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Dell Offering "Open" PC
Sans writes "Dell began offering a new desktop Dimension E510n PC this week with no operating system installed. The machine is designed for people who want to run open-source software such as Linux instead of Windows. The PC comes with a blank hard drive and a copy of the FreeDOS operating system, which can be installed by customers."
This is the kind of thing that leads to misleading statistics...News headline: "Dell offers PCs without Windows but demand remains close to zero." Microsoft spokesman "It's obvious to us that most PC buyers want Windows running on their machines yadda yadda yadda..."
Who would buy this machine? A inexperienced home user? They wouldn't be interested in a computer that wouldn't even start up out of the box. Business? Business would buy the equivalent Windows machine for $70 less and replace Windows with Linux (assuming that was the intended use for the FreeDOS machine). Geeks? They'd recycle an old machine or build their own.
If Dell was serious about providing another OS on their hardware, they'd partner with a Linux company (Red Hat, Novell, Mandriva, Linspire, etc.) and let the Linux company provide the software support.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Dell has been selling machines with FreeDOS for some time. We've bought several (including the machine I'm typing this on) for work. Let me know when they start to ship with AMD chips. That will be news.
Trolling is a art,
... is much more popular than Linux, of course. Seriously, does this mean Microsoft is still pulling strings somewhere at Dell, or what?
I've bought 3 desktop PCs from dell in the last year that came without an OS, and with a FreeDOS cd in the box. So, how does this announcement qualify as news?
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/27/013520 8">http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/27/013 5208
And it was old news THEN as well!
- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
[Quagmeyer]Aall Riiiight[/Quagmeyer}
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features. aspx/featured_desktop2?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
$679
After $50 Off Instantly!
Only an 80GB HD, but there's the bonus of a 17" LCD..
Have you considered that it probably does cost $30 to Dell? I remember hearing that dell pays $15 per license for plain XP, so this isn't an unreasonable price.
Microsoft offer tremendous volume discounts to OEMs to ensure they ship their computers with Windows.
this is a good start, too bad they're including FreeDOS disks and not free Ubuntu disks though. But I'd guess that the people who would buy this sort of machine already have access to some distributions.
he envisioned back in '80s that PC with DOS will be good enough even in 2005.
839*929
...quite apart from being "old news", that is.
The number of times I've seen people post on here adamant that they don't want to pay the Microsoft Tax on a new PC, only to see the response so far to this, makes me smile. Complaining that the difference in cost is too small, or that Dell hasn't chosen their favourite Linux distro to put on there, doesn't have an AMD processor, blah blah blah.
It's a PC without a preinstalled forcibly-paid-for copy of Windows. So Dell gets Windows for cheap, you don't see a huge price difference, but all those people who wanted an MS-free PC can now buy one. You can't possibly be upset by that, can you???
Game dev and music blog
Open Source PC?? What if I already own a copy of Windows, simply _replace_ my current PC with a new one and use this copy of Windows. I don't want to pay a new copy of Windows each time I _replace_ my PC...
I can already buy a PC from my local "PC clone" vendor without Windows on it (Windows price removed) , so why is Dell, HP, IBM... can't do it?
In the past, PC makers that offered non-MS variants were allegedly punished by MS with higher prices, delayed access to info on future MS OSes, etc. That both Dell and HP are offering machines with Linux suggests that the power has shifted, that MS needs HP and Dell more than those big PC makers need MS.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Clearly AMD can't support the load of having customers therefore we regret to inform you that we will not offer AMD products ... um...
Self-fulfilling prophecy if you ask me.
If you want real choice just find your local vendors and get them to order what you want. You support local business, you get what you want and often you don't pay more [or much more] than the monopoly controlled "wonder box" you get from Dell [et al.]
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.a spx/precn_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
Took less than 5 minutes of looking. Hit *customize* and make it your dream machine.
-everphilski-
Nope, and Dell lost out on a new cluster here because of it. There are 14 nice IBM 1u dual Opterons racked up and running thanks to Dell's stubborn line in the sand on CPUs.
