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Turns Out Ubuntu Dell Costs $225 More
An anonymous reader writes "One week ago this community discussed the apparent price advantage of Ubuntu Dell over Vista. The article linked to a Dell IdeaStorm page with the status: 'Implemented.' Today the status has changed on that page to 'Reneged: Ubuntu Dell is $225 More Than Windows Dell.' The full price of a Ubuntu Inspiron 1420N is indeed $50 cheaper than the identical hardware configuration with Vista — except that a $275 free upgrade to 2GB memory and a 160-GB hard drive is available for Windows only."
Haven't people been saying the footprint of Linux is a shitload less than Windows bloat.
You simply don't need the extra on linux.
liqbase
There's two things I need every morning - a cup of coffee, and a blatant "flame Microsoft" Slashdot article. Bravo.
and download and install Linux on it.. Maybe Dell should include a free linux cd with it..
Or Dell really DOES make a lot of money off of the crap-o bloatware (6 month's free AOL etc) and this is their way of compensating.
Dell's promotions and stuff is err..."dynamic", to say the least. You can find the same system at like 5 different price depending where you look. So its no surprise that stuff like that would happen.
There is no conspiracy. They are simply reacting to competitive pressures. They probably determined that Linux laptop sales would not be dramatically higher with the extra RAM promotion since they don't really have any competition for Linux laptops; they are the only game in town among the big vendors. Conversely, in the Windows world I think HP is eating their lunch (HP is heavily discounting their new Santa Rosa dvx5 series), and so they need these discounts to shore up sales.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
from New Egg or Tiger Direct instead, and install whatever damn OS you want on it.
True... it would be interesting, if somewhat complicated, to see the price fluctuations over a couple month period to see how the prices really stack up.
Other than stating the upgrades to windows are FREE! You still save $45. What I am missing?
Inspiron Notebook 1420 N
Intel® Core(TM) 2 Duo T5250 (1.5GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Ubuntu version 7.04
2GB Shared Dual Channel3 DDR2 at 667MHz
Size: 160GB2 SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Price: $774
Intel® Core(TM) 2 Duo T5250 (1.5GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Genuine Windows® Vista Home Basic Edition
Anti-glare, widescreen 14.1 inch display (1280x800)
FREE! 2GB2 Shared Dual Channel3 DDR2 at 667MHz
FREE! 160GB4 SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
24X CD writer/DVD Combo Drive
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini-Card
Price:$819
No, Vern. They just let him in.
I love how these "revelations" happen far later when the rest of us that looked at it saw right away that the "specials" or "instant rebates" only apply to the windows machines.
There has been people here on Slashdot posting for a few months that the Open source and now linux laptops are in fact more expensive by around $200.00.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything." ~Gregg Easterbrook
I'm quite impressed how the (quite obvious) spin was placed on this claim. It's only $275 more if you WANT to upgrade.
Still, i'm definitely disappointed in Dell; i'd have liked that upgrade for free too...(Although Vista would need it to Pagefile usage, whereas Ubuntu would use it for the hoards of FOSS that's available...)
ilovegeorgebush
Considering it's already down (see my other post in this thread), I guess it's safe to say that Dell's dynamic pricing moves faster than Slashdot's submission acceptance system.
Then I thought, wouldn't this screw your tech support for this computer, if you needed it? You'd call them up, then they would assume you have Vista, not Ubuntu, and might refuse to support Ubuntu. (Of course, this is all theoretical, since the last time I called Dell tech support, I wanted to reach through the phone and pinch the guy's head off.) Just sayin'.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Or rather Dell is getting a kickback from microsoft that is paying for the upgrade.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
It's the marketing department. Those people simply fail.
It's the Slashdot corollary to the Cartoon Law of Falling Anvils (Law IX):
Everything moves faster than Slashdot submissions.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Dell are hardly known for offering sane or consistent pricing across models or market segments - try browsing their website some time as a home user, then as various classes of business customer. Why should it come as any surprise that they've omitted a special offer from a machine with a non-standard OS?
