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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?"
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.
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.
When cars first came out, they broke down all the time, and every driver was also his own mechanic. This persisted through to the 60s when men were still expected to be able to fix a car by pulling up the hood and futzing about. You also saw a lot of opining about the internals of how cars should be put together.
Then Toyota showed up, and made cars that stopped breaking down. Gradually, nobody was hyper-opinionated about the internals of cars, till we get to the point today where nobody but Toyota dealership can actually understand the internals.
Same with Linux distros. We've been so starved of turnkey solutions for so long, that we're all hyper knowedgable distro experts! Just like the early auto operator/mechanics. Of course these people are going to have fine-grained and diverse favorites.
When someone gets a new laptop and figures out that its "good enough", they'll stop worrying that it doesn't have Slack (or whathaveyou), and just appreciate its "good enough"ness. This can't happen from the demand side, the supply side has to lead the way. Then the userbase of Linux will change. Then we'll start to complain bitterly. Remember when AOL happened and the Internet started to suck? That fate awaits Linux too.
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And anywho, nobody's asking them to support every possible distribution for their computers. They're asking for two things:
1) support SOME distro, it doesn't matter what it is
2) open source any hardware wierdness you control, stuff like sleep/suspend, software volume control buttons, and whatnot. Just put that stuff out there and all the big distros will automatically move to support you. That's what distros do.
We're not asking, say, Toshiba to create a huge linux compile farm and put out Toshutils for every distro. Just expose the API, create a reference implementation, and let the community do the rest.
Dell supports windows all the time, as part of their business, and you presume to say they don't know how it's done?
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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!
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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.
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.
BSD doesn't have distributions. At least not in the same way that Linux does, wghere its pretty much the same kernel with differet packages distributed with it.
The BSDs are all different operating systems, with diferent designs, different objectives, different philosophies, differet kernels, different stregths and weakness and different purposes. The diference between on BSD and another is far greater than say ditro X ad distro Y, where asidefrom the package manager and default packageset, its the samething under the hood. Take FreeBSD vs. OS X for example. They're indeed both BSDs, but they'recompletely different OSes, not distributions of BSD4.4.
Back to the point:
Ruling out OS X, FreeBSD is the only BSD geared explicitly to desktop/workstation/server use, as is developed primarily on x86. The rest focus on uber-specialized roles (OpenBSD = paranoid security, netBSD = it'll run on anything under the sun, but since they only need it to run on Dells, who cares?, MicroBSD/PicoBSD = embeded devices and boot floppies, OpenDarwin isn't developed anymore, MirOS/PCBSD/DesktopBSD are all FreeBSD spinoffs, and still in their early infancy, e.g. also ruled out).
Ergo, GF is right. FreeBSD does solve the "distribution sprawl", since its the only one built for the role in question.
I very much doubt the support issue is the problem. If enough people would buy it Dell could just start the Dell Computer Expert line and make it damn clear that you don't order one unless you know what your doing and their is no support on anything but the hardware. Hell if they were worried enough about their name they could just sell them under some name other than Dell.
I suspect the problem is economic.
For starters I bet people demanding linux are far more willing to voice demands than they are to put up money. I bet tons of the people who asked dell to offer a linux PC wouldn't really buy one. They might like linux but when it comes time to buy a new computer they decide to dull boot and realize it's cheaper just to buy the computer preloaded with windows. Even if this isn't the case the possibility that linux advocates make more noise than they would buy computers is something Dell must consider.
Secondly Dell doesn't have apps to sell people who buy linux only boxes printer ink and all sorts of other high margin items. If anything the problem is they realize the people who buy linux boxes wouldn't buy extended support, at least not the sort of support it was economical to offer. Dell probably has a nearly zero margin on the basic PC and makes up their money on the extras. Why bother selling a linux PC if the purchasers are smart enough not to buy any of the high margin extras?
Finally there is the concern of pissing off MS. Whatever anti-trust rulings MS is constrained by why risk pissing them off unless it would bring you a high margin business?
The issue isn't offering support it is making money!
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
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.
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=
There is always a Windows tax, even on Linux PCs. M$ even used to charge PC manufacturers for Windows based on the number of PCs they SHIPPED, because "all of them would be running Windows eventually". Just try and find a Linux PC cheaper than a Windows PC with the same hardware specs.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.