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?"
More importantly, isn't anyone else tired of hearing about why or why not? Enough already, no one really cares.
Linux isn't really for the faint hearted, and is an absolute nightmare to maintain if the user is used to MS bloatware.
Many MS users don't know what a driver is or where to find one, what do they do when their new printer doesn't come with linux-compatible drivers?
He brings up a good point with the difficulties of providing tech support. Maybe Dell should offer computers with blank drives and let the buyer select a distro cd to ship with it, with the explicit instruction that tech support relating to software issues won't be availible.
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.
This has been answered many times. The people who know enough to know that they want a different distro can figure out how to get it on there. Therefore, they can pick a noob-friendly distro (like Fedora or Ubuntu), thereby guaranteeing the existence of drivers for the hardware. The rest of us who want to be all l33t and install Debian, Gentoo or even Linux From Scratch can figure it out ourselves.
It's all about hardware that works. It's great that I could buy a computer with Ubuntu on it, but you know I'm going to format it the second it comes though the door and install what I want. When I install what I want, I WANT it to work, because the kernel has supported that hardware since version 2.6.whatever.
Dell supports windows all the time, as part of their business, and you presume to say they don't know how it's done?
<ANECDOTAL>
Based on my one time calling tech support (in Bangalore, I assume), Yes, I'd be willing to say that they don't know how it's done!
</ANECDOTAL>
OK, They know how it's done (let script monkeys handle the caller), but they don't know how it's done *RIGHT*.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Dell supports their PC's and will try to make sure the device is working but will not sit there and try to support every different Microsoft app that there is. They only try to support basic functionality and basic apps and stick to security, integration and general software maintenance.
So how is this different from supporting Linux? All they have to do is create a knowledgeable support staff, good knowledge base and they'll have pretty much the same thing they have for Windows. It's really not that hard once they make the decision as to what distro they are going to support, strike a deal with the distro's maintainers, and maybe even farm out the support to the distros maintainers or a third party. Pretty simple when you think about it.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
His suggestion of starting a company is simply to highlight that there is A LOT of effort involved and that even a company like Dell likely can't see much business benefit in trying to go down this road. If Dell cannot do it with their cookie-cutter approach to most everything, then a completely different approach is needed and the author is suggesting that the collective figure that part out.
And by "cannot do it", I mean "cannot come up with a viable business plan". There is a very limited market for Linux on cheap PCs; what market there is would have extremely small profit margins; what market there is is further fragmented between the distros and desktops; and the training for a support organization would be next-to-killer to set up. How many Linux gurus do you know that want to either man phones or want to write up support scripts?
I'd love to see reasonably priced PCs come out with a stable, robust, well documented Linux distro. Unfortunately at this juncture, I don't know of one (yes, I run Ubuntu and Fedora...no they aren't well enough documented for a corporation to venture into supporting a disperate class of users).
The majority of people I know that run Linux exclusively are very picky about the boxes they run on. Most either built their own or completely spec'ed them out themselves. Dell simply would not be a place that these folks would buy from. Myself, I run Linux on just about any kind of box...but I'm not out to run bleeding edge apps on them, I simply want a shell, a text editor and some server software.
I would gladly buy a Dell with Linux, but there aren't enough of me to support a business model for Dell. I don't know what the overhead of them setting up a product line is, but I suspect that they'd have to yield many hundreds of millions of dollars to make it worth their while.
It's a simple matter of complex programming.
I hope parent is merely a troll (Grandma + config file is rapidly turning into a troll meme) but I'll bite. 1998 called; they want their lack of GUI configuration tools back.