Personally, I have no plans to upgrade to Vista any time soon - at least not at home. If faced with the prospect of getting a machine with Ubuntu at $X, or a machine with double the RAM and a bigger hard drive with Vista at $X, I'd take the machine with Vista, thank you very much. Shrink the partition as far as practical, install Ubuntu, and you're ahead - you've got the higher-spec machine, AND the ability to boot into something that the Dull PhoneMonkeys won't hang up over. Okay... that's a path a geek would take, not a regular consumer, but I doubt at this time that there would be very many non-geeks opting for Ubuntu over windows anyway on a new Dell.
Besides... if you're going to criticise Vista, you should at least have first-hand experience of what it is that you're criticising.
Last time I checked you could disagree with the EULA, send the Vista disk back to M$ and get your money back and then install ubuntu. Why not do that?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
$275 upgrade for a bigger HD and more RAM?
Let me check my price lists... A 160 GB Hard Drive Costs $10 more than an 80 GB HD.
2 Sticks of 1 GB DDR2 cost $36 more than 2 Sticks of 512MB DDR2.
So that upgrade costs $46.
Those are wholesale prices in Canadian Dollars available to Mom and Pop shops. I'm sure Dell gets things cheaper.
------- Mark
This is just how Dell operates; you can never know what the price will be for a given configuration on a given day until you go to the Web site that day and spec it out. If you don't want to play games with price, you don't buy a Dell.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
So Dell's base 1420 with Ubuntu costs $747 with these specs:
Meanwhile, Dell's Windows equivalent has exact same specs, except for these differences:
And the Windows version costs $869. So the Ubuntu version is $122 cheaper and has a better WiFi card.
Remind me again... what did you step in?
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Isn't this a no-brainer?
1. Buy the PC that gives you the best hardware for the lowest price. If that means taking a Windows PC that has "free" extra memory and a bigger hard disk drive then do it.
2. Shrink the Windows partition (that extra disk space is a boon), install Ubuntu and/or other operating systems of your choice.
3. Go about your business as normal.
4. If you ever have to speak to Dell tech support, you have the additional benefit of being able to tell them that you're using a Windows system (true), and them not giving you the cold shoulder when you tell them that you're using Ubuntu, etc.
5. If you sell your PC at sometime in the future you give yourself a more attractive package to sell and thus recoup more of your initial sale price. More RAM, more disk space, Windows Vista Home all have a value, and the Vista Home alone may make a huge difference to the resale price on eBay. Remember, 90 percent of PC users won't even have heard of Linux, so why cut them out of your resale equation?
Dell is simply trying to protect its standard business model, which includes making money from pre-installing offers from third parties (such as ISPs and AV vendors) on their Windows installations. There's no reason why you can't let them do that and still benefit from their reluctance to abandon that model.
Saving $50 (or is it now $25?) if it means half as much memory and half as much disk space (1GB/80GB vs 2GB/160GB) seems to be a false economy.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Sorry, I transposed numbers on the Ubuntu price -- the machine is $774, not $747, so the difference is $95, not $122.
My apologies. But Dell's Ubuntu system is still cheaper.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
No conspiracy here. Dell has very odd pricing plans, bonuses, sales, and specials that change all of the time. You can configure the same computer from three different locations on the Dell website and come up with 5 different prices. They typically offer "upgrades like memory, 19in LCD, HD etc on bundled deals that are even cheaper then without the upgrades. This is regardless of the OS the machine comes with.
Given the choices on their various buying portals, it should be no surprise for advertising sake, they have very specific configurations for a specific price that are cheaper then what you could together using configuring their own. These same specific machines with upgrades are what ends up in the mailed out advertisements and the back of magazines and may even be a loss leader for them but it gets people to the site in hopes they can get an up sell as well.
Some don't like the choices of configurations, some do. For those that do a little leg work on Dells site, you can get a really good combo deal. If you want to buy one with minimal effort and do not feel like browsing around, you can do that as well. Dell is trying to maximize profit AND cater to the person with some extra time that does some research. I view that the same way as a grocery store putting smaller higher priced items near the register lines or selling a cold 20oz bottle of Pepsi for $1.29 and a warm 2 liter bottle for $0.89 back in the pop isle. You have a choice, convenience or lowest price.
1. Does not come with all that crap ware installed add $200 in savings for a great deal of time cleaning the trash off of the system.
2. Add office professional (ships with open office) I am sure that is at least a $200 savings.
3. Scratch having to take the machine into a shop every three months to clean all the spyware, crap etc out of the machine to make it actually work again. There is another few hundred bucks $200
I did not even list the other software it ships with and the equivalents would likely run you into the thousands.
