Michael Dell Using Ubuntu Linux At Home

whoever57 sends us a link from the Dell site noting that Michael Dell is using Ubuntu Linux at home (7.04, Feisty Fawn) on a Precision M90 laptop loaded with Openoffice.org and Evolution. If one were betting on which distro Dell will eventually ship pre-installed, this factoid might be food for thought. Oh, and Micheal Dell's gaming system uses XP Media Center edition.

Just an advert

It looks like a normal posted flyer.
Given all the other stuff he has I bet the baseline Linux machine will be the toilet one.
Or the one he threatens his kids with:

"Screw around on teh internets and you will use Linux for the rest of the week"

Having said that, its REALLY good Dell are actually selling machines, the specified model just looks crap compared to the other kit on the page.

Re:Just an advert

No, you are missing the point. He had to use the monster PCs for the ones running vista just to get it on the web. The Ubuntu lappy runs fine without a supercharger...

Re:Just an advert

yah, but it would be nice if google earth would work right.
I have a newish dell laptop with and intel Graphics card running Ubuntu and google Earth has masive drawing errors and is unstable.
I have a 4 year old desktop with as 32Mb NVidia card running Ubuntu and google earth works perfectly.
I don't need 3d for games, but I do need some small amount of 3D. for simple stuff.

Next laptop I buy will have an NVidia card, I hear they are power hungry, and expencive, but at least I will have some form of 3d working.

M90

Is the wonder machine, I also use... :)

However, I am not allowed to use Linux. :(

Dell support would be fine, but corporate policies need to change too.

He is not the only one - Happy Feisty Fawn day!

The statistics are biased towards how you buy your computer, rather than what people actually use. How many of those other machines dual boot also?

Businessmen & Their Customers

If one were betting on which distro Dell will eventually ship pre-installed, this factoid might be food for thought.

I'm going to discard this assumption that because Michael Dell uses Ubuntu that's what they're looking at.

The simple reason being that a good businessman never assumes what's good for him is good for his customer.

Maybe he ist looking at a course change?

In the past, sticking to Windows seems to have worked for Dell. There are obvious reasons (need to support only one OS) plus maybe a very favourable volume deal by Microsoft.
But as Linux gains more market share, it is time for Dell to re-evaluate this position. Michael Dell using Ubuntu may be part of such research. If so, he is acting with more foresight than some managers I know ;-)

Re:Businessmen & Their Customers

No, he merely said that he never ASSUMES it is. It might very well BE the best thing for the customer as well as the businessman. You've taken the point in reverse.

He's saying that the fact that M. Dell is using Ubuntu should not play a major factor into what distro Dell decides to ship to its customers. The opposite is not true... If he were to pick a distro AFTER the decision had been made, he may very well choose to use the same distro his company is shipping.

We don't know if that decision has been made, what it is, or why M. Dell chose Ubuntu. Making assumptions on any that is foolhardy at best. But then, that's what journalism means today. Making half-assed assumptions and printing them as fact. When you're wrong, you just write the retraction in tiny print on the billionth page.

Re:Businessmen & Their Customers

'For god sake he was fired from the company he started!'

Yeah, the company he led to massive profits. He was fired by VC's and investors who thought a slick oldschool CEO could do better. After nearly going bankrupt and being bailed out by Microsoft of all people they finally brought jobs back. Jobs then led them to the iMac the multi-colored top selling personal computer (to this day as far as I know) and then the IPod and the intel macs.

Yeah, Jobs is a terrible businessman who accidently drives massive profits where 'good businessmen' can't seem to make it fly.

MS tax

I wonder if he can get it without the MS tax?

Errmmmm

Wasn't Feisty Fawn just released this week? If he's been using it, he's either been using the beta or else he just installed it, right? And if Dell were really in talks with Canonical to distribute Ubuntu 7.04 on Dell PCs, wouldn't we be hearing about it from Canonical and/or Mark Shuttleworth?

What?

Why didn't you let the GP read their own interpretation to Mark Shuttleworth's exact words:

derStandard.at: So are we going to get pre-installed Ubuntu on Dell computers?

Mark Shuttleworth: Well - time will tell.

derStandard.at: Are there active talks on that?