On my Ubuntu box, I have had to manually edit configuration files to do two things:
- Install and configure beta software
- Install and configure Apache + MediaWiki
- Configure Vi
The one other type of config file I've had to edit regularly in the recent past are xorg.conf files. A computer that comes with Linux preinstalled would never need xorg.conf twiddlery; reconfiguring it when you upgrade your graphics cards isn't a particularly difficult thing to do (If you're the sort of person who is likely to upgrade your own hardware, then you can do it).The real reason Dell won't offer Linux PCs is plainly that it's not a good deal for them. It would mean more expensive Windows licenses, and it would mean less money for them from all the people paying them to bundle crapware with their boxes. The only way to have good, high-quality Linux PCs is to have an OEM willing to sell nothing but Linux boxes. Preferably one willing to sell well-designed, high-end computers and laptops with fully compatible hardware and pre-installed, thoroughly tested desktop environments and proprietary format support. Hopefully, packaged with a nice manual and long-term tech support for a particular set of "supported" packages too (Like Canonical does with Ubuntu).
Hey, I can dream.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.
I'm surely gonna get troll rated for this, but it needs to be said...
/. going over to the polls on the Dell opinion site and clicking "Yes" thousands of times. [Or did you not realize that advocacy groups can astroturf as well as corporate groups?]
I've been there done that. Had an Amiga, used Linux and so forth at one time or another. I remember with the Amiga how many of us wrote letters to Software, Etc. or other companies begging them to support our computers. And then the demand never materialized as we claimed it would. So eventually, the Amiga was dropped to the dustbin of history. After buying a PC, I came to realize that the Amiga really wasn't "better", it was simply different. advanced in some ways, behind in others.
The Linux "demand" is similar. It's largely just astroturfing, rather than real demand from customers. It's people from
I'm fairly certainly Dell understands this. They've been around a long time. At one time they even release their own version of System V which was highly regarded in the industry. So they're not unfamiliar with Unix. They've also at various times offered machines without operating systems, or even with Linux.
But the demand wasn't there, which is why they keep falling back to the position they are in, and why despite freeping their poll they are unlikely to listen to it. Maybe they will, and if they do, you'd better start buying your machines from Dell to backup your poll answers.
As for open source advocates starting up their own company to sell machines. It's been tried. It was called VA Linux. They changed their name, abandoned selling computers and now run sourceforge.
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...
There is a horribly easy solution for this "problem": Support only one major distro, yet make sure that all hardware included with the PC is compatible with Linux. Slap a "Linux Certified" sticker on the damn thing and quite a few people will buy it. If they're more advanced, then they'll appreciate the fact that when they install their favorite distro instead of whatever the PC comes with, they won't have to hunt down a forum thread that points to an obscure hardware driver that is still in alpha, because they know that the hardware will "Just Work (tm)." If they're new to computers, or are the "A computer is an appliance" type, they won't have any need to switch from the supplied distro to anything else in the first place. It's a win win situation.
Either this guy didn't think his objections through very well, or he is just spouting FUD and hoping people take it at face value.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Grandma is fifty, and working full time. Grandma is seventy, a senior volunteer at the local library or community hospital. Grandma can't be ignored.
Have you used linux in the last 5 years? Save slackware, every distro I have seen had a GUI app that did at least those things, some better than others, but all did most to some extent. SAX worked the best from what I seen (much better than windows)... but I didn't go very far with ubuntu, so I can't say about that. Fedora kind of has lame GUI config tools... but fedora isn't grandma's linux, ether.
Great Intellect...
Dell has also seen awesome OEM system sales for Windows.
---along with digital cameras, printers, monitors and HDTV, anything, really, that can be marketed as a Windows peripheral.
OEM Linux disappears from Walmart.com for three simple reasons:
Entry level for Vista at Walmart is a $500 Celeron laptop. Vista Premium is a $900 dual-core laptop from Toshiba.
OEM Linux doesn't significantly undercut Windows on price, doesn't sell worth a damn anyway and there is nothing to drive after-market sales. No iTunes for Linux. No Windows Home Server. No XBox 360. No HD-DVD. No Grand Theft Auto.
"The real reason Dell won't offer Linux PCs is plainly that it's not a good deal for them."
The real reason Dell won't offer Linux PCs is because the people who use Linux would prefer to build their own computer. Why duplicate the infrastructure?