Got Code?
I think HP is eating their lunch (HP is heavily discounting their new Santa Rosa dvx5 series),
I'll take this chance to comment about the HP laptop power Jack problem(which seems is quite common), I've just recently experienced it in my Pavillion ZV5000, unfortunately this has lead me to look after buying another notebook. The question is could anyone recommend me a notebook that does not suck. I do NOT need anything powerful as I only intend to use it for standard office tasks (plus a bit of Eclipse Java programming which can be fixed with 2 GB of RAM). But I would like a not-very big screen (15 in would be nice) as I ended hating my 3KG laptop I've got now. I have been watching the Lenovos and Dells but I would like to know if someone has any recommendation.
Oh! and bonus points if it is Linux friendly... I really would like to have XP+Ubuntu on this machine (without having to buy an external CardBus wireless adaptor).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Of the replies I've read here so far, everyone is over looking one thing. Someone made a joke about Microsoft giving Dell kickbacks.
Well, of course Microsoft gives Dell kickbacks. So does Yahoo, so does AOL, so does McAfee or Norton, and so does everyone else who has their software pre-installed on Dell's Windows machines. You think Dell puts all that crapware there out of the kindness of their heart, or because they think its useful? Hell no, they put it there because they are being paid to put it there. And that kickback money makes the final cost of the Windows machine cheaper to produce.
In the meantime, how much does Ubuntu/GNU/Linus etc pay Dell for every Ubuntu-installed machine they kick out the door?
Its pure economics people. Welcome to the real world. Please see our kind hostess for your complimentary rose-colored glasses.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, you only need that HD space and ram if you use a system that wastes it carelessly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And, checking the Windows price again, it's dropped $50 from when I checked it before (for a price difference of $45).
I give up. Maybe if I check again in 20 minutes, Dell's Windows systems really will cost less than Ubuntu.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
It's probably that, and possibly that somebody didn't think to update the pricing for the Linux packages. As someone else mentioned, their prices are highly dynamic, and configuring the exact same system from two different entry points can give you different pricing. Personally, I wish people would stop giving them a hard time. It's like a bunch of little kids calling "no fair! I'm gonna tell my momma!" all the time. If there's going to be a public outlash (on blogs and in the news) every time Dell treats the Linux buyers differently from the Windows buyers, they are going to get disgusted and stop even bothering to provide Linux. At this point, if I were another large vendor watching, I would have already decided not to offer Linux to non-business users on my systems because it just wouldn't be worth the hassle. The right thing to do? Stop posting on blogs and notify Dell directly. Give them a chance to fix it.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
As most Windows users don't know what RAM is, they don't use this free upgrade. On the other end, every GNU/Linux user would take it. So, DELL probably did the math and realised that it was more lucrative to be unfair.
The current Lenovo T60's are totally Linux compatible. I love mine.
"If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind."
Mod parent up! I've actually watched Dell's price for particular system change twice in a given day! Maybe they were just updating their deals or whatever, but still, if you don't Dell's price, wait a minute, it'll probably change!
My blog
Given that MS are probably not going to be $50 worse off because you buy a PC without Windows (I can't believe that Dell don't have some sort of fixed-price license agreement) I'd get the one with Windows on the grounds that if I ever did need to run Windows (often hard to avoid under our Windows-loving Overlords) getting a "full" copy costs 3x as much as a bundled copy.
If, however, you see this as a matter of principle then there are plenty of smaller suppliers/system builders who do price Windows separately.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
If Dell really is selling more hardware for less, with the only catch being that it has to have Vista + bloatware, someone could buy them, wipe their hard drives, install a free OS, and sell them at a profit. Heck, Dell could covertly do this through some special partnership.
So, I'm skeptical. Like others said, this offer was probably good for about 3 hours. Dell's like Amazon in that respect, although fortunately for them, they haven't accidentally discounted and entire purchase to "free" yet!
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Dell's prices fluctuate more rapidly and more widely than the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Identical systems may vary by significant amounts depending on whether you talk to a "home office" or "small business" rep... or whether you talk to them on Tuesday or Wednesday... or whether you get the price on the Web or over the phone or in a mailing.