Trolling is a art,
I have a Dell Premier login so I can configure machines for our company, and send the e-quote to our purchasing rep. Dell lists a bunch of "standard configurations" on the first page. If I choose an Optiplex GX 520 MT and configure it, for example, it costs more than if I go under Systems and choose the Optiplex GX 520 MT there. Some comparisons ... moving from the 40GB SATA hard drive to an 80GB SATA II hard drive costs $16.15, and changing to an optical mouse costs $11.90 on the standard configuration GX 520. If I do the same by going under Systems, the hard drive upgrade costs $11.25 and the mouse upgrade costs $10.50.
Shenanigans is right!
if they put in a Nvidia card for the linux users.
Its not just the price of XP Media Center you're taking into consideration there. There are a slew of vendors who pay to have their software and adware preinstalled on a new PC coming from a manufacturer such as Dell - all that crapware figures into the overall equation. If there's no OS, then there's no crapware included.
I received a Dell XPS last month and it came with no less than 7 media players for playing music (and the only one I wanted, iTunes, wasn't one of them). (I use the term adware above to refer to Real Advertiser which is included with virtually any PC with Windows as an OS from a manufacturer; I think the actual purpose of said program is to play video or music, albeit at really shitty quality, but I've never made it past the advertisements to find out.)
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." - Tao of Programming
Now Dell is promoting piracy! Hasn't Microsoft told us that selling machines without Windows just means that people install pirated copies of their OS? :-)
Volume pricing on a windows license is about $30. We've covered this before. The price differential should be exactly $30 - it is - Dell is being honest (good for them).
-everphilski-
How can you tell? Well, for starters, you can buy the same system with a hard disk twice the size with a 17" LCD monitor and Windows Media Center Edition for the same price.
More importantly, the 510n comes with an ATI card that will be difficult to get to work properly with X.org (dunno if Xi Graphics is still in business), whereas the 510 uses an Intel chipset that, while not great, will probably work better.
And why not simply install a popular Linux distribution on it from the get go? They could "brand" it simply by adding a package with Dell-logo wallpapers, themes, and icon sets.
Dell's just grubbing for some positive press.
This can only spell one thing. Big trouble in little Dell!!
:-)
Micro$oft will undoubtedly begin the legal proceedings against Dell due to the fact that the fundamental purpose behind FreeDOS was to be able to run those old MSDOS programs!!! Microsoft wants em dead... dead... dead. Dell is just helping now to promote software piracy by mitigating users to continue to use those old MSDOS games and heaven forbid... Word for MSDOS!
Cheers
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
I would have bought this earlier this year, as it stands I bought a Dimension 3.2G box for less than 500$. I DID NOT want to buy a machine with XP already installed on it, but get this; it was 80$ CHEAPER to buy the same machine with Windows than a 'naked' machine with a freeDOS option! I guess it's supply and demand, but it still irks the hell outta me that I paid the MS 'tax' and continued the 'look at home many ppl buy machines with XP installed!' FUD. Can these "Open" machines compete in price with Dell's (constantly) adverstised special? If not, I can't see too many ppl paying more for a machine with no OS vs a cheaper machine with XP (That I immediately installed over - no, I didn't look into the 'rebate' - sounds like it's a hassle anyway).
fak3r.com
I just love that the use an ATI video card, an audigy sound card, and a Serial ATA drive. If you can pack more difficult components for linux into a single box I would be very surprised. Most distributions seem to have the USB issue under control, but the rest is laughable. The price is also out of this world.
Ross Winn "not just another ugly face..."
This isn't news (Dell has always had OS options). The real news will be when Apple offers machines with a choice of operating systems. Then we will be able to see how much the cost of the OS tax is on the Mac.
Remember... in slashdot land:
Lack of Microsoft choice = bad
Lack of Apple choice = brilliant
With a trampoline, you take off your shoes first.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
I've noticed the same thing.
:)
While personally I probably won't buy a PC from Dell one way or the other, at least not a desktop, I'm happy to see that they've taken this small step.
I could see this model appealing to people (admittedly, a small market) who are interested in playing with Linux but don't want to assemble their own system, for either technical or personal reasons, e.g. it's not worth their time for the money saved.
