Dell's New Linux Blog 317
comforteagle writes "I've just written up an interesting find: Linux engineers at Dell have started their own Linux site and weblog about Linux at Dell. From the announcement: "Welcome to the Dell Linux Community Web. This site is dedicated to providing any information that may be useful regarding your usage of Linux on your Dell equipment. While Dell primarily works with and officially supports Red Hat Linux, many of our customers choose to run other distributions." And perhaps more importantly it appears that the new site and weblog is run and maintained by the engineers themselves. It certainly has that 'made with vi' look." And kudyadi points to this PC Magazine interview with Michael Dell, in which Dell talks "about Dell's expanding product line, the company's late entrance into the Media Center space, and where the PC giant and the industry go from here." He touches on Linux just a bit, too.
Also toshiba has one (Score:5, Informative)
Hopefully they change things at Dell (Score:5, Informative)
The lack of official support for linux on the Dell Desktop and Laptop Hardware has been one of the biggest impediments to rolling out a Linux User Machine in our enterprise.
While many of the development machines and older kit are fully integrated with the Linux OS, the new and less expensive kit is a complete pain to get to work.
One example is the Inspiron 1100 which has a massive problem with the video BIOS and Linux and takes a lot of work to get it right.
If Dell makes moves in the direction of support linux in the desktop, it can only help sales. I would definitely make Linux Desktop Support a part of a purchasing decision.
Re:But don't call Dell they're busy right now! (Score:1, Informative)
That's very speculative... (Score:5, Informative)
Dell's a really open-form company to work for - if you have a great idea, people higher than you are willing to listen and roll with it. Linux is an idea people at Dell will roll with. It might sound crazy, but you really have to look at the way Dell operate as a company; they constantly look for ways to minimize cost for the consumer and maximise profit.
Now, they might have had a rocky road recently with regards to their Linux support, but that's for a number of reasons. Firstly, they didn't have any in-house knowledge of the product. By knowledge I don't mean a guy that uses it at home, I mean a truckload of support guys on phones, people who write drivers, people who can alter the Dell install and build process to accommodate Linux. Secondly, Linux is a moving target; which distro, what GUI, how do you support other configs, etc. etc... These are both big questions for a company that's been churning out identical Windows boxes year in, year out.
So, I'd be interested to think why Dell will be pulling the plug on the blog. As someone who's worked for Dell, I'd pretty much guarantee that if the site's there, it's been approved and has resources attached to it. Those pages are corporate Dell pages, not your average blog knocked out by an engineer... someone's taking time and money to get that up there.
They should call Dell in Sweden (Score:5, Informative)
I was looking for a new computer a couple of months ago. Some of the Dell laptop deals looked pretty good. I called them and said "I'm interested in that model. Is it possible to get it with another operating system, say Linux, installed?"
Dell: "No, I'm afraid that is not possible."
Me: "Would it be possible to get it with a blank hard drive then?"
Dell: "No, I'm sorry, we have a deal with Microsoft. You have the choice between Windows XP home or Pro, that's basically it. You know, you could always reformat the harddrive and install Linux yourself if that is what you want."
Me: "So you will not sell me a computer unless it has Windows on it?"
Dell: "I'm afraid so."
I said thanks but no thanks and hung up. Even if Dell gets Windows at a huge discount, I don't want to pay for software I'm not going to use. Nor do I want to add to Microsoft's false sales statistics.
This is all a very familiar story to all Slashdot regulars I'm sure. I do hope the major PC sellers are starting to come around though.
Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?! (Score:5, Informative)
For example, try this:
Linux for IBM personal systems [ibm.com]
Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?! (Score:4, Informative)
1. Setting up the OS.
2. Downloading and recompiling appropriate kernel modules.
3. Setting up monitoring systems.
4. Setting up networking and hostnames.
5. Setting up some services.
Your problem is not IBM, it's the local vendor company who says they are "IBM".
Re:But don't call Dell they're busy right now! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?! (Score:4, Informative)
http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-48 NT8D.html
It took me not about 3 clicks from the IBM frontpage to get there. The site mentioned above includes some articles about installing RH Linux on ThinkPads and configuring stuff like Bluetooth. I think that's pretty neat and there are also vendors who sell Thinkpads with Linux preinstalled.Re:They should call Dell in Sweden (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's with the site design? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft will love this (Score:1, Informative)
Dell's strategy is to stay out of MS's way and benefit from the circumstances they find themselves in. It is not a religous war. Anything that sells machines is what Dell likes but they are more than happy to make deals that lower their costs.
Prior to Linux, Dell had their own SVR3 and SVR4 products and they provided a great deal of early support for what became the XFree86 project. They employed an engineer who for a time was the gcc x86 maintainer. Dell doesn't get itself wrapped up in petty idealogies. It's just trying to sell stuff.
Re:But don't call Dell they're busy right now! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:My crappy Compaq (Score:1, Informative)
HP (Compaq) supports more distributions and has more driver support. I don't understand all the praise for Dell for finally (this is 2004 folks) putting a linux support page out.
Re:You're looking at it from the wrong perspective (Score:5, Informative)
You're still right, though - while they sell YDL pre-installed, apparently Mac OS is also still installed and you can dual-boot.
Let's not forget Dell's contempt for desktop Linux (Score:4, Informative)
When Dell stops this [cypherpunks.ca] bullshit, and offers a windows delete credit across their entire product line (without invalidating warranties), then you will finally know that Dell isn't paying lip service to Linux anymore (and pocketing the Microsoft tax), and is no longer flagrant in its utter contempt for its customers.
Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?! (Score:3, Informative)
[ot] look at powernotebooks.com (Score:2, Informative)
they claim to sell alot of the same laptops as the major vendors less the ms tax. i read somewhere on their site that they buy the laptops from the same place as dell or gateway. the major vendors basically stick their logo on them and sell the laptops as their own. they will even preinstall linux [powernotebooks.com], and they have a bulletin board where they answer linux related questions.
since it's not a name brand company, you can check out the reviews at reseller ratings [resellerratings.com].
i guess i should mention that i'm in no way affiliated with this company. i stumbled across them when a friend asked me where he should buy a laptop without windows.
Re:How long will the blog last (Score:2, Informative)
I've had Me installed on a couple of systems for quite a while. Anecdotally, it's never seemed to be any less stable or more problem-prone than Windows 98 was -- which is to say not nearly as good as Windows XP or Windows 2000 but usable enough. (The systems I still have it running on are "light duty" and it's just never been worth the money/trouble to upgrade.) And, no, I can't upgrade them to Linux because they're running applications that aren't available on Linux.
As I recall, Windows Me did have some bugs and such when it first came out which gave it a bad reputation. However, I suspect the biggest issue that a lot of people had with it was that it WAS just Windows 98 with a new paint job--i.e. it wasn't really any better.
Re:Linux/Dell is an expanding platform. (Score:4, Informative)
This also provides a 3 year window for benchmarking and comparison. As a research institution, I know users will try the Linux platform just for the geek factor. Their feedback will determine whether I continue with Big Iron, Big Iron with Dell hardware redundancy, or Dell with Dell redundancy.
Re:That's very speculative... (Score:2, Informative)
This isn't news. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How long will the blog last (Score:5, Informative)
As a Mac/FreeBSD user, who understands that people have to use Windows, I have a question. Why do people hate Windows Me specifically? As a product, I realize it's stupid to upgrade to (Win98 + different salad dressing), but if it was just that I don't see why people would hate it so much. From people I've met, it sounds like installing Me is the worth thing you can put on your box; people would rather use 98. Is it just that the removal of real mode DOS causes more problems than it solves or something?
Hmm, I'll give it a go, but I may not have it quite right.
Windows ME uses the same HAL as Windows 2000, but it's strapped onto an 'upgraded' win9x kernel, which is the old DOS kernel, as far as I know. True to form, Microsoft didn't quite get it right, so the HAL itself is extremely buggy and prone to failure. Since they were still kicking around the old DOS kernel, they still didn't have a decent threading model, and shit still interfered with one another. The 'improvements' wound up being more trouble than they were worth. I guess I would liken it to backporting Linux 2.6's HAL to Linux 2.0 and patching it with a bunch of untested crap from Siberia, passing it through 4 beta-testers who all just clicked on "My Computer" and said "Works Great!", and then releasing it.
From a usability point of view, it's slower than win98 by a long shot, drivers are few and far between (uses Windows 2000's HAL, but can't use Windows 2000 drivers, so ME requires a special set of drivers that don't work in any other version of Windows), and tends to crash if you have too many processes running. It's less stable than win95, more like the old Amiga OS in the 1.2 days without the cute guru meditations.
Actually, I used it for awhile and didn't experience any of this. Not that I loved it or anything, just that I didn't have any problems that I could directly attribute to WinME. I went to Win2k soon after it, though, because I wanted the NT kernel, and then finally dumped windows entirely for Mandrake Linux. So I haven't really used a Windows computer in 2 years.
Re:How long will the blog last (Score:2, Informative)
Just bought a Dell-SuSE server (Score:3, Informative)
Dell must be moving a lot of these no-OS boxes. Their official support has been quite RH-centric, but the new website has a page that directly addresses other distros [dell.com]. SuSE recently announced [suse.com] that Dell was working more closely with them, and SuSE has certified [suse.com] a bunch of Dell machines.