I'm not sure anyone knows what a Dell costs unless they are a business negotating a deal for a few thousand of them.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It makes sense, you gotta have 2gb of ram for vista to even perform marginally well...and it requires more disk space too.
The linux community was willing to push Dell. Now, that they have set up a much more costly system, the Windows ppl will wonder how these bloatware companies make their money and the Linux groups will wonder why they should buy from Dell. And that will include Dell's nice Linux servers that make them so much money.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If the system is good to go and everything 'just works', I imagine they might not even become 'unhappy' until their first compatibility problem comes along.
AND, since we're talking Intel graphics here, we're not talking about gamers. Nor is the Ubuntu system likely to offer MS Office 2007 as a pre-installation option, so that's also one less surprise.
Am I missing something here?
Real simple... Windows support costs much less that Ubuntu support. Duh.
I don't respond to AC's.
Well, that and the fact that no sane Linux user that I know of would pay $275 for an extra 1GB memory module - I can get 2 2GB modules for cheaper than that (all fully warrantied, but I don't know about the laptop). The priciest DDR2 667 one on Newegg is $210, but I don't see why anyone would pay that for a CAS 5 module (which can be had in the $36 range according to pricewatch). 160GB drives start around $90-$95.
Assuming you take the 10 minutes it takes to do the labor yourself (which is what it took me the first time including the time to find my small screwdriver set) and bill your time at $100/hour (we'll round for convenience), it's about $40 + $100 + $20 = $160. That doesn't include reinstalling linux if you only have a single drive slot, but in either case you have a spare drive.
The reality of it is that Dell charges too much for components, but that is common in the industry (Dell is by no means alone - Apple has gouged this way for years - I remember them asking for $475 for an identical module I bought for $80). By my estimate, even if they have a $200 part (ha!) and have hideously slow labor (ha! again) that can only install 1 module every hour, that's still $75/hour. Neither part is all that risky to install and I seriously doubt they use warranty tape (if you break it, it leaves marks that say void), so if SOMEHOW you screw it up, you just throw the old parts back in and send the laptop back as defective.
I decided to go hunting for a new laptop a few months ago. I priced it out against Dell's website, and some other websites. What I found is that it is *entirely possible* to spec out two identical systems on Dells Website, and have them cost different amounts. It was even possible to get a *lower spec* computer to cost *more* than a higher-spec computer. It seemed to depend on what offer you started from and then customized the machine.
Dell doesn't seem to offer to help you out in finding the best price on their website, e.g., notify you that this system is identical to this system that qualifies for this special offer, and automatically apply the discount.
So, take the time to actually 'shop' for your system several different ways on Dell's website, because it is entirely likely you can get the exact same system cheaper (possibly a couple hundred bucks cheaper, as you see in this case). Some might wonder why bother doing business with a company that makes it so hard to find the best offer? Simply put, once I did find the right offer, I got a laptop for about $1700 that would have cost me about $2000-$2500 for a similar laptop from other vendors. It's worth a couple hours of hassle to save $300-800.
I was looking at buying a Lenovo X61 Tablet PC and they are charging $20 more for XP than Vista Business. I can't stand Vista. To make it worse the battery life with the 8 cell battery is an hour less with Vista than it is with XP.
Being relatively a noob to Linux I decided to purchase a desktop with Ubuntu from Dell and have nothing but great things to say about it. I usually build my own computers, which is an easy process for me using Windows because it's easy to guarantee combatibility with the OS. But now with Vista out, my fears of losing all my purchased apps, plus a desire not to get locked into another cost ineffective software solution lead me to trying Ubuntu.
In the past, I've tried different distrobutions (SUSE, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, among others) and have always taken it off my system because some annoying little hardware incompatibility caused me problems. So, while Dell may be charging a little extra for Ubuntu, I think there's something to be said about getting a Linux computer that will "just work" right out of the box.
I also have to mention that I don't feel cheated. I have a great system, 20" Widescreen Flat Panel, 2 GB of RAM, Core 2 Duo (1.X can't remember), the NVIDIA GFX (7300 Lite or something) card, 250 GB SATA HDD, DVD+-RW Dual Layer and another DVD-ROM as well. As some of the other posters had mentioned, this may have not been the "perfect deal" but I only paid about $1000 for the whole system. To me this is a sight better than paying $900 for the same machine using Vista and then having to repurchase Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks; does VS 2005 work on Vista?