Rather than viewing it as a half-step less than Dell should have taken, I'd prefer to view it as a half-step more than they could have. After all, if they hadn't done this, we never would have noticed. It just would have been business as usual.
To me personally, I hope that it will encourage other models to be sold like this as well, particularly from other vendors (IBM/Lenovo, do you hear me?). This is mostly because I'm more in the market for a notebook right now than another desktop, and I prefer IBM to Dell, but I'm still not going to slam Dell for doing the right thing, even in a small way. That just seems counterproductive.
But then again, this is Slashdot -- counterproductivity is the name of the game.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
But where does Dell guarantee that it will even run Linux with 100% of the hardware working?
Maybe *that* is why they don't bundle Ubuntu or Fedora with it...?
I'd rather go with something like Sun's Ultra 20, which comes with Solaris pre-installed and is certified to run Solaris, Linux (RedHat), and Windows.
Nice to see Steve Ballmer is posting as A.C. again.
In the past year or two, a number of "hot deals" sites have featured Dell's low-end servers without pre-installed OS at nice prices in the $249-$349 range.
I recall model numbers 400SC and SC420 among others, decent Intel motherboards that you'd otherwise find in Dell's mid- to top workstations, P4 1.8 to 2.8 Ghz, various combos of RAM and HD, some bundles with flat panels, free shipping, etc. I remember one deal for the 400SC with buy-one-get-one-free 10K 70 gig SCSI drives; another deal for dual CPU low-end servers.
These make very nice desktops for the average business or home user - certainly they're a step above what Dell normally sells in the big ads in the consumer marketplace for roughly the same cash.
As with many hot-deals, you'll find plenty of these units - parted out and not - on eBay. The shipping is crazy, but the overall price is often still low.
Curator of the Jefferson Computer Museum http://www.threedee.com/jcm
This touches on something I've been thinking about sending to Ask Slashdot.
I'm sort of over the whole "building my own machine" thing. I'd like to buy a box that meets the following requirements.
1. Doesn't include windows.
2. Built from "standard" components. (I.e. I don't have to buy a Dell power supply if I need a replacement.)
3. All included hardware natively supported by stable Linux. (I.e. no lame ndis wrapper. I guess I'll probably have to live with binary-only video drivers.)
Can anybody recommend a vendor?
-Peter
Dell has offered this choice to volume and channel sales for many years. The reason they sell it to you with FreeDOS is because their bulk license agreement with Microsoft forbids them from selling OS-less machines. This volume option was intended for two specific markets:
1. People purchasing tons of desktops for organizations with streamlined IT management with pre-defined system images, so they could pull the machine out of the box, put the image and send it to the proper user. Saves them a few minutes per machine in setup.
2. People purchasing tons of cheap reliable boxes intended to run a non-Microsoft OS. Think you just started your dream business as a hosting provider and you wanted to buy 500 $299 Dell servers.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
People commenting here seem to think that Dell owes them. Why on Earth (as some people have suggested) would Dell jeopodize their profits in order to satisfy an open source addicted minority? People have to remember, Dell are in it for one thing: making money. I'm not saying that they're little money grubbing Bill clones, hell bent on open source destruction. But at the end of the day, if you're going to sell more and make more money when your selling Windows, you're not going to put much time or energy into anything else.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Because FreeDOS is "neutral". That, and it happens to be compatible with some older games Joe Six-pack might have if he were to buy this to save money.
Were that I say, pancakes?
Ah yes, the ubiquitous cost-plus pricing.
Who ever said this maximizes profits? In fact it usually doesn't.
Suppose Dell is selling only two products: Computer W and Computer N, which differ only in that W has Windows, and N has no OS. Presumably, Dell would set prices (pX, pN) on those two computers to maximize profits. Anyone who has taken a sufficiently advanced economics (or pricing) course would know that the profit maxmizing prices could differ by virtually any amount. That is, pX-pN need not be $30 (the cost of Windows). In fact the difference could even be less than $30, depending on consumer preference!
(Here's an extreme example. Suppose we finally reach Slashdot Utopia: everyone uses Linux. In such a world, Dell could not sell Computer W at any price higher than Computer N's price! pX-pN would actually be negative in this extreme example. Now this is not a realistic example, but it illustrates why "cost-plus pricing" may not be profit maximizing.)
