqueror was top notch
2. All my hardware worked right away; sound card, mouse, keyboard, video card, with exception of my Palm Pilot cradle. I had some monitor problems as you'll read about as well.
3. Speedy as hell. You'd run a program and it would actually run within a reasonable time.
4. Internet worked right off the bat. Awesome.
5. The video player played a lot of files easy-peasy and I didn't have to fight with codecs.
6. I could still access my Windows folders. Another great benefit.

THE BAD
1. My mouse was uncontrollable. XP has both a speed and acceleration option that is great for mouse control. The mouse options box in Mandrake didn't have these options and it was frustrating to use the mouse, even after twinking these settings for an hour.
2. By far the biggest problem: Installing programs. In XP it's as easy as double clicking an icon and picking a directory. Not so with Linux. You can read my post on the newbie forums
here.
I have no idea where anything installs to, nor the best way to uninstall things. Inevitably I have to use the command line. Even as an X-MSDOS user I found it very frustrating.
3. Despite claims of stability, Konqeror crashed repeatedly. I can not say why.
4. After installing a program, finding where it installed to would be like pulling teeth. Making a shortcut would be even worse.
5. Installing the correct driver for my soundcard was very complicated, even after reading the INSTALL file. I eventually gave up.
6. I got a sync out of range message when I first tried running Mandrake. I left the monitor settings on default during install. This took hours to discover and fix.

But above all installing programs is a pain. This means, once the desktop is setup, Mandrake is a dream. But configuring it requires far too much expertise, at least it seems like it. I found myself posting time and time again on the forums. They were very helpful people but their answers often left me more confused than I started.
I'm not trying to flame, just provide constructive criticism and ways to help make Mandrake better. I wish them the best.

Re:As an XP user I tried switching to Mandrake:

[Joe Tie.]

But above all installing programs is a pain.

I agree, for me that's one of the most annoying things about most distros. While legalities and shortages of people to make new packages are understanable, I still hated either installing from source on an rpm based system or trying to make updated packages based on how mandrake did it. That's why eventually I settled on Debian Unstable. What it lacks in configuration utilities it more than makes up for in available packages. I use the command line for it since I've usually got it open anyway for working on my own code, but had I wanted to everything I've installed could have been done through synaptic's gui. Well, excepting comercial releases.

Re:As an XP user I tried switching to Mandrake:

[StarTux]

That answer someone provided you confused me as well lol. Seemed to do with nothing about your question.

Don't use ./configure until you're a lot more comfortable with the command line and I rarely use it apart from installing bleeding edge programs.

KDE has Control Center that has Peripherals that also lists mouse, this is where you can change the mouse tracking speed, make sure to hit apply after each change.

You say your soundcard worked, then say it didn't in the next section as you wanted to install the correct driver?

Are you sure you're not running to the commandline quicker than needed?

Not sure on Mandrake, but most root installed programs end up in /usr/local/ that are built from Source. Quite a few times installing from source requires a few more development packages to be installed.

Sometimes you're better off getting Linux as a box set, at least with SuSE you'd get plenty of manuals that show how to use programs and to do installations, the price alone is almost worth it for the manuals alone.

Re:As an XP user I tried switching to Mandrake:

[buchanmilne]

1. My mouse was uncontrollable.

Most likely you selected the wrong driver for your mouse during installation. The 2.6 kernel now makes this a lot easier ... so Mandrake 10.0 should get this right.

2. By far the biggest problem: Installing programs. In XP it's as easy as double clicking an icon and picking a directory. Not so with Linux. You can read my post on the newbie forums
here.

Your problems are *precisely* because you think WindowsXP does things right, which it doesn't. You should not be downloading arbitrary packages from the internet WHEN THE PACKAGES ARE PROVIDED BY THE DISTRO!!!!!

Don't install ALT Linux packages on Mandrake, when Mandrake provides packages.

Don't go looking on the net first for packages, USE THE PACKAGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS PROVIDED!!!

Mandrake has it's own pilot-link packages, and you can install them in the Mandrake Control Center->Software Management->Install software, or you could do it with 'urpmi pilot-link'.

Just becuase you're used to XP only providing 20% of the functionality you need out-the-box doesn't mean Linux is like this.

If you have downloaded a Mandrake RPM, double-clicking on it should actually install it for you. Did you actually *try* this? It's worked every time I tried it.

I have no idea where anything installs to

Why do you need to know? Everything is installed so that is just works. If you really need to know, the package management tools will tell you.

, nor the best way to uninstall things.

Use the package management tools (Mandrake Control Center->Software Management->Remove software).

3. Despite claims of stability, Konqeror crashed repeatedly. I can not say why

Well, unless you tell use what you were doing, there's not much we can do to find out what the problem was ... or whether there is a solution.