Funny enough though, while Vista's having all these compatibility issues with the previous generation's software, I'm using the old Studio 8 suite on Linux under WINE and it's running faster than it did in Windows.
Some would say the $225 dollars are your earnings. If you have $225 worth of idealogical reasons, then buy the Ubuntu preinstalled computer.
Their user manuals even describe how to install both memory and hard drives, so there should be no warranty problems.
seg fault
All I can really do is laugh. That is Dell for you. They want to make money. And the only reason I believe the started releasing computers with Ubuntu and FreeDOS on it was to appease customers they were already making money off of. If you were anyone else you would have purchased your computer elsewhere or built it your self. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft placed some restrictions on their agreement with Dell so that Windows would still bring in the money. After all, Windows is honestly the easiest and most well known OS out there. What are people going to do? Switch to Mac OS? Along with two home windows based machines (one XP another Vista) and two Apple machines (OSX Tiger on my Mac Mini and Panther on my iBook running in dual boot with SuSe), Windows still reigns supreme in the "practically everything is available on the Windows platform in a ready or near-ready fashion. With linux you have to do a lot of work just to get a wireless card to work, or get 3D support. God forbid you want to play flash, mp3's, wma/wmv, etc. Often depending on the platform you have to work your but off just want watch/listen to any media (for instance, on an iBook G4 running any linux, there is not support for the latest flash, so that cuts you out of many video sharing sites like Youtube). Oh, and lets not talk about getting development libraries setup for Java development. You'll often have a library that is too old because there isn't one available for your architecture. So much for programming across all platforms.
PROCESSOR: XPS 410, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6320 (1.86GHz,1066FSB) with 4MB cache OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Home Premium MEMORY: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 DIMMs HARD DRIVE: DataSafe 250GB (Includes main hard drive plus a hidden reserve hard drive) OPTICAL DRIVE Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable MONITORS: 20 inch E207WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel VIDEO CARD: 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache SOUND CARD: Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio SPEAKERS: Dell AS501PA 10W Flat Panel Attached Spkrs for Analog Flat Panels KEYBOARD & MOUSE: Dell USB Keyboard MOUSE: Dell Optical USB Mouse FLOPPY & MEDIA READER: No Floppy Drive Included MODEM 56K PCI Data Fax Modem PRODUCTIVITY No Productivity software pre-installed PHOTOS, MUSIC & MORE! No Entertainment software pre-installed WARRANTY AND SERVICE DellCare Premium DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS No ISP requested ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0 Labels Windows Vista(TM) Premium ANTI-VIRUS & SECURITY I chose Security with Value, Plus,or Premium Warranty Bundle PRICE: $1,437 I only paid about $1000 for my Ubuntu Desktop with the same specs...
VMWare Server and VirtualBox are free. I haven't used VirtualBox so I can't comment on it, but VMWare Server's snapshot feature* alone makes this nicer than running Windows native.
* It's rather crippled compared to the snapshot feature in VMWare Workstation, though.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
Cheaping out on an otherwise free memory upgrade doesn't make any sense though, unless they're just trying to hide the fact that they are charging you more for the system.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Some anti-MS or pro-Linux person, whichever, was obviously sitting on Dell's website waiting for this to be the case.
Anyone who goes to Dell's site or follows any of the bargain sites (fatwallet, slickdeals, techbargains, etc) knows that Dell deals change on a daily basis. One day you'll be able to buy a PC cheap without a monitor, the next day the purchase will require purchase of a monitor, the next day they'll throw in a RAM upgrade out of nowhere. I know last week there was a deal for a Linux box for around $250 off of Dell's site. They do this to keep people checking back. When someone sees a deal that looks good, they'll eventually make an impulse buy.
This isn't news worthy at all.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Since the Ubuntu price is now back at the $50 less mark, it makes me wonder whether this was just a glitch where one machine was updated first and then the other came later in the day, or whether they're actually listening. On some levels, it does actually look like they're listening (Installing Ubuntu, and the ideastorm site indicates junkware-less machines are coming, among other things), and frankly it's a welcome change. How many other gigantic computer manufacturers display this sort of behavior. When was the last time you say HP jump and fix something because of a Slashdot article just getting posted?
