Dell Linux Details

jon_anderson_ca writes "Dell, through their direct2dell website, has released some details of their soon-to-be-available Linux machines. Among the highlights: Only hardware that works with Linux is offered; open-source drivers are used where possible; binary drivers for Intel wireless cards, etc.; and no support for proprietary media codecs. Seems reasonable, but it's too bad that Click2Run isn't in Ubuntu 7.04 for the sake of those wanting to (legally) play DVDs, use AVI files, etc." The direct2dell site divulges no details on what models will be offered with Linux. For those we turn to linuxquestions.org, where proprietor Jeremy published a scoop last week: "We will be launching a Linux based OS (Ubuntu) on the E520, 1505 and XPS 410 starting next Thursday, 5/24."

But will they be cheaper?

[Animats (122034)]

The base Dell 1505 laptop is $699, with some low-end version of Windows Vista preinstalled. If the Linux version costs more than that, Dell isn't serious about this.

Re:

[spoop (952477)]

But with Windows on a $700 laptop, I'm sure they install all kinds of crapware that brings the cost down, which they obviously can't do with Linux. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual cost to Dell for Windows and Linux is the same.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

why do you think you can't pre-install crapware on linux ?

Re:

[scumdamn (82357)]

I think you can't because customers wouldn't stand for it. You COULD install it on Linux, but not if you're targeting your offering to Linux nerds as opposed to Linux n00bs. (And I say this as a Linux nerd.)

Re:

[VernonNemitz (581327)]

I don't care how much junk software they add, so long as Micheal Dell has read "World Domination 201" [catb.org] and decides to offer for sale a disk full of licensed codecs. Dell has the clout to put such a disk together, faster than Linspire.

Re:But will they be cheaper?

[Daengbo (523424)]

From the Dell website [dell.com],

Michael's Computers

What kind of computer does Michael Dell have? See for yourself. These are the systems and peripherals Michael is using right now. If you want to learn more about these products, or purchase one of your own, visit the links.

At home: Dell Precision M90

Hardware:

* Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 Processor
* 4GB DDR2 667Mhz DRAM
* 17" WXGA+ Widescreen LCD
* 160GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive
* 8X DVD +/- RW optical drive
* NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500 512MB

Software:

* Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn
* VMWare Workstation 6 Beta
* OpenOffice.org 2.2
* Automatix2
* Firefox 2.0.0.3
* Evolution Groupware 2.10

It's the first computer listed. I suspect that support for Dell Linux laptops will be moving right along with MD's primary computer running Ubuntu 7.04.

Re:But will they be cheaper?

[lawpoop (604919)]

Seriously, how much can each craplet defray the cost of a new computer?

I don't know what the numbers are, but I would bet there is at least 1,000 installs for every eventual purchase of an app. If you paid $5 to have your app pre-installed, that would be $5,000 dollars before you got your first $79.99 sale.

The actual amount that each app brings down the cost of a laptop has got to be in the cents range.

Re:But will they be cheaper?

[drsquare (530038)]

And you're basing this conclusion on numbers you've completely made up?

Re:But will they be cheaper?

[SEMW (967629)]

I don't know what the numbers are, but I would bet there is at least 1,000 installs for every eventual purchase of an app

I think you're overestimating the average user and underestimating the psycology used.

Grandma buys a Dell computer. Grandma uses it happily for three months. After three months, Norton pops up a window with an Alarming Yellow Exclamation Mark telling her that her antivirus protection "Will Expire in 5 Day(s)" and that unless she pays $20, her computer Will Be Vulnerable To Newly Discovered Viruses And Other Security Threats! Now, Grandma's read about computer viruses in the papers. She's never heard of AVG, Avast, or ClamAV.

So Grandma presses the button and pays $20. From her perspective, what else could she do?

No, I don't have any figures either, but I suspect that percentage subscription renewals from preloaded apps are a hell of a lot larger than you think.

Re:

[lawpoop (604919)]

So Grandma presses the button and pays $20. From her perspective, what else could she do?

