Pre-Installed Linux Tops Dell Customer Requests

dhart writes "Within only a few days of Dell opening a new customer feedback website, they discovered that the feature most requested (by an almost 2-to-1 margin!) is an option on all new Dell PCs: pre-installed Linux. (And the number 3 request is pre-installed Open Office.) I believe they'll have a harder time now with the tired old mantra 'There's no customer demand for Linux.'"

Comments

Their system configurator

[suso]

That's cool. But one thing that has always annoyed me about their server configuration utility is that you can select "no operating system, Linux configuration", but there are some hardware options that don't work with that option and so you have to select the microsoft config. So much for getting some extra counts for
the Linux side

Re:Their system configurator

[rklrkl]

Funny, whenever my company orders Dell Poweredge servers with the no OS option, that's all I have do (how you can have a "Linux configuration" when there's no OS shipped with it?). Slap on CentOS 4.4 and you have an enterprise level OS (a clone of RHEL 4) for no extra cost. And, yes, the Poweredge hardware is fully supported by the enterprise Linux distros in case you're wondering.

A quick check shows that the "No OS, RHEL $0" and "No OS, Windows $0" options are only on the US www.dell.com site. If you go via the UK www.dell.co.uk site you far more sensibly just get a single "Not included [included in price]" no-cost/no-OS option.

Re:Which distro?

[gormanly]

Dell ships workstations and servers with Red Hat Enterprise Linux preinstalled and re-sells the support contracts.

End-user boots up, configures their system (as they'd have to do with Windows on first boot) and logs in. The RHN updates icon tells them when patches are available (if they don't have a sysadmin to take care of all that). Easy as pie.

Re:Requests != demand

[profplump]

You're correct in assuming that most people buying machine from Dell probably *are* happy without a pre-installed linux configuration option, but that doesn't mean the statistics in the poll aren't representative of some portion of Dell's actual machine-buying customers, or that the poll results are somehow rigged or invalid. All the statistics say is that, of people not happy with the existing configuration options, the most popular change request is pre-installed Linux, not that most customers would prefer Linux to Windows. Having Windows pre-installed is not a change, and therefore that configuration option is not represented in the statistics.

Re:Linux flavors A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I work for Dell.

Believe me. If you order 500 computers, you can get any commercially available OS for a PC installed. It's called CFI or custom factory integration. Ask your salesperson about it.

The catch is that Dell will not support the OS unless it is one that is offered by Dell. Only the hardware is supported.

The difficulty is being able to support every distro of Linux. It's impossible. I say that one is picked, say Ubuntu and support that with proper drivers and support.

Re:The Indian tech support is worse.

[geekboybt]

Not to feed the trolls, but here goes anyways... Have you actually called their support? Or, a better question - are these actual servers (PowerEdge) or desktops standing in as servers? I've called them many times, for servers that only cost $1k to ones over $6k. Every time I've gotten an American English speaking rep from Texas. Yes, even on Christmas morning and the machine's technically out of warranty. Cheap desktops get you cheap support. Real servers get you real support. You get what you pay for.