Dell to Sell Machines with Ubuntu Pre-Loaded

kotj.mf writes "Cnet is reporting that Dell will shortly announce a partnership with Canonical to offer Ubuntu pre-loaded on certain consumer-oriented desktops and notebooks. The announcement comes after a groundswell of support for pre-installed Linux on Dell's IdeaStorm site. 'The company is starting its business by trying to appeal to users of desktop computers. From there, Canonical Chief Executive Mark Shuttleworth has said, the company plans to head to the server market, where the real Linux bread and butter can be found. [Dell spokesman Kent] Cook wouldn't comment on whether Dell plans to offer Ubuntu on its servers as well.'."

Vista

[rhennigan]

I think we owe this to Microsoft. This would never have happened were it not for Vista.

So who's going to buy them?

[eln]

People on the Internet (places like Slashdot in particular) have been begging Dell for this for years. Now, it's time to see how many of those people were doing it just on principle or to be part of the crowd, and how many did it because they actually were planning on purchasing such a box.

Dell may offer this, but I guarantee they won't be advertising it as heavily as they do their Windows boxes, so the only real way for it to work, at least to start off, is for all these people that were begging for Dells with Ubuntu loaded on them to go out and buy a Dell with Ubuntu loaded on it. Joe Blow won't be buying these yet, not until there are enough early adopters out there to generate a buzz.

Will people buy it??

[Hokie06]

Now lets see if half of those people that voted for Linux on the ideastorm site actually buy a machine. Because if this flops it will seriously hurt Linux in the mainstream market.

Re:What?

[eln]

It's kind of silly to say that Dell isn't already making tons of money on the Linux server market. After all, Dell sells tons of server hardware with no OS pre-loaded. Quite a lot of those servers end up with Linux on them. Most companies will have their own images of Linux that they use for their servers, so preloading it is a waste of time. Any pre-loaded image will just get blown away anyway.

Dell jumps the shark?

[Anonymous Coward]

We recently had news that Dell was thinking of changing the way they sell. Not just direct sales any more. Sounds to me like Dell is having trouble with their business model. All this could be clever business moves or it could be death throes.

Re:Yep.

[stinerman]

Yeah, openSUSE. And then there'd be a flamewar about how Dell is still in bed with Microsoft.

Really, I expected it to be openSUSE for just that reason. Now, the question is how much Microsoft will retaliate with respect to Vista licences in the future.

Seeing as I don't buy computers (I buy parts and then assemble them), this doesn't affect me much, but all the same it's good that people are getting more choices.

Re:Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

It is because of Microsoft, but not in the way slashies hope.

Dell just created a bargaining chip in pricing negotiations Windows licenses for their bread and butter business.

What's been missing from linux so far...

[mstahl]

...is a hardware platform that consumers are guaranteed will work with a particular distribution of Linux. It doesn't even matter which one it is as long as it comes, out of the box, ready for use. That's the only thing that, so far, Windows has always had up on any distro of Linux.

But perhaps.....

[8127972]

.... this is more about painting Microsoft into a corner by first flipping back to selling XP on some of their systems, and now this. I suspect that Dell is going to be in a very interesting position when they go to re-negotiate their OEM agreement with Microsoft where they can try and dictate the terms that they want.

Re:Linux needs no Windows Tax

[physicsnick]

The problem with Windows machines is that you don't just get Windows; you get Windows and a pile of craplets, which companies are paying Dell to supply to you. Windows can have a negative price tag on low-end computers because the cost is offset by all the garbage your computer comes filled with.

Re:Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

As much fun as it is to read clueless posts on Slashdot (Especially clueless posts about business), Michael Dell didn't wake up in January and say "Gee, you know, I think we'll start selling Ubuntu!". You can be sure that Canonical and Dell have been in talks about this for a very long time. If they've been in negotiations for less than 24 months, I'd be impressed. These sorts of things don't happen over night, and Vista had nothing to do with it.

Re:Drivers

[waxapple]

I'm running Ubuntu Feisty Fawn at the moment on a Dell Inspiron 6400 with an ATi x1300 graphics card, and it works (almost) perfectly. The only thing no working is the card reader, I imagine Dell will use a different brand of card reader, or the company will eventually make drivers for it on linux.
Fair enough, it took a bit of configuring to get the wireless card and the 3D graphics functioning correctly, but Dell will do that at the factory as part of their automated install proccess. I'm sure they'll have looked into it; once it's done once all that's needed is a script slipstreamed into the install proccess.
It's no big deal for me at the moment. On Vista, my scroll bars on the touch pad didn't work, at all, which was far more annoying.
If Dell are building laptops with Ati graphics cards in them, Ati will probably be working to develop their drivers further anyway.