OK, but does she do this for every pay-ware app installed?

Let's assume that the developers make $20 off of a purchased app. We can't assume 100% sales. Let's just say that it's 50%. I think that's a more than generous number. So, the developers cannot afford to pay more than $10 per computer to put their app on it, without losing money ( and this is a year later, after the subscription has run out).

So you knock $10 off of the cost of the computer.

Now, do all of the pre-installed apps get purchased? No

Re:But will they be cheaper?

[MLS100 (1073958)]

Don't give up hope, maybe McAfee runs under Wine!

Re:But will they be cheaper?

[Stocktonian (844758)]

Does anyone else think that offering only 3 models is a little underwhelming?

Only one laptop model? I can tell you it's because Dell's hardware just isn't compatible enough. Sure it's good enough to get by with Linux on it but they're not likely to stump up the costs for development of a laptop that is 100% compatible.

And for everyone who thinks they can just swap out components that don't behave well, I'm afraid I can tell you from person experience it's not that simple. You need to get the factory on board to make it happen and most of the time Linux compatible components aren't cheap. I'll take it all back if Dell start producing a line of laptops and desktops that work 100% with Linux.

My company has taken the time to create 4 specifically Linux OEM laptops, so we know how hard it is. When people say they expect it to be cheaper too it's just getting ridiculous. The hardware choices you need to make for really good compatibility just do cost more. WiFi is the best example, once you've changed from a generic card to an Intel card you've lost the saving you make by not paying a Windows Licence. And that's before you even have to start worrying about the right Intel chip! I can't wait to see these laptops, turn on the WiFi, 3D desktop and put it into suspend mode. Then when it wakes up we'll see how compatible these things really are.

I commend Dell for trying, but I think before everyone gets too excited we need to wait and see how much effort they actually put in.

Re:But will they be cheaper?

[Jimmy King (828214)]

I would think we could look at their current Linux supported offerings, the PowerEdge line, to get an idea.

Base price is no OS.
+ $261 for RHEL5 w/ 1 year support
+ $785 for RHEL5 w/ 3 year support
+ $105 for Suse 10 EL w/ 1 year support
+ $262 for Suse 10 EL w/ 3 year support
+ $599 for Windows Server 2003 Standard
+ $974 for Windows 2003 SBS

This seems pretty in-line with what the pricing was when the company I work for bought a Linux compatible Optiplex last year.

With that in mind, I would imagine that the Ubuntu desktops will also be less expensive than the same desktop with Windows on it.

Re:But will they be cheaper?

[CastrTroy (595695)]

The difference is that the PowerEdge line is servers. You can't install crapware on a server. Any admin (I would hope) would promptly wipe the drive anyway and start over from scratch if you included anything close to crapware (or even if you didn't, just because they wanted to do everything from scratch). You can't compare the pricing on their servers to the pricing on their desktop machines, because they serve entirely different purposes, and entirely different markets.

Re:But will they be cheaper?

[by Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that the PowerEdge line is servers. You can't install crapware on a server.

Sure you can. Dell offers Windows pre-installed!

Re:But will they be cheaper?

[fishthegeek (943099)]

I'm suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder on the idea that the Linux laptop should be cheaper. On one hand it is financially cheaper for Dell to offer the machines without Windows. On the other hand Dell is probably offering more of a value to most people by vetting the hardware against the software before delivery.

Some of us have had the joy of getting wireless or sound working over the course of a week. Heaven help anyone trying to get power management on a laptop working well. I'm typing this on a 30 day old Acer and what power management I have working is a gross and inelegant hack. I jumped on ideastorm like a couple of other people did and said my peace. Having done that I intend to sell this laptop on craigslist, and buy a Dell preloaded with Feisty and I will pay the difference if I need to. I have the sneaking suspicion that most of the posts on ideastorm are "me too" posts or kids wanting to feel 1337. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that most of the posters are willing to put their money where their mouth is. I believe that having Dell add the value of making a good laptop with a great (and hardware vetted) OS will be worth what they ask. I feel a little naive for suggesting that Linux folks should trust Dell but Dell just might actually price their laptop fairly and I for one will pay for easy Feisty goodness. Look at System76, they sell Ubuntu preloaded and I can promise that they will never be the lower cost option.

