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The Agony and Ecstasy Of Becoming a Linux OEM
jammag writes "An article at the site Datamation, entitled Becoming a Linux OEM: A Roadmap, talks about the challenges (and rewards) of selling hardware with Linux pre-installed — most likely a growth market in the years ahead. The interesting part is the description of how some smaller Linux OEMs have made it. The bottom line: surviving as a Linux OEM requires far more than making it as a Windows OEM. In particular, you have to make the systems idiot-proof for users who don't care a whit about what OS they're using."
...then you've already failed at life.
And yet they get windows... funny how that works.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
The main reason that Windows "just works" for the average user is because all of the hardware manufacturers design their hardware and drivers specifically to work for Windows. This article is basically saying that OEM's who install Linux on their systems have to work around the frustrations of getting their distribution to work with their hardware and to prepare it for other hardware which the user might install/use with their system. IMO this is an added frustration that Windows OEMs don't have to deal with because of Windows widespread adoption. However, as Linux continues to gain users and hardware manufacturers begin to recognize Linux as a dominant OS alternative the frustrations the Linux OEMs now have will disappear as compatibility for Linux is integrated into hardware and drivers.
And from TFA:
I remember submitting reviews of NIC's years and years and years ago to one of the public hardware sites. That was then bought out and killed by a media company.
Ubuntu is collecting the information, but it hasn't put it out in a friendly format yet.
I'd like to see a bootable CD from a Linux distributor that will identify everything it can on a box and output that to something that I can upload to a website.
Then that website would identify the components that auto-magically work with their distribution (version A or B or C
And try a "best guess" at the components that it did not recognize AND the components that it did recognize that do NOT work auto-magically.
And allow the user to enter descriptions of the components that were not recognized.
The final goal being that I can take a CD into Fry's and ask to boot it to see if I want that system or not. Down to the component level. Yes, I like that system, but I want it with a soundcard that is supported.
Do that and you'll see more HARDWARE sales tied to Linux. And happier Linux users.
And I want a pony and a plastic rocketship.
the point being that gnu/linux isn't just taking on microsoft. the linux kernel and the gnu toolchain are technically years ahead of vista. if it were a simple question of gnu/linux vs. windows, the war would have ended sometime in 1997.
it is however a case of gnu/linux vs. the entire world of proprietary software. a world with so much money that compatibility can only be bought on their terms. gnu/linux would have to become proprietary software to implement proprietary data formats or allow non-documented devices to work. instead of that, technically superior possibilities are being offered to us. ogg is technically superior to mp3, odf is technically superior to ooxml, lilypond is technically superior to finale files.
but how much does that help free software advocates to free others? if others insist on slavery, what can we do? one this is sure, we shouldn't implement these last 5% in gnu/linux: that would mean the end of everything gnu/linux stands for. it would mean the end of stallman's dream which has already produced the most remarkable software free of charge and open for the entire world running on the most remarkable hardware. throwing that away for out-of-the-box support for wmv files would be an act of utter idiocy.