Re:Yep.

[porkThreeWays]

Sometimes you just have to take leadership and make a choice. It may not be the perfect choice, but it's a final decision that will get things rolling forward. I already know there will be a billion posts arguing why another distribution is better than another, but the point is moot. Ubuntu is a great distro. There are other distros out there that are great too. Distrowatch ranks it at #1 in popularity. Also, the choice of Ubuntu will make many in the community happy as Ubuntu isn't controversial with its licensing. A high quality, popular, FOSS distro. They could have made other choices, but I think Ubuntu will make the most amount of people happy, is an extremely safe decision, and they only have to support a single distro.

Re:Vista

[east coast]

The reason Vista made this happen is because the general population hated Vista *so much* that they just stopped buying computers.

Don't confuse the slashdot population versus the general population. The general population never even got enough of a whiff of vista to stop buying PCs with it on it.

That's very bad for Dell's business, which sent them looking for alternatives.

It's called XP. If you think for one second that users who migrated from XP to vista and hated vista are more willing to go to an "unknown" OS versus going back to XP you are out of your mind. And frankly, aside from what's been posted here I don't know many people who have a problem with vista. I have a few friends running it and the only complaint I've heard at all is that one guy can't run an eight year old game on it. He's admitted to not really looking into getting it working outside of the standard install.

This is our chance to open up the desktop market; here's hoping we don't screw it up.

Yeah, good luck with that. Seriously. I have nothing against Linux but the fanboism is really starting to stink up the place. Do you honestly think that the Windows user who can't be bothered to download Linux is going to jump at the chance to buy a machine with it on? At least with the download Joe Sixpack has a Windows disk to fall back on if Linux turns out to be something that he simply doesn't want. With the Dell offer he's either going to have to put up with an OS that he was already too lazy to download or he's going to have to go Windows on a retail basis. Guess what kind of bitching and moaning that's going to cause.

There is enough stuff out there today for Joe to get his taste of Linux if he's interested. You may get people to buy these machines but don't count on many "switchers". Somehow I doubt the more vocal fanbois in this cause are going to take up the banner of actually shelling out the bucks. Mouthpieces normally stop when their toe touches the waters, so to speak.

Why not pre-installed Dual Boots?

[Critical Facilities]

Dell will need to address this, and offer these dellbuntu boxes at lower price.

Agreed. Moreover, if Dell is REALLY interested in sparking the interest of "Joe Sixpack" in test driving Linux, I'd recommend they offer an option to have a desktop/laptop preconfigured to Dual Boot for the same price as a Windows Only machine. I agree with some of the other posters in that it's unlikely that your average user is going to be terribly interested in Linux preinstalled (unless there's a considerable price difference). If, however, there is the option to have a dual boot machine for the same price as a Windows Only machine, and both are equally supported by Dell, average PC users might take the plunge and try it out. What would they have to lose?

And to think...

[i.r.id10t]

... I just spent $800 on a laptop for the wife (from Dell with XP on it)... had this been out a week earlier, I woulda gone Ubuntu (planning on it anyway...)

Re:Vista

[mbrod]

Business hated it too. They don't want to have upgrades forced upon them any more than consumers do. They want the freedom to upgrade when they want. Also M$ moving from VS6 to .NET breaks development plans of a lot of legacy business systems. That pissed them off too. So the momentum is coming from both the consumer and business.

We do owe it to M$, for not playing nice. There are a lot of other players who are willing to play nice and take their place.

Re:What?

[Kjella]

CIO: "Let's see now, you're a startup incorporated two months ago, with no past experience building a Linux distro and no track record of reliability or usability. I've asked my tech people about you, but you're generally unknown to them. You want us to trust our enterprise servers to you?" *hysterical laughter* "No."

as opposed to:
CIO: "I see you've for the last few years have built a generally acclaimed Linux distribution focused on the desktop and usability. and fairly stably as desktop distributions go. Those of my techs that have tried it gives it high prise. Now you're telling me you'd like to expand on this to provide more server-oriented solutions? Of course I expect a good price and tight follow-up from your support since your new in this market, but you've got your foot in the door."

Re:So who's going to buy them?

[dAzED1]

I like the idea of it pre-loaded.

