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Dell Teams Up With SUSE
An anonymous reader writes "Dell's Linux blog points to the news that Dell and SUSE have teamed up to start offering SUSE Enterprise Linux installed directly on Dell servers. Looks like Dell isn't just a Red Hat shop anymore."
This is a 2 days old story http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2004/10/p r04072.html
Mess with the best, die like the rest
Don't worry about the text, they merely point here: http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx /corp/pressoffice/en/2004/2004_10_27_rrwa_000
Which is mirrored here: http://mirrordot.org/stories/c6067beb11e039d913a6d cb073ee1d71/index.html
Dell and Novell Expand Partnership to Provide Customers Certified SUSE LINUX Platforms and Services
SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 on Select Dell PowerEdge Servers Extends Customer Choice and ValueRound Rock, Texas and Waltham, Massachusetts, October 27, 2004
Dell and Novell today announced an agreement to offer Novell SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 certified on select Dell PowerEdge servers worldwide.
This announcement provides Dell and Novell customers with more choice for fully-supported Linux platform deployments, and at the best value in the industry. Dell provides a single point of contact for customers' support needs; Dell Services will also assist customers throughout the lifecycle of their deployments.
Dell customers will be able to purchase Novell SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 with their single-and dual-processor PowerEdge servers. The agreement reinforces Dell and Novell's longstanding collaboration to provide customers with superior standards-based computing platforms, and extends this value and expertise to customers deploying SUSE LINUX for their business applications.
"Today's announcement marks an important expansion of Dell and Novell's longstanding industry relationship," said Al Gillen, research director, System Software, at IDC. "It provides Dell Linux customers more platform choice for fully supported operating systems, and gives Novell customers a new option for deploying Linux in their IT infrastructure."
Linda York, vice president of global alliances marketing in Dell's Product Group, said that SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 on Dell PowerEdge servers provides customers another robust and scalable enterprise platform to replace costly proprietary UNIX-based systems or to deploy Linux for the first time.
"This is another great example of Dell and Novell's ability to work together to move standards-based computing further into the data center," said York.
Increased Customer Choice, Industry-leading Value
For $175 per single-CPU server annual maintenance subscription and $269 for a dual CPU subscription, Dell and Novell offer Linux customers additional choice on Dell's award-winning PowerEdge 1850, 2800 and 2850 servers. SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 is the first enterprise-class Linux server to leverage the performance, scalability and security features of the new Linux 2.6 kernel. This new platform is ideal for customers deploying Web farms, IT infrastructures and custom applications. The operating system will be bundled with the server at the time of purchase. A joint service agreement between the two companies provides customers with the same levels of award-winning support for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 as all other operating systems.
Novell's acquisition of SUSE LINUX in January 2004 set the stage for this logical next step in the longstanding Dell and Novell relationship. "Dell's decision to collaborate with Novell on Linux is a vote of confidence in our Linux strategy and is great news for customers around the world,"" said David Patrick, vice president, Linux, Open Source and Platform Services at Novell. "Existing Novell customers get new options for their future hardware platform needs, while new customers gain a top-notch enterprise Linux offering on one of the most robust server platforms in the world, backed by Novell's global ecosystem of enterprise-level Linux services."
Global Services
Novell SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 will be supported by Dell Services (www.dell.com/services), through a collaborative support agreement with Novell technical support that provides customers a single point of contact for all issues. This helps customers realize a more efficient, effective, scalable and productive enterprise environment. Customized Dell offerings streamline and integrate activities across the entire product lifecycle, such as system planning and design, implementation and training and support and disposal.
SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 will be available with Dell Po
Dell still charges the "Windows Tax" on all its workstations. Try ordering a Dimension series without Windows, for instance. Not possible! They only offer Linux on two particular models of workstation (Precision) which are expensive and are limited in what video cards you can purchase with them.
Dell only seems to want to support Linux on the server side. They should support Linux all the way! If they don't want to offer it pre-installed on their workstations, they should at least offer a machine without Windows.
Argh!
-Z
From http://infoworld.com/article/04/10/11/HNmshaggle_1 .html :
... Microsoft has agreed to clarify in the MDA that advertisements for PCs sold without Windows need not include this tagline, and that PCs sold with more than one operating system, including a non-Microsoft operating system, may also include language recommending other operating systems."
"When Microsoft licenses PC makers (OEMs, or original equipment manufacturers in Microsoft terminology) to install Windows on machines they manufacture, it often grants them a discount in order to provide them with funds to help with their marketing. Under its Market Development Agreement (MDA), Microsoft requires that the advertising take a certain form in order to qualify for the agreement, including that advertisements include a tagline such as "(OEM) recommends Windows XP (Overview, Articles, Company) Professional."
3 clicks
Dell|Small Business|Desktops
"Dell Alternative Operating System Desktops" is listed right there with the others. 'N Series' Dimension, Optiplex, or Precision. Either RH or no OS (FreeDOS in the box).
The Dimension N starts at $319
"Dell(TM) Dimension(TM) n series desktops offer affordable, everyday small business computing power. Extra economical because they come without a Microsoft® operating system; a copy of FreeDOS(TM) open-source operating system is included in the box, ready to install."
Even with the release of a personal edition missing, SuSE still lets you try out every release either as a LiveCD or as a completely free ftp install (which in the past pretty much equalled the Personal version).
AFAIK, the difference between SuSE Personal and SuSE Professional was just the amount of software (=CDs) shipped with it. Apart from that, they were the same anyway.
Albeit, the ftp release is always about a month late compared to the official CD release but I reckon if you get something completely free, you should be able to accept a slight delay.
> I remember similar statements back then on comp.os.linux.advocacy and they've turned out to be just as false when it comes to fortelling Linux's future. I've come to accept Linux will never be anything more than a fringe operating system, but there's nothing wrong with that. Hell, MacOS is a fringe operating system compared to the numbers Windows has yet MacOS X is one of the nicest systems I've ever used.
So the progress Linux is making is slower than it's advocates and fanboys would like, but this does in no way imply no progress has been made, or is unlikely to happen in the future. I believe your use of the word "never" is an equally unfounded exageration. The server market is still growing, the desktop market is growing, and upcoming OSS software like OpenOffice 2.0 and Firefox 1.0 will only help to further our cause.
The 2.6 branch is becomming more production ready, as well. I'm running 2.6.9 on Gentoo and much more satisfied than I was with, say, 2.6.5
As for MacOS X, clearly it will allways be a fringe operating system simply because ppc and ppc64 are fringe architectures. The Linux kernel has no such limitations... quite the opposite, in fact.
The unofficial