4. After installing a program, finding where it installed to would be like pulling teeth. Making a shortcut would be even worse.

Well, if you don't use Mandrake packages, this is what happens. The equivalent would be compiling and installing all the files on Windows, and when last did you do that?

5. Installing the correct driver for my soundcard was very complicated, even after reading the INSTALL file. I eventually gave up.

Unless you are using a card with proprietary drivers, the chances are you already had the driver installed, either:
-the card was muted by default (ALSA does this to prevent damage), and Mandrake hadn't been provided with the necessary information to unmute your sound card on first boot (as it does for most cards, since users have provided the necessary information)
-your card works better with a different driver WHICH IS INCLUDED!! You could have run draksound to switch drivers and give the other driver a try.

6. I got a sync out of range message when I first tried running Mandrake. I left the monitor settings on default during install. This took hours to discover and fix.

Essentially the same problem. Mandrake includes information on all monitors it can. But, if no-one bothers to report their hardware settings, nothing can be done to fix it ...

See how you can help here.

But above all installing programs is a pain.

Then you are doing something wrong, and you should be careful not to give out false information when you haven't got enough experience to tell if you are just doing the wrong thing.

Forget what you learned about the easy way to do things on Windows, they are WRONG! Things are much easier on Mandrake, *if* you are prepared to actually change your habits ...

dx2000 specs

[Johnny Mnemonic]

dx2000 Specs from HP:

• Linux - Mandrake 9.2
• Intel(R) Pentium(R)2.80A GHz/533MHz
• 256MB DDR 400MHz (2X128)
• Integrated Intel(R) Extreme graphics2 (64MB equivalent)
• 40GB PATA/100 5400RPM
• 16X/40X DVD-ROM Linux and audio cable for Linux

$627

Choosing Linux instead of XP gets you an upgrade to a DVD player from a plain CD, and saves you $21. Hum.

Re:I for one do not welcome our Linux newbie under

[gid13]

One major reason to want free software to be adopted by the rest of the market is so that open standards dominate, and I don't have to choose between MSN and not talking to all my friends. So I don't have to pay for software to read office documents that are sent to me.

Re: viruses, your worst case sounds no worse than the current state. The favourite apps will not become ad-filled because the base is open. Someone puts an ad in, fork the last one.

Because given the chance

[rsilvergun]

...Microsoft would gladly take away your ability to obtain cheap, Linux compatible commodity hardware (all for the sake of security, of course). If there are lots and lots of companies building Linux boxes, MS will find it a lot harder to do that.

As for everyone running as root and viruses, how is that different from when they run Windows? As for our apps, I use free ones. I know better than to run some shmuck's pop up blocker when I've got Mozilla and Konqueror.

iTunes for Linux?

[ericdano]

Does that mean we will see iTunes ported to Linux? Bundle that with Linux, and you might drive sales of the HP iPod......

SCO-proof, too

[violet16]

Plus every HP Mandrake PC comes with free indemnification against SCO lawsuits!

Re:I for one do not welcome our Linux newbie under

[smallpaul]

Someday, someone will explain to me why 'We' want linux to be adopted by the other 95% of the market. 'we' all lament what has happened to the Internet since 'they' finally found out about it (and thought it had just been invented). We pine about the good old days of the usenet, when it was like, useful.

Usenet is a communications mechanism, not software. When Microsoft put the BSD FTP client on every desktop did that affect you at all? When Winzip became popular did that hurt people who use infozip? Ignore the consumer distributions of Linux and move on with your life.

I dread a scenario where, around 2005, everyone and their grandma is buying a Linux box (that new OS that just came out year or so ago). And it all goes to shit. You just know it will.

No it won't. They'll use Lycoris. You'll use Gentoo or Dragonfly or some other 'leet *nix distribution. There will be essentially no interaction between the two. Why do you care? You're like a high school student who is afraid that they won't be cool and unique if everyone else listens to the same music they do.

Everyone will run as root, open viruses, execute them.

So what? Why does it matter to you whether these viruses come from computers running Linux rather than Windows?

All our favorite apps will become add-filled feature-burdened piles of stinking filth rushed to market despite thousands of high severity bugs.

Sure. Grandma is going to ask for a graphical interface in VI and smilies in Berkley mail.

It willl suck hard and we'll all look back fondly on the good old days

The usual elitist blah blah.

But Will it Be Cheaper?

[Schlemphfer]

There's been a lot of interest in the top PC companies coming out with Windows-free desktops. Probably the biggest move so far has been Dell, which allows you to buy most of their machines equipped with pro-dos instead of Windows. But here's the surprising thing about the Dell offer: I'm unaware of a single case where a pro-dos equipped model is any cheaper than the same model shipping with Windows XP.