Why? So you don't have to bother with the details of how it is set up?

Don't get me wrong, I just talked about wanting to see this a couple days ago, [slashdot.org] but if you already know how to do something, what does it matter to you that it is pre-loaded?

Re:Yep.

[jimstapleton]

And I'd have prefered FreeBSD.

The fact of the matter is, at least they are moving in a right direction, and as far as non-windows operating systems go, Ubuntu is probably their best best to gain popularity.

And if it works on Ubuntu, you can believe it'll work on FreeBSD within a month - the drivers will be much easier to make/port, and it'll be a good target for the FreeBSD devs.

Actually, that can be said for many OSS operating systems, for that matter.

Re:Vista

[superbus1929]

And Vista's horridness was the catalyst that the Lusers needed.

Re:Vista

[dAzED1]

also, the CIA was behind 9/11 - as we could see in Oakland this last weekend, concrete and steel don't melt and become unstable.

It could be, and I know this is crazy, but it could be that what lots of people have requested (or several people have requested many times each, depending), Dell is simply providing. There is a potential demand, but no supply. Dell knows they did a piss-poor attempt with their previous Linux offerings, so they can't really count that failure against Linux on the Desktop as a paradigm. Additionally, it has been a few years, and Linux has matured in the desktop world a bit more.

What Ubuntu brings in to all this is an integrated role-based system with handy tools and such. This means Dell can sleep a little better at night not thinking everyone is logged in as root on their boxes, surfing the web. RedHat doesn't do this, and Ubuntu has this huge silly grassroots thing right now (a grassroots movement that will feel the sting of betrayal in about 18 months, by my guess).

There are actual reasons to do this, sans some silly bargaining chip for negotiations with MS. Sometimes a cigar is, indeed, just a cigar.

Re:Will people buy it??

[Hercynium]

Bingo.

Of course... I'm about to purchase two new machines for friends who A. Need new computers and B. Are really frustrated with Windows.

I gave one an Edgy Eft Live CD and the other a Feisty Fawn Live CD to see if they felt they could use Linux instead... *both* had the same, very minor, complaints - Websites with Flash and Java don't work (drop-dead easy to fix, esp. in Feisty) and they felt it was kinda slow, running from the CD (duh) Of course, the sad part is that their Windows installations were actually *slower* because of poor maintenance.

If Dell does it right and includes Flash, Java, DVD-playback and other common video codecs, and charges the same as or less than the Windows-based systems, I'll jump. I'm assuming that proper driver support is a given.

Granted, this also puts a challenge to Canonical - STOP BREAKING DRIVERS!!! Every new release seems to have a spate of driver-compatibility regressions. I know this is due to the nature of upstream maintenance vs. distro maintenance, but it's time for them to step up to the plate and make it a non-issue.

Again - all players will have to do it right for this to be a win-win.

Re:Vista

[Ian Alexander]

Yeah, good luck with that. Seriously. I have nothing against Linux but the fanboism is really starting to stink up the place. Do you honestly think that the Windows user who can't be bothered to download Linux is going to jump at the chance to buy a machine with it on? At least with the download Joe Sixpack has a Windows disk to fall back on if Linux turns out to be something that he simply doesn't want. With the Dell offer he's either going to have to put up with an OS that he was already too lazy to download or he's going to have to go Windows on a retail basis. Guess what kind of bitching and moaning that's going to cause.

Wouldn't it be the opposite? Someone who can't be bothered to download the half-gig .iso's, burn them, install them, and possibly configure the newly installed OS so it actually works correctly on their hardware might like the idea of having all that done for them so they get a sqeaky-clean install that works out of the box?

Re:Vista

[physicsnick]

The general population never even got enough of a whiff of vista to stop buying PCs with it on it.

That's just not the case. Word of mouth goes a very long way in computers; people don't know what to buy, so they ask the local computer geek. He's the guy who will tell them to avoid Vista at all costs.

I know several laypeople who have purchased computers with Vista, and they go out of their way to tell people how bad it is. You could walk up to anyone on the street and ask them what they know about Vista, and I'd be willing to bet a significant fraction of them could tell you they've heard bad things about it.

It's called XP. If you think for one second that users who migrated from XP to vista and hated vista are more willing to go to an "unknown" OS versus going back to XP you are out of your mind.

I completely agree. The fact that Dell is re-introducing XP confirms this. However, Ubuntu desktop computers are not likely to show up for many more months, and Windows has already stated that they're not allowing manufacturers to sell XP OEM in 2008.

People are certainly more willing to go back to XP, but pretty soon they won't have the choice.

There is enough stuff out there today for Joe to get his taste of Linux if he's interested.

No, there isn't. How many people can install an operating system? It's not even a matter of making it easy for them; most people are just too afraid to try. A preloaded machine from a major manufacturer with full customer support gives them the comfort they need to go with it, and the stability and total lack of viruses or spyware is the selling point.

DVD Playback

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's possible to play DVD's with Ubuntu but how will Dell deal with the legal grey spot that is Linux DVD playback?

Anything's possible

[Mateo_LeFou]

"Do you honestly think that the Windows user who can't be bothered to download Linux is going to jump at the chance to buy a machine with it on?"

Do you honestly that Joe is going to opt for the $800 "vista ready" computer when it looks as though the $500 "ubuntu loaded" one is right next to it on the virtual shelf?

PS, Joe: you don't have to pony up another $200 for Office, either.

Re:So who's going to buy them?

[sconeu]

At least in the laptop arena, it's a big thing, because the hardware is pretty much guaranteed to work.

Re:Linux needs no Windows Tax

[suv4x4]

i remember seeing dell machines that offered linux instead of windows in the past.. but the prices were the same or HIGHER for linux! Dell will need to address this, and offer these dellbuntu boxes at lower price. the OS is free! if they need to include a price to cover support costs, it should still not be equal to or greater than the cost of including Vista!

That's just a bunch of wishful thinking up there. Dell will charge whatever is costs them, not whatever you want. There's no free lunch.

Facts that cause Linux machines to be the same price or more expensive than a Windows machine:

1. it's a new product, initial costs of preparing support scenarios, integration work, testing
2. no craplets for Linux
3. expected way more support calls ("omg Half Life 2 CD doesn't start! Cd-ROM broken!")

Re:Vista

[abundance]

The OEM price for Vista Home Basic is about the same as XP Home was - about AU$130, while the cheapest version of Office is about AU$220 wholesale. Building a Microsoft computer as capable as the Ubuntu equivalent would double the cost of the machine.

Uh? The Ubuntu-equivalent office automation suite is free for Windows too... Why do many of those comparisions factor MS Office price?

Depends

[CasperIV]

People are stupid. Why do you think people run out and buy a $40,000 SUV while gas prices are nearing $4 a gallon and the only use is to get groceries and haul around their 1.5 kids? Why do you think people are running out to buy a hybrid, when right now the best technology we can implement for the batteries only suggest a life of 3 years and the battery is the majority of the value of the car? Same people are buying computers. Why do you think some of the worst systems make the most money? The average person doesn't know DDR RAM from a Dodge RAM, so when they walk in to buy a system they look at 3 key things: Price, Style, and Prestige. If the laptop looks like a brown box with lights, but boasts the best stats in the world, they average consumer will walk right past it for the Dell or HP that looks cuter. The operating system is all part of the style of the machine. If the OS looks good but not intimidating, they will love it. When it comes to price, if the laptop costs $900 with XP and a system costs $800 with Linux, they will most likely go with the cheaper solution (provided they are not looking for specific applications that are windows specific, and the sales person does not down talk the cheaper system for commission). The prestige of a product comes form the water cooler gossip. If the office has a bunch of wanna be techs, then they will be talking up linux like there's no tomorrow. If the office is full of ignorant users, they will probably be down talking linux because they can't figure it out and all they see are limitations. This is the area that will most greatly affect the sales of the systems. If it's "cool" to have more people are likely to buy it. A great example of this is the ipod trend. Ipods are nothing special, in fact they lack 80% of the features of the better MP3/Video players on the market, but they have all 3 areas covered. They are cute and simple, they are cheap, and they are the "cool" thing to have right now.

Why Ubuntu?

[future assassin]

Was Ubuntu chosen because of one distros community being more vocal then others or was it because it has the best compatibility with hardware. Sure Ubunty might be the most popular distro atm but seems like with Linux this changes quite often and I always see the "flavor of the month" distros appear and loose their ground quite often.

What will Dell do if another distro takes the number one spot?

Re:So who's going to buy them?

[jkrise]

Why? So you don't have to bother with the details of how it is set up?

Don't get me wrong, I just talked about wanting to see this a couple days ago, but if you already know how to do something, what does it matter to you that it is pre-loaded?

Linux is much more than a kernel or an operating system. It is an attitude. The attitude that motivates people to aim for open-ness, conformance to standards, living up to specifications, giving power and freedom to the user (okay, this one is because of GPL, the license used by Linux), etc. Dell pre-loading Linux indicates that a commercial entity believes it is possible to make a profit by delivering truth and conformance. Empowering the user is actually profitable for any vendor... IT hardware vendors have got by so far without doing so.

Re:Vista

[justinchudgar]

Absolutely. I have a friend, a retired executive from the telecom world. He is relatively savvy, but, he is not a geek and, though he has installed various flavors of Windows for himself and his friends, he usually would prefer to do other things with his time. He knows that I have been using Ubuntu since Dapper pre-release and is interested. We had talked about setting up his desktop with Ubuntu in the fall after fishing and gardening season is over. Now that Dell is selling them preinstalled, I would bet that he will pick up one of the less expensive Dimensions that come preinstalled before then. Having the bundle available takes the need to do the time consuming acts of downloading, burning, running the installer and tweaking the installation. My impression is that an unfortunately huge segment of the American population would rather call an 800 number and hand over their card than do any work on their own. The fact that Dell is willing to cater to the "more money than sense" crowd is great for Linux. I just hope that there is sufficient support available for those who are too lazy to google for an answer and instead instinctively call tehc support. If their experience is at least on par with the XP support they recieve, I bet they'll be pretty happy.

Dual Boot Please (Pre-loaded)

[HighOrbit]

I can happily use Linux for most desktop stuff, but I still "need" Windows to play my games. I want to get the Linux certified hardware, but I also want OEM pricing on my Vista license. I don't want to have to go buy Vi$ta Ultimate retail.

So here is the dilemma: - I want the linux hardware and they will probably only offer it with Linux OS. But I want the Vista OS too at OEM pricing. If I buy the Vista box, that is a lost sale for Linux. If I buy the Linux box, I have to go spend extra money for Vista.

Hopefully Dell will offer pre-loaded dual boot or a Linux-ready box with Vista that will count as a "Linux" sale

Re:Vista

[jkrise]

What has Vista got to do with it? Linux (and Ubuntu) gained a user base large enough to gather some attention.

For the first time, the learning curve, legacy hardware and software compatibility and cost of adoption for the latest Windows operating system (Vista) is greater than a well-known Linux distribution. Microsoft must be congratulated for this stupendous engineering effort.

Drivers, Drivers, Drivers, Drivers!

[ibi]

[Cue monkey boy dance]. The biggest benefit that could come out of this for *all* Linux users would be better hardware support. If manufactures think that "Hey, no Linux driver means we're not supporting part of Dell's consumer line" they might get serious about writing (open?) drivers or at least making it easier for the community to support their stuff.

And if Linux can end up being 5% of Dell's consumer sales (though even that might be optimistic) it's going to have a huge effect - because Dell is more likely to bundle stuff that will work with their entire line, not just 95% of it. Supporting one type of hardware is cheaper than two. (Though, of course, so it supporting only one kind of OS, which is how we got here :-) It would be so great if you could just assume that any random printer would totally work with Linux...

Slashdot and the General Population.

[twitter]

Don't confuse the slashdot population versus the general population. The general population never even got enough of a whiff of vista to stop buying PCs with it on it.

You are right, but that's because people here have not seen anything to justify the cost of Vista. At the very least, "everyone" knows to avoid Vista till M$ cleans it up, drivers are written for it and there are enough applications that work to make it worth while. At worst for M$, the free software message of freedom has convinced many that digital restrictions are costly and unacceptable.

I have nothing against Linux but the fanboism is really starting to stink up the place.

That's nothing next to Microsoft spam posts and astroturf.

Really though, if you don't have GNU/Linux as your primary home desktop right now, you have something against Linux. The only thing M$ has over GNU/Linux is accelerated video drivers, but Nvidia and ATI have those for you and the overall effort is no more or less than that required to set up and keep running a Windoze box. Dell's move into the scene might even eliminate that difference, because they will take the time to get all that non free shit to work. Outside that, gnu/linux networking, applications and window management rule for cost, ease of use and upkeep effort. Technical excellence is in favor of free software and has been for a long time.

Somehow I doubt the more vocal fanbois in this cause are going to take up the banner of actually shelling out the bucks. Mouthpieces normally stop when their toe touches the waters, so to speak.

