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Dell To Linux Users — Not So Fast
PetManimal writes to tell us that after all the hubbub over Dell's note about manufacturing Linux-friendly Dells and choosing distros, the company is now telling users not to expect factory-installed Linux laptops and desktops anytime soon. According to the article, Dell says that lining up certification, support, and training will 'take a lot of work.' "The company said today that the note was just about certifying the hardware for being ready to work with Novell SUSE Linux, not an announcement that the computers would be loaded and sold with the operating system in the near future..."
Dude, you're getting a false hope!
More like, somebody at Dell got The Chair.
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
Before we do this, you love me don't you???? Couldn't resist. I'm so getting flamed for this one...
Dell needs to continue listening to its customers, and give me Linux on my Dell (dude). The first step for this should be a Linux hardware forum where they discuss possible chipsets and identify possible incompatibilities before they occur. An open forum by such a large manufacturer may also put some pressure on chip and card manufacturers to open source their drivers.
The Widget of Sticky
Sadly there is trouble with Dell hardware/software even in their 'big business' server sales. We recently bought $60,000 worth of hardware from them - first time our group bought from Dell, and got machines with closed source, YOU CAN'T RELOAD THE OS WITHOUT OUR PROPRIETARY BINARIES software. After talking to some very responsive people in tech support (and politely explaining that we wouldn't buy Dells again without a test machine) they told us that the problem was the LSI SCSI controller software. Different customer service people (all of whom were polite and seemed to listen) kept asking us about the customer satisfaction rating we gave (2 out of 10), but were unable to dig up a 32-bit version of the OS we wanted to run on our Xeon 1950's. Hadn't been certified. They don't quite get it.
This really does worry me - if the linux Dell's do come out and are cheaper with SUSE or whatever distro they go with, I'm sure your everyday Joe will buy it. I worry that everyday Joe will then get stuck if he can't get something working with a GUI. I'm not trolling. I've seen people download windows programs and expect them to run in Linux when they double click setup.exe Its worse if they call the "Windows guru" whose never touched linux and cannot help. If Joe gets really frustrated he "upgrades" to Windows and vows never to try Linux again.
Let Dell take their time because if this is going to work its going to have to be seamless and familiar. I'd actually be thrilled once Dell picks out a distro because thats a big impetus to standardize a lot of things to it, GUI, installer and package manager especially. If you can get a standard cross distro installer and package format, unfortunately like InstallShield, that correctly adds entries for menus, and just works then Linux is really ready for the desktop.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
"Also I've never heard of any issues with laptops or desktops" Then you've never looked very hard. I own a Dell laptop and can say that the overall experience under Linux isn't the same as Windows because of Dell. Dell has custom tweaks in the ATI driver that provides better performance (aside from that fact that Linux ATI drivers suck) as well as adjustments for the LCD that I can't change in Linux. Don't even get me started on my Dell wifi card which is based on a broadcom chipset. Since 2.6.17, I have had native kernel support, but there are still some APs that I can't connect to, for example APs that use shared WEP keys.
People who want linux preloaded also want professional grade support.
And they're going to Dell for this?!?!?!?!?
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
to write the support scripts. Not until they can blame 99% of the problems on the customer will they be prepared to offer support for it. All they excuses they've collected for Windows will be of little use for them, they'll have to start from scratch.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Not to sound like a broken record around here, but why would Dell go out of their way to find components that work on an OS that is in direct competition with the one that ships with (currently) 100% of their hardware?
Something about not biting hands that feed you?
</asbestos chainmail>
Not to sound like a broken record around here, but why would Dell go out of their way to find components that work on an OS that is in direct competition with the one that ships with (currently) 100% of their hardware?
For three simple reasons:
You sell what your users want or you go out of business. What they sell now, contrary to their claim, does not really work with any of their hardware. Indeed, M$ is the source of all bogus compatibility problems, the people who gave you Winmodems and destroyed Alpha (remember 64 bit computing ten years ago?), who trashed Netscape and gave you rampant botnets, who crapped out OpenGL and gave you DirectX version 1 through 10 in far fewer years. I could go on and on, but you get the point. Hardware and software makers like simple and stable interfaces, M$ has done everything in their power to thwart real standardization. Their users know this and want something else.
Something about not biting hands that feed you?
Yes, it's strange but it's really customers that feed Dell, not M$. The only reason Dell does not give their customers what they want is because they are afraid of M$ biting them in the ass, which is already sore from their mistaken loyalty to Intel. As Vista tanks and other vendors start doing well, you will see how backward your thinking was. The fact they are even mentioning gnu/linux means Dell knows where their friends really are.
Ask me again and I'll tell you the same until I see different.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I'm going to run out of town with a mob carrying torches and pitch forks just for saying this, but THIS is why Linux--despite anyones claims--is simply not ready for the desktop.
/. gives them no credit for: Ensuring hardware compatibility--usually "plug & play" style--for nearly anything that you can buy at Best Buy or Dell or CompUSA.
When a guy that has enough knowledge and comfort to actually install and run linux STILL didn't know all the esoteric reasons why you need a specific GPU or WiFi card, etc, how could you ever hope for a regular joe-user to know?
I'm certain that the average user doesn't know a GPU from an IOU and they don't want to know.
Whether or not this is a GOOD thing (i think it is, personally), users are accustom to something that Microsoft does that
When linux can say the same, then you're on to something. Until then, stop evangelizing so much and spend more time writing decent drivers.
The server market--esp. web server--Linux is awesome. But desktops are a different beast. You can argue that the desktop shells for Linux are excellent now--and that was an important piece of the puzzle--but now that users have a desktop they might actually want to USE IT for something, and to do that, they'll need support for networking, optical, and video hardware.