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Linux Users Are Spoiled
Dozix007 writes "NewsForge carries an interesting
article
on how spoiled Linux users are. It sites examples such as the
availability of wide ranging software packages that Microsoft can't hope to provide.
Microsoft has to be careful about what kind of application software it
ships with Windows. Microsoft reps sometimes point to Linux
distributions and ask why they can get away with shipping stacks and
stacks of applications without getting in trouble. The answer to that
one, of course, is that the Linux distributions give you a choice. You
aren't locked into one particular application. Most Linux distributions
include several choices for most program classifications; even
single-CD distros usually include several Web browsers and email
clients."
You're wrong. They can ship dual boot systems, and have in the past.
Frankly, there's no market for them, and that's why you dont see them.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
For business, I run FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows XP. I've yet to find anything that I use that doesn't run on all three platforms just fine.
Via the Cygwin installer you can install most of what you get with a Linux distro. Other stuff that I use, like dvdauthor, ifo and vob editing tools, OpenVPN, etc, readily compile and run on Windows XP in addition to Linux and FreeBSD>
There's no reason for *anyone* not to feel "spoiled" by the large amounts of free, high-quality, software available!
Best Buy can have you arrested
The bit you leave out is "they can ship dual boot systems, but then microsoft charges them full price for windows, while continuing to give their competitors discounts. Their choice. Totally."
How much does it cost to replace CVS with Visual Source Safe?
How much does it cost to replace MySQL,or PostgresSQL with SQL Server?
Gimp with Photoshop?
Open Office with MS Office?
K Developer with VC++?
So forth and so on.
Well microsoft really did forbid its OEMS from shipping linux till the trial. They now are forbidden from including such things in their contacts, but they still do pull a lot of muscle around trying to convense OEMS not to ship anything but standard windows. But even dell is starting to ship linux system, though not dual boot systems, but I'd be willing to bet that is more of the support headache rather than anything.
Dell made an agreement with Sun a while back to ship the Sun Java Runtime Enviroment with their computers, so I'm pretty sure that they'd be free to bundle other items such as Firefox if they wanted to.
I use a linuxfromscratch system as my personal workstation, so if I can't find a good OSS program for what I want to do I'm pretty much stuck. Oddly enough the only time I've run into that situation with a linux system is finding a good image viewing program. Sure, there are lots of clones out there, but not one is even close to Thumbsplus or Compupic's half-hearted linux version of their windows program. I mean what's the use of having all this pr0n when I can only cycle the slideshow with the mouse? ;-)
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
"Spoiled by arcane command line syntax"
/.-ers don't know Unix and it's code...It's not hard stuff.
:) ), I felt the need to properly dissect parent post....There's plenty of (linux) help out there if you look hard enough....
Don't know what the hell you're talking about....I mean, how many
CD - Change Directory
RM - Remove
MKDIR - Make Directory
I mean, is that hard to understand? I know some of stuff is harder to cipher, but even a literate monkey with light Google-ing could probably decipher the rest....
"Spoiled by all those half-days and days spent struggling to install software."
I'll admit sometimes software is a PITA when the right dependencies aren't taken care of, but no program has ever taken me "half-days and days" to install...
" Spoiled by all that quality time trying to get my wireless adapter going."
Quality time my @$$...go get yourself either a license from Linuxant ($20) or use the free ndiswrapper...Painless, and works well.....Yes, the hardware companies won't put drivers out for linux, but that doesn't mean you have to flounder around wasting your "quality time"
Spoiled by the absence of decent documentation.
I call bullshit...Go google and you'll find plenty of docs and forums on anything, and there are plenty of people in the linux community more than willing to help a newbie out...
While I'm no total linux zealot (yeah yeah, I smell the sarcasm too
-thewldisntenough
"
My MythTV HowTo
Not to be a perfectionist, but -U (capitalized) is not recommended, because it forces upgrades only (which might sound good, but a number of things get into portage, just to be downgraded later because of bugs/security concerns) emerge -uD world is what you should do, and yes some things that you have that might be unstable (~x86) will want to be downgraded, but that's why you need to read man portage, and learn how to use /etc/portage/package.keywords :P
Setec Astronomy
Repeat after me: vi-ru-ses.
They are, this whole "MS forbidding bundling" thing went out a long long time ago. Indeed, whenever I used to pick up an OEM PC (any time before 2000), it had a LOT of software on there, including netscape navigator in quite a few cases. And Im talking major manufacturers like Hewlett Packard, Packard Bell, Tiny, Evesham, Dan, Gateway etc.
The difference is not only in the amount of software bundled and the choices offered within each category of software, but that Microsoft software is also designed to stifle choice in subtle, seemingly trivial ways and lead the user back to using their software. A few weeks ago I ran into an example of this when trying to switch my parents to Firefox--with their consent--because of all the popups that appeared and the spyware toolbars that kept getting installed when using Internet Explorer.
I set up Firefox, made it the default browser, changed IE's settings so that it wouldn't check that it was the default browser and wrestle back control if accidentally opened, and went as far as disabling access to IE in "Set Program Access and Defaults". The following weekend, I was back on on my parents PC to discuss what they thought of Firefox, but they complained that they were still getting popups. And when I opened IE, I noticed there was yet another toolbar installed.
I checked the browser history and realised they hadn't used Firefox at all--they'd been using IE the whole time. How could that be? I had them show me how they were opening their browser. They opened MSN Messenger, and clicked on the "you have e-mail" link to check their Hotmail messages. Guess what opened? IE. It turns out that this method is how they've been opening their web browser since day one.
And here's the problem--it is hardcoded to open Internet Explorer. It refuses to recognise your default browser setting, and you can't select an alternative in either Windows Messenger or MSN Messenger. This means that, when I'm not watching, they're always going to gravitate back to IE because of that silly little e-mail link.
So the task of switching them to Firefox becomes one of also switching them to some alternative instant messenging program, and perhaps a different e-mail service as well. The latter two are much more difficult. They consented to my changing the browser because of all the popups and spyware, but didn't want me to change the instant messenging program they enjoyed using and become attached to.
It may seem trivial to us enthusiasts, but it's surprisingly difficult to change ingrained behaviours in people who use but don't understand and aren't really interested in technology. Those who say "just tell them to stop clicking the e-mail link" have no idea. But those who have, say, preached the virtues of letterboxed widescreen movies, only to find that the oldies inevitably press the zoom button on the DVD remote to make the image fill the screen, will understand.
They are installed, but they don't really get in user's way. It defaults to one desktop, with one icon for the default browser, and another icon for the default word processor. I actually didn't even know that some of those browsers were installed until I was writing that comment. Apparently, my computer has this browser named "dillo" installed on it.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
One reason.
Photoshop is indeed a powerful program for which there is no viable replacement under linux. One can only hope that one day Adobe sees fit to release a linux version.
.doc format. A Word document opened in OO and saved in .sxw format is about 1/3 the size, without losing data. A .rtf opened in MSO and saved as .doc is about 3x the size of the same .rtf opened in OO and saved as .sxw. Obviously these values are document-dependent, but I have found that 3x difference to be a good rule of thumb and surprisingly stable. The examples above are not by any means the only comparisons I have done, but are indicative of the methods I've used in making my decision to save documents in OO's native format by default.
There is however a very reliable Office replacement under linux. OpenOffice has, for me at least, been more reliable than Microsoft Office. OO has kept up with MSO's changing file formats better than MSO itself has, and has its own native file format that is on average about 3x as space-efficient as Word2k's*. While MSO has a smiling puppy and innumerable braindead wizards, OO is at least on par with MSO in terms of day-to-day usability and functionality, even in mixed environments.
*The same plain text file is about 3x as large in
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Give me a reason why MS shouldnt be able to charge an OEM full price for the operating system?
Umm, anti-trust law?
Its the terms that the OEM signed up for in order to stay in competition with other manufacturers.
Which is exactly the problem. If you don't do as Microsoft tells you, you will be unable to compete.
One thing I think a lot of people forget is that OEM prices are a reward, not a god given right.
Actually, they are Gates-given rewards for being an obedient Microsoft lackey.