Mark Shuttleworth: I would not comment on any conversations underway.

I can see that this isn't (i) a definite 'No' (and nor would it be); (ii) "We'd be delighted if the Dell team want to get in touch"; (iii) "I have their Cease & Desist and Restraining Orders on my office wall -- we'll get Dell to ship Ubuntu, just you see"; or (iv) "We're integrating Wine and Launchpad to track users via the default-installed Dell add-ons". However, I don't think that there's enough there to be sure that it is any hint of talks, as Canonical's and Ubuntu's status would rise if Mark Shuttleworth could give the impression that Dell were interested.

Re:Errmmmm

I hate to feed the rumors, but what other distro would they possibly use ? I don't know of any other that pulls off the user experience schmoozing as cleanly as Ubuntu, seeing as it's one of their main goals. As funny as it would be to toss a Gentoo boot disc in the box and watch the call center agents as they commit suicide one after another:

Joe - " I setup Portage to run off a CDB backend, and now my metadata is corrupt. Fix my box, bitch!"

Kerpal - " Ok, sir, please turn off the computer and remove the power cord for 2 minutes. "

Joe - " No, f*** you that won't fix it. I need a tarball of this and that, and a custom shell script to reindex those..."

Kerpal - " Ok, sir, I am going to put you on hold... (hold music) AAAAAAAAAH *BOOM* *SPLAT* *CLICK*"

Ultimately they want a nice easy distro to appeal to the masses, because that's the business they're in. I wouldn't be surprised if they came up with a nice idiot-proof restore CD as well, because the expensive part is training the thousands of tech support people worldwide. Having them pop in a restore disc is an easy way to deal with it, because ultimately that's what a lot of techs end up doing when Windows acts up too... just blow it away and start over. That's how they're trained. Advanced software troubleshooting is a luxury billed by the hour, not covered by the puny hardware warranty.

FIVE?!

I can't even imagine why one person would want five PCs.

How much time does he spend applying patches and updating software? Transferring data?

THREE different laptops? Doesn't he realize that the whole appeal of a laptop is that you can take it with you wherever you go?

Makes perfect sense to me

It's the easiest to use of the PC based desktop operating systems.

 

not bad

i'm not an Ubuntu user, but it is a choice.

Feisty released

Although it's not officially announced yet, the Ubuntu Feisty Fawn torrents are live:

Desktop i386 [ubuntu.com]

Desktop AMD64 [ubuntu.com]

Server i386 [ubuntu.com]

Server AMD64 [ubuntu.com]

The more exotic torrents (and the directly downloadable ISOs) can be found at the official release site [ubuntu.com] but I thought we'd try to save their servers a bit of pain and heartache.

Seriously?

I really want to know what it is that makes people think Ubuntu is the best thing since sliced bread. I've tried it out, and it's not any better than a lot of other distros. Actually, I find that because they aim too much towards the home user, that it makes it difficult to do more advanced things. Personally, I use Mandriva. I have used it since version 7. I don't see Ubuntu doing anything that Mandriva (or Mandrake) wasn't doing 3 years ago.

Re:Seriously?

Who are you to say that Ubuntu is aimed "too much" at the home user? Did you ever think that maybe that's who they're targeting? Every other Linux distribution isn't aimed at all at any variation of a home/average user. The folks at Ubuntu are probably going "gee, duh. Maybe we should make a distribution that you can use without having to have 6 years of sysadmin experience" You're doing the right thing by using a distribution you prefer. It's just a little off base to say that Ubuntu's distribution is aimed "too much" toward home users. Or do you prefer the days when you had to be a computer geek in order to use a computer?

Re:Seriously?

I don't see Ubuntu doing anything that Mandriva (or Mandrake) wasn't doing 3 years ago.

Windows Migration Assistant? [michaellarabel.com]

Oh Boy

Now we'll never hear the end of the "Ubuntu Rocks" guys

Support......

How much time does he spend applying patches and updating software? Transferring data?

None. He has support take care of it.

No Vista

While it's interesting that he has an Ubuntu laptop, I'm more surprised that none of the four other machines are running Vista. They're all still using various flavors of XP.

