Why Dell Won't Offer Linux On Its PCs

derrida sends us to an article in the Guardian by Jack Schofield explaining why he believes Dell won't offer Linux on its PCs. In the end he suggests that those lobbying Dell for such a solution go out and put together a company and offer one themselves. Quoting: "The most obvious [problem] is deciding which version of Linux to offer. There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one — or the same one with a different desktop, or whatever. It costs Dell a small fortune to offer an operating system... so the lack of a standard is a real killer. The less obvious problem is the very high cost of Linux support, especially when selling cheap PCs to naive users who don't RTFM... and wouldn't understand a Linux manual if they tried. And there's so much of it! Saying 'Linux is just a kernel, so that's all we support' isn't going to work, but where in the great sprawling heap of GNU/Linux code do you draw the line?"

FreeBSD

[dkh]

FreeBSD would solve the problem of distribution sprawl.

Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action

[nickcoons]

I think that's pretty much what I said, just without the genitalia reference.

Re:kernel compatibility is all that matters

[Stormie]

If they would just make a laptop that is fully compatible (ie, every piece of hardware, right down to the fscking hotkeys on the the keyboard..

I feel your pain - it seems that the "u" key on your keyboard isn't working at all.

Re:The answer's pretty simple

[The Spoonman]

Tsk, tsk, tsk! Don't you know: people who share their religious views almost never want to share yours? Shame on you for pointing out the obvious on slashdot! Geez, just because there's lots of places you can get a PC without Windows doesn't mean we need to be telling people! I mean, if people knew that the linux community was just made up of a whiny bunch of pricks who bitch at every turn about how no one else likes their OS....why, people might just not use it!