How many coppies of Vista have you bought? Funny how M$'s revenue uptick did nothing for Dell, now isn't it?

The general population goes where the "experts" tell them. I've got no need for a new computer because my six year old hardware does what I need it to do. People with virused out computers now have a less expensive option that's going to get a lot of recommendations. Think about it. Is the houshold IT guy going to replace his mom's broken XP machine with more of the same or is he going to spare himself all that pain and trobout by getting her a nice little Ubuntu machine that does everything needed out of the box? Hell, I might even be tempted to get something a smaller, quieter in the next year or so and Dell just got on my radar.

The corporate market may move even faster. M$ and Dell expended a lot of effort getting exclusive contracts with government agencies and big companies. Dell offering those people computers that work with anything but M$ has given M$ nightmares since 2002. Good on them! Ha ha.

2007 is the year of GNU/Linux.

Re:Vista

[deviceb]

give me a break. it has everything to do with it... kick em when there down. You do not think Dell is looking constantly for alternatives to MS?? They do not want a piece of the image MAC is generating? Did you think of how many people are complaining about there new Dell computers that are not functioning correctly. Add that to the growing fuzzy glow Ubuntu is generating.. as well as people watching MAC commercials. It's a great idea for Dell, I hope HP jumps on board. My HP notebook kicks ass with FF/beryl. If companies like those 2 jump on board.. perhaps software companies will also. Then maybe i can actually do some work on Ubuntu rather than XP.

Re:Vista

[Hatta]

You almost need a manufacturer to bother taking the time to put together a bundle where everything "just works" out of the box.

Except that OEM installs of operating systems are always overly customized to the point where you really need to reinstall the OS just to get rid of the cruft.

Re:Vista

[Chris Burke]

The idea of a Dell using the threat of introducing a competitor's product to their mix so as to get preferential pricing from a monopoly vendor is not really a conspiracy theory. It's what Dell was doing with Intel for the better part of a decade. They would constantly mention the possibility of using AMD parts, and invite AMD reps over to sign the guestbook, so Intel would stay on its toes. Dell isn't a monopoly, but they are huge and their being exclusively Intel was a major help to Intel maintaining their monopoly. Thus did they get Intel to dance to their tune -- EMT64, Intel's x86-64 ISA and a knife stabbed directly into the heart of Itanium, is one major example in addition to just giving Dell really good deals. The story is a little different with Microsoft, seeing as changing processors doesn't change the end-users experience that much while obviously changing the OS does.

If Dell actually starts selling boxes with Ubuntu on them, rather than just threatening to but nothing coming of the project, then Dell definitely decided that there was indeed good reasons for selling Linux. Yet during the whole time they were considering the idea, you can bet the mortgage that they were doing it so as to let Microsoft know that the world's largest OEM was thinking about empowering MS' arch-enemy -- unless of course Dell can get Windows cheaper, in which case the project would probably be delayed. If they do pull the lever on pre-loaded Linux, then it's because they calculated that finally at this point in time the financial benefit of selling Linux outweighs the financial penalty of pissing off Microsoft and losing the preferential pricing.

Why this is good for Linux users of other distros

[Skapare]

This is a good thing for all of the Linux community, even those who use other distributions. Dell will now have to be sure its hardware works with the Linux kernel. Computers with components that won't work in Linux will likely not be on the select list that Linux is offered for. Hardware manufacturers will then have a tiny bit more pressure on them to make sure their chips and cards and stuff will work with at least some Linux driver, even if that happens to be a binary-only driver. And as this helps increase the percentages of people using Firefox, more web site developers will have to shift away from making Explorer-only pages and start following web standards. As more people use OpenOffice, more documents can be released in an open standards format, and those who release them in proprietary formats will face more criticism.

So even if you intend to install some other Linux distribution on your Dell computer, or even if you use a non-Dell computer, this is good for you. Even if you prefer Windows, you'll benefit by competitive pressure on Microsoft forcing them to have to do better next time.

Re:Slashdot and the General Population.

[The Bungi]

Really though, if you don't have GNU/Linux as your primary home desktop right now, you have something against Linux.

"Join us or die"

It's "Linux", BTW. Most of us don't agree with Stallman's arguments about naming conventions. Are you by any chance paid by the FSF to push that line on people?

The only thing M$ has over GNU/Linux is accelerated video drivers

And running all of their applications.

Funny how M$'s revenue uptick did nothing for Dell, now isn't it?

Wow, talk about reductio ad absurdum. Why don't you go research about