He's smart, why shouldn't he run linux

Just made a living out of selling cheap windows boxes. You seriously think the owners of Mc.D. eat the burgers themselfes aswell? ;-)

Big Deal.

This is /. I'm not going to be impressed until he has them all synced up into one contiguous cockpit in some flight sim.

On a serious note though, he would probably sell more computers (eventually) if he DID switch a majority of his machines over to Ubuntu.

A. They'd be cheaper.
B. They'd work better.
C. They could have Beryl eye candy.

I mean, those 3 things are enough to easily make a Feisty machine sell more than a windows machine for 90% of the users out there who don't REALLY need DirectX.

rhY

Just sounds like a plug for Dell systems nothing

more... How much does he use the systems? What are his comments on the various systems? Big whoop he has a computer with Linux on it. He is Mike Dell for gosh sakes.

OS by Ubuntu

Watch by Cartier

Desk by Ethan Allen

Suit by Armani

Who cares what Michael Dell has on his laptop? How many people who work for "American" car companies drive "Japanese" cars? Just because his company has a deal with Bill Gates doesn't mean MD has to run Windows on his laptop, nor does it mean that what's on his laptop is going into production laptops. Talk about creating a stir over nothing...

Gaming rig?!

Oh, and Michael Dell's gaming system uses XP Media Center edition.

Get back to work, you slacker!

I used to support executives

At a rather large tech company. A small cadre of top honchos had their own groupware server(s!), their own email server(s!) and their own dedicated VPN. They also had instant 24/7 unlimited support wherever they were for any of the multiple home or office machines they used. Their support ratio headcount was 1:1, e.g. each supported person had one FTE dedicated to them.

They simply did not acknowledge that anyone in the organization had any sort of technical problems at all and chalked it up to nerdy whining. Our budgets were routinely slashed, hardware and software was left running long past end of life, capacity planning was a joke and the internal costs for help desk calls and deskside visits were jacked up to absurdly high levels so that no managers would permit their own people to use them. Complaints to senior management were met with not so vague threats of termination, STFU, GBTW!

So if Mike Dell uses uBuntu it's probably because he's imperially disconnected from the realities in his own company. To him, I'm sure he feels that everyone has 5 PC's and full time free dedicated support from the best brains in the industry and what on earth are these peons complaining about now for God's sake?

Re:I used to support executives

Not true in Michael's case. I work at Dell and a couple of stories I heard...(posting AC) (1.5 years ago) IT team is having a meeting and Michael happens to drop in... They are discussing why/ what of some web application. Michael questions why Firefox is not supported...--End result, the whole of Dell has an option to use Mozilla as a supported app. second one, at a newly set-up facility a midlevel manager is showing michael around the lab. we have 5 of these latest computers, 5 of that etc. etc. Michael proceeds to completely open up one of the servers and proceeds to ask "Why are you using test systems on production environment?" turns out that the machines indeed were pre-production...and michael figured it out from the connectors used!!

Soft

I'd rather see several detailed screenshots per machine with detailed info on exactly what software packages are used, how he likes them, and how, and how much, they are used.

I must be the only one who thinks displays look cooler with something displayed in them.

That said it is almost enough to get me to buy those dual 30" ultrasharp displays. I mean they must be readable if Dell has them at home, right? Just how much do those suckers cost I wonder.. Quality of LCD display is pretty important to me as my eyes need rest.

more facts

The really big news though, is that so does Billy G! But he likes it to keep it real quiet. Balmer tried it but didn't understand it and went back to Workbench 3.9.

You all fell for it: this is PR at work....

Oh, gee, Michael Dell, running dog lackey Microsoft/Intel fanboi now uses Ubuntu! See? Dell is really trying to those pesky Linux people! See? Mikey uses one at home, although there is the altar of XP Media Center there just to make sure that Bill's not pissed.

C'mon, folks--- this is PR working at its finest and you're getting sucked right into the nozzle. Dell support for Linux has been scant and waffling for years. Now you're being seduced by the fantasy that The Big Dell actually uses an OSS system. Get real.

From the drug world

It is well know that a successful dealer doesn't use the drugs he sells.

2007WFP, eh?