Re:

[fishthegeek (943099)]

Sorry that you were modded troll. I don't think that you're trolling at all. Dell doesn't expect more than one percent yet they are still doing it. There once was a time when MS or Novell had "1%", there was a time when Commodore owned the home computer market. If Dell uses wisdom, and savvy here they stand a chance of being at the forefront of an emerging market instead of being the dude kicking the dead horse. Dell won't have to support Ubuntu if the community does it, and having used Ubuntu's forum

Is it going to be completely Ubuntu?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Is Dell going to have their own repository? If people can get software from every repository it is possible that they will get something that doesn't work with the hardware. If Dell had its own repository then they would gain the same advantage that Apple has; the software would be guaranteed to work with the hardware. That would save them a bunch in support. That could make Linux much more attractive to Dell.

Re:Is it going to be completely Ubuntu?

[LevonB (1099459)]

They currently have a yum repository: http://linux.dell.com/repo/software/ [dell.com] I can only imagine they would have a debian based repository as well.

Re:Is it going to be completely Ubuntu?

[SavvyPlayer (774432)]

Ubuntu is updated every 6 months, and Dell has chosen the more cutting-edge 7.04 version over 6.06 for which Canonical had promised support for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server. With Windows, Dell has been accustomed to supporting a relatively stagnant Windows kernel. To commit to supporting a Linux kernel that evolves every dozen weeks or so, and a software distro that evolves every 6 months will require active participation on Dell's part -- regular contributions to testing (n+1) and participation on the Ubuntu launchpad.net site. If Dell is going to contribute at that level it might as well simply become another full ubuntu mirror. Exciting prospects indeed.

Proprietary Codecs?

[CastrTroy (595695)]

Which proprietary codecs aren't specifically supported? There's a version of LinDVD you can get for Mandriva that AFIAK is completely legal. What about talking with apple and getting some Quicktime codecs. What about other Codecs like MP3 that aren't included in some distros, yet are included in others? Either way, I don't really think it will be a bad thing. Anybody ordering a Linux machine will know how to get their own codecs, or will know someone who does (this will be the person telling them to get the computer). I don't see any noticeable percentage of people buying a linux machine who won't be at the direction of somebody who linux-knowledgable. However, I think that if they don't include things like MP3 playing capability then it's a garauteed failure for all such users, no matter the percentage.

Re:

[RicktheBrick (588466)]

I have been running a 64 AMD computer with the 64 bit Ubuntu operating system. I use firefox and there is still no 64 bit flash with little hope that there will be one in the near future. There are a lot of sites that use flash such as youtube so there is a lot of video that one can not view with that set up.

Re:Proprietary Codecs?

[CastrTroy (595695)]

There's a couple options for you.

1) Install a 32 bit browser, along with a bunch of 32 bit libraries. Downside is this takes up extra disk space for the 32 bit libraries, and your browser is only 32 bit. Upside is the rest of your computer is 64 bit, and I don't really think there's a real need to have your browser running in 64 bit.

2) Wine at Adobe until they release 64 bit flash for linux. I think this will be a while, considering they completely skipped version 8 for Linux, and I'm pretty sure version 9 is still in beta.

Re:

[simcop2387 (703011)]

actually version 9 is out of beta now IIRC and the reason (that they state anyway) that there is no amd64 version of the flash player is because the JIT type code they have for flash isn't 64bit safe still, don't know if thats true though, if it is, its at least a semi-reasonable excuse, but its still something they should work on.

Re:Proprietary Codecs?

[MadTinfoilHatter (940931)]

2) Wine at Adobe until they release 64 bit flash for linux. I think this will be a while, considering they completely skipped version 8 for Linux, and I'm pretty sure version 9 is still in beta.

