How Dell Is Making Ubuntu Linux More Attractive

CWmike writes "Dell was the first of the major computer manufacturers to support pre-installed Linux, but it's not just pre-installing Linux. The Austin, Tex. company is also adding functionality to Ubuntu Linux on its desktops and laptops, writes Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. It began by adding DVD-playback to its systems shipping with Ubuntu 7.10. With the recent release of Dell PCs with Ubuntu 8.04, Dell is now including 'Fluendo GStreamer codecs for mp3, wma (Windows Media Audio), and wmv (Windows Media Video) playback' in its latest Ubuntu-powered desktops and laptops. On Ubuntu systems with ATI or NIVDIA graphics, Dell also now supports HDMI output. Yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said his company hopes to steal a page from Apple's playbook and change how it works with hardware makers in an attempt to duplicate its rival's success. Is OS customization the way forward for desktop Linux, and Windows?"

Comments

Making more attractive....

[Naughty Bob]

....or saving on support costs?

It's really a no-brainer- if you're going to sell computers, they better be able to do out of the box everything that people know computers can do. They'll save $$$ on call-centre robots, there's no choice.

Re:Making more attractive....

[rudy_wayne]

I believe it's going to be just the opposite ..... more support calls. Once again everyone is missing the point. It's not the OS -- it's the ability to get things done. I loved OS/2 and BeOS but they were ultimately useless because of a lack of appications and device drivers.

For example my 75 year old aunt has been heavily interested in Geneolgy for many years and has hundreds of pages of data and photos. So she decided that she wanted a computer. She went to Best Buy and bought a Gateway and one of her nephews who "knows about computers" wiped the hard drive and installed Linux (may have been Ubuntu but I don't remember). It turns out that "knows about computers" isn't much more than reading a few pro-Linux anti-Windows articles and knowing how to burn an ISO onto a CD.

For a while everything was fine. She surfed the web, sent e-mail, wrote letters, etc. Then she goes to the store and talks to a salesman about Geneology. He sells her a Geneology program, a scanner for all her old photos and she decides she would like to get a digital camera so she can take more pictures of all her various nephews, nieces, grandchildren, etc. The salesman assures her that everything is "plug and play" and you just follow a few simple directions.

Well, of course nothing works. The software and device drivers are all Windows only. Yes, even the camera requires a driver to transfer pictures. She calls Gateway support but they can't help her. Of course Gateway doesn't know that she's running Linux -- she doesn't know it either and wouldn't know what that meant if you told her. So she calls the nephew who "knows about computers" and he spends some time Googling but can't help. So now she's angry and upset, but she's even more angry and upset when she finds out she can't return the software because it's been opened.

In desperation she calls me. I wipe the hard drive, reinstall Windows XP, all the updates, remove all the crapware, etc. And now she's happily spending many hours with her Geneology. It's not the operating system -- it's the ability to get things done.

The point is very simply this. Yes you can set up a computer with Linux that performs routine tasks and is easy enough for Aunt Mildred to use. But eventually everyone -- even Aunt Mildred -- outgrows routine tasks. Remember WebTV? Remember (hardware) Word Processors? Where are they now? I believe that Dell will save a few dollars by not installing Windows but spend much more than that on support calls. There are a lot of Aunt Mildreds out there.

Re:Making more attractive....

[civilizedINTENSITY]

So then, if ignorance is a defense, I suppose your logic works equally well if she had a Mac and then had gotten MS Software. Or if she was running MS WinXP, and she bought Mac software. So really Apple, MS, and all versions of Linux are to blame because of her ignoranance. Sorry, I have to laugh at the implications of such logic. Maybe you didn't think it through, but at least to me, it is obvious.

Re:Making more attractive....

[Tacvek]

My larger concern is are they doing it correctly? Are they adding this functionality by creating policy compliant debs and installing them? If not they are actually hurting Ubuntu by making it harder for the Ubuntu support systems to function.

Debian (and thus its derivatives) has historically had one of the nicest package management systems (although these days emerge and yum have made the difference much much smaller than it once was). However the cost of that is that the system requires that packages conform to a relatively strict set of policies, and that hand installed software be installed into /usr/local instead of /usr.

Debs not conforming to those policies, or manual installation of software to /usr can potentially wreck havoc on the system. even if it does not, any problems resulting from them can be far more difficult to diagnose.

Re:Making more attractive....

[Your.Master]

She may very well see lots of logos at boot-time. The BIOS might very well show Energy Star. Her monitor might flash a Gateway logo. The motherboard could plop another logo on her screen. If she's still paying attention to the fourth logo in the boot sequence, and by some miracle remembers "Ubuntu" (I can nearly guarantee she will not realize that's a word in some language somewhere in Africa), then she moves on to the challenge of moving from Ubuntu to Linux (another un-word) and then realizing that's something other than Windows. When her computer itself, in all likelihood, is plastered with Windows logos because that's what she actually purchased.

A PC is a complex machine and an appliance.

Re:Making more attractive....

[Anonymous Coward]

The nephew left out one of the largest strengths of Ubuntu when showing it to your aunt.

The fact that you can easilly install a large amount of Free Software using the add/remove programs menu.

I did some Googling, and turned up some Free genealogy Software called GRAMPS. I don't know if it's in the ubuntu software respositories, but it probably is. If not, there are Ubuntu debs on the page. So, as for the genealogy software, she wouldn't have to have gone to the store to start with, and she wouldn't have had that problem.

As for the scanner and digital cameras, it's unfortunate that the cameras she ended up getting didn't work with Ubuntu. It's often frustrating for me to buy certain kinds of hardware myself, and I run the slightly more mainstream Mac OS X. (As good as Ubuntu is, and I think it's definitely better than Windows, I still prefer Mac OS X.) But, the point it, there *are* scanners and digital cameras out there that work with Linux. And had she bought a Dell with Ubuntu on it (which this article is about), you bet she'd probably be able to call them to ask about compatible hardware.

In the end, I'd say the fault was with the nephew for not educating your aunt with two simple facts:

- It's Ubuntu, and you can actually find lots of software to do what you want to do using the add/remove programs program, which is a better way to find software than going to your local computer store and hope they have Linux software.

- It's Ubuntu which means you have to make sure any hardware you buy will work with your system.

In the end though, I have to agree with the point you were making -- Ubuntu preinstalled on a Dell will probably cause some more support calls to Dell -- calls that wouldn't have been made were the computer preinstalled with Windows.

However -- Ubuntu preinstalled might also lead to *less* support calls, because of less problems with spyware, malware, adware, crapware and viruses.

Though, I guess you could argue that's a negative for Dell too. No more buying another computer after a year, and throwing away the old one because it's infested with crapware. Why should Dell rock the boat? >:-)

Re:Making more attractive....

[Wylfing]

Sadly, your comment will be overlooked or modded down, as will mine. The OP of this thread told one of those phony "case study" stories cooked up by marketing to sow fear about competing products. Aunt Mildred? Are you serious? Unfortunately, a lot of people bought into the fake story.

The FACT is as you point out: virtually any digital camera will work perfectly on Linux without installing anything. Just plug the camera in, and it works. The FACT is also that an HP photo printer/scanner/copier will work instantly, just plug it in.

The FACT is that if you sat down with 20 consumer devices, a Linux box, and a Windows box, and installed no software/drivers/etc., that 15+ of those devices would work just fine on Linux and probably zero of them would work on Windows. And even after installing software and drivers, you will wouldn't get more than 18 out of 20 working perfectly on Windows -- you'd have to hunt on websites for updated drivers or some garbage like that. Whereas additional software installation on Linux will also get you up to 18 out of 20 devices. No different at all in the final analysis, except that for most of the devices it's easier to get up and running on Linux.

So, OP, please take your fabricated "Aunt Mildred" stories back to 1999 where they belong.

You Gotta Do it Yourself....

[LVSlushdat]

Yes.. it does seem that Dell is at least paying lip service to Ubuntu/Linux, but just *try* to find the few systems that Dell has deemed to have Ubuntu installed on.. Not easy at all.. And when you do stumble upon the page, they try to scare you off by insinuating that you won't be getting Windows if you buy a system from the following pages.. Oh yeah, they're *really* supporting Linux.. I wanted a nice Core2Duo laptop with Ubuntu on it.. The only ones they preinstall Ubuntu on are the Inspiron/XPS systems.. I wanted a corporate system, ie: Latitude or Vostro system with it... Solly Cholly, only these few systems will we offend the great M$ on.. So I checked out the Dell Outlet, found a VERY nice Vostro 1400 with most everything I wanted, for $519, and proceeded to wipe Microsoft Yawn (also known as Vista) off it, and installed Ubuntu, which was a piece of cake.. But, since it came with Windows, MS gets to claim it as one of the hundreds of thousands of copies of Vista they've shipped..
Thanks Dell.. Great machines, but you don't seem to have the balls to stand up to M$...

Re:You Gotta Do it Yourself....

[kenh]

It's not that hard to find Open Source/Ubuntu systems on the Dell US site:

Open www.dell.com, choose "For Home", then click "Laptop" from the drop-down menu. Open Source systems are linked under the heading "PC Operating Systems" on the left side menu (bottom of menu).

Or, www.dell.com, choose "For Office > Small Business", then click "Desktop" from the drop-down menu. Open Source systems are listed under "FreeDOS and Linux Desktops"

Now, as for the selection of systems, I'm happy with the systems they offer ($WORK just bought a fleet of new "N Series" desktops (Optiplex 755n to be exact), and there was a fine selection of hardware/upgrades available (including ATI discrete graphics cards)...

If they really wanted to hide them, they could have done a much better job of it... I think if I were truely looking for a system with no OS/Ubuntu, I could find it quite easily.

Re:Restore discs?

[bmo]

Your argument fails on 3 fronts:

1. It presupposes that most/all elderly are stupid.

2. It's easier to install the major Linux distributions than it is to install Windows of any flavor.

3. The need for restore disks isn't as vital as for Windows.

      A. Windows users think it's normal to wipe and reinstall every quarter.
      B. Linux doesn't have a half-life/slowdown rate. See 4.

4. The cause of needing restore disks is usually infection. While technically Linux is vulnerable to security problems, the number of "in the wild" Linux viruses is currently 0. Most, if not all, Linux trojans need some sort of user interaction to work. One needs to deliberately shoot one's self in the foot for them to work. Microsoft would do everyone a lot of favors in this department by abandoning Active Yecchs and abandoning the use of 3 magic letters at the end of a filename to determine executability.

5. It's easier to remotely admin through ssh Great Aunt Midlred's Linux machine than it is to go over to her house. While that's more convenient, I guess the drawback is the lack of cookies. (case in point, I went over to a friend's house the other weekend because he screwed up flash and java. I could have done it from my house, but I wanted to hang out and have beer and chourico sandwiches).

--
BMO - We do what we must because we can

Re:Restore discs?

[bmo]

And I can't count.

Jeez..

--
BMO

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:And what about BIOS upgrades?

[linuxboredom]

Dell are releasing BIOS upgrades for their laptops to cope with the Nvidia weak component problem (basically the fan will spin up sooner). This includes the laptop models that come with Linux preinstalled. Except there's no BIOS updater that will run under Linux; they're all Windows based (although if you have a DOS floppy knocking around you can use that)

Umm...Dell has a Linux BIOS updater in its SMBIOS library. The only downside is that you might have to install wine for the image extraction (though it says it is still doable without).

Re:And what about BIOS upgrades?

[Anonymous Coward]

(although if you have a DOS floppy knocking around you can use that)

What the hell? You have such a low userID ... how can you possibly not know about Free DOS?

I have never been unable to apply a BIOS update using a bootable Free DOS CD. (And prior to that, OpenDOS.) There's an ISO at the Free DOS website. It doesn't get any easier than that. So what was your complaint again?

Re:Dell are using non free software

[Glonoinha]

When I was young I had an older man explain to me "I strongly disagree with what you are saying, but I would fight to the death for your right to say it."
Perhaps the spirit of the Linux community would be better served by promoting true software freedom, including the freedom to use non-free software in order to do what a Linux user wants to do.

That is, after all, what freedom is all about.

Re:not really

[nschubach]

Who would have figured processors would be so different in price...

I redid your test on the US site using the SAME hardware:
Windows ($824): http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1341/dellwindowsze8.png
Ubuntu ($749): http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/3127/dellubuntusp9.png