thelinuxlink.net

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/30 ... ell_sales/

Is 40,000 units over a number of months enough to keep Dell interested?

Your guess is as good as ours. The company sells about 10m machines per quarter.

To be honest I never really thought it was a big deal to be able to buy a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed. I'd just as soon buy any Windows machine that's usually much cheaper, wipe it, and install my distro of choice. How this was supposed to help the Linux community I never understood or bought into.

It was supposed to help by having a big name demand open source drivers for their linux hardware, persuading hardware manufacturers to open their specs up or at least somehow allow open drivers to be made. Not to mention providing a way to avoid the Microsoft tax, to the best of my knowledge. I know I want to avoid Microsoft getting my money as often as possible.

As it is, I thought it was nice receiving a laptop with a working Ubuntu out of the box with no fiddling. Just got straight to work on it. Perhaps others don't feel the same way, but I was always a bit concerned about buying a laptop new or from eBay, because it wasn't always easy to get the specs and check to see if the hardware was compatible, and even then you might end up like the guy at LUG Radio, who thought he had done his research on the laptop, only to get one with Broadcom wireless. With the Dell equipment, I didn't have to worry about it.

People seem to be awfully critical of Dell, who seems to have made an honest effort to sell linux desktops for enthusiasts like myself, and I don't know what others expect of them. I mean, really, I don't think Dell could do anything to make some linux people happy. I particularly like the twisted logic some guy used to try to say they were only selling Ubuntu laptops to push people towards Windows laptops. It was ridiculous on the surface, and ridiculous on closer inspection.

I like my 1420n, and they've yet to give me a reason for anger towards them.

greggh wrote:To be honest I never really thought it was a big deal to be able to buy a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed. I'd just as soon buy any Windows machine that's usually much cheaper, wipe it, and install my distro of choice. How this was supposed to help the Linux community I never understood or bought into.

Well, first of all, why pay money to Microsoft (Which, by the way, is gonna get reinvested into patent racketeering, FUD and all that other stuff we all hate) when you don't want to use their software? To me, 50 USD is a lot of money if I could spend them elsewhere!
Second, a lot of people talk about making GNU/Linux more accessible to new people, and let's face it, most of the world never installs their own OS, they just don't, they buy a machine and then use it until it gets spywared, and then they buy a new one (That was actually the case with a classmate of mine! She was so ignortant about everything, that she just went right out and bought a new PC, rather than just having someone reinstall Windows and upgrade her graphics card). With Dell selling GNU/Linux pre-loaded, one could simply tell a family member to "buy a Linux machine from Dell", in the same way some strange and FOSS-ignorant people (*cought*Leo*cough*Laporte*cough*) always says "get a Mac". This may seem nice depending on whether you like to see more people using GNU/Linux. If your attitude is "It works for me, I don't care whether other people use it", then fine, this probably sounds very uninteresting. If you would like to see more people use GNU/Linux, I think this is a good deal. Also remember that Dell said that they "wanted better driver support from ATi", and AMD had been saying for a while that they would be fixing things, and guess what, now they're releasing graphics hardware specifications WITHOUT NDAs to free software developers.

Also, for those of us who don't like building our own machines (*cough*Wally*cough*Balljacker*cough*) being able to buy a computer that we then know for sure will work with ANY GNU/Linux distro (Because Dell has comitted to getting any custom driver support, that might be necessary, upstreamed to kernel.org), heck probably even the *BSDs! Is only a good thing IMO, this way you can still wipe the box to install your preferred distro, but 1. you're not paying the Microsoft tax, and like I mentioned, since GNU/Linux is already certified to work, then you know any other will just work, especially once the new radeonhd driver for AMD's graphics hardware becomes ready for prime time, then many things REALLY will just start to work.

I personally always prefer to build my own machines, and there's a couple of reasons for that. I want to know exactly what is in my computer, and I want warranty for each individual part, not for the box as a whole, that way I can just send back a single defective part, and use a spare part, rather than the entire box. Also, this way I void no warranty by opening the box. And it's fun! And also, I don't want Intel processors, I am an avid AMD fan, especially after they started, and committed to, release hardware specs for their graphics chips (Even Intel, is not doing this!).