First a slight correction: Adobe flash v9 came out of beta in January this year.
Then an addition of a third available option:

3) You can install the Netscape plugin wrapper http://www.gibix.net/projects/nspluginwrapper/ [gibix.net] which allows you to use 32-bit plugins on a 64-bit browser. It works with Netscape and Mozilla browsers.

Re:

[ceeam (39911)]

> Wine at Adobe...

And then - when you're seriously drunk - shout at them: Youuu baasterdss (hick)... When arrre you goin' to make siss... siss... sissty-fooourr bit Flassshhh pluginnnn... (throw up)

Re:Proprietary Codecs?

[ajs318 (655362)]

YouTube movies are in flv, which is basically a bastardised MPEG format. You don't need Flash player. There's a GreaseMonkey script which will allow you to watch them using mplayer. FLV isn't even a proprietary codec (ffmpeg knows about it. In fact, the whole toolchain for converting your camera's AVI files into something you can host on a website is entirely Open Source. Only the player is proprietary, and the GNASH developers are working on that. I'm currently working on a site with embedded video clips, and I will make them accessible to GNU/Linux users without Flash player.)

I'll grant you, it's not obvious -- and that's not entirely unrelated to many people having vested interests in keeping alternatives to what they sell non-obvious. When was the last time you saw a site with PDFs mention that you could use anything other than Adobe Reader to view them? (Ones designed by me with on-the-fly PDF-munging technology [again, the toolchain to do this is 100% i-tal] and smart links to kpdf, xpdf, evince or foxit reader depending on your browser and OS don't count.)

The problem begins and ends with closed-source, proprietary software. Always has, always will. Short of passing a law against caged software (which I don't believe is impossible for some small country sometime in the near future) the best thing you can do is support the Free Software movement. Use Free Software, suggest improvements (don't just say "this sucks", say "this would be better if ....."), donate money, time or hardware to an existing project, start a new project. If you want to put the "and other" into "non-violent and other direct action", there are quite a few things you can do which won't do any harm to life or tangible property, just bogus "intellectual property".

Re:

[drayzel (626716)]

I do not work for Dell, but I happen to have a friend that works for one of their outsource providers. He read some of the internal docs related to the Ubuntu launch and asked me about the Codecs and such as he was unfamiliar with the way things work in Linux land From what I could gather there will be no DVD decoding or MP3 software installed, techs are instructed not to help customers install or locate any such software. Part of the script is "Although the hardware is capable of reading DVDs we do not su

Re:

[drayzel (626716)]

Forgot to clarify that there will be a special que for Linux support at Dell. which is a good thing as the majority of the techs I know at that location would choke the second a customer mentioned linux.

Re:Proprietary Codecs?

[wellingj (1030460)]

I just installed Debian Etch on my new Thinkpad. Debian is one of the most free distros around.
mp3 mpg avi divix all worked out of the box. I had to install [blogspot.com] 1 package and DVD is now working.

Latitudes...

[jhnphm (892864)]

Too bad the Latitudes don't seem to be offered- the inspirons are craptacular- I would never get one of those, but I would get a Latitude.

But can it run....

[adez (967740)]

Erm, nevermind.

restricted extras

[Ash-Fox (726320)]

Seems reasonable, but it's too bad that Click2Run isn't in Ubuntu 7.04 for the sake of those wanting to (legally) play DVDs, use AVI files, etc."

Because start menu -> Add/remove programs -> Ticking 'ubuntu restricted extras' to get proprietary codecs, flash, java etc. is so much harder than 'Click2Run'.

Why not make an "Uncrippled for non-US" edition?

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Are there any "European Linux" distros that don't kowtow to the U.S. DMCA rule, and include libdvdcss by default?

It seems like all the major distros basically play by the U.S. rules, but with the seeming increasing popularity of Linux in Europe, I'd think that the time would be right for somebody to just stop following idiotic U.S. regulations and make a distro that's not hampered by anti-circumvention ... I mean, why not have "Crippled for U.S." and "Un-Crippled" mirrors, and just ship the same distro with a different /etc/apt/sources.list file depending on whether it's the "US ISO" or the "International ISO"? (And, duh, everyone except for corporate users in the U.S. would probably just download the European version, but the point would be that in order to get the 'good stuff,' you'd have to shamefully pretend to live in a country that doesn't suck so bad at IP laws.)

It would be sorta like the 40-bit encryption restrictions in the early 90s, only in reverse. We need to make it screamingly obvious to politicians in the U.S., that America is losing on something that the rest of the world is doing without us, because of our stupid rules.

I don't normally encourage obnoxious European holier-than-thou-ism, but this is one case where it could be put to useful effect.

Re:Why not make an "Uncrippled for non-US" edition

[ajs318 (655362)]

Yes. At least in Britain and Europe, if the DVD is your property, then you are legally entitled to watch the film recorded upon it. Otherwise, the store that sold it to you was breaking the law -- goods sold to a consumer must be fit for their rightful purpose. The fact that you are circumventing encryption is irrelevant in this case, since you are (by sole virtue of ownership of the disc) the intended recipient of the encrypted communication and therefore have authorisation from the sender of the encrypted message (the film company) to view it.

Enforcement of the EUCD in such a way as to protect the interests of established manufacturers would violate pre-existing European laws against anti-competitive behaviour.

Hmmm, not good

[GFree (853379)]

If Dell isn't going to be supplying support for proprietary media codecs (regardless of how easy it is to add them yourself), then this suggests to me Dell wasn't prepared to pay licensing costs to make this happen. I hope they provide instructions, or perhaps a script that runs the first time you boot into your Linux box that can auto-install these codecs, otherwise this will piss off a lot of people.

Re:

[scumdamn (82357)]

If you search the Dell knowledge base for "Ubuntu DVD" after it ships you'll have the answer to this question.

Re:Hmmm, not good

[Compholio (770966)]

I hope they provide instructions, or perhaps a script that runs the first time you boot into your Linux box that can auto-install these codecs, otherwise this will piss off a lot of people.

Supposedly they'll be shipping 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) which has a codec wizard [ubuntu.com]

Lose, Lose

[tyleroar (614054)]

I'm sick of reading all these comments about how horrible it is that Dell isn't going to include the proprietary codecs to play DVDs or mp3. It's not completely legal to do so now without paying a license fee. And if Dell did pay a licensing fee to include, people would be complaining about why it costs just as much as Windows does. And besides, it is VERY easy to look up instructions on how to add the capability to play those codecs online, and most people that care enough to specifically order a Linux Dell, are already going to know how to do this.

Defective by design?

[d_jedi (773213)]

That tag seems to apply here..
No DVD support, no proprietary codecs? Good grief. I would have hoped Dell would have at least paid the $2 or so for the licensing fees for this stuff!

If this is any indication, it doesn't look like pre-installing Linux will be the panecea some think it will be to beat Windows on the desktop..

97 billion USD can buy a big chunk of the MPAA

[tepples (727027)]

All the gold in Ft Knox would not be enough to get a license from the DVDCCA

The bullion depository at Fort Knox [wikipedia.org] holds 147 million troy ounces of gold. At 660 USD per ounce, that makes 97 billion USD. This is more than enough to buy a controlling interest in The Walt Disney Company, News Corporation, and Viacom Inc., and spin out their film divisions.

Sounds like they're doing it right

[bl8n8r (649187)]

I've never liked Dell, but they seem to be doing it right.

* The default software from the Ubuntu media will be installed
* hardware options thoroughly tested by the Linux team
* restricted drivers where there is no equivalent open-source driver.
* wiki page that gives technical details
* recommend Linux users buy Dell printers that have PostScript engines in them.
* We are evaluating options for providing (mp3/wma/etc codecs) this support in the future.

They're not rolling their own distro (hello Oracle), they're checking out the hardware focusing on GPL drivers wherever possible, documenting via wiki, recommending Postscript supported printers, and they aren't ruling out the *legal* mp3 support down the road. They seem to just be saying "We are trying to figure something out with this mp3 royalty mess". Not to mention, they *must* be pissing off Microsoft big-time. I bet Balmer has chairs tatooed with the Dell execs names on them, just waiting for the right time. That's not like Dell either, historically. They are usually just another little m$ bitch when Bill cracks the whip. Maybe this is a new era for Dell.

Re:Sounds like they're doing it right

[Redacted (1101591)]

Maybe they saw how Apple is making a metric assload of money selling a UNIX derivative, closely tied to decent hardware, and want a piece of it?

It's pretty far out there, but what if Dell are positioning themselves as an Apple for Linux - good hardware, guaranteed compatibility, support for installed packages, etc. I know a lot more people would consider Linux on the desktop/laptop if a name-brand, respected company like Dell were offering it.

Re:Sounds like they're doing it right

[Poppler (822173)]

Even better, they're going to push hardware vendors to write Linux drivers:

For hardware options not offered with this release, we are working with the vendors of those devices to improve the maturity and stability of their associated Linux drivers. While this may not happen overnight, we do expect to have a broader range of hardware support with Linux over time.

Damn, no WUXGA laptop

[dara (119068)]

Well if this is the lineup ("We will be launching a Linux based OS (Ubuntu) on the E520, 1505 and XPS 410 starting next Thursday, 5/24." from Jeremy's Blog), I guess I have to wait longer. I'm only interested in WUXGA - the 15.4" Latitude D830 would have been nice, but I'd have considered the E1705 too. If I have to buy an unsupported model and install Linux myself, there is less incentive to pick Dell in the first place.

I seconded ideas on ideastorm that suggested Dell get rid of this stupid division between Latitude and Inspiron, but who knows if that will ever happen. Just a single line of well built laptops in a few different screen sizes is all we need (it works for Apple and if Dell wants to entire the retail market seriously, it would help to have a reduced model line).

Dara

Really...

[BlurredOne (813043)]

I know that this does not apply to all of the threads in here, but I need to get something out.

Is there anything that any hardware or software vendor can do that will make the /. community happy? This isn't meant as flamebait or a troll, it is a genuine questions. Dell is taking a step in the right direction by offering Linux on select systems, and some of you seem to be taking this as a personal afront because Dell doesn't cater to all of your whims. This is the start of them offering Linux publically on their systems. It will take some time for Dell to get everything worked out. Please, if you want Dell to continue to offer Linux on their systems, don't criticize them for the initial offering, support them. Go onto the Direct2Dell site and let them know what you would like in future releases. Contribute to the process, don't complain when something that you never asked for isn't included.

Noone gets it right the first time, and if they did, we would still be using the alpha of Ubuntu.

Re:

[xtracto (837672)]

No, there is no way to do it. The /. community (Or if you want to put it this way, the Open Source community) is very heterogeneous. When you talk about a "slashdoter" you find from the mom-basement geek to the PhD in Chemical Engineering (or even professor), some of us are more interested in the actual funcitonality and see things as this as good, while others are more concerned with the philosophy and as such they do not like closed source drivers, etc. And yet others are interested in the capitalistic vi

Re:Support DREAM

[mhall119 (1035984)]

Heh, you must not use Ubuntu 7.04.

Here's how it would actually work...

Customer gets WMV file from his kid.
Customer double-clicks WMV file, or right-clicks and selects "Open with Movie Player"
Ubuntu: This file requires additional codecs to play, would you like me to install them?
Customer: Yes please
(wait 1 minute)
Ubuntu: All done, enjoy your movie!
Customer happily watches their WMV.

The next day, Customer sends his Windows kid some awesome Theora file...

Re:

[Terrasque (796014)]

Open F-spot. Import images. Select the ones you want. File -> Export -> Webgallery.

While I personally love the command line, that was perhaps not the best example I've seen :)

Re:Support DREAM

[mhall119 (1035984)]

Theora is a patent-free, royalty-free open-source video codec. It's the video counterpart to the Vorbis audio codec and competitor to MPEG4 and WMV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theora [wikipedia.org]
http://xiph.org/ [xiph.org]