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Dell to Sell Machines with Ubuntu Pre-Loaded
kotj.mf writes "Cnet is reporting that Dell will shortly announce a partnership with Canonical to offer Ubuntu pre-loaded on certain consumer-oriented desktops and notebooks. The announcement comes after a groundswell of support for pre-installed Linux on Dell's IdeaStorm site. 'The company is starting its business by trying to appeal to users of desktop computers. From there, Canonical Chief Executive Mark Shuttleworth has said, the company plans to head to the server market, where the real Linux bread and butter can be found. [Dell spokesman Kent] Cook wouldn't comment on whether Dell plans to offer Ubuntu on its servers as well.'."
I think we owe this to Microsoft. This would never have happened were it not for Vista.
People on the Internet (places like Slashdot in particular) have been begging Dell for this for years. Now, it's time to see how many of those people were doing it just on principle or to be part of the crowd, and how many did it because they actually were planning on purchasing such a box.
Dell may offer this, but I guarantee they won't be advertising it as heavily as they do their Windows boxes, so the only real way for it to work, at least to start off, is for all these people that were begging for Dells with Ubuntu loaded on them to go out and buy a Dell with Ubuntu loaded on it. Joe Blow won't be buying these yet, not until there are enough early adopters out there to generate a buzz.
Now lets see if half of those people that voted for Linux on the ideastorm site actually buy a machine. Because if this flops it will seriously hurt Linux in the mainstream market.
Kilroy was here.
i remember seeing dell machines that offered linux instead of windows in the past.. but the prices were the same or HIGHER for linux! Dell will need to address this, and offer these dellbuntu boxes at lower price. the OS is free! if they need to include a price to cover support costs, it should still not be equal to or greater than the cost of including Vista!
...is a hardware platform that consumers are guaranteed will work with a particular distribution of Linux. It doesn't even matter which one it is as long as it comes, out of the box, ready for use. That's the only thing that, so far, Windows has always had up on any distro of Linux.
Sorry, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Sometimes you just have to take leadership and make a choice. It may not be the perfect choice, but it's a final decision that will get things rolling forward. I already know there will be a billion posts arguing why another distribution is better than another, but the point is moot. Ubuntu is a great distro. There are other distros out there that are great too. Distrowatch ranks it at #1 in popularity. Also, the choice of Ubuntu will make many in the community happy as Ubuntu isn't controversial with its licensing. A high quality, popular, FOSS distro. They could have made other choices, but I think Ubuntu will make the most amount of people happy, is an extremely safe decision, and they only have to support a single distro.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Does it run Li...ooh, it does!
Ubuntu on servers is a bad, bad idea. It'd be like running your hardware on Debian Sid all of the time with neither thought nor care as to the consequences.
I tend to agree with most of your statement. I wouldn't run Feisty on a server, but I would/do run Dapper 6.06 LTS, it's been in the market over a year. I've been running it on a couple production servers for 6 months now, haven't had a single issue with it. At least Ubuntu server doesn't install X by default either, I'm looking at you SuSE and Red Hat.
root@allevil:~#
I've been using it on one of my servers (samba,cups,apache,java,postgresql) and it works quite well. So far, it's been significantly nicer to deal with than the CentOS 4.x install it replaced.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2007/03 /29/linux_on_dell
(To the tune of "Road to Hell")
Well I'm here to place an order
But there's a choice I don't know
It's weathered every crisis you can think of
And I came here to buy Vista
But the Windows joy I know
Is priced beyond belief way down in the shadows
And the need for anti-virus
Chokes the smile on every face
And common sense is screaming, "What the Hell!?"
This ain't no technological breakdown
Oh no, this is Linux on Dell
And I don't need to ask for credit
And there's nothing they can do
But watch the E.U.L.A.s, flying away from you
Oh look out world, take a good look
What goes down here
You must learn not to have fear of the G.P.L.
This ain't no vendor lock-in-forced upgrade
Oh no!
This is Linux
This is Linux
This is Linux on Dell
So.. it has come to this
CIO: "Let's see now, you're a startup incorporated two months ago, with no past experience building a Linux distro and no track record of reliability or usability. I've asked my tech people about you, but you're generally unknown to them. You want us to trust our enterprise servers to you?" *hysterical laughter* "No."
as opposed to:
CIO: "I see you've for the last few years have built a generally acclaimed Linux distribution focused on the desktop and usability. and fairly stably as desktop distributions go. Those of my techs that have tried it gives it high prise. Now you're telling me you'd like to expand on this to provide more server-oriented solutions? Of course I expect a good price and tight follow-up from your support since your new in this market, but you've got your foot in the door."
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"Do you honestly think that the Windows user who can't be bothered to download Linux is going to jump at the chance to buy a machine with it on?"
Do you honestly that Joe is going to opt for the $800 "vista ready" computer when it looks as though the $500 "ubuntu loaded" one is right next to it on the virtual shelf?
PS, Joe: you don't have to pony up another $200 for Office, either.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
UbuntuNewbie: "I'm having a problem with my new computer".
DellSupportDrone: "Hi, I'm Bob from Wheatfield, Kansas - how can I help you?"
UbuntuNewbie: "Well, it works OK but I don't like the color scheme, how to I get the bright blues and reds my old computer had?"
DellSupportDrone: "Is the computer plugged in?."
UbuntuNewbie: "Yep, I did that.Like I said, it works OK but ... "
DellSupportDrone: "OK, reboot the computer three or four times."
UbuntuNewbie: "But...."
DellSupportDrone: "If that doesn't work, reinstall the operating system."
UbuntuNewbie: But...."
DellSupportDrone: "Thanks for calling Dell Support, have a nice day!"
Click
See, no problem. They don't even need to change the script.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
[Cue monkey boy dance]. The biggest benefit that could come out of this for *all* Linux users would be better hardware support. If manufactures think that "Hey, no Linux driver means we're not supporting part of Dell's consumer line" they might get serious about writing (open?) drivers or at least making it easier for the community to support their stuff.
:-) It would be so great if you could just assume that any random printer would totally work with Linux...
And if Linux can end up being 5% of Dell's consumer sales (though even that might be optimistic) it's going to have a huge effect - because Dell is more likely to bundle stuff that will work with their entire line, not just 95% of it. Supporting one type of hardware is cheaper than two. (Though, of course, so it supporting only one kind of OS, which is how we got here
works for some products, but not everything. Your coke/pepsi/generic cola example is about a cheap and quickly consumed product. If they don't really like the generic,it will only last a short while and is cheap enough that they can toss it out if it is truly horrible.
Where windows/linux is concerned, let me relate a recent experience. My nephew just moved out of his parents house and out from behind the router and firewall I had configured. He got dsl and hooked it up to straight from the modem and into his computer. Guess what? Within three days he couldn't run either IE or firefox, they would just crash when launched. Before, he hadn't really appreciated the delicate nature of windows or the importance of a good firewall.
I installed the newly released Ubuntu 7.04 and he is tickled. He can do everything that he needs with totally free (in every respect) software. I showed him some windows games running under wine on my laptop and he was interested, but since he is now working and going to school, games are not as important. We haven't even bothered fixing his winxp install yet. His roommate was watching me setup Beryl and was asking a lot of questions about this linux thing, completely surprised at the maturity and features of the new Ubuntu. Brand awareness of Windows and Microsoft is very high with both of those guys, but seeing the differences in action has greatly tempered any effects of that awareness.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
I think I'd want a pickup truck to haul around the 1.5 kids. The one kid wouldn't be a problem, but that half of a kid would be awfully messy to have inside the vehicle.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.