Ubuntu Dell Now In UK, France, and Germany

mrcgran writes "Dell announced the availability of Ubuntu in Europe and future plans for China. 'I hinted at this before, but today, it's official: Dell announced that consumers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany can order an Inspiron 6400 notebook or an Inspiron 530N desktop with Ubuntu 7.04 pre-installed... In his LinuxWorld keynote, Kevin Kettler announced that Dell and Novell intend to offer SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 factory-installed on select consumer notebooks and desktops in China.'"

Canada?

Why wouldn't Dell extend this deal into Canada?

Seems like the next logical step since Canada is a very similar market to the U.S.

I don't buy the excuse that they would have to deal with French language regulations, since they're extending their deal to France and to another non-English country, namely, Germany.

Re:Canada?

Every non-Quebecois I know wishes Quebec would follow through on those threats to secede they make from time to time.

Why don't the other provinces just get together in a preemptive strike and kick Quebec out? If it's not consitutional, you could make it constitutional with only Quebec in opposition. Heck, if they even get wind of it, they'd get up on their high horse and just go ahead and secede and you'd be free of them :)

Then you could have Dells with Ubuntu right now :)

Wow... MS really fractured OSS community...

...but apparently its the OSS fractions that's wedging into territory occupied by MS...

Is this a win?

I feel this is only a win if Ubuntu and Suse stop embracing proprietary, non-free (as in freedom) drivers. If they don't then the hardware manufacturers will still in in control of your computer, and you'll be at their mercy if there are bugs in the drivers which make the hardware unusable with your selected distro. Only if there is a push for free drivers will this be a win for everyone, rather than just for Ubuntu, Suse and others that happily ship non-free drivers.

Re:Is this a win?

I feel this is only a win if Ubuntu and Suse stop embracing proprietary, non-free (as in freedom) drivers. If they don't then the hardware manufacturers will still in in control of your computer, and you'll be at their mercy if there are bugs in the drivers which make the hardware unusable with your selected distro.

I am inclined to trust Mark Shuttleworth when he makes reasonable compromises to make PCs work today. I feel this way because he does so without relenting in his efforts to ensure that a Free Ubuntu remains available to all. It's obvious to anyone who watches how he spends his money that he really is committed to Software Freedom, and that Ubuntu and Canonical are simply means to achieve that end.

He is also a businessman who understands what is required to achieve acceptance of said Freedom in the real world. It's clear that there are interim steps involved, which involve dirtying one's shoes with proprietary kludges from time to time. It's a necessary step, not because of any innate shortcomings in the FOSS model, but because of limitations in the manufacture and marketing of proprietary hardware and software.

Free Software breeds more Free Software. It's not 'viral', as Microsoft likes to say - it's addictive. The benefits of openness and cooperation are immense in a world where intellectual wealth is infinitely replicable. Shuttleworth knows this. In order to addict a wider part of the population, therefore, it's necessary to ensure that some product (heh) reach them, even if it's been adulterated somewhat.

Re:Is this a win?

I have mixed feelings about proprietary software on a Dell box. On one hand I try to promote the open source movement where I think it belongs (generally speaking any software that 'everyone needs'). On the other hand I can see many people wanting to try this 'open source' thing buying a computer from trusty Dell and going WTF when they can't play a DVD in their DVD drive. Dell, having complete power over what it installs in the box should have no problem choosing only hardware with open drivers. At the same time I wouldn't mind it too badly if they cut a deal a la Linspire so that users could (legally) get DVD playback.

Re:Is this a win?

And I see WTF right there, as proprietary drivers are not required to play DVD. You can play DVDs very well with readily available open source drivers. What are you trying to say, bberens? That spreading FUD is fun for you? Are you malicious or just ignorant?

Proprietary drivers are not required to play DVDs, but this library [wikipedia.org] is.

KDE?

Is KDE the default on any of these configurations?

waiting for a better deal from dell

As I recall, from a few weeks ago, dell's cheapest desktop is $349 and is available with Vista Home only.

The cheapest dell/Ubuntu is $499.

I'd buy a machine right now if the pricing made sense.

Even if they shipped the $349 box with a blank hard drive I'd buy that over the Ubuntu @ $499

And the walmart everex 20 watt machine that was in all the news a couple weeks ago is MIA. I went to the local superstore and they not only did not have any everex desktops, they had no idea what $298 offer I was talking about. Two people told me it sounded bogus. Even the walmart website has a monitor bundled, nothing for $298. The superstore had one small aisle space with desktops, all starting around $600 and all having far more cpu and ram than i need for my low power 24/7 home server project.

A lot of these linux friendly claims are just vapor.

Re:waiting for a better deal from dell

Another factor in the valuation is the hardware life cycle. For example, at my company you get your choice of a Mac, a Windows machine or installing the BSD or Linux distro of your choice (on pretty much a support-it-yourself basis), and you're eligible for a new machine every three years.

When I was hired in January, I chose a Mac, and they issued me a 15" MacBook Pro, 2 GB RAM/120 GB disk. I'm fairly confident this will still be a highly usable machine in three years. Lots of people have PowerBooks that are between 2 and 3 years old, and while they think a new MBP would be cool, they have no complaints with their current hardware; it's getting the job done and performing well. The people running Linux or BSD are doing OK, too.

But the ones with 3-year old notebooks running XP, they practically have their upgrade eligibility date marked in red on the calendar (some probably really do). Compared to the Mac and Linux and BSD machines of the same age, those 3 year old Windows boxes are just wheezing along. What this means for the purchaser of a Dell Ubuntu box, then, is that if they buy a decently speced-out machine now, the can reasonably expect that in three years it will still be very serviceable. Even if you pay a little more for it, you'll get that money back in the form of longer hardware upgrade cycles. This fact can't be lost on Dell, I wonder if that's a factor in any price differences?

Interestingly, a thing I hear regularly from people waiting for their hardware upgrade cycle is that they plan to get a Mac next time instead of a Windows machine. At least in engineering, Macs have already become the majority platform. I was in a meeting today and looked around the table and counted that 80% of the attendees had Macs.

Regular users still mostly opt for Windows, of course, but both here where I work and at a couple of recent conferences I went to (not Black Hat and Defcon, but security-oriented anyway), there were a lot of people with Macs or PC notebooks minus Windows. A guy a couple rows in front of me was running FreeBSD on his. Everywhere, I hear people who currently have Windows saying they are going to take a serious look at moving to Mac or Linux. Microsoft is losing, or at risk of losing, a great deal of mindshare in the community of programmers, engineers, and other technical fields. One of the things that helped make Microsoft who they are today is great mindshare in that group. If they lose it, that loss can go a long way toward breaking them. Interest in, and acceptance of, Macs and Linux machines in the corporate environment seems to be at an all-time high and going up rapidly.

I'm sure Microsoft is concerned, but I don't believe they fully appreciate the peril, fully appreciate how close the tipping point may be. The next 2 or 3 years, while they work on the successor to Vista while many of their users cling to XP or move to Mac or Linux should be very interesting.

YAY!

Maybe with backing from Dell, Ubuntu and especially SuSE, NVIDIA will finally be forced to make a video driver worth the powder to blow it to Hell.

Why does Dell give Ubuntu/Inspiron the slow CPUs?

In the US the max CPU offered on the Ubuntu-loaded Inspiron 530N is currently the E4300. If you want a faster CPU with Ubuntu, you have to go with the (much more expensive) XPS 410N instead of the Inspiron.

Whereas on Dell's FreeDOS-loaded 530N you can go up to the E6420.

Why does Dell restrict the Ubuntu-loaded Inspiron to low-end CPUs?

Well done, /.

Good job, editors. With all the complaints we see about bad summaries, it's nice to see a summary that's so concise and correct.