Now, with this HP development, I have to wonder if we're going to see more of the same, particularly since there's no mention that the Mandrake-equipped boxes will be any cheaper than their XP counterparts. Granted, there are some people who, for whatever reason, feel some dislike for Microsoft ;) And these people might be willing to have their computer ship without an XP license solely to deprive Microsoft of a few dollars.

But I have to think that most people, if they can't get a discount by going without Windows, would want to receive XP. After all, why turn down something that's free, and something you might decide to install later -- if only to make the machine more valuable for resale?

With this in mind, the option of ordering Linux boxes from major manufacturers just isn't all that exciting unless there's some kind of discount involved. Once you have the option to save thirty dollars by ordering your HP or Dell without XP, that will really be news.

Re:I for one do not welcome our Linux newbie under

[k_head]

When that happens 'we' will move on the the next greatest thing. Maybe Amiga, maybe plan-9, maybe atheos or something.

It's like a city. In a city there are the slums, artists all move to the slums because they can't afford to live on the other side of the tracks. Eventually the artists section of town becomes fashionable because all the cool galleries, restaurants and clubs are there and the yuppies move in. Prices skyrocket the artists move the next slum and the whole cycle starts over again.

For use...

[SuperKendall]

But I have to think that most people, if they can't get a discount by going without Windows, would want to receive XP. After all, why turn down something that's free, and something you might decide to install later -- if only to make the machine more valuable for resale?

You have a good point, but I cannot resist noting that between dealing with spyware, a future SP2 release that may break who knows what software, and product activation worries that there is an old quote with a new twist that seems very applicable:

"Windows XP is only free if your time has no value".

Re:I for one do not welcome our Linux newbie under

[utahjazz]

Don't underestimate the power of the dark side.

There is a multi-trillion dollar economy out there that is currently ignoring Linux almost entirely. If that industry turns to Linux as it's bread-and-butter OS, all will change, forever.

Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Just as the web became riddled with OBJECT tags and Flash menus, Linux distros will follow the money and be ruled by the desires of the PHBs that control that money. There will be ads. There will be godawful UI's. Talking paperclips. And....DRM!!!

Finally, we will find out that Linus is Bill Gates' son.

Re:I for one do not welcome our Linux newbie under

[Anonymous Coward]

"someone will explain to me why 'We' want linux to be adopted by the other 95% "

It increases my ability to service others computer needs for pay.

It decreases ANYONE'S ability to monopolize computer related enterprises.

Re:I for one do not welcome our Linux newbie under

[Qa1]

The major reason we want Linux to become a popular OS is that more third-party software will be ported to Linux.

Windows, being the current popular OS, has thousands of independent yet commercial developers and companies investing time, effort and research making cool tools and apps for it.

As a developer, it's great to have tools like Emacs and Python for free. But let's face it: some top notch tools probably won't be replaced by OSS any time soon. It just requires too much effort, research, and knowledge (much of which is patented by Adobe) to create a graphic suite as powerful as Adobe CS.

So making Linux popular is the only way to lure all these powerful art and development tools to the Linux environment.

Re:Don't trust HP.

[Doquar]

This is the same hp that is forcing it's workforce to take vacation during Christmas 2004 because the company will close for a week to save money.

That doesn't sound bad upfront, but it actually is. I used to work for HP and the fact that they made you take vacation for a whole week during certain holidays used to piss me off. There were times when I didn't have any vacation left, so I had to stay home without pay. To me thats saying: "you have vacation time, but we tell you when you can take it."

Anyway, the fact that HP is so self-centered and is investing in Linux is quite a good sign for its widespread adoption. They clearly feel there is a market and a profit to made in selling computers with Linux preinstalled.

Re:Stability isn't a problem. Bugs are.

[buchanmilne]

Little things like killing CD-ROM drives

No drives were killed, their firmware was merely overwritten becuase the drive was non-compliant. Drives with never firmware didn't exhibit the problem (so, obviously LG was aware of the problem, they just didn't bother to inform *their* customers). LG provided a means to reflash the firmware on the drives (for those that had already had the firmware overwritten) and tools to update the firmware for those as-yet unaffected.

BTW, the patch that caused the problem originated with SuSE ...

And, Gentoo had the same problem, they just have so little market share no-one was bothered to fix the problem until Mandrakesoft found the cause ...

screwed up menus

Guess who didn't install updates for 9.2 ...

non bootable boot CDs

On some hardware, only on the download version, and CD2 does boot and can be used to start installation (and all of this is covered in the errata).

10.X been out a week or so and already 400MB of patches!

10.0 Community has been out for a week. And, that's the whole point of the community release, to iron out all the really minor issues that end-users really care about, but some of us couldn't care less about.

You should really wait for 10.0 Official to give out to newbies ...

