Michael Dell Using Ubuntu Linux At Home

whoever57 sends us a link from the Dell site noting that Michael Dell is using Ubuntu Linux at home (7.04, Feisty Fawn) on a Precision M90 laptop loaded with Openoffice.org and Evolution. If one were betting on which distro Dell will eventually ship pre-installed, this factoid might be food for thought. Oh, and Micheal Dell's gaming system uses XP Media Center edition.

Businessmen & Their Customers

[eldavojohn]

If one were betting on which distro Dell will eventually ship pre-installed, this factoid might be food for thought.

I'm going to discard this assumption that because Michael Dell uses Ubuntu that's what they're looking at.

The simple reason being that a good businessman never assumes what's good for him is good for his customer.

FIVE?!

[ArtDent]

I can't even imagine why one person would want five PCs.

How much time does he spend applying patches and updating software? Transferring data?

THREE different laptops? Doesn't he realize that the whole appeal of a laptop is that you can take it with you wherever you go?

not bad

[phrostie]

i'm not an Ubuntu user, but it is a choice.

Re:mikey likes it...

[Anonymous Coward]

He's probably just sick of all the bullshit that is microsoft windows. Windows is such a pushy and intrusive user experience IMHO, and there's a trust factor..

He certainly isn't tired of all the money he gets from the tons of boardline malware that comes preinstalled on most Dells running Windows.

Re:Just an advert

[gerrysteele]

Or he's just created a ton of buzz and talk about his company for free.

Maybe he ist looking at a course change?

[Lonewolf666]

In the past, sticking to Windows seems to have worked for Dell. There are obvious reasons (need to support only one OS) plus maybe a very favourable volume deal by Microsoft.
But as Linux gains more market share, it is time for Dell to re-evaluate this position. Michael Dell using Ubuntu may be part of such research. If so, he is acting with more foresight than some managers I know ;-)

No Vista

[yuna49]

While it's interesting that he has an Ubuntu laptop, I'm more surprised that none of the four other machines are running Vista. They're all still using various flavors of XP.

Re:Seriously?

[FKnight]

Who are you to say that Ubuntu is aimed "too much" at the home user? Did you ever think that maybe that's who they're targeting? Every other Linux distribution isn't aimed at all at any variation of a home/average user. The folks at Ubuntu are probably going "gee, duh. Maybe we should make a distribution that you can use without having to have 6 years of sysadmin experience" You're doing the right thing by using a distribution you prefer. It's just a little off base to say that Ubuntu's distribution is aimed "too much" toward home users. Or do you prefer the days when you had to be a computer geek in order to use a computer?

Re:Seriously?

[budword]

I used Mandriva 3 years ago, and some since. Ubuntu got quite a few things right, with ease, that I couldn't find a way to do in Mandriva, even given the large amount of time I spent on those tasks back then. Installing Ecipse and Java for one, were a real pain in the ass. Ubuntu, it was a 3 minute job. I like Mandriva, and I think it was great for it's time, (back when I used it daily), but I've reached the point I want to work with my system and not work on it. Ubuntu gets so much right hassle free that no other distro I've tried comes close. And the community is willing to help newbies without yelling RTFM. Throw in it's debian (read apt) based instead of rpm based (bad bad memories from my red hat trial years ago), and I have a clear choice. It's not for everyone, but it is for me.

Re:Seriously?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

I don't see Ubuntu doing anything that Mandriva (or Mandrake) wasn't doing 3 years ago.

Windows Migration Assistant? [michaellarabel.com]

I used to support executives

[gelfling]

At a rather large tech company. A small cadre of top honchos had their own groupware server(s!), their own email server(s!) and their own dedicated VPN. They also had instant 24/7 unlimited support wherever they were for any of the multiple home or office machines they used. Their support ratio headcount was 1:1, e.g. each supported person had one FTE dedicated to them.

They simply did not acknowledge that anyone in the organization had any sort of technical problems at all and chalked it up to nerdy whining. Our budgets were routinely slashed, hardware and software was left running long past end of life, capacity planning was a joke and the internal costs for help desk calls and deskside visits were jacked up to absurdly high levels so that no managers would permit their own people to use them. Complaints to senior management were met with not so vague threats of termination, STFU, GBTW!

So if Mike Dell uses uBuntu it's probably because he's imperially disconnected from the realities in his own company. To him, I'm sure he feels that everyone has 5 PC's and full time free dedicated support from the best brains in the industry and what on earth are these peons complaining about now for God's sake?

You all fell for it: this is PR at work....

[postbigbang]

Oh, gee, Michael Dell, running dog lackey Microsoft/Intel fanboi now uses Ubuntu! See? Dell is really trying to those pesky Linux people! See? Mikey uses one at home, although there is the altar of XP Media Center there just to make sure that Bill's not pissed.

C'mon, folks--- this is PR working at its finest and you're getting sucked right into the nozzle. Dell support for Linux has been scant and waffling for years. Now you're being seduced by the fantasy that The Big Dell actually uses an OSS system. Get real.

Re:FIVE?!

[mgv]

I can see the need too. Unfortunately I don't have all that much space at home. So, I have to have one computer that does absolutely everything I need. That means for right now, I'm running Windows. I would love to be able to run a Linux Server, A Windows Gaming machine, and have a Linux Media centre, and well, for office/internet, I don't care, either one is fine, so I'd probably go with Linux.


Perhaps a mac mini or two would meet your space requirement. It works for me. You could even go the full monty and put linux on them, although the make a good (low power) small server for low volume use just fine under mac os x

Michael

Re:Maybe he ist looking at a course change?

[Chandon Seldon]

How do you even start to generate stats like that? Market share for what?

You could generate meaningful stats for questions like "Market share of desktop PCs sold at Best Buy". Trying to generate stats for the whole "computer" market at once is probably a waste of time.

Re:Businessmen & Their Customers

[Mister Whirly]

I know my history, and I am not confusing "Woz" (not Waz) with Jobs. Wozniak was the hardware engineer genius.
Jobs hired Nolan Bushnell and Regis McKenna who were brilliant marketers and had all the right connections. Especially Bushnell who put Jobs in touch with Don Valentine, a venture capatalist who invested a big chunk of money in Apple, and also told the president of Intel that Apple was worth looking into. After the success of the Apple I and II, Jobs rolled out the complte disaster that was the Apple III, and followed that with the Lisa. After he was stripped of power at Apple by the man he brought on board, he founded NeXtStep to design hardware to compete with Apple and IBM. After 4 years and $250 million of resarch and development, he closed down the hardware side to concertrate on software. He then decided that he COULD build a computer aimed at college students. After some delays the NeXtStep computer was finally released in 1989. It was a monochrome system with no floppy drive and no useful applications with a price tag of $7000. Guess what? College students didn't jump over themselves trying to buy one. Jobs is an egomaniac who doesn't consider what his cutomers want, only what he wants to design. He drove many brilliant people out of Apple due to his "unique" management style. I think Jobs is a genius personally, but not a good businessman. He may have had some luck in the business world, but I believe a portion of it was incidental. He has got tons of charisma and can make people believe anything, to the point of the "reality distortion field" he is credited with creating around him. Leader, visionary, pioneer, entrepeneur are all fitting titles. I guess we are basically disagreeing on the definiton of "businessman". I didn't mean it as a slight - to me a "buisnessman" IS the stuffy suited bean counter worried about only turning a profit for the quarter and not the "big picture". I don't see Jobs poring over the P&L statements and wondering what he is going to say at the next stockholder's meeting.

Re:You all fell for it: this is PR at work....

[kisak]

I agree completely, it has PR written all over it. But then again, it is PR that might as well back-fire on Dell. If Ubuntu is good enough for their boss, why can't we buy it pre-installed from Dell? It is PR to make us linux-fanbois happy, but it can just as well makes us more vocal and bothersom.