Why Dell Won't Offer Linux On Its PCs 628
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?"
Stop it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
Good point (Score:4, Insightful)
Many MS users don't know what a driver is or where to find one, what do they do when their new printer doesn't come with linux-compatible drivers?
He brings up a good point with the difficulties of providing tech support. Maybe Dell should offer computers with blank drives and let the buyer select a distro cd to ship with it, with the explicit instruction that tech support relating to software issues won't be availible.
This has been answered many times (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
This has been answered many times. The people who know enough to know that they want a different distro can figure out how to get it on there. Therefore, they can pick a noob-friendly distro (like Fedora or Ubuntu), thereby guaranteeing the existence of drivers for the hardware. The rest of us who want to be all l33t and install Debian, Gentoo or even Linux From Scratch can figure it out ourselves.
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not about the number of distributions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:5, Insightful)
<ANECDOTAL>
Based on my one time calling tech support (in Bangalore, I assume), Yes, I'd be willing to say that they don't know how it's done!
</ANECDOTAL>
OK, They know how it's done (let script monkeys handle the caller), but they don't know how it's done *RIGHT*.
So Windows is easy, then? (Score:2, Insightful)
I've dealt with so many naive Windows users who couldn't (or don't know how) to install the most basic of Virus/Spyware protection, or how fix the most basic of issues.
I guess it's a matter of the lesser of two evils. Dell would rather help "naive" Windows users then perhaps open the door to something more secure and support "naive" users there instead.
Dell doesn't provide Windows support (Score:4, Insightful)
So how is this different from supporting Linux? All they have to do is create a knowledgeable support staff, good knowledge base and they'll have pretty much the same thing they have for Windows. It's really not that hard once they make the decision as to what distro they are going to support, strike a deal with the distro's maintainers, and maybe even farm out the support to the distros maintainers or a third party. Pretty simple when you think about it.
Re:Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
His suggestion of starting a company is simply to highlight that there is A LOT of effort involved and that even a company like Dell likely can't see much business benefit in trying to go down this road. If Dell cannot do it with their cookie-cutter approach to most everything, then a completely different approach is needed and the author is suggesting that the collective figure that part out.
And by "cannot do it", I mean "cannot come up with a viable business plan". There is a very limited market for Linux on cheap PCs; what market there is would have extremely small profit margins; what market there is is further fragmented between the distros and desktops; and the training for a support organization would be next-to-killer to set up. How many Linux gurus do you know that want to either man phones or want to write up support scripts?
I'd love to see reasonably priced PCs come out with a stable, robust, well documented Linux distro. Unfortunately at this juncture, I don't know of one (yes, I run Ubuntu and Fedora...no they aren't well enough documented for a corporation to venture into supporting a disperate class of users).
The majority of people I know that run Linux exclusively are very picky about the boxes they run on. Most either built their own or completely spec'ed them out themselves. Dell simply would not be a place that these folks would buy from. Myself, I run Linux on just about any kind of box...but I'm not out to run bleeding edge apps on them, I simply want a shell, a text editor and some server software.
I would gladly buy a Dell with Linux, but there aren't enough of me to support a business model for Dell. I don't know what the overhead of them setting up a product line is, but I suspect that they'd have to yield many hundreds of millions of dollars to make it worth their while.
Linux users are just like Peta.. sorta.. (Score:1, Insightful)
I suppose it's like how Peta is always bugging people to switch over to a pure vegan diet despite the health benefits, it'll never happen.
Anyhow. Anybody who actually needs 'support' for an operating system is using it wrong. (that's not supposed to be taken seriously, it's a joke)
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope parent is merely a troll (Grandma + config file is rapidly turning into a troll meme) but I'll bite. 1998 called; they want their lack of GUI configuration tools back.
On my Ubuntu box, I have had to manually edit configuration files to do two things:
The real reason Dell won't offer Linux PCs is plainly that it's not a good deal for them. It would mean more expensive Windows licenses, and it would mean less money for them from all the people paying them to bundle crapware with their boxes. The only way to have good, high-quality Linux PCs is to have an OEM willing to sell nothing but Linux boxes. Preferably one willing to sell well-designed, high-end computers and laptops with fully compatible hardware and pre-installed, thoroughly tested desktop environments and proprietary format support. Hopefully, packaged with a nice manual and long-term tech support for a particular set of "supported" packages too (Like Canonical does with Ubuntu).