I was actually shopping for an Ubuntu laptop for my girlfrind last night and noticed this, but as of this morning they are offering the upgrades on the Ubuntu version as well.
She's gonna be getting a vista one anyways and just reformatting it though. The only available 15" screen with Ubuntu doesn't give you any decent hardware to choose from.
There is something wrong with the tag line. If they want to offer the free upgrade on a windows machine only, then it doesn't say that the Ubuntu configuration costs more. You just don't get the free upgrade. Did you really need the upgrade in the first place??? Remember the Linux boxes are very much more conservative in demands than Windows is so that kind of "moots" that out.
Misleading tag.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Is it so hard to figure out that dell is charging you for all the training they had to do with their reps? Thats why their isnt that much of a difference.
I'm actually planning on switching away from Ubuntu trying a different distro (Gentoo or Archlinux, something less bloated and with more control). Ubuntu just has random problems for me.
I'm running it on an IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad R60 with an ATI videocard and 1gig RAM.
Every now and then when I boot up sound doesn't work - nothing to do with the system volume or the volume control in Ubuntu. A reboot always fixes this.
Also, seemingly at random, message boxes will pop up completely empty and size less. I need to resize them to be able to close them. This is annoying when it happens for Firefox, such as session managing windows coming up with nothing in them. Sometimes settings windows are empty, but opening them again fixes this.
Rarely, but occassionally, the system will crash when I hibernate it (and sometimes when I reboot it). Annoying when I try to hibernate to save my session, and end up stuck on a black screen and needing to shut it off. Especially annoying when it continues to use battery - I need to now make sure it powers off all the way before putting it away.
I used Synaptic to get the plugin for Firefox to view movies (ie quicktime) that are embedded in webpages, but whenever I get one it shows up as a [no video].
I am still learning Linux, but I am a programmer and a computer geek, so I'm comfortable with going in and tweaking things, using the command line, etc. Just a little inexperienced still. Anyway, Ubuntu, for me, doesn't "just work". Not all of the time anyway. I have no idea what to think of some of these problems.
I installed Linux on a car, but it crashed due to bad drivers...
"...a $275 free upgrade to 2GB memory and a 160-GB hard drive is available for Windows only." Dell makes a fortune on upgrades, and this little "freebie" highlights that. Swapping out an 80GB HD for a 160GB model should cost all of about $10, given today's prices, and a 1GB stick of RAM can be had retail for around $70. That leaves about $200 on the table. Far better to build your own machine to run Ubuntu, especially since you can never be sure what brand components Dell will ship in your box.
> Price = more value. I'm sold! Linux it is.
It improves Vista's sales numbers while showing that the Linux product has very weak sales.
If true, it also indirectly shows that Dell pays M$ a fee per PC regardless of OS. That's the usual screw.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Geeze, what kind of tiny things come stock?
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I agree with the parent - the *important* thing is that the hardware is compatible with linux.
... or maybe just for testing software on Windows.
... this motivation to buy the Dell with Windows will throw off Dell's success of the new Ubuntu systems. When most linux users are buying the cheaper Dell that comes with a free version of Windows & free hardware upgrades ... what does Dell say when they see no one's buying the Ubuntu system?
I would install Ubuntu on the system, but a new Ubuntu install takes a fraction of the time good old Windows installs take - so what's the problem?
Who doesn't reformat new systems anyway?
Unless you *want* AOL and all of that other spamware on what's supposed to be your "new & clean" machine.
If you do buy the system that comes with Windows, atleast you're getting a free Windows license/key for when you want to dual boot to play games
If, on the other hand, you want to feel good about not supporting Windows - now you have that option.
The only thing that bothers me is
> As most Windows users don't know what RAM is, they don't use this free upgrade.
I'm rolling my eyes at you.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
I think what is going on here, is that a lot of people who have not previously experienced Dell's style of selling are suddenly being exposed to it. Contradictory pricing and conflicting deals are not something Dell has applied only to Linux vs. Windows, it is the standard operating procedure.
It is not uncommon to find deals on Dell's web site that the salesperson you talk to has difficulty finding. Sometimes those bargin hunter web sites will post links to specials that are apparently not linked to from any other Dell page, but are legitimate and respected by sales when you send them the URL. In the non-consumer side, different groups give different amounts of discount if you pay by check instead of credit card.