And dont give me any bullshit about MS having to treat everyone correct 'because they are a monopoly'
Locking competitors out of markets by pressuring vendors is unethical in any way. But if you're a monopolist, it's not only unethical but unlawful.
they are still a business first and formost,
Yes, and I'm a man and have a sex drive. This is considered ok, and I'm allowed to have consensual sex with women. But I'm not allowed to rape them. Do you think I should?
and no law in this country says you have to support the sale of a competitors product,
No, but anti-trust law says that if you're a monopolist, you're not allowed to use your power to lock upcoming competitors out of your markets. If you can't compete on the merit (and cost) of your products alone, then you don't deserve your monopoly any longer.
which they are doing by offering low prices to OEMs who use the lure of an MS system and a Linux system dual booting to sell a computer.
It's the other way round. Everyone (vendor of a certain minimum size that is) gets OEM contracts, except those who give MS competitors a chance. It's a tool of punishment, not a reward. But as the die-hard astroturfer you seem to be, you probably don't care.
I love C++
Oh-yeah, because finding the update button in a different place in each program is so much easier, then remembering to update each and every program. I'd also argue that more programs do not have update buttons then do. Yes, many of the larger ones do, b ut most of the smaller ones don't.
So, spend an hour opening a program, clicking update, waiting, opening the next program, clicking update, waiting, etc is easier then learning one command?! Also I wouldn't recommend gentoo for a first time user, other distros like Debian have nice pretty graphical frontends (synaptic) for the people who are alergic to the command prompt. Think of windows update that will upgrade everything you've installed on your system for you (minus the rebooting) and you'll just about have it.
I'm sorry, some things may be easier in Windows, but this is certainly not one of them.
Linux has spoiled me for several years now, and I'm never going back to that high-maintenance OS from M$... In fact, I've made it policy to set up willing friends and family with it as well. Suddenly I find they are happier being able to use their computers without the worry of viruses, spyware, popups, etc., and I am happier not having to pay constant visits to 'fix' their windoze after a few careless clicks on the 'net.
[Most of the rest is your opinion, or not worth responding to for other reasons, or hell, it might even be correct. But on this one issue...]
I like having my programs and commands have names that actually make sense, not things like "grep", "GIMP", "X".
Yeah, because md,* Outlook Express, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, GDI are all so descriptive, aren't they? I mean, we all know what Excel means. It means to do well. So Excel does well. What the hell does it do well? And those are all made by the same combany.
On the other hand, I look at the Applications menu on my Gnome Panel and I see 'Office/Word Processor' or 'Image/Image & Photo Editor'. I don't even need to give a damn about who made a piece of software. Is the GIMP a piece of GNU Software? Maybe (Yes). It doesn't matter, I can find it anyway. Is Abiword a piece of GNU software? Maybe (No. It's made by Abisoft.) It doesn't matter, I can find it anyway.
Now, by this, I don't mean to pretend---not by a long shot---that GNU+X is the most usable environment (even though my evaluation of its pros and cons---including that it's Free---convinced me that it's better, at least for me). Just that the next time you claim Windows' superiority, you don't add this to the mix.
* Giving console programs is stupid. If I'm typing at a console, I want to be able to quickly type in the name, not find-within-files or find-files or edit-a-plain-text-file or make-a-new-directory. That's just silly.
Look out!
>Microsoft makes the kernel, Microsoft makes the one and only window-manager,
/usually run/ with KDE. In fact, the K desktop environment can run with a window manager which is not kwin.
There are lots of third-party replacements shells for Windows.
Window Manager != Shell.
On Windows there are a lot of replacements for Explorer, the Windows desktop shell. There's Litestep, Darkstep, Geoshell, Neoshell, MyShell, @Shell, etc, etc.. My experience is out of date, but I personally tried a dozen fully usable free shells, and there were more you had to pay for.
But no matter what shell you used the windows always had the window control widgets in the same place. The shell is merely a desktop shell: With explorer you get a desktop, icons, taskbar, systray, and start menu. None of these things controls or positions windows.
(While you do technically "manage" windows via the task bar, that is not what is meant by "Window Manager")
Under Windows to get the look-and-feel of window borders and control widgets to be different you must use WindowBlinds or some equivalent. Even this does not replace the Windows Window Manager, it merely provides more than rudimentary theming for it.
Under Linux, or more specifically under X-Windows, the Window manager controls the placement and sizing of windows. It provides borders and control widgets for Windows. It may provide hotkeys and a few things like that. Anything more than that is not really part of the Window Manager, but merely are programs that usually ship/run with it. KDE does not require kdesktop, it's just
The parts of what you see on the screen can be broken down like this:
GUI - this is X
Window Manager - window movement/placement, controls and borders.
WM Theme - how your window manager looks
Widget set - your non-WM-controlled widgets/buttons/etc
Widget theme - how your program widgets look
Desktop Environment - launchers, task managers, etc.
Programs - clocks, word processers, whatever
Under Windows you can not replace the first two. Under Linux you can
I want my Cowboyneal
Stop doing free tech support for them. No one knows how cars work either but most still know that if they drive like maniacs all the time then there will either be a wreck or damaged powertrain. Refuse to do that maintenance unless they are willing to meet you halfway and listen to easy to follow advice.
Tell them clicking the link for anything but Hotmail is like doing something really abusive to their car and expecting the mechanic in the family to fix it free. It certainly isn't the end of the world for you if they disregard and wind up paying somebody $75.00/hr to fix it for them. If that won't educate somebody then nothing will.
There is no malice here. It tough love and I starting practicing it when friends and family had me bail them out one time too many after ignoring that sort of advice. I get paid to fix same damn problems caused by the same damn people doing the same damn stupid things over and over again. I won't do it for free anymore. I'll give free help to family and friends but I expect my pitfall advice to be heeded or there won't be any more where that came from.
Why links? Boot up Knoppix!
/dev/hda3 /gentoo
/dev/hda1 /gentoo/boot
/gentoo/proc
/gentoo /bin/bash
/etc/profile
Open Root Console...
# cd /
# mkdir gentoo
# mount
# mount
# mount -t proc none
# chroot
# env-update
# source
# emerge kde (or whatever)
Woila! Cruise the web in Mozilla luxury while your system compiles in the background.
But even dell is starting to ship linux system
The thing you're missing here is that ALL of "Dell Desktops" ship with windows, without exception. Period. You cannot buy a "Desktop" computer from dell w/out windows on it. This is because of the licence agreement with microsoft - Put windows on EVERYTHING you sell, and you can get a discount (say, like, $30/copy rather than $99). But, if you offer any other OS, or no OS, you won't get the discount. So, yeah, it's Dell's choice to spend $70 additional in a market where $30 profit per unit is considered "good"
What dell has done has drawn a VERY distinct line between their servers and their desktops - to the extent that their cases for each look different. If you configure a desktop, it will have Windows on it. If you configure a server, it will have the option for windows, but, notice, it's full price. It also has the option for linux, or no OS.
So, Dell is screwing microsoft's agreement over by splitting their company into two halves (sort of), one making desktops and one servers. Kinda the same way Microsoft screws the DOJ by making two divisions, one for Windows and office, and one for everything else.
~Will
sig?
What I find lacking in Windows is not so much the third-party applications (like work-processers and such), but what really is lacking is a powerful toolset and shell. When I set down at a linux or bsd box (even a barebones minimal install), I will find by default things like grep, awk, sed, zcat, tar, mail, and probably perl (to mention just a few). Add in the power of pipes to glue it all togather and a good scriptable shell (like bash or ksh) and a unix user is superman compared to a windows user. I don't know how many times I've found myself sitting at a Win2k box and wanted to parse and rearange some stupid ascii text report only to have to fire up notepad and start editing line-by-line. A unix box would have let me pipe it through awk or sed and be done with it in seconds.
And if your install doesn't have what you want then grab it from a mirror (apt-get for linux or pkg_add for bsd) and seconds later you are working away productively. Windows doesn't even come close to that kind of power.
For example, maybe you could care less about the latest bleeding-edge version of links or that windowing manager that you never use, but want the latest security patches and or updates for kernel/apache/mozilla/etc. So then do something like and you are as good as completely up to date.
If you are the top 1% of users, then you haven't looked very hard.
This sig is intentionally left blank
I really felt this was quite a badly written article. I have used Linux since around 98 ever since I got sick of my Win95... but now I am using winXP most of the time. I feel that Linux is not yet ready to be full on desktop platform. Yes, Linux dostros do come with a full choice of programs to use, but often they are not exactly the programs you need, so there we go for a search and install routine, especially in slack. Anyways, there are still a number of things the linux desktop cannot do... and that's the main reason I do not use it any longer simply, because there are no decent Audio production apps and no decent vector drawing progs. Most of the installations are still arcane for a simple user... and the amount of time it takes to figure out how to properly .configure and install a program in Linux probably takes as long as finding and installing a app in Windows trythfully, plus most users will know exactly what they need anyhow.
Not to mention the hardware compatibility problems , some of the hardware on my 2 year old notebook is still not easily set up under Linux. X needs severe messing about to get the screen resolution to the way it has to be using an NVIDIA driver as well, most people wouldn't even figure it out. The D-Link wireless card, which at the time was the only type I could find, is still a mess... Firewire does not work and so on.
I really do think the hardware compatibility especially with notebooks the ultimate portable desktops simply are not easy to set up under Linux and the lack of a whole sector of applications is highly annoying.
I still use OpenSource software, but there is only a handful of apps which can be termed as fully functional and well developed... I can only think of Mozilla, Firebird, Thunderbird, OpenOffice and GIMP as truly ready for fulltime use, the other ones still seem quite flimsy. But the main grievance is definitely the initial set up especially all the drivers for all the hardware... Most people who ever tried to set up Linux on a brand new Laptop could testify.
So maybe in a couple of years when there is a decent DAW and Illustrator replacement, and there is no problem using the whole of my computer capabilities I will use Linux fulltime, but as of right now I feel more restricted rather than spoiled.
I first tried installing every Win OS that should work on it from Win95/98/Me/NT none worked.
I figured I would learn Linux, started putting several Linux distros (old & new from RH 6.2 to Fedora) and **all of them work without any headaches**.
Is Linux hard no it just gives **you** all the power to do whatever you want that just makes Linux look complicated but you could do a "basic" install of any major distro and have a perfectly fine GUI OS with **at least** 1 app for any major task within 60mins. What more could you ask for? Windows would take 60mins to just install itself forget the apps.
I am a converted Linux user and still use WinXP but Linux is the foundation to my home & work network while WinXP is kept around so all our apps which we have been using for years could be used. Linux still needs some apps but it has almost everything a normal user would need. I use Win for Adobe Video/Grpahic software.
Microsoft is treated differently because Microsoft is a convicted monopolist (and copyright infringer).
The rules are different when you break the law.
What they did was serious enough that had Bush not been elected, the company we know as Microsoft would have been split into 2 distinct companies.
The problem was that bad; it was so bad that it could be solved in no way other than splitting up the company.
If you don't have a monopoly, you have no monopoly to illegally leverage to your advantage in other market segments.
That's how the law works.
Convicted felons don't get to own firearms.
This was done solely to make it easier (and cheaper) for OEMs to count how many licenses they have to pay for.
No, because MS did so-called "per-CPU" licensing" where the OEM payed per computer shipped, whether it had the MS product on it or not. Nice try, though, next time just have at least *one* fact right.
Oh and the idea that dell couldn't count which PCs shipped with which OS unless they were different models is just too silly for words. YOu don't even lie well.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Ever tried to set up a 56k modem in linux? Don't go there.
Why not? Modems are trivial under Linux because they are so well standardized. Plug it in (USB or Serial) and software like yast or wvdial will pick it up.
Winmodems, of course, will not work in general, but if you buy a Windows modem for your Linux computer, what do you expect?
Get a printer working under CUPS? Faster to ask your neighbour to print it.
No harder in general than on Macintosh (which also uses CUPS) or Windows. As usual, you have the choice of either using a printer install tool or picking the drivers manually in the CUPS web interface.
Windows is like a flashy SUV. Looks great, illusion of safety,easy to drive, buts WILL tip over at a moments notice.
Windows is not easy to drive; it's more like a broken SUV sitting in your driveway--you can sit in it, and look pretty, but you end up going where you need to go on foot anyway, provided, of course, you can get the doors open and get out.