Michael's Home Computer ...
        * UltraSharp 20-inch widescreen flat-panel monitor, 2007WFP

I bet Mr. Dell's display doesn't have ugly gradient banding...

He's also got a Dell DJ

C'mon, Mike, you quit making those POSs months ago. Treat yourself right, get an iPod. You know you just look like a tool when you bust that thing out at the airport. Instead of looking like the head of a major computer outfit, you just look like some dork who can't afford or, worse, doesn't know about the iPod.

At least he doesn't have a Zune. Michel Dell and Steve Ballmer squirting in an airport terminal... *shudder*

Nice

Seriously, this is cool in several ways. And given his past with MS, it takes guts to post that in public... or will we read in two hours "Update: Michael Dell's bio on Dell website hacked by Ubuntu fans"? :-)

Seriously, though, look at how often over the years he said he'd make AMD boxes, but always stuck with Intel (after another round of extorted price cuts, one imagines) and now they're finally offering AMD CPUs in several lines. Maybe this really is the start of offering a line of supported Dells with Linux.

Vetted

Seeing that Michael Dell uses Automatix2, I am sure he has had it vetted by his lawyers. It is nice to know all the codecs and software in it are legal to download and run in the United States

Yes that was meant to be funny.

Ian Murdock

What I also found interesting is that Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian, has a screenshot in his blog whith ubuntu in it: http://ianmurdock.com/2007/02/26/google-calendar-a dds-freebusy-scheduling/ [ianmurdock.com]

Overclocking ?! :)

I notice for his at home machine he is an overclocker.

"Dell XPS 710 H2C
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor overclocked to 3.2GHz"

so?

I fail to see how this is news .. Who cares what OS Michael Dell uses at home? He's using his own products YAY! pfft. Michael Dell is using a Dell laptop with an OS that his company supports .. Big flipping deal! That's like reporting that the CEO of Ford drives a red Jaguar .. Since Ford owns Jaguar, it's no big deal ..

It's not like it was reported that Bill Gates uses Ubuntu at home.

Gamer?

Uh, how does the CEO of one of the biggest tech companies in the world have time to play video games? I'm a lowly graduate student with a full time job in Education (with plenty of income and not much responsibility) and I can barely find time to sneak in a Hold 'Em Poker Tournament on my computer from time-to-time.

He just happens to have one machine using Linux

All the rest JUST HAPPEN to be running Vista Ultimate.

Oh, please, this is a fucking advertisement for Dell products.

Don't waste my time with this drivel.

Re:mikey likes it...

It's not OS/X. It's OS X. And it's not "oh ess ex" it's "oh ess ten"

Re:How did he download the release so fast?

Here you go, these links came from linuxtracker, they are definitely the final releases, not the beta.
CD - ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso.torrent [linuxtracker.org]
DVD - feisty-dvd-i386.iso.torrent [linuxtracker.org]

Re:How did he download the release so fast?

Use the Swedish mirror. I switched to that a while ago since the us servers always seem very slow. The Swedish one is usually very fast.

http://se.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04/ [ubuntu.com]

The iso's are on that site now.

Re:mikey likes it...

He's probably just sick of all the bullshit that is microsoft windows. Windows is such a pushy and intrusive user experience IMHO, and there's a trust factor..

He certainly isn't tired of all the money he gets from the tons of boardline malware that comes preinstalled on most Dells running Windows.

Re:mikey likes it...

"Forced to use Windows"

Grow up.

Re:mikey likes it...

Thank you raving anti-MS lunatic. If you hate Windows and MySpace so much, don't use them. Nobody is "forcing" you to use either. Or does the Adult Film Producers Guild require the use of Windows and MySpace??

Re:Seems just an ad

It looks unusual to me that a big corporation exec installs the latest Ubuntu distro on one of his laptops even before the news of its release hits the press

Unless he didn't install it and decided to try out one of the new Dell Linux laptops before they hit the streets, so it had Ubuntu on it before it left the factory floor. Which is why there's the speculation that Ubuntu will be the distro used in Dell's consumer Linux machines.

Then again, seeing as the guy got rich from building PCs in his bedroom, I doubt he's a usual corporate exec when it comes to technical matters. Hell, he could be a /. reader for all we know.