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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."
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?
I really think this is going to be the Year of Linux!
...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
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?
Don't mess with the bunny, outsideworld.org
mandrake wasn't installed. they just included a mandrake disk.
there was some minimal linux install just so you could boot it.
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
Setec Astronomy
You haven't used Mandrake, have you?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Time for Microsoft to crank that brain-wash ray up to full power.
01100010 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101
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...
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
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.
Small-Medium Business as opposed to home and enterprise markets
I make my face look like this and concerned words come out.
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.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
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.
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).
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
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.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Plus every HP Mandrake PC comes with free indemnification against SCO lawsuits!
I should buy some cement.
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.
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.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
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.
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.
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!!!
... with the possibility of a trend in user education if the vendors will give a damn.
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'
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.