While it must be frustrating if you do a lot of business with them or work there, I am not sure the situation is all that bad business-wise for Dell. By making it so you can often find a better deal by searching and waiting, the people who are extremely constrained by price are able to buy there, but you can still get the higher profit margin on those who are not concerned with price. It is similar to the variation in prices for airline tickets in the same plane going to the same place, or how they vary with Saturday night stayover, etc.
My guess is that all this uproar indicates that selling Ubuntu is bringing new customers to Dell, who had previous not shopped there. Probably most them assembled their own computers and installed Linux. This is a good thing for Dell.
1. Price for upgrade to 160 GB due to how much space WinVista burns up on your hard drive with virus-prone stuff you won't realize is installed - $0
2. Price for upgrade to memory due to how lousy an OS WinVista is - $0
3. Realizing you got more by choosing Ubuntu Linux instead - Priceless
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Maybe that was a little bit condescending, but I would be interested to see the numbers.
By the way, do you use Windows? ;)
Where does one go to see this claim?
The systems this article links too shows the install Ubuntu system cost less than the
Vista installed system!
I wonder if any authors of these debates actually read the articles and links before
they go on the defense or offense.
Ubuntu can be tuned to run Windows software.
Vista has been tuned down in respect to running its own Microsoft software products and
fails to run any linux software products.
And this debate is about a cost difference that doesn't include the expense of
vista when you add office suites and etc.
Ubuntu is a better deal all around if you include comparisons to what is included
in Linux distros and what you must buy from the Microsoft world to make it comparable.
Dang this whole debate is silly.
Paul
These fine 64bit computers use a 32bit version of Ubuntu. Why dont they use the 64bit version? Is it possible that the 64bit version of Ubuntu doesnt "Just Work" on the hardware it is designed to run on? With a way to fix Bug #1 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1) finally in their grasp, maybe the Ubuntu developers should shift focus onto the 64bit version and give a clear reason to choose Ubuntu over windows.
I trust Microsoft as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat
Yes, Dell's website is basically the online equivalent of a car dealership except the products are computers instead of cars and they can't sit you in a room with free coffee and soda. The numbers change weekly or even daily; one week will have free shipping, then the next week will have "$300 off" but no free shipping and all of the base configurations are bumped a little in price. And then you go to a different website selling the same model but this time with a percentage off.
I have equivalent hardware and 64-bit runs like a champ. And I can run my old 32-bit apps just fine on it. Even my commercial binary only 32-bit apps for much older versions of Linux. (like old games from Loki - Alpha Centauri for Linux for example).
I don't know why Dell is shipping 32-bit Linux on a 64-bit CPU. You're free to reinstall Ubuntu x86_64, although that defeats the purpose of buying a shiny Linux computer from Dell.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I just realized what a great marketing segway Ubuntu is. [new spoksman, young Rasta with dreads and a dubie] "Yer getting a Dell, mon!"
This is a very unfortunate event for Dell, as word gets out and further investigation exposes more details...
Some how I believe this contains illegal acts that can be pursued against Dell. But then there seems to be a lot of bait and switch happening all around.
I can think of several reasons to prefer a default install of 32 bit Linux. Not sure if any of them are correct, though:
1) That was what they negotiated last year
2) The 64-bit drivers weren't available in time to test
3) Most people don't get any advantage from the 64-bit system
4) etc.
Any, or several, of these could be correct. Can't think of a way to check that's easy enough to bother with.
For me, the primary advantage of Dell selling a computer with Linux pre-installed is that it's guaranteed to have Linux compatible hardware. Now if only I could depend on the hardware drivers being available if I switch to another distro... well, the chances are pretty good. I'll certainly be considering Dell seriously the next time I'm in the market. (OTOH, Lenovo's new ThinkPad looks interesting...)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
...Dell packaged trials for things like crossover office and cedega with their ubuntu based boxes. They could release this as a different distro (as to not offend ubuntu's foss policies) and let you choose between regular ubuntu and the dell modified distro, then they could offer a ubuntu based distro computer for as cheap as the vista box using crossover office and whatever else as crapware. I hate crapware as much as everyone else. I think it's terrible, but I also don't see a vendor such as Dell staying away from it forever, even on a linux box, just because adding crapware does add potential profit. I hate the idea, but I think that's what we could see happening if Dell tries to deal with our complaints about not getting the same value of hardware for the money as we do in Vista boxes. I'm happy that Dell is even offering linux based pc's at all. It's a pretty big step in the right direction, let's try not to be too terribly hard on them for making it.