So why is Dell dropping the price by exactly $30? *Shrug* Probably to keep goodwill with the masses who think cost-plus pricing is somehow "fair". No math can overcome that factor.
Very few customers are going to specifically look for the Open Source desktops (as a whole). Dell knows this. If you look, they started the packaging off differently for their Open Source systems than they did for their Windows ones. They actually start off being more expensive. So, since they also didn't start off with equal hardware, you changed the configurations until they matched in spec. Surprise, price difference!
Well, you're not dealing so much with "this proves the licensing cost," as you are with "this proves that I can stretch my dollar further at McDonald's by getting a value meal." It's all about packaging. Manufacturers just as fast food companies want to reward customers for fitting a mold and making it easier for their workers to make generic things.
Go to your local dealership and spec out a base model car with all the premium model options added, you'll find that, aside from getting wry looks from the salesman, you'll be paying a lot more. Does that prove that the NAV system that comes as an option has more licensing fees than the one in the Luxury package? No. The price difference is specifically related to the manufacturers desire not to have to custom build vehicles if they can avoid it. It's also to try to convince people that getting a little more for another chunk of money is a value. Lastly, it's to try and squeeze money from the rube who doesn't know any better.
I tend to think that Dell is really focusing on that last point. They know that only a certain number of people will compare the two systems. How many paying customers are going to notice or care that there's a $30 difference? Especially when the base model Windows machine is cheaper.
Another bonus is that when you by from the small business side the prices are somewhat lower
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
I'll stick to building my own PC's. Been doing it since I was a teenager, and I have no desire to buy a big name PC. Plus, I don't trust what they put in there. I've seen the inside of several low/mid range Dells, Gateways, Compaqs, etc. With the exception of the very new Compaqs (from HP), most of them use cheapo generic parts, inadequate cooling, etc. Sans-OS or not, they don't interest me. I like to know exactly what I put in there. Also I don't have to send my PC's off to some "authorized repair center" where some PFY will likely erase the hard drive and reinstall everything to "fix" it.
Just my two cents.
Seriously.
Everytime I've tried to do a 'naked' install on a 'brand-name' low-cost system, I end up with driver problems, either with Windows or Linux.
Something is *always* futzy. You *always* end up downloading strange roll-up drivers from the manufacturer, and they never seem to work properly. Basic things like suspend/resume end up being flaky unless you can figure out the exact set of drivers your system has been certified 'workable' with; this is true even down to the revision!
Sony, Dell, HP, Compaq, the lot of them. In the low-end market, these machines feel like crap.
I thought the purpose of buying a system with a pre-install was so that you didn't have to go throught that hassle?
Mind you, I haven't had near as many problems with the higher end stuff.
It's been awhile since I've purchased one of these, however, so I can't be sure.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
In sales meetings with Dell enterprise reps, when they present product roadmaps, there is always some young turk who wants to impress the boss with how cutting edge he is. He's the one who asks "Well, are you going to offer these with the new AMD chip? It has SEVENTEEN superpoop pipelines and HyperMondo logic AND it measures your pupil dialation and then makes coffee if it senses that you're too tired to read one more page of slashdot. Well, are you going to offer it?"
For as long as I've been going to these meetings, the answer from Dell has been the same: "We'll offer AMD when they can support our production volume and comply with our JIT order process." For five years now they've been saying the same thing. Dell got the message- they don't care about the GHz battle. They don't care how many superpoop pipelines the chip has. They don't care about whether or not it implements the latest instruction set tweaks.
All Dell cares about is that when they place an order, the order gets filled, immediately, no questions asked- which is important, becuase Dell assembly plants sit on less than 24 hours of inventory for any given part. AMD doesn't have the fab capacity or logistics systems to meet that demand criteria, and Intel does. End of story.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
http://overat.blogspot.com/2004/09/desktop-pc-vend ors.html
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The last time I tried to take one of their desktop machines apart.. Well.. I couldn't.. Half of the case was locked in by some hidden mechanism and the motherboard appeared to be epoxyed onto the surface of the frame. Not to mention that the only reason the other side even came off in the first place was because it was at one point very forcably removed. I wish they'd also make these things servicable by users. Talk about vendor lock in..
When I bought a Dell this year, I requested dual booting so I could have Windows and Linux. -Yes sometimes Windows is better to use. I'm a realist on the OS not a fanatic. I dont like Windows anymore than the next intelligent person, but they have such a hammerlock on so much out there that sometimes it is more efficatious to use them, like for mmorgs.- Anyhow, Dell said they did not support dual booting. The machine came with a Windows xp, and a lot junk an AOL hookup, MacAfee virus protec, etc.. It would really be nice if Dell would support some meaningful things like dual booting.
whoa whoa whoa, ease back there. I'm not attacking you, I'm attacking the silly chip marketing garbage that we all have to put up with. Just because I'm typing this on a machine that's running a P3600MHz on a 440BX chipset doesn't mean I'm a luddite or a troll. And yes, I have an Athlon 900MHz box right next to it. Yes, I agree that Intel and MS are both evil and that Dell is propping up both of their illegal monopolies.
The problem is that Dell doesn't have a social conscience. What they do have is a very successful business model, built in part on top of very rigorous control of their supply chain. It would be downright irresponsible of Dell to jeopardize that business by making a decision based on some trendy marketing gimmick- whether that gimmick is called "HyperThreading" or "Predictive Poopchute Execution." Yes, I'm being glib with my choice of terms, but the point is that when an enterprise is making a long-term technology decision, the detailed implementation of that technology is often transparent to the ultimate decision-makers. Dell knows this and has accepted that sometimes technical superiority plays second fiddle to production capacity.
As a for-example, consider a large business deciding to buy ERP software- do they buy Oracle or do they buy SAP? Let's look at this from 3 levels- end user, technology architecture, and CIO. The end-users don't care whether the code runs on IBM, Dell, or HP- and they shouldn't need to care. The hardware layer is ideally transparent to them. All the end-user should care about is whether the application does the job they need it to do without getting in the way of actual work.
Zoom out to a different level: the architecture guys probably care a lot about whether it's IBM or Dell, but they probably don't worry too much about what chip is inside that box as long as the box has the cojones to support the load of running the application. All they care about is if the application goes down becuase there are too many concurrent users, or someone at the colo kicks the plug out, or someone ouside the datacenter digs up the cable with a backhoe. As long as ther are no bugs in the chips, the actual chips inside the boxes running the application are transparent to them.
Now, zoom way out to the CIO level: the CIO cares about overall cost, and he cares about perception of success. The CIO's job is to make sure that the technology STAYS transparent to the end users. Now, he knows that if there are delays in implementation or roll-out, his team will take the blame and probably bear the cost. So his biggest concern after the initial choice is made is keeping the project running on schedule, to avoid the perception of delay and cost overruns due to techology complications. Assuming for the moment that SAP and Oracle are equally easy to roll-out, inservice, and admin, and equally easy for the end-users to use, the CIO's biggest concern is picking a server vendor who delivers products on schedule without any hiccups. He knows that HP is all fucked up from a corporate perspective, and they need 5+ weeks lead time on new boxes, and they're having delivery problems, so he's not picking HP. That leaves Dell and IBM as serious contenders.
He doesn't give a shit about Hyperthreading or Intel vs. AMD because it doesn't impact his decision at all... that is, unless he picks Dell, and Dell pushes boxes with AMD, and then AMD has supply problems and Dell can't ship his boxes on time... Dell knows from experience that the CIO won't blame AMD, he'll blame Dell. It only takes one story about a project that's 6 months late and $5 million overbudget because of the missed Dell delivery timelines, and all those CIO's out there go back to IBM as a default choice.
That's why Dell can't run with AMD in ANY of their boxes- Dell is still trying to prove to John Q.CIO that they're a serious player in the enterprise space. There is still a widely-held perception that Dell computers are, as a whole, a bunch of s
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
This is incorrect. Michael Dell himself invested $100m into Red Hat, not Dell itself. They are different entities.
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/09/ 1221229&tid=110&tid=98&tid=106
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?