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Dell to Ship Linux Desktops in Europe
Anglophile writes "Looks like Dell has launched a new line of desktop computers. The Dell Optiplexes will be sold in Europe, come with the Linspire operating system and include a one year free membership to their download warehouse. "
looks like this is a bit misleading - in fact, Dell is shipping them, but they are actually being sold by an Italian company called Questar. So while they are technically Dell machines and even shipped by Dell, this is not a big move by Dell onto the European linux market, it's a smaller company taking the initiative in partnership with Dell...
"Linspire? Never heard of it..."
It was originally called Lindows. Imagine how confusing that would have been: selecting between Lindows and Windows in the OS box while config'ing your machine. Not even the screengrabs would have been a dead-give-away. "Oh, must be a typo."
Didn't Dell ALREADY have Linux offerings here in the U.S. a few years agon, but then got throttled by MS?
Lindows was banned. That's why it changed to Linspire.
I confirm that, I worked at a company that used Dell Optiplex computers and they _were_ shipped with RH at the time. However, they discontinued that because of the "lack of demand" (well, that's what they told us anyway)
I sense much beer in you. Beer leads to intoxication, intoxication leads to hangover. Hangover leads to sobering.
Linspire, previously known as LindowsOS (also Lin---s, pronounced as Lindash), is a Linux distribution based on Debian. It targets the consumer user - its distributors market it more intensively than all other Unix-based or Unix-like distributions except Mac OS X. As Lindows, it was the first Linux distribution to replace Windows in home consumer desktop systems at a substantially lower price than Microsoft Windows.
Michael Robertson, the founder and former CEO of MP3.com functions as the CEO of Lindows, Inc. It is still called "Lindows, Inc" even though the product is now Linspire.
Microsoft Corporation sued Lindows, Inc for its use of the term "Windows", which Microsoft claimed constituted a trademark infringement. In February 2004, a judge rejected two of Microsoft's central claims. Though Microsoft lost the core of its case, and says it will appeal the decision, for uncertain reasons it also called the decision "a victory". (See Microsoft vs Lindows for more information.) Lindows was renamed Linspire to avoid further legal action by Microsoft. Michael Robertson called the legal action "Sextuple Jeopardy", which is like "Double Jeopardy" but sextupled.
Lindows, Inc had the initial goal of developing a Linux-based operating system capable of running major Windows applications as well. It based its Windows compatibility on the development of WINE by the Linspire team. Lindows.com later abandoned its initial approach in favor of making Linux applications easy to download, install and use. They achieved this using an application called Click-N-Run, a program based on Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool, providing an easy-to-use interface and a slightly modified package system for an annual fee (apt-get costs no money, but has less user-friendliness). Click-N-Run has over 1,000 pieces of software for download.
Lindows, Inc sponsors many open-source projects and events, including the Gaim instant messaging client, the KDE-Apps.org (http://www.kde-apps.org/) and KDE-Look.org (http://www.kde-look.org/) websites, and the Nvu project, which has started to develop an open-source WYSIWYG website editor (based on the Mozilla composer code) to rival FrontPage. In the past, Linspire.com has contributed over $500,000 to the WINE project.
Editions
Several varieties of Linspire, known as editions, target different markets. Three main editions exist: Standard, Developer and Laptop.
External links
The distro wasn't banned, the courts just made the company change the name.
That retaliation is part of why MS was convicted of abusing their monopoly. Microsoft is prohibited from retaliatory OEM licensing fees in the settlement now.
"All Dell computers sold by Questar will be equipped with word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software and file compatibility with Microsoft Office."
Linspire comes with Open Office 1.1.
While there is a great deal of compatability between Open Office and MS Office, there are still issues
Sounds a little misleading to me.
Linspire is Debian. Debian based distributions are even more similiar than rpm based ones. Once installed, you can hardly tell Debian distros apart. In fact many people call these Debian based distros alternative installers
http://www.questar.it/dell/
Italian only
No they didn't, Lindows won the court cases and were allowed to keep the name, but then MS started suing them in so many countries that Lindows couldn't afford to fight them all and just decided to stop fighting and change the name to Linspire. In Holland and the UK, for instance, they've won and are allowed to keep the name Lindows.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Linspire is of recent vintage and was the first to make desktop Linux feasible on the large scale.
I rather think that suse/novell have made desktop linux quite feasible, and IMHO would be a much better fit for serious widespread deployment - Linspire (nee lindows) is interesting, but I would characterize it more as an attempt to make desktop linux easy for Aunt Tillie and her nephew Joe Sixpack, than as any sort of "large scale" paradigm.
As well, most competent admins find the weak security of Linspire to be unacceptable - it essentially reduces linux to a windows level of security, with Aunt Tillie browsing the web and reading her email as root by default (YIKES!!!)
Talk about a disaster waiting to happen...
It's is the only linux distro I know of that will literally speak to you as if you're an idiot with Audiot Assist Tutorials!
Things may have changed, but in the past, in the US at least, Dell's customers called Dell support for any issue. The Dell Tech determined if the call was a Linux issue or a Hardware issue. Then, if it was a hardware issue, the customer was handled by the Dell tech. If the issue was a Linux issue, the customer was forwarded to Red Hat's tech support.
That was a few years ago, and since then, Red Hat has had some big changes in their support model, and Dell has sent all its tech support to India, and brought parts of it back again, so YMMV.
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This is great ! If DELL is putting their weight behind that will be a major policy shift for *many* corporations.
Not at all. If Dell quit selling Windows entirely and began shipping only Lindows machines, then yes, it could be said that Dell was putting their weight behind it. That Dell is only offering it as an alternative means little, it'll be interpreted as Dell going after some market shares they don't have.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
I thought that maybe the bad comments on Lindows were made by Linux zealots. I read a good article on it on osnews that gave a discount number that made you able to download it for free for 2 days.
:
I decided to try it... It is as bad as you heard.
First, you log as root by default. No attempt to tell you that you should create users. You must know it, find it in the menus and compared to the rest of the distribution the dialog box that let you finally add users looks cryptic (from a total newbie point of view).
Second and more important : this distribution is all about lock-in. They try to give you the impression that it is a different operating system than Windows and Linux. They rename everything to "make it easier for beginner". Other newbie-friendly distributions will write something as "Mozilla (Web Browser)" while Lindows will write "Web Browser". You can hardly switch for another application, you don't know what you are using to begin with.
The commands are renamed.
If you take a Knoppix CD and try to make a Lindows user use it, he will be confused.
apt-get doesn't work if you don't pay. You don't just pay for their Click-N-Run gui, you must pay to use apt-get itself.
And finally on a more philosophical point of view
They don't respect the GPL (they put a disclaimer that basically say : everything in there is copyrighted by us and us alone, don't steal !).
They also don't mention like Mandrake and Fedora (don't know for SuSE) that what you are using is the result of a communauty effort).
Slashdot anagrams to "Sad Sloth"
It should be mentioned that they do offer the N-Series desktop, which is pretty much a barebones 2400 (Low end model) with nothing installed (blank hd) and a disk with FreeDOS on it. And this is available to just about anyone. Its a very lowend machine, but not a bad option.
. as px/featured_nseries?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s= dhs
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic
Blake
The map is a little spotty in areas, maybe you live in a non-Coke spot.
Maybe Dell can work out a deal where anyone can sell their machines with any o/s preloaded as a ghosted image, provided you send them the CD and you're liable if the image is crap... that would be sweet! Then we could all compete with our favorite o/s's and with wal-mart (to some tiny degree)
Dell already does this. They call it Custom Factory Integration...or Dell+. It costs a fair bit, because interrupting their normal manufacturing process for your special requests is pricy for them. Also, if you have a CFI image they will not provide software support, but then why should they, it's running your image.
This same process can be used to swap out certain hardware components as well. If you want a different Wireless Networking card, you might be able to arrange that through CFI as well.
You just brought up a good point, sadly it's in my favor. First off, people don't call a can of Pepsi a can of Coke. This is a myth.
Not in the South.
Mother: What kind of Coke do y'all want?
Child1: Sprite.
Child2: Mr. Pibb.
Child3: Pepsi.
(Actual overheard conversation in Theta (thee-ta), TN.) Southern 'coke' is equivalent to US standard 'soda', Midwest 'pop', or New England 'tonic'.
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change the thread title
i nu x+PCs+in+Europe/2100-7344_3-5259014.html?tag=nefd. top
http://news.com.com/Dell+clarifies+reports+of+L
Dell clarifies reports of Linux PCs in Europe
Last modified: July 6, 2004, 5:35 PM PDT
By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
A PC dealer in Europe has begun selling Dell desktops equipped with Linux, but Dell emphasized that the systems were customized by the dealer and that this isn't the first time this has happened.
Questar, an Italian-based computer seller, has begun to ship Optiplex business desktops loaded with Linspire 4.5, a version of Linux, and a copy of OpenOffice, an open-source alternative to Microsoft's Office software package. The basic Questar computer, with a 2.4GHz Celeron processor, sells for about $562.
Dell spokesman Jeremy Bolen acknowledged that Questar is selling Dell PCs with Linux, but noted Dell's dealers are allowed to customize their machines. Although Dell mostly sells its PCs directly to customers, the Texas-based PC giant has an army of integrators and resellers that sell its machines. Often, these integrators are located overseas, where the direct sales model is not as broadly accepted.
Bolen added that this isn't the first time Dell PCs have come with Linux and that Dell isn't itself selling the machines, an inaccuracy that appeared in several news reports and seems to have come from language in Questar's press release.
Dell will honor the warranties on the hardware but will not provide service and support for any issues with the software. "It is not Dell factory installed," Bolen explained.
In 1999, Dell began to offer Linux as a customizable option on its consumer desktops. "Demand was low, so we discontinued offering it," Bolen said.
Although it dropped the consumer option, Dell made Linux available to corporate customers that signed on for factory configuration services. Dell has also continuously offered Linux on servers and workstations for a number of years. Dell's Linux partner is Red Hat Software; the PC maker has no relationship with Linspire, Bolen said.
Even with Dell's consumer Linux option gone, savvy buyers can still get a Linux-ready PC from the company. Dell's n-Series of Dimension and Optiplex desktops come with no preloaded operating system. (Because licensing agreements require that Dell ship at least a single operating system with its PCs, the company includes a disk of an open-source version of DOS in the box.)