Hey, I can dream.
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:1, Insightful)
The demand isn't really there (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been there done that. Had an Amiga, used Linux and so forth at one time or another. I remember with the Amiga how many of us wrote letters to Software, Etc. or other companies begging them to support our computers. And then the demand never materialized as we claimed it would. So eventually, the Amiga was dropped to the dustbin of history. After buying a PC, I came to realize that the Amiga really wasn't "better", it was simply different. advanced in some ways, behind in others.
The Linux "demand" is similar. It's largely just astroturfing, rather than real demand from customers. It's people from
I'm fairly certainly Dell understands this. They've been around a long time. At one time they even release their own version of System V which was highly regarded in the industry. So they're not unfamiliar with Unix. They've also at various times offered machines without operating systems, or even with Linux.
But the demand wasn't there, which is why they keep falling back to the position they are in, and why despite freeping their poll they are unlikely to listen to it. Maybe they will, and if they do, you'd better start buying your machines from Dell to backup your poll answers.
As for open source advocates starting up their own company to sell machines. It's been tried. It was called VA Linux. They changed their name, abandoned selling computers and now run sourceforge.
Distro problem, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
There is a horribly easy solution for this "problem": Support only one major distro, yet make sure that all hardware included with the PC is compatible with Linux. Slap a "Linux Certified" sticker on the damn thing and quite a few people will buy it. If they're more advanced, then they'll appreciate the fact that when they install their favorite distro instead of whatever the PC comes with, they won't have to hunt down a forum thread that points to an obscure hardware driver that is still in alpha, because they know that the hardware will "Just Work (tm)." If they're new to computers, or are the "A computer is an appliance" type, they won't have any need to switch from the supplied distro to anything else in the first place. It's a win win situation.
Either this guy didn't think his objections through very well, or he is just spouting FUD and hoping people take it at face value.
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:5, Insightful)
Grandma is fifty, and working full time. Grandma is seventy, a senior volunteer at the local library or community hospital. Grandma can't be ignored.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
What people want are a large computer firm to sell name brand computers with Linux, not generic boxen. (I don't know why though -- I bought my last workstation from Penguin and it friggen rocks.)
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:4, Insightful)
Dell has also seen awesome OEM system sales for Windows.
---along with digital cameras, printers, monitors and HDTV, anything, really, that can be marketed as a Windows peripheral.
OEM Linux disappears from Walmart.com for three simple reasons:
Entry level for Vista at Walmart is a $500 Celeron laptop. Vista Premium is a $900 dual-core laptop from Toshiba.
OEM Linux doesn't significantly undercut Windows on price, doesn't sell worth a damn anyway and there is nothing to drive after-market sales. No iTunes for Linux. No Windows Home Server. No XBox 360. No HD-DVD. No Grand Theft Auto.
Re:This has been answered many times (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole purpose behind Linux on a Dell would be to ensure that all hardware has an easily available Linux driver.
They could install their own Dell distro for all I care. I'll buy -that- only 'cause all their hardware would work under Linux, AND, I wouldn't have to pay for Windows.
I'd imagine most folks who want Linux on a Dell box have the same motives.
In fact, if they care for support, just offer those configurations without -software- support. Just hardware.
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:3, Insightful)
The real reason Dell won't offer Linux PCs is because the people who use Linux would prefer to build their own computer. Why duplicate the infrastructure?
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bad Assumptions (Score:3, Insightful)
The people bitching at Dell for these Linux desktops are not dear old mom & pop who just want a cheap, easy to use system. It's the Linux power users who are offended that they can't just go to Dell and buy a preconfigured cheap system that's guaranteed to work with their favorite distro. The same people that every one of you people saying "Dell should sell preconfigured Linux boxes," are also saying "would probably never buy these systems from Dell, anyway."