Now? Where?

I checked both the UK and German dell websites and even if I specifically search for Ubuntu, the only thing I can find is the US Dell Ubuntu site.

dell?

For all the haters out there, let me just say that I like linux and I like ubuntu. Being community based, they've managed to get popular without getting the illwill that red hat did. And I think this is a good thing in general, but let's be honest: Dell sucks. This would have been great news 5 years ago when Dell was the top dog, but now they're racing to the bottom. HP/Compaq, Gateway, Lenevo, etc are eating their lunch. Apple is where it's at.

I've started a letter writing campaign to Steve Jobs to encourage him to sell Macintosh computers preloaded with Linux. Apple is on the leading edge of personal computing (or at least the journalists and newsmakers seem to think so). If we could encourage them to ship an iMac with ubuntu linux (or maybe kubuntu), that would have a halo effect. Curious people would install ubuntu on their home pcs. Maybe Apple will even open source iWork (Pages/Keynote/Numbers) and we'll finally have a decent word processor and spreadsheet.

Yawn - more Dell hot air

I'm fed up with Dell getting all this free publicity by pretending they offer Ubuntu. Recently, when looking to buy a new laptop, I wasted too much time talking to their sales people asking about Ubuntu and Linux. I ended up buying a Toshiba. Go to Dell's UK site and do a search for Ubuntu. No products offered. But right at the top of the screen: "Dell recommends Windows Vista." Please: no more Dell-might-offer-Linux-machines-in-future stories. Dell are only doing this to crank more out of Mr Baalmer. (Yes, I do know how to spell his name. That's how I prefer to spell it.)

Re:Yawn - more Dell hot air

Go to Dell's UK site and do a search for Ubuntu. No products offered.

So, let me get this straight: having heard of hearing of Dell's plans to sell laptops with Ubuntu in the U.K - announced 24 hours ago - you've been to their website to look for said laptop, not found it and went on to configure and buy a Toshiba with Windows on it instead. Shortly afterward you came here to angrily inform us that the offering is nothing but hot air - an attempt to get free publicity and take advantage of lower margins on software from Microsoft Holland's Dutch CEO.

You're clearly a person of great principle with very little free-time on your hands. Are you what they call a power consumer?

Good job, Dell

I "voted with my cash" as I've seen others mention, and ordered a Dell Ubuntu laptop. Best computing decision I've ever made, easily. If you are even entertaining the slightest thoughts about getting one, do it.

The machine made it through its first major presentation to clients today (not presenting the laptop, but presenting materials to the client) without a hitch. I've installed Kubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Enlightenment, and Fluxbox on it so far. I was really, *really* tempted to run Enlightenment during the presentation today, just because of the slick animations and minimal GUI.

I'm not the most talented Ubuntu apologist, but I think that most of us who should be using it, know who we are.

BTW, my non-techie wife uses this machine every day without problems.

And not Ireland?

Which is strange, as the Dell PCs for those markets are -made here-...

Not yet your can't

Hidden in the press release and not obvious on the main UK site is a text link to www.dell.co.uk/ubuntu [dell.co.uk]

Following this link takes you to the "Dell with Ubuntu" homepage, but clicking on "Choose Desktop" or "Choose Notebook" results in a 404.

Excellent work there Dell.

Re:Not yet your can't

As well as www.dell.co.uk/ubuntu www.dell.de/ubuntu also presents an Ubuntu page in German with the same results if you click on the links.

The only option for the Inspiron 6400 in Germany remains Windows Vista for now (going through the normal www.dell.de pages). They don't even have XP any more. I wouldn't touch Vista with a ten foot pole before the first service pack comes out.

Are there notebooks with Ubuntu that have a modem built in? A modem can be your only option on the road sometimes. And I even got my brothers Thinkpad A20 modem to work with Debian.

Sales figures?

Has anyone seen any sales figures on Ubuntu Dells? It would be very interesting to know, on a model for which Ubuntu, XP, and Vista are all available, how the sales numbers are coming out.

Europe ?

availability of Ubuntu in Europe [...] consumers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany

Well, geography was not my favourite subject, still, I got fed up with similar moves. Reminds me of iTunes, like how it's available in Europe... right. People complain about globalization, hell, I'd really prefer it, if it would mean services would be global - or at least be available in Europe if they say it's available in Europe. Made me angry about on the same level when I happened to find some good stuff in an online store the other day, only to find out they only accept cards for payment if they were issued in the U.S. Well, keep your stuff and don't let me tell you where to put it to rest.
 

Where are the laptops on their website?

I can't for the life of me find these laptops on the Dell website.

Can anyone else supply links to them (Inspiron 530N and Inspiron 6400)?

Microsoft present tense...

"Dell announced that consumers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany can order an Inspiron 6400 notebook or an Inspiron 530N desktop with Ubuntu 7.04 pre-installed..."

Not as of today, they can't. I live in the UK, and I just went to dell.co.uk and started to customize an order for an Inspiron 6400. Guess what? The operating system options are Windows, Windows, or some other flavour of Windows. "Any OS you like, just as long as it's Windows".

Looks like the Dell marketroid who issued the statement was using the Microsoft present tense. As in "jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today". (Actually not yesterday, and probably not tomorrow either).

Wake me up when Dell has actually done something.

Ubuntu preloaded PC in France

Dell are acting like amateurs. At Dell France website there is no way to find any machine with Ubuntu, I tried the search, "/ubuntu", manually checked almost all their offer, there is no Ubuntu on the page. At best the client is redirected to Dell USA with the USA offerings of PCs with Ubuntu.

I have a friend of mine who runs his business with only email and phone, he have 4 employees that do the same thing. All the PCs at his office are used for email, browsing the web and some document editing sometimes (spreadsheet and doc). He is complaining about spyware viruses and all that stuff. Many times I talked to him to switch to Linux, not because is free (he gets all the OS and Word licenses for free shipped with the PCs by Dell) but because of the stable and virus free system it is. Just to write emails and browse the web, he already uses the Mozilla soft. But he is scared of that Linux thing, not sold and supported on the desktop by any major vendor.

For guys like this , I think this is a great news ! This September I'll buy for him new machine, and I know with which OS it will be sold, loaded, supported BY DEFAULT !

From the Dell website(!)

From Dell Ubuntu Page:

"The main thing to note is that when you choose open source you don't get a Windows® operating system."

Aaahh, so that's what this Ubuntu thing is all about..

Don't fear the penguins...

I've seen the reports as of late, and I can't help but wonder if this is the very beginning of the end of M$'s reign. This is how it starts, how history repeats. One by one the OEM's open up, let Linux in, and soon every OEM offers it. People buy it, thinking it might be a breath of fresh air from Microsoft. "I've heard about this Linux thing, I wonder what its like?..." And word of mouth is a powerful thing. The strongest, greatest advertising campaign can be brought down by a few simple words... "That product sucks!"

Coming from the right mouth, those words destroy entire companies. So Linux creeps in, takes over households one by one... how long before we start seeing reports like we see about Firefox? "Firefox steps up as leading competitor to IE", "Firefox market share grows!", "Firefox pounding away at IE Market share".

There's no doubt now that Microsoft is feeling the burn. Every move they make now suggests desperation in their effort to control open source. To keep it from being free, open.

Time after time throughout history, humans have proven that when we want freedom, we will have freedom. Free and Open Source software is freedom, and people want it. I don't remember who said it, but the line still rings true in my mind... "Somehow, I can *just* start to smell the first whiffs of decay from the old software giant."

Proprietary software is dead. It just doesn't know it yet.

You can buy UK Inspiron 1720,1520+Ubuntu by phone

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/feature s.aspx/inspn_1720?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs [dell.com]

On 08/Aug/2007:

16:46:09 System System Initial Question/Comment: When will the Inspiron 1720 be loaded with Ubuntu Linux in UK??
16:51:10 System System You are now being connected to an agent. Thank you for using Dell Chat
16:51:10 System System Connected with Sherrel_Long
16:51:15 Agent Sherrel_Long Thank you for contacting Dell Sales Chat. This is Sherrell, your Sales Advisor. Please give me a moment while I review your query.
16:52:26 Customer Me ok
16:53:10 Agent Sherrel_Long The software is available if you purchase through phone.
16:55:34 Customer Me i'm buying in uk, 1720 with ubuntu is available in uk as well?
16:56:40 Agent Sherrel_Long Yes, you can call the sales line for this.

6400 Configurations/Prices

INSPIRON 6400N - £616.87
BASE Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core T2130 Processor (1.86GHz,533MHz,1MB L2 cache) N-Series
OPERATING SYSTEM Ubuntu Edition version 7.04
HARDWARE SUPPORT 1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & Return edit
LCD 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display
MEMORY 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
HARD DRIVE 80GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
GRAPHICS CARD N-Series - Intel® Media Accelerator 950 Graphics Up to 256MB shared graphics memory
OPTICAL DRIVE Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive for N-Series
PRIMARY BATTERY 6 cell Lithium-Ion Battery (53 Whr)
WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY Intel® Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Card (for Dual Core Processor)

INSPIRON 6400 - £648.75
BASE Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core T2130 Processor (1.86GHz,533MHz,1MB L2 cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Home Premium - English
HARDWARE SUPPORT 1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & Return
LCD 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display
MEMORY 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
HARD DRIVE 120GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
GRAPHICS CARD Intel® Media Accelerator 950 Graphics Up to 256MB shared graphics memory
OPTICAL DRIVE Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software
PRIMARY BATTERY 6 cell Lithium-Ion Battery (53 Whr)
WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY Intel® Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Card (for Dual Core Processor)

I've tried to set them up as close as possible. The Vista version can be made £23.50 cheaper by choosing the (default) base wireless card, and has a larger hard drive, and has free shipping which brings the price down and isn't available on the Ubuntu machine.

Have to say I'm disappointed with the offerings, especially as the 6400 is quite an old model already, and there's little scope for building a powerful (by 2007 standards!) machine.

Re:Decision point

The way I see it choice is good. Dell or other OEMs selling other OSes than just Windows is good for the customer. Even if they try to make it "into the Same Old Thing" it is still a different choice and that's a good thing.

Re:Decision point

Linux is not a 'grass roots' operating system, and hasn't been for a long time. It's been a very capable server OS which is backed by several large corporations. It's just now making headway into the desktop market. It's sort of the reverse of what Windows did. Linux needs to shake its grass roots image if it wants to make bigger waves in the business world. Please stop referring to it as such because it only strengthens the idea that linux is a toy for hobbyists.

Re:Decision point

Linux isn't an operating system, it's a kernel. Ubuntu, Red Hat, Fedora, SUSE, those are operating systems powered by the Linux kernel.

*trying to dispel the Linux is an OS confusion*

errr.

All operating systems suck! Use whatever you like.

Re:Fuck you.

Interesting. Now, get yourself a time machine and go read that paragraph to Chaucer, and see how much he understands. He spoke English, right...should be exactly the same.

Re:Your grammar sucks.

You cannot use the word "hopefully" that way. Hopefully can only be used as an adverb. A correct usage could be "she waits hopefully."

Frankly, Anonymous Coward, I don't give a damn.

In case that went over your head, look up disjunct adverbs.

Re:Fuck you.

Ita vero, amice!

Re:Fuck you.

A language is like an RFC. It doesn't change.

We got English as it is today from change. Whatever version of English you think is correct would not make sense 200 years ago. And even RFCs are often replaced. And yes I am starting sentences with "and", how do you like that? How about using commas in place of semicolons?

Every natural language was produced through change. You can't stop it from changing.