Let's face it: businesses looking at Linux aren't equally considering 100+ distros. They're looking at maybe 5. And those five distros are close enough where Dell could easily cross-train their technicians to offer support for all of them. Using the argument that there are just too many distros is silly because most of those distros are either specialized or not even considered when a business looks at Linux. The promise of "Linux on the Desktop" will never really come true until a major vendor is willing to jump in with both feet and really push a distro (or a few distros) forward. IBM had this chance and missed it. I really don't think Dell is going to be able to pull it off either because they aren't serious enough. They could, but they won't.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
reconfiguring it when you upgrade your graphics cards isn't a particularly difficult thing to do
Bzzt, wrong answer.
I've said it before, I'll say it again:
If you want Linux to be mainstream-friendly, one of the absolute must-haves is that the user must NEVER EVER EVER, any any circumstances, have to either (1) edit a text config file by hand, or (2) use the command line.
No exceptions, no "most of the time" situation, no "power users only" weasel words. Config files and command lines are OK for developers, but not for mainstream users -- end of story.
I'll get flamed for it, but I speak the truth.
"Start your own company and do it yourself?" The market is saturated- there's already a large number of major OEM computer manufacturers.
But there are no companies that are selling support to a Linux distro on Dells. Here's how it plays out, in familiar slashdot formatting:
1: Pick several models of Dells
2: Pick your favorite Linux distro and get make an image tweaked for models in step 1
3: Sell support contracts for said install image to others whose favorite distro is the same as your
4: Maybe make a little profit but more likely spend half your time explaining why you picked distro X instead of Y and the other half of the time trying to figure out what when wrong when the users heavily modified and recompiled your carefully tweaked image in bizarre ways without admitting to doing so when they call for support.
Debian Etch:
aptitude install nvidia
OK, I could have used a GUI shell, but why make more work for myself?
Tech Public Policy stuff
If you want Windows to be user-friendly, one of the absolute must-haves is that the user must NEVER NEVER NEVER, under any circumstances:
Follow me
Unless you think configuring using the registry, the necessity of the installation of antivirus and firewalls (with all their arcane messages and terminology) and all what implies using a Windows machine is infused at birth.
Some folks around here seem to think that Windows is *naturally* easy.
I have got news for you guys, it isn't. But this is masked by the myriad of people mildly familiar with it.
Grandmas that are introduced to Linux as their first computing experienc (hi mum!) can cope perfectly well with the tool of the penguin, and people suggesting otherwise are patronizing ageists.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
My father is 76, he was programming back in 1965 on the BMEWS systems
Just because some of you have ignoramusses for parents and grandparents does not mean all parents and grandparents are clueless when it comes to IT...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
You're right, because it's absolutely impossible to acquire a PC without Windows these days.
Maybe nobody wants to mass market them because they're *gasp* not in demand! Shame on them for not basing their business decisions on your personal ideology. I mean, really...
=Smidge=
The obvious proof that it is difficult to set up a secure windows machine is the millions of Windows zombies on the net. If things were as rosy as you claim, we would not have this problem.
I'm not too sure your conclusion nesseceraily follows from your evidence. It could be easy to set up a secure Windows machine, but people might still not do it, for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they are ignorant of the dangers posed, perhaps they just can't be bothered (I think ignorance is the most likely, by the way).
All I ever did to secure my windows machines was install Zone Alarm. It has a lovely, brightly coloured, non intimidating installation dialog, lets you choose your experience level, uses a minimum of jargon and automatically configures itself to allow standard stuff through (IE, Firefox, etc). It's as simple as anything I have ever installed.
In any case, any windows PC you buy nowadays ships with SP2, and will have a firewall turned on by default. Really, most malware is installed by end users intentionally, although not knowingly, when they download and install toolbars, smilies, P2P clients and the like. It is virtually impossible for the OS to protect the end user from this sort of thing, and Linux is no different in this regard.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks