Dell's Open Source Desktop Systems

An anonymous reader writes "An article at XYZComputing goes over Dell's open source line of desktop computers and workstations. The N line is something which Dell began to sell recently, but the situation is much more complex that it would seem. There is often little or no discount given if consumers opt to go with FreeDOS as their operating system. There is also a great link in the article showing how Dell is selling AMD processors in their Accessories section!" From the article: "A major hurdle preventing the growth of Linux with non-professional users has been installation the operating system and dealing with the resultant compatibility issues. An ideal solution to this would be a major manufacturer which is willing to sell computers with Linux preinstalled. This would not only make it easy for users to buy a computer and have Linux running after simply plugging it in, but it would theoretically allow the manufacturer to lower the cost of a computer because software licensing costs could be minimized."

Comments

Re:Dell and Linux support

[RingDev]

Exactly what I was about to post. The cost of supporting know-nothing users on Linux would be huge. Considering they would have to either retrain or hire a decent number of their support staff on Linux, their specific distro, their drivers, other hardware (acceptability lists).

Yes, the upfront cost for the PC would be lower, but the cost of revamping and maintaining the support would be significantly higher. Like the parent said, if they want to sell a turn-key linux PC, they need to go with a paid linux distro that already has the support structure to handle that kind of volume.

-Rick