Mandrake is often more cutting edge. 2.6 Kernel and so forth but Cutting Edge often means you bleed.

So, install the 2.4 kernel available with the distro.

A .0 release on a new kernel series is always problematic (do you remember 8.0?).

hmm... Windows refund...

[jcuervo]

Are they charging for preinstalled Linux on their machines?

Will there be a "Linux Refund Day"?

Re:I for one do not welcome our Linux newbie under

[Too Much Noise]

Just as the web became riddled with OBJECT tags and Flash menus, Linux distros will follow the money and be ruled by the desires of the PHBs that control that money. There will be ads. There will be godawful UI's. Talking paperclips. And....DRM!!!

Sure, but you're talking commercial linux distros here. There will be always the side - Debian, Gentoo, Fedora and the people who care will just (e)merge the good (GPL) parts of the other side and leave the bad ones. I for one don't see Debian and DRM mixing too well >:)

It's not going to be much different from today - and the GP poster has a point. The "popular choice" will be something like Lindows or Lycoris for desktop users - and remember that Lindows already has those problems, default root and 'windows-type convenience' (hah!) So there will be 'secure Linux boxes' and 'insecure Linux boxes' ... with the possibility of a trend in user education if the vendors will give a damn.

But the most important part is: if you're using a GPL distro you won't care about commercialized Linux! no, scratch that - you will probably get drivers due to commercial Linux distros, so it's not that bad.

Re:I for one do not welcome our Linux newbie under

[Neo-Rio-101]

You're right about one thing.

We'll see wave after wave of trojan programs that require the superuser password in order to work .... and guess how many people are going to do as instructed?

Already there are loads of Linux apps that require Superuser intervention... take CD-Roast for example.

Re:They're just selling to pirates

[0x0d0a]

The people who buy these machines are going to just wipe them clean and install an illegal copy of windows and spend their $40 on ice cream.

That's still a good thing for Linux folk. Less funds for Microsoft mean less funds used to attack Linux.

Linux OS accrediation

[OffTheLip]

In the world of US defense department computing the major roadblock for Linux acceptance is accredidation. Linux is deployed in many places but frequently in typical roles as a server thus out of sight of many users. My work location is exceptional in that Linux desktop presence is increasing but we continually run into problems with sites refusing to run the OS because of lack of accredidation. This is an expensive process for companies such as Red Hat and SUSE but must be persued. The deep pocket companies continue to lead.

Bullshit

[0x0d0a]

You're full of it. You are trying to say, with a straight face, that people expected Linux to take over the desktop in *'98*?

Most of the time in the past was people getting excited about the ability for *geeks* to use exclusively Linux -- Open Office, Samba, etc made it feasible to work with Windows users and still keep using Linux.

Red Hat's CEO said, what, six months ago that Linux isn't ready for the desktop war just yet?

This year and last year are big because there are a lot of major open source apps coming out and being *usable*, by *typical users*, at at least a basic level, as a substitute for Windows apps.

Finally, if you don't think Linux usability has improved massively since '98, you just plain don't remember 98. We had no GNOME or KDE apps. Preference dialogs didn't exist. Widget sets were Tk, and black-and-white Athena. Boxes required a serious sysadmin to secure out-of-box.

Last year, I agree that there were a lot of people on Slashdot that were predicting big gains on the desktop. And guess what? A bunch of governments and big companies starting transition processes, or at least made it much more easy to move a chunk at a time to Linux. If anything, I'm surprised that things are going this quickly.

My prediction is that Linux will break 10% desktop market share before the end of 2006. That is a *huge* number of users to move from one platform to another -- perhaps around 100 million users -- , but remember that there's a threshhold effect at which point application vendors, people doing file formats, etc cannot ignore Linux, and once that hump is over, it becomes much easier to move to Linux.

Web sites are already improving -- I don't see the number of "IE-only" sites that I did thanks to the spread of Mozilla, Linux, and Mac OS X running Safari.

That being said, I think that as Microsoft gets more worried, they will do whatever it takes to fight back effectively. That may be as far as moving to a Linux-based distribution and porting their products to it. Microsoft is unlikely to die, no matter what.

The end of popular "grass-roots" Linux?

[fuzzy's_world]

Hmmmm. With MandrakeSoft teaming up with HP, SuSE now owned by Novell, and Red Hat already being a publicly-traded corporation, I think we're seeing a new phase for companies with popular Linux distros being more tied to the corporate world and less to their "grass roots" origins. I guess it was only a matter of time.

Figures

[MC68040]

Good to know:
One should not trust that HP figures for sold linux desktops represents actual new linux users.

As there is no windows license fee with the machines, my organisation buys (last batch around 15000 units) these configurations and then use our select/corporate windows license on them. This cuts us a great deal of costs from the otherwise mandatory per. computer windows license.