Do you really think that Dell doesn't realize this?
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:5, Insightful)
Bzzt, wrong answer.
I've said it before, I'll say it again:
If you want Linux to be mainstream-friendly, one of the absolute must-haves is that the user must NEVER EVER EVER, any any circumstances, have to either (1) edit a text config file by hand, or (2) use the command line.
No exceptions, no "most of the time" situation, no "power users only" weasel words. Config files and command lines are OK for developers, but not for mainstream users -- end of story.
I'll get flamed for it, but I speak the truth.
VA Linux already tried to do this (Score:2, Insightful)
Then they dumped the hardware, started selling sourceforge, their stock tanked, and most of their stockholders got f*cked. I believe there was at least one lawsuit over the whole affair.
So maybe that's not a great idea for a business opportunity.
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks,
Grandma
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:1, Insightful)
Windows:
1. Unplug everything, open up box
2. Unscrew retention screw from card
3. Remove old card
4. Put in new card
5. Put screw back on, close box, plug screen back in
6. Boot up
7. Wait a few seconds... "windows has found a new device"... "your new hardware is configured"... "the resolution is too low. Do you want Windows to increase it?"
8. Click "Yes"
9. All done.
Linux:
1. Unplug everything, open up box
2. Unscrew retention screw from card
3. Remove old card
4. Put in new card
5. Put screw back on, close box, plug screen back in
6. Boot up
7. Screen goes into power saving mode
8. Press ctrl-alt-backspace to kill X (you knew how to do that already, right?)
9. Pull out your *other* computer (you have one of those, right?) and google for help. Ignore all helpful suggestions to "RTFM n00b".
10. Try solution you found
11. Go back to step 7 until one of the solution works
12. All done!
You're right, it's *so* hard to do with Windows!
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:2, Insightful)
Hopefully for you, we'll never meet =)
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
But there are no companies that are selling support to a Linux distro on Dells. Here's how it plays out, in familiar slashdot formatting:
1: Pick several models of Dells
2: Pick your favorite Linux distro and get make an image tweaked for models in step 1
3: Sell support contracts for said install image to others whose favorite distro is the same as your
4: Maybe make a little profit but more likely spend half your time explaining why you picked distro X instead of Y and the other half of the time trying to figure out what when wrong when the users heavily modified and recompiled your carefully tweaked image in bizarre ways without admitting to doing so when they call for support.
Re:Good point (Score:3, Insightful)
Minimum cost? With Windows moving from an install CD to a manufacture supplied disk image CD, the cost of downtime and rebuilding is high. Take an early XP install for example. How long does it take to reinstall, install all the patches, install all the drivers for the newer printers, PDAs, Cameras, AV, restore system prefrences including e-mail accounts, bookmarks, calandars, and settings for aftermarket software packages?
My Wife's computer had the software for burning CD's corrupted. (Adeptec Easy CD Creator) It should be a simple fix. Remove the damaged program and re-install. I got the remove OK, but there is no media for the reinstall from without re-imaging the drive. Would you be willing to reinstall everything from ground zero to fix a software application?
I borrowed a copy of the CD burner from a friend and pirated a copy because there was no way to reinstall my legal copy without the cost of flushing the entire drive. This is bad software management in the worst way. These kind of expensive problems is one of the main reasons I have been looking at alternatives. I like applications that are maintainable without wipeing the entire OS installation.
The cost of manpower for downtime for a recovery on a Windows system is too great.
Re:Seems to make sense to a degree. (Score:3, Insightful)
and Ubuntu's user-friendly? (Score:4, Insightful)
aptitude install nvidia
OK, I could have used a GUI shell, but why make more work for myself?
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want Windows to be user-friendly, one of the absolute must-haves is that the user must NEVER NEVER NEVER, under any circumstances:
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:3, Insightful)
No exceptions, no "most of the time" situation, no "power users only" weasel words. Config files and command lines are OK for developers, but not for mainstream users -- end of story.[/i]
Hey buddy, please don't take what I'm about to say personally; it's not directed at you, more at the state of the industry in general. OK BEGIN OLD MAN RANT NOW
Back during the transition from Win 3.1 to Win 95, I was doing tech support at a Big Ten University. I was showing metal workers, professors, gardeners, kids, and everybody else how to use their computers (and I was pretty green then myself).
Believe me; with proper, patient instruction your Grandma can enter, by hand, the proper command string to get her modem to work in Win3.1. She can build a batch file for proper GUI startup and such. Just because you've grown up without the need to do this stuff doesn't mean the average person can't, or never has.
I have a buddy who can't start my old Corolla (my "spare" car), and doesn't see how people could ever have remembered to pump the gas pedal once when starting their car. I have another buddy who doesn't think that normal "users" could possibly drive a stick-shift (manual transmission) for everyday usage.
Somewhere along the line everybody was convinced (I blame AOL) that you just couldn't understand how to use a computer unless everything you did was clicking on a picture. Somewhere along the way, society convinced itself that nobody could fucking read. From the controls on your devices and your car, to the things you do on the computer, to ordering fast food it just became too damn difficult for anybody to read, speak, or understand several words strung together. That became "hard". Now, I realize that sometimes pictographs make it easier to market a product globally, but we (at least here in the 'States) have gone over the edge with it.
This was also about the same time those damn "DUMMIES" instruction books came out. It suddenly became fashionable to say "Hey, I'm a total fucking idiot! Please tell me how to do everything in the simplest terms possible, or else I'll never understand".
Now, I'm not advocating a return to the days when computers were a pain in the ass to configure or use. All I'm saying is that (much like people used their car's heat and A/C before it was just "blue seated dudered dude") people tend to be as stupid as society allows them to be, or tells them they are. If Dell support tells your grandma "editing this text file is easy, here you can even cut-and-paste this", then she'll believe it's easy.
For pete's sake, our grandparents built the industrialized world and our parents streamlined it and made fit reasonably pleasant to live in. I think they can probably handle using "gedit" now and again.
END OLD MAN RANT
She is ignored. (Score:5, Insightful)
Some folks around here seem to think that Windows is *naturally* easy.
I have got news for you guys, it isn't. But this is masked by the myriad of people mildly familiar with it.
Grandmas that are introduced to Linux as their first computing experienc (hi mum!) can cope perfectly well with the tool of the penguin, and people suggesting otherwise are patronizing ageists.
Re:She is ignored. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that MSDOS and Windows have been around for over twenty-five years. It becomes harder and harder to find the virgin with no knowledge of the Windows PC.
I have made one call to Dell technical support in five years.
I can't remember the last time I opened the registry. I have found no compelling reason to re-install Windows XP. The antivirus and firewall package is provided by my ISP and is more or less jargon free.
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:5, Insightful)
My father is 76, he was programming back in 1965 on the BMEWS systems
Just because some of you have ignoramusses for parents and grandparents does not mean all parents and grandparents are clueless when it comes to IT...
Re:Ignorance is just so wonderful to see in action (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I support both.
"The first time a technician has to explain to grandma how to manually edit a
Well, I've built Linux boxes for people and installed and configured it on laptops. By the time I've finished setting it it up on a machine, it's in the same state that a pre-installed setup would be if you bought it from Dell or whoever and you know what; I've never had to tell grandma how to edit a
Even if you did want the option of giving newbs the tool to edit
And their lies the nub. Supporting Linux will only be a pain in cases where people make a special effort to screw it up, something that doesn't tend to happen unless people log in as root. Grandma will probably not have problems because gramdma's going to follow the instructions in the Kmail setup wizard rather than set it up by open up $HOME/.kde/share/apps and editing kmail's
If anything has held desktop Linux back it's the lack of commercial apps, Autocad, Adobe stuff etc. Once a demand for these is detected the availabilty of one should feed the other.
Re:The answer's pretty simple (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right, because it's absolutely [linspire.com] impossible [ibm.com] to acquire [dell.com] a PC without Windows [hp.com] these days.
Maybe nobody wants to mass market them because they're *gasp* not in demand! Shame on them for not basing their business decisions on your personal ideology. I mean, really...
=Smidge=
Re:Good point (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, *you* think fixing things in Linux is easy... but you also fixed it by editing the Hosts file. Do you know any average computer users (Mac, Windows, or Linux if there are any average users on Linux) that even know what the Hosts file is or how to edit it? An "easy" fix for this crowd would be, say, "I threw iTunes in the trash and then used Apple Software Updater to download a new copy of iTunes." Anything more complicated than that is a geek fix, and is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
Then the obligatory part where the advanced computer user who fixes Linux can't fix a simple problem in Windows, despite Windows having as much or more available support. I find it hard to believe that somebody who knows how to edit the Hosts file can't reinstall a scanner driver. I'm not calling you a liar as such, I just find it very very hard to believe.
Also I don't even get the point of this paragraph:
I had a meeting where the guest speaker brought a Power Point presentation. My Windows machine with Office 2000 did not display the presentation properly. The text box appeared all at once instead of bullet by bullet. Switched to the Linux partition and Open Office presented it properly. Later I found the free Power Point viewer from the MS site.
Are you attempting to communicate something, or just relaying a really dull anecdote?
Re:Harder and harder? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not too sure your conclusion nesseceraily follows from your evidence. It could be easy to set up a secure Windows machine, but people might still not do it, for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they are ignorant of the dangers posed, perhaps they just can't be bothered (I think ignorance is the most likely, by the way).
All I ever did to secure my windows machines was install Zone Alarm. It has a lovely, brightly coloured, non intimidating installation dialog, lets you choose your experience level, uses a minimum of jargon and automatically configures itself to allow standard stuff through (IE, Firefox, etc). It's as simple as anything I have ever installed.
In any case, any windows PC you buy nowadays ships with SP2, and will have a firewall turned on by default. Really, most malware is installed by end users intentionally, although not knowingly, when they download and install toolbars, smilies, P2P clients and the like. It is virtually impossible for the OS to protect the end user from this sort of thing, and Linux is no different in this regard.
Re:Stop it! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why it is *stupid as *hell for 90% of users to spend more than $400 on a computer and more than $0 on the software.
So how come the average price of a desktop is $700. "Vista-capable" ones probably average over $1000. Add $200 for MS software and you've got *almost *all of the market paying three times what any sensible person would pay.
Re:The answer's pretty simple (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's look at this from a business point of view.
1) Offer Windows as the de-facto OS.
1a) Easy-as-pie mass cloning of software to all machines: one size fits all. (Also simplifies inventory)
1b) Virtually no support required. OS problems get differred to Microsoft.
1c) Huge volume discount from Microsoft = profit margin on resold licenses. (Self evident? No conspiracy here)
1d) Single source for software minimizes problems with hardware revisions
2) Offer multiple "flavors" of operating systems
2a) Reduced efficiency of inventory control, stocking more types of preconfigured machines and/or extra handling for each machine sold
2b) Support will be required for anything the vendor doesn't support themselves. (How many non-Enterprise Linux distribution offer official end-user support?)
2c) Reduced profit margins
2d) Offering N operating systems requires N times more testing and tweaking with each hardware revision (And we all know how awesome Linux hardware support is, right?)
So when it boils down, is there enough end-user demand to warrant offering non-Windows computers? The answer, it seems, is "No." As a business person, I'd have a hard time justifying the costs of offering product options when so few of my sales would actually use them.
=Smidge=
Re:Good point (Score:3, Insightful)
E.g. push the hardware vendors to support Linux and the distros to support the hardware vendors, with promises of sales for both if they do so.) They could even move their support for Linux to the distros. Example phone call:
User - calls Dell Tech Support
Dell - "Press 1 if Windows, 2 if Linux,..."
User - Presses #2
Dell - "Press 1 for Red Hat Distro, 2 for Novell Distro,..."
User - Presses 1
Dell - Please wait while we connect you to the Red Hat Technical Support line for Dell Customers
(System transfers call)
Dell/Red Hat - Hello, Red Hat Technical Support for Dell Customers, How may I help you today?".
Yeah - it can work, and Dell could outsource their support to the distros instead of overseas. Win-Win for both.