Just wait until they start install AOL Bloatware....{America-On-Linux?}
Then we'll see a balance in the prices.
---
Gratis versus Libre - I just want free beer.
On Monday and Tuesday, the Free! upgrade was only available for Windows Vista (r) (tm) laptops. Hence TFA (I've read it here).
/. to make Dell notice the mistake.)
Probably, this was a mistake, which was corrented around Wednesday. Now, the Free! upgrade is available for all systems, and therefore Ubuntu is cheaper again.
The story hit slashdot too late (I was even thinking about posting it to
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
it adds up fast when stuff is always broke.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Oh Boy, you really have missed the point!
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
1) good point
2) possible although nvidia 64-bit drivers have been out for multiple years. maybe they have some binary-only sound drivers or network drivers?
3) 64-bit x86 has benefits in a better instruction set, more registers and improved context switch performance. having big words and big address space is not the only benefit.
well Ubuntu is less likely to have proprietary drivers working on it early than Fedora or whatever. But the vendors have been able to get along pretty well so that even Slackware guys can get their network and video cards to work. Luckily not too many evil drivers out there to deal with. Usually there is an open source driver or none at all.
As far as I know the ndiswrapper can load 32-bit windows drivers on 64-bit Linux just fine. 32 and 64 modes can coexist pretty peaceful with little effort on developers. We often run 64-bit virtual machines on 32-bit OSes (like 32-bit Windows and Linux) without problems. Myself I think that it's amazing that actually works.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Sales. Lots of sales. Dell's bread and butter.
I could make a similar list of Windows flaws/annoyances.
You have been using Windows for so many years that you have come to a state where you've accepted (or don't even realize) that Windows is not flawless either. The same can be said about any OS actually. No OS is perfect.
That man must do better.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
3) My thought on this is that code with lots of small instructions could swell in size if you switched to a 64-bit instruction set. I don't know modern assembler, so this may not be true. But it could. If a no-op now takes 64-bits instead of 32-bits, that code had just doubled in size. The, presumably excellent, new instructions don't do you any good if you aren't doing the kinds of things that require them. If each instruction doubles in size at the same time, you're paying a hefty price for changes that you usually aren't using.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm not sure that the pricing and configurations offered by Dell indicate any deliberate games playing by Dell--the confusing and dynamic nature of them seem to be a general Dell trait. It's just booking flights online--prices change four times an hour and seem to have a lot of significant variables involved (what country you are browsing in, time of day, tides, phase of moon, barometric pressure and so on).
;-)
I think Slartibartfast might find his spaceship would perform better if he upgraded his systems from bistromaths to multivariable DELLculus or differential airline equations. The relative potential of numbers in the movement of customers through the web pages of either could quite possibly revolutionise interstellar travel
obviously pointers are bigger with 64-bit. but the x86_64 machine code is slightly more compact than the older i386 code. You binaries get a bit bigger, but not much. and they do benchmark faster. The .text section shrinks a bit and the .data section grows a bit. I'd rather have fast compact instructions than use less RAM.
:)
you can do 32-bit words easily, and most x86_64 compilers default to 'int' being a 32-bit type. it's the pointers that are bigger. Also when you code for x86_64 you don't have to be backwardly compatible all the way back to some ancient architecture. So you can use special instructions and SSE right off the bat without having to concern yourself with i486, i586, i686, etc variants. There are a few extensions to x86_64 that aren't available on all of them, but the list is much much shorter.
The new instructions do you good because there are general purpose improvements that your compile WILL use. Better call frames. Easier indexing of local variables on the stack (using 8-bit offset registers), some improvements on array operations. for typical dumb library and kernel stuff, x86_64 benchmarks faster. The gamer benchmarks for x86_64 show it can be faster, but is sometimes slower. It's not as conclusive of a win for games, but it appears to pay off consistently for the boring things
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire