Slashdot Mirror
Why Dell Won't Offer Linux On Its PCs
derrida sends us to an article in the Guardian by Jack Schofield explaining why he believes Dell won't offer Linux on its PCs. In the end he suggests that those lobbying Dell for such a solution go out and put together a company and offer one themselves. Quoting: "The most obvious [problem] is deciding which version of Linux to offer. There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one — or the same one with a different desktop, or whatever. It costs Dell a small fortune to offer an operating system... so the lack of a standard is a real killer. The less obvious problem is the very high cost of Linux support, especially when selling cheap PCs to naive users who don't RTFM... and wouldn't understand a Linux manual if they tried. And there's so much of it! Saying 'Linux is just a kernel, so that's all we support' isn't going to work, but where in the great sprawling heap of GNU/Linux code do you draw the line?"
I support a bunch of Windows boxes, in addition to a bunch of OpenBSD machines.
As far as Windows and daylight savings goes, XP/2003 boxes were all patched by standard patch-tuesday patches. For win2k it took me a grand total of 15 minutes to research it on MS's website, write (+ copy/paste) a few text files, and roll them out on the Active Directory Domain. Not really tough. There are lots of problems with Windows. Daylight savings time just wasn't a big one.
Dell couldn't manage to support GNU/Linux, but lets not forget that Dell doesn't really support Windows either. Sure it's impossible to explain to your average user that the Internet and their web browser are different things. This doesn't change if the browser is IE or Firefox or Konqueror. However, as a "geek" I regularly need to provide tech support to friends and family. I have a much easier time doing this once I have switched them over to Ubuntu from Windows. It's simply more user friendly and secure. If you are looking for a new PC, I would highly recommend system76, not any big OEM that functions as a division of Microsoft.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
I doubt Dell would have much of a price reduction for systems shipped without windows.
There was that article a while back about people using the EULA clause that required OEMs to refund the money if the user didn't agree to the EULA, the Dell refund was for $53. This would indicate that Dell has a fairly good deal with Microsoft to get Windows at a reduced price (This itself might be a reason for not shipping Linux, as MS could start charging full price again as a retaliation).
The other thing is that Dell can ship with spyware, adware, AOL, Yahoo! toolbar, etc... to get a price reduction, unless they can do the same for Linux, they might actually be loosing money by not shipping Windows depending on how much these packages pay Dell. Although if they pay via usage rather than the number of shipped installs then offering systems without an OS might not matter so much because the systems would probally be getting wiped anyway but if they ship Linux installs then there Windows sales would probably go down with people trying to save money.
cat
For the record, I'm a linux user slightly tainted with a mac laptop. I've been using various distros over the years as desktops and servers. I like linux a lot and I think it is more usable for real work than either windows (ME is my last experience though) or OS X. That said, the summary author (or article author) has a strong point about man pages. They are often very difficult to understand and almost always devoid of examples. The little syntax structure at the top isn't going to help a complete newb and even after 5 or 6 years of linux use, I prefer to find a "howto" than read a man page any day. Anyway, the man page criticism is quite valid.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Several months ago I bought a cheap laptop from Walmart. I found out from Acer's website they had a Linux cd distribution that I could download. What did this mean to me? Everything worked together, including wireless, sound, and accelerated video. Trying a different distribution, like Ubuntu worked without any hassles. Since then, I bought several other laptops from Walmart knowing they took time to make sure their laptops supported a free operating system. They have been the most trouble free units I have had the pleasure of giving my family. Its a shame Dell doesn't latch onto this idea.
None of those things are the domain of "grandma" though. I agree that Xorg is sorely lacking in user-friendliness, though.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.
He brings up a good point with the difficulties of providing tech support.
He ignores the issue that Linux has been much more stable and problem free than Windows. I have been able as a novice to fix a couple items myself on linux such as losing the administrator privilages in Ubuntu. Fixed it with a Hosts file edit. The answer was found on Google. All my hardware works "out of the box" except a couple Windows only items such as the Dell all in one printer and a HP flatbed scanner.
On the other hand things are broken beyond my ability in the Dell desktop of my wife. A prime example is we had a software photocopier installed. It would use the flatbed scanner and print to the default printer. One day I needed to shrink a photo for posting online (100K size limit). I fired up the included photo editor for the very first time and found it was not a full program but a limited function 30 day trial which already expired. This trialware hijacked my flatbed scanner. Opening the photocopier now launches the photo editor preventing the photocopier from getting the scan. It also killed the fax for the same reason. It has been broken over a year now and I still have no idea how to fix it. I have removed the offending program. Now a scan simply brings up a nag screen that Windows can't find the photo editor. Would you like help finding the exe file? Other than needing to re-image the hard drive and losing all my settings, I have not found a fix in a year.
As a fix, I moved the scanner to the Ubuntu box. The photo editor just works. (yea gimp!) So does the photocopier. (Yea sane!)
As a novice Linux user, I have had far fewer unresolved problems on Linux. All my hardware worked out of the box without needing the manufacture's driver disk. This includes my HP printers attached to my LAN on Hawking printservers, my flatbed scanner (Cannon.. The HP didn't work) and my internal flash card reader.
I had a meeting where the guest speaker brought a Power Point presentation. My Windows machine with Office 2000 did not display the presentation properly. The text box appeared all at once instead of bullet by bullet. Switched to the Linux partition and Open Office presented it properly. Later I found the free Power Point viewer from the MS site.
In a nutshell, it takes a lot of money to keep up to date with MS products. (XP or Vista and the new version of Office + updated memory to run it cost about the same as a nice laptop.) Ubuntu makes a nice alternative that works better than older MS products.
As a novice Linux user I have found Ubuntu easier to maintain than Windows. I have used Windows since Version 3.1. I have used Ubuntu since 9 months ago. I have added Flash 7 then 9, added MP3 support, am able to burn ISO CD's without buying an upgrade or searching for an alternative.. The list goes on..
The truth shall set you free!
I'm a Unix/Linux guy myself, but I have to say that you miss the target entirely here if you think that daylight savings time patching is easier on Linux than on Windows.
/usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York to /etc/localtime, then also manually copy a zoneinfo file to etc/localtime in the chroot jails for both named and dhcpd, and restart these daemons, as well as ntpd (time server).
On Windows, patches came with the standard Tuesday updates, and all I had to do was accept installation. Ok, for boxes without outbound internet access, I actually had to copy the patches and install them manually, but that was pointy-clicky-done, with no hassle whatsoever.
On my Linux boxes, I had to install (which for my Gentoo boxes means recompile) a new version of the timezone-data package (Arthur Olson time zones), then manually copy
Then I had to repeat the whole procedure again, because a new version of timezone-data came out, because of bugs in the first one. Then I had to repeat the whole procedure YET again a third time cause the bugfix release wasn't complete. All in 2007.
Then, on Sun boxes, I had to, in addition to a system update, also install a java runtime environment update, because of course java can't use the same timezone data as the system, but has to have its own embedded implementation. And with more than one jre per system, that meant one update per jre instance.
I still prefer Linux and Unix, but it's not easier, and I bet many people forgot to update the zoneinfo files manually for chrooted daemons. Hopefully, most of them will only see odd logging timestamps. (Which in itself can be bad enough, if RIAA asks who used a DHCP IP address at a certain time between now and when the "old" DST kicked in.)
Regards,
--
*Art
The last 2 words of that sentence just drove off 2/3 of Dell's customers. If you need to go to the command line or directly edit ANYTHING in order to fix anything but the most exotic problems, then the software in question is not ready for the mass market.
So how do you explain all the pre-GUI stuff such as DOS? That seemed to do quite will in the mass market.
More important is trying to find proper documentation on the beast called the Windows Registery. I would rather fix a hosts file than try to fix the above problem with my scanner by editing the registery. This brings the question, just how many Windows have random glitches, blue screens, random crashes and such that users can't fix?
There is a diferance between being able to find and use a fix and simply leaving it broken until the next hard drive reformat.
Re-formating should not have to be the single most common Windows fix.
The truth shall set you free!
This chimes with what someone connected to the Japanese government told me, off the record, a few weeks ago. Japanese PC vendors have a clause in their contracts with Microsoft that prevents them from selling PCs without Windows pre-installed. If they violate the contract they have to pay MS a whole lot more for each copy of Windows. My informant told me the contracts are secret, so I have no way of verifying this.
When you upgrade you don't have to edit any configuration files, you only have to edit them once to get it working for your machine.
.conf files as you mention.
If Linux came pre-installed (which it already does. Just not by dell) then the idea is that the configuration files would already be set for your system by the manufacturer so you would not have to edit
Everything would be setup to go for that specific machine out the box. You could even have a disk which reinstalls the operating system still with everything ready to go specific for that machine.
Actually, FreeDOS doesn't come preinstalled. It comes on a CD and there is a paper that says, in a big bold font, the system can't boot until you install an operating system. This paper also says that Dell is giving you FreeDOS without any form of support whatsoever.
Do not anger the worm.
It matters because soon as a major PC manufacturer starts shipping machines without the Windows tax, we can finally get some real competition in the OS world (how ironic that if I want to try free Linux, I usually have to buy Windows - which comes with my PC - and I can't get a discount if I don't want Windows).
Basically - Dell don't offer it because - and I have to be careful here- Dell get a volume discount on the Windows licenses they preinstall. If they start to offer Linux, they'll fall into a lower discount level on Windows and suddenly be uncompetitive in the crucial Windows market.
My experience (in a slightly different sector) of such deals is that they always coincidentally have break points remarkably close to what happens when the reseller starts dealing with a competitor of the dominant vendor. Of course, MS cannot charge Dell more for Windows just because Dell happens to ship some Linux machines, but it can double the price of Windows if Dell falls below a certain sale volume - which they can vary any time they like.
The solution? Manufacturers could [be forced to] [by France?] publish the embedded cost of software which ships with each machine so MS shenanigans could be spotted, but I'm sure plenty of fellow readers will point out the impracticality of that. The alternative is whistle blowers...
It's not exactly in your face as far as visibility, but you can avoid editing xorg.conf at all in Ubuntu by going into Synaptic Package Manager and choosing to configure Xserver-Xorg. It will walk you through a wizard and let you choose several paths based on how advanced you want to get. You can get down to authoring mode lines in it if you want to get that incredibly technical. But you can also easily specify which resolutions and color depths your monitor is capable of if it doesn't detect them automatically.
If you're stuck at a command line and can't run Synaptic, then you can also accomplish the same task with an ncurses (text-mode gui) based interface to the same wizard with:
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
I call bullshit.
1. In no possible situation a graphics card can go into a power-saving mode when you run a wrong driver. You need some ancient ISA graphics card to even make it possible for the wrong driver to TRY to access it -- otherwise PCI IDs won't match, and X will exit with failure.
2. If X server is running on any modern Linux distro, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will merely restart it -- it's started from display manager. If X server failed multiple times, display manager gives you an error in text dialog box, and stops trying. You will see a text login prompt.
3. If X server does not fail, switch to console is Ctrl-Alt-F1.
4. You can always change display driver to "vesa" and use your graphics card in compatibility mode. As opposed to Windows it won't drop you into 640x480, either.
And since only a moron or Windows shill wouldn't know that, I recommend you to shut up.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I've been using windows since '95. I have never, ever, had to edit the registry. Additionally, I can only think of one consumer device for which I was unable to locate drivers, which was a particularly old graphics tablet a friend of mine found in his loft a few years back.
By comparison , I've been using Linux since '99. I have edited more config files than I could hope to count. I had to edit config files on three occasions while setting up the PC I'm typing this on. In addition, I have three consumer devices on this desk that I have been unable to locate drivers for. Actually, one of them I have found drivers for, it just refuses to work, and I gave up trying to figure out why.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks