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Dell(?), HP shipping with Linux
turnerjh writes "Another hardware manufacturer has joined the ranks of Hewlett-Packard, SGI, VA Research, and Compaq. Dell Computers has announced they will begin bundling Linux soon. Is Microsoft finally losing their strangle hold on the hardware industry? This is a step up from Dell just passively installing Linux on demand. It seems they will be actively pursuing our favorite OSS OS." Be careful with this one-Dell hasn't actually said they will be shipping with it-just expetected to announce it. But, this is a step-up (if true), and it sounds like it won't just be on servers, but work-stations as well. Additionally, Tom Jenkins wrote to tell us that Hewlett-Packard has announced they will be selling some of their server line with Linux pre-install/bundle as well. Let's keep making inroads, folks-this Dell thing has been in the air for a while, but a commitment is always a good thing to see.
Did Hemos actually read the Cnet article before posting?
Nothing is confirmed, the only thing it says about Dell and Linux support is "Dell is expected to....Dell officials declined to comment."
To call that confirmation is wishful thinking.
It's good to see that Dell is going to start preloading GNU/Linux. I'd still go with VA Research though--after all, how much of Dell's action is just cheap peer pressure?
As for HP, they have really been screwing up the past couple of years. When are they going to get some guts again and stop sleeping with MS?
I must wonder what is gonna happen with regards to
:/
support for Linux from vendors such as Dell. Traditionally they have had phone tech support for Win9x so what are they gonna do now??
Are they really gonna hire the people they will need to support linux (Which will be extremely difficult IMHO) or pass it onto other Vendors like Redhat ???
Also does any1 feel that with major vendors offering linux that there will be an increased pressure on the Kernel Development people??
With linus' work in Transmeta this could weigh heavily on his shoudlers
Have they announced anything? No. This "confirmation" is merely a leak by some overenthused employees who are trying to steal some of HP's limelight.
Sorry Dell, I don't consider a system to be made to order if I can't get the OS of my choice on it. I'm sticking with HP for my company - at least they are honest, even if not glitzy.
HP's netservers have always been the best hardware
platform for servers - clearly suerior to Dell & Compaq which were competing on price alone. Long term, I've had better luck with HP hardware. Now that they have linux, I don't have to worry about software.
Buy from Penguin Computing or VA Research. These two companies have done much to support the Linux community, including sponsorship of slashdot. When you buy a PC through one of these two companies you are skipping the Microsoft tax (although VA Research will put it on if you really want it... and Penguin Computing refuses to touch Windows) not to mention they will in turn give back to the Linux community a bit of the prosperity that the community brought to them.
Dell could care less about Linux. Them, Gateway 2000, Micron, you name it... all these guys have been in it just for the $$$ and could care less about making Linux better for you and me. All these years they snubbed us. Support companies that were early adopters and help support a new world order based on Linux.
...right after I criticized him in the second comment.
Although HP hasn't announced "support" for linux on their workstations yet, I know their kayaks are the best PC workstations on the market - by a wide margin. I think HP dominates the market for these.
I have some friends at HP, and all (!) of them run linux on their kayaks.
I'm pesonally responsible for about 200 HP kayak PC workstations which were shipped to me running NT, which I erased & installed linux on. Now these count as 200 licenses for NT, which adds to the growing inaccuracy of such surveys.
Thanks for the ref to Penguin Computing! :)
dell still hasn't done shit. we keep hearing these rediculous rumors, but nothing else.
until i can call 1-800-buy-dell and get linux preconfigured on my computer, it doesn't count.
Ask for a refund!
Big deal, they do what the customer wants them to do. I like linux, but i like some windows based games. I would rather have the vendor install Loose98 for me along with linux.
when a vendor tells me i can't have the system the way i want it, i find another vendor.
It seems that Dell Denmark has announced something
Roughly translated from PCWorld DK:
Dell Computer has been certified for Redhat Linux, and supports, as the first, hardwaredrivers for the OS 100% (Hmm..)
The certification means that you will be able to choose Dell Precision servers 410 & 610 in the driver database that comes with RedHat Linux.
Dell says, that the certification will make it easier til install Linux on their workstations.
"We have experienced large demand from our costumers, to have Linux-certified workstations delivered" says Torben Deleuran
You should be able to read more on
this url
(Use Linux/Linux as login/password)
Morten Olsen (morten@pbk.dk)
it seems many of the readers here trust the headlines alone without actually reading the whole article
Slashdot is not actually contributing to the misinformation, they always give a link to the article. Lazyness on the part od the readers of slashdot is what contributes to misinformation. Besides, media is all about misinformation, espesially if the truth is just to boring to sell enough commercial spots.
When I want a home computer, I build it myself.
But when a major international insurance company tells me they want 5,000 workstations and 200 servers, you'd better believe I am getting prebuilt machines.
Rolling your own is only effective for one-off or small workgroup scenarios.
A few years back when Ellison and McNealy were touting their "thin client" stuff, Mike Dell shot back "The people want fat clients".
:)
In retrospect, we can see that Ellison & McNealy were not so much against fully loaded PC's, it was just their jealousy of MS. Mike Dell wasn't so much defending MS, just his business interest in selling fully-loaded desktop PC's.
This is a funny turn of events. I wonder if the Oracle and Sun guys have changed their tune on "fat clients" now that it doesn't neccessarily mean that people will be running MS Windows on them.
touche!
I've just ordered a Dell Poweredge 2300 with Redhat installed. It's a special deal at this time... but, they WILL do it. It's $249 for the "system integration" fee, and $37.92 (think that's correct) for the Redhat package.
I didn't want to buy from Dell, but, this is a state government purchase and it's under contract. I didn't even get a response for my bid request from VAresearch. I've suggested to some other Linux/hardware integrators that they seek to get on state contracts. From where I sit, that would be a Good Thing.
The fellow who submitted this article clearly didn't read the article, nor did Hemos before posting it. Dell has announced nothing. This is an unsubstantiated rumor that once again Slashdot is announcing as a given fact. If Slashdot is to keep any credibility, the editors need to at least read the articles they post before allowing such errors to get through to the thousands of people who scan the headlines here. That's right, it seems many of the readers here trust the headlines alone without actually reading the whole article. Slashdot is contributing to widespread misinformation.
Read the article-I'm not actually saying it's confirmed-in fact the opposite. I've changed the title to be more descriptive. So, for those of you want are lambasting me for not reading the article, I'd recommend following your own advice.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Its because all these big companys are tired of being microsofts bitch and being whiped around everuwhere. They just want to have more freedom.
It's not so much that MS is losing their strangle hold, but more like there's actually a viable alternative now that attracts a large number of people. What was there before? OS/2? Netware? Not much, really. Linux is a totally viable alternative to MS products, and the customers are speaking loud and clear - it's about time companies LISTENED.
Why not? Dell and Micron are the ONLY prebuilt computers I would recommend to anyone. Their products are much more solid than anything else I have ever tried... everything works almost perfectly out of box, compared with bad experiences with many other vendors. I don't care what they think about Linux, good hardware is good hardware.
I work on the BIOS for Dell's workstations. I guess I'll have to ask my boss if there's any truth to this. But don't expect me to confirm this in public.
--
Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@tabi.org, http://www.tabi.org
I disagree. I think that Dell wouldn't bother asking MS about it, and would use their common sense to know that MS would absolutely love some competition.
This is important. When companies perform a selection between different platforms, they are going to include Dell, HP, IBM offerings in the process. "Build your own" will not be on the list.
So we are in agreement that corporate acceptance of Linux is key, and thus we must support Dell et. al. in their pre-installed, supported configs. I myself would still build my own, but believe me, there's no way I can put that on a proposal or in a selection doc.
Moreover, acceptance from these manufacturers will foster mainstream acceptance and growth. We've got to back this.
P.S. Tru64 Unix has got to be the lamest Unix brand name choice I've ever heard.
--
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
Call me crazy, but this flurry of announcements that major computer manufacturers are optionally bundling Linux with their machines seems to have a hint of the Chairman's work behind it.
What's Mao have to do with this?
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
"Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots." - Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori
My guess is that most vendors are doing this because the don't have to woory about Microsoft for the time being. If the DOJ doesn't prevail in the trial, I'd be willing to place money on these vendors dropping Linux support do to "lack of interest."
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
I used to work for Dell EMEA on their website and I remember the politics involved when we said that shite server was no good for our next generation website. Within the company there was a great deal of resistance, esp from the States, and meetings with senior M$ ppl were littered with vague threats, including suggesting that we were damaging the personal relationship between Bill Gates and Michael Dell.
(In the end we chose Excelon from Object Design)
"There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
Call me crazy, but this flurry of announcements that major computer manufacturers are optionally bundling Linux with their machines seems to have a hint of the Chairman's work behind it.
The M$soft anti-trust trial is gradually winding up, and the Feds have made an awfully strong case that the boys in Redmond have been shoving the rest of the industry around a lot.
I suspect Microsoft has been dropping some broad hints to the OEMs that giving users an alternative OS, especially one like Linux (which due to a slight learning curve will only appeal to a narrow band of savvy users at the moment) isn't such a bad idea.
Then they can go running back to the Feds and say "look, there is an alternative OS out there, being shipped by most of the major manufacturers, that has quadrupled (or whatever) its user base in the past 9 months."
With these minor concessions, Bill G preserves his complete dominance in the consumer market, makes it look like he is permitting competition, loses some very minor market share, defeats the Feds, then moves in in 11 months and wipes out Linux (how he's going to pull off that last bit is a puzzle to me; maybe he'll just keep it shoved into a specialized corner, like OS/2, until it becomes irrelevant; maybe he doesn't mind losing 5 percent of the market permanently).
Here's a question worth examining; are the major OEMs changing their attitudes toward installing Linux on servers? That's where Linux poses a real threat to M$oft at the moment...
\
Your joking right? Maybe this article does not say it but Dell has said they will sell you a box with linux on it may times. Although before they did say you had to buy something like 30 computers a quarter if you want support. But they are doing linux case by case... give your rep a call and ask him to put linux on a computer for you, most likely he will say okay.
Oh and why has no one said anything about Gateway? They said they were going to start shipping linux soon too.
--MD--
--MD--
I almost feel sorry for all those new Linux users that will miss the experience of installing and configuring a system.
Thats half the fun right?
(With the other half being tweaking your system for optimal coolness)
This sounds great, until you read the fine print. If I recall correctly, all the Linux installations are custom, which means they only you $250-350 to install Redhat Linux on each box.
Don't count your savings before they hatch.
I sent in a bit to /. some time ago (though the editors chose not to include it on the /. page) pointing out that it was somewhat humorous that the Dell catalog I'd received in the mail showed several of their systems with penguins all over the monitors (they weren't Tux, though).
Think Dell was somehow signaling that a preloaded Linux was soon to be available to potential buyers?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
LOL...First of all, there hasn't even been an announcement. Of course, Dell already has announced (yes, a real announcement, for those of you who don't know what they are) that they'll gladly preload your computer with Windows 2000 beta 3 on it when it comes out. LOL, that's right, at Dell a freakin' BETA wins out over the supposedly stable Linux 2.2 kernel that everyone's (snicker) been waiting for. Just goes to show that they really don't give a shit about Linux, and no amount of trumpeting about announcements that don't even exist can change that. Why? 'Cause Dell knows what the market wants.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
"Linux is only free if your time has no value" -- JWZ, mozilla.org
I'm not bitter about it. I use Linux, 'tho I haven't had the time to move up to the 2.2 final yet on my dual x86 or sparc box, yet. I'd be bitter if I used it and it wasn't stable, but Linux and NT don't give me any problems in that area. It's just hard not to do a big eyeroll at seeing people going ga-ga over announcements that, forget not even having taken place yet, haven't even been confirmed that they will take place. How 'bout supporting the vendors that already are supporting Linux? I'm sure they must feel pretty special to hear everyone drooling because Dell might ship Linux boxes, even though other companies have been doing it for years, and especially when Dell shows where their true heart is by announcing that they'll sell freakin' BETA OSes preloaded and still have said nothing about Linux, despite the big 2.2 hoo-haw. Okay, I've about run out of Bold, time for me to go.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
"Linux is only free if your time has no value" -- JWZ, mozilla.org
Anyone thionk that Microsoft is forcing Linux to help it's position in court?
/tex
Dear, um, anonymous coward with a large Kayak installation, could you please contact me?
Your assuming, tho, that the OEM's don't already WANT to pre-install Linux (or other OSs). OEM's have their hands tied, for financial reasons, to bundle M$. With the focus of the DOJ on M$, it gives OEM's more room to do what they WANT to do, with less fear of M$ putting their foot down.
And there was much rejoicing.