Are you about Dell not selling any desktop systems without Windows? From their web site:
/.
The n series features select popular models from the DimensionTM , OptiPlexTM and Dell PrecisionTM desktop lines sold without a Microsoft® operating system.
We bought a couple of these a few months ago. They came with FreeDOS and they work fine for doing FreeBSD development. I believe we found out about them on
Woops. Here is a better (hopefully working link) to the Dell n series desktop systems without Windows.
You can get a good toolset and shell on windows by installing Cygwin. Yes, it does have the drawback of being a big download, but at least it's only one download instead of several hunt-and-peck sessions of downloading. Cygwin provides all of the standard unix tools you mentioned: nice shells, grep, awk, sed, tar, and yes even perl and XFree86. The programs mostly behave the way you expect, because they're compiled from the same source code as the linux versions. You will find some bugs in Cygwin but none so bad as to cause data loss or hinder productivity.
Cygwin isn't as good as the command line environment in Linux (cause it's slow, has bugs, and requires third-party download), but it goes a long way towards filling the gap.
Unfortunately I can't recommend any Windows program to fill the role of apt-get....
You're right VBScript is a bad example.
But Windows XP (and, I think, Windows 2000) does come with scripting tools (more than batch files) that work right off the command line. VBScript and JavaScript support is built in, but you can add you favorite scripting language (like perl!) with a third party add-on, Run a search on Google for "Windows XP scripting". You will find that there are ways to automate things in Windows. You just have to know how to do it, just like in Linux.
Some links to Windows Scripting Resources:
Microsoft's Web Site
X vs. XP > Scriptability
Also, if you really love the Unix command line tools, you can get a port of them for Windows.
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 Mepis 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.
To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. This is an article about email disclaimers. The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx, because "is teh free".
Here's another. In this 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.
Here's that drive-by advocacy and FUD in motion: twitter goes on about some topic and then drops the usual "oh and M$ is teh evil" because "WMP phones home" or some such. Called on his FUD, he then claims that WMP stores every song and movie you've ever played in a file, somewhere. Pressed further, he just sort of slithers out of sight, his FUD-spreading complete. This is not about some Microsoft technology that nobody likes anyway; it's about lying for the sake of lying. Way too many of his posts are exactly like this one.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own. Or these two. Or this one. Or this one.
Still not convinced? This is what twitter considers "humour" while going about his daily "M$" routine.
M
This statement is actually extremely false. Now, there's a lot of FUD making the rounds about the so-called "viral" nature of the GPL, but what I'm about to say is fact not FUD. Microsoft would have to GPL all of Windows in order to bundle a GPL program together with Windows.
The relevant section of the GPL is Section 3, which states in part (edited for space but with no significant change in meaning):
In other words, when distributing a GPL windows executable, you are not required to distribute operating system source code unless you are also bundling the executable with the operating system components. Unfortunately for Microsoft (and other proprietary OS vendors such as Sun, HP, and IBM), bundling is exactly what we are talking about here.
Microsoft can bundle GPL source code with Windows, but they aren't allowed to bundle GPL executables.
hmmmmmmmmm ever try Alllinuxinfo.com the linux search engine it pretty much has every piece of linux software out there indexed
Mozilla FireFox is pre-release software. The Mozilla Foundation is pretty clear about this. That said, why would you expect Dell to bundle FireFox? I don't want to futz around with beta software at work.
I just started an internship with USGS. I probably would have been laughed at if I asked them to install FireFox. They have a policy of only using software that has been approved. The Windows computer I was assigned to had Internet Explorer installed, so I asked for the newest version of Netscape. They had Netscape 7.1 at a local FTP site and installed it for me (I am a programmer, not a sysadmin).
Netscape 7.1 is a fantastic piece of software. It is very robust and stable. It has all of the important advantages of FireFox, that would be used in a work setting (sorry, it doesn't have features such as Click-For-Flash plug-ins that are useful for looking at gaming sites).
Now, please, don't discount the Mozilla-based Netscape 7.1. If you're going to clamour for Dell to install a better browser, don't ask for a constantly moving target like FireFox. Ask for something that was DESIGNED just for that PURPOSE. Otherwise you'll just look like an ignorant OSS zealot.