I mean, really, I don't think Dell could do anything to make some linux people happy. I particularly like the twisted logic some guy used to try to say they were only selling Ubuntu laptops to push people towards Windows laptops. It was ridiculous on the surface, and ridiculous on closer inspection.

Well, in addition to brilliant minds and wonderful, giving people, FOSS seems to attract a number of unplesent people as well. These people range from the person who is generally cool, but has a stick up their ass about others "hating freedom" to the full blown Freedom Fighter Asshat who can find fault with almost anything that isn't straight up GNU licensed. IMO these are poisonous people who are against adoption of linux for anything but hobbiest application. You know the type - the ones who picket/boycott Red Hat because they are filthy corporate greedheads, who lambast Postfix and its ilk because, though it's free as in beer, and generally very open, it isn't GPL, who would like nothing better than to set any prepackaged linux distributor's headquarters on fire for "transgressions." Look at the recent Asus debacle as an example - time will tell what the real score is, but the fact that there are hundreds (thousands?) of people ready to crucify Asus before there has been any sort of discovery done, whatsoever, is enough to make me shake my head in shame. Sometimes I wonder why the hell any company would bother with a market like Linux.

Tsuroerusu wrote:

greggh wrote:To be honest I never really thought it was a big deal to be able to buy a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed. I'd just as soon buy any Windows machine that's usually much cheaper, wipe it, and install my distro of choice. How this was supposed to help the Linux community I never understood or bought into.

Well, first of all, why pay money to Microsoft (Which, by the way, is gonna get reinvested into patent racketeering, FUD and all that other stuff we all hate) when you don't want to use their software? To me, 50 USD is a lot of money if I could spend them elsewhere!

My feeling on this is that Microsoft getting their $50 tax is not enough to stop me from buying a windows machine if it means I get a cheaper machine that I can then install Linux on myself. Also, I'm not criticizing Dell. I just never thought it was important. And I don't care if the masses use Linux. I do care that there are enough Linux users that hardware and software producers can't ignore it as a platform, and I'm confident that is happening with or without companies like Dell selling Ubuntu boxes.

greggh wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

greggh wrote:To be honest I never really thought it was a big deal to be able to buy a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed. I'd just as soon buy any Windows machine that's usually much cheaper, wipe it, and install my distro of choice. How this was supposed to help the Linux community I never understood or bought into.

Well, first of all, why pay money to Microsoft (Which, by the way, is gonna get reinvested into patent racketeering, FUD and all that other stuff we all hate) when you don't want to use their software? To me, 50 USD is a lot of money if I could spend them elsewhere!

My feeling on this is that Microsoft getting their $50 tax is not enough to stop me from buying a windows machine if it means I get a cheaper machine that I can then install Linux on myself.

Fair enough, I just personally refuse to directly give Bill Gates money, even if that means I have to pay a little more to get a new box (I'll be getting other advantages, so that makes up for it).

greggh wrote:Also, I'm not criticizing Dell. I just never thought it was important. And I don't care if the masses use Linux. I do care that there are enough Linux users that hardware and software producers can't ignore it as a platform, and I'm confident that is happening with or without companies like Dell selling Ubuntu boxes.

Well, then Dell doing this surely can't hurt, it can only be good for assuring the level of critical mass. Also, like I said, if Dell's request of better graphics driver support from AMD had anything to do with AMD's release of hardware specs, then you really can't say that having a big vendor onboard was not important IMO. Sure, AMD released proprietary drivers, but that just doesn't do much in the long term in my opinion, first of all it's technically a GPL violation (I trust the authors of the GPL (FSF) on this one, since I am not a lawyer), and secondly it makes development much harder, and limits hardware support since the "blob vendor" can just discontinue support for an old device to pressure people to buy something new.

If dell was not so darn proud of their price and un-upgradability, they probably would have sold more. You can get two to three new systems and put linux on it your self at price. Maybe with the systems that are coming from Walmart, they will get the hint. As a positive, I will say I like the online documentation has been helpful with my old brown box dell machines,