Dell To Linux Users — Not So Fast

PetManimal writes to tell us that after all the hubbub over Dell's note about manufacturing Linux-friendly Dells and choosing distros, the company is now telling users not to expect factory-installed Linux laptops and desktops anytime soon. According to the article, Dell says that lining up certification, support, and training will 'take a lot of work.' "The company said today that the note was just about certifying the hardware for being ready to work with Novell SUSE Linux, not an announcement that the computers would be loaded and sold with the operating system in the near future..."

Re:The penguin is struck down again!

[reset_button]

Why is this a reason not to buy a Dell? If I want to be confident that I will be able to run Linux on my machine with no driver issues, I buy Dell. The servers are all Linux-friendly, because you can buy them with Linux loaded. Also I've never heard of any issues with laptops or desktops. You can even ask their sales people about Linux support, while other manufacturers won't talk to you about it. As a Linux user, I would go straight to Dell.

Re:huh?

[wxgrunt]

Sadly there is trouble with Dell hardware/software even in their 'big business' server sales. We recently bought $60,000 worth of hardware from them - first time our group bought from Dell, and got machines with closed source, YOU CAN'T RELOAD THE OS WITHOUT OUR PROPRIETARY BINARIES software. After talking to some very responsive people in tech support (and politely explaining that we wouldn't buy Dells again without a test machine) they told us that the problem was the LSI SCSI controller software. Different customer service people (all of whom were polite and seemed to listen) kept asking us about the customer satisfaction rating we gave (2 out of 10), but were unable to dig up a 32-bit version of the OS we wanted to run on our Xeon 1950's. Hadn't been certified. They don't quite get it.

Dell's linux support problems

[mdsolar]

Dell used to get linux support through Linuxcare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCare [wikipedia.org] and, if I recall they also had a contract with Redhat. If these left a bad taste, they may want to try to do it in house. In that case, it would take some time to build a team.

If that is the problem, start suggesting a group that could just step and handle the workload.

Sun doesn't own the Sun, no one does. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]

Re:Dell will not betray Microsoft.

[tftp]

Yes, he says something about that - but that's incorrect. Dell, last time I checked, does not sell high end computers for less than you can put one together. I compared about 2 months ago, and parts cost about $750, whereas the prebuilt box is at least $1200 - and that is assuming that I like each and every part that is in it (which is !likely.)

My $750 includes T6600 and 2 GB of RAM - fact, because I type this on such a box, and I just checked. My video card ($80, included in the price) is NVidia GeForce 7300 GT, which I selected mostly because of dual DVI. Dell, OTOH, offers for $809 a P-4 3GHz system (Dell Precision Workstation 390), and once you start "customizing" to make it usable the price climbs quite high.

I can understand if the GGP does not want to risk it if s/he is unfamiliar with the hardware. But price-wise, you can definitely buy a box in pieces for half the price of what Dell or HP will charge you. Besides, you will get a universal system that can be upgraded or repaired, as opposed to custom boards, rails and other stuff that major box makers just love to put in.

Re:Dell will not betray Microsoft.

[guisar]

Bullshit. NOBODY and I mean NOBODY wastes their time calling Dell or virtually any other software vendor with the expectation that vendor will solve any problems or even give a fly fuck about anything they have to say. Who here has ever gotten a straight and enlightening answer from a vendor on anything other than a hardware related question? I never gotten anything other than bullshit and excuses. How about you? It's time for the support FUD to end.

Re:How about the low-hanging fruit ?

[wellingj]

They sell those in the US now.
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/e 510_nseries?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn [dell.com]
There is a lot of the whole "eh? linux, say no more" wink wink nudge nudge going on there.
Still seems like they are affraid MS is going to bite them on the ass for this though.
I wish MS would try it, then Dell would just be like "Shit guys, we have to go ALL Linux now or fold up shop"
Would be the best called bluff ever.

Re:The penguin is struck down again!

[gormanly]

I'm typing this on a Dell laptop running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 WS - but then I chose to order one with an Intel wireless card and a Nvidia GPU, so it works. The reason your laptop is more annoying to use under Linux than under Windows is that you chose to buy one with a Broadcom wireless chip and an ATi GPU - which would be the same if it was a Lenovo or Sony or HP with those parts installed, and so absolutely not "because of Dell". Any suckiness is down to ATi, Broadcom and your own choices.

Re:Linux users coming on too fast for Dell...

[ElleyKitten]

Ignore the other poster, some people like to make things harder. Just get EasyUbuntu [freecontrib.org] (just download it and double click to install) and when you run it it will have a number of checkboxes (for Flash, Skype, stuff like that). Check the one that says nvidia drivers. Click apply. You might have to enter your password somewhere in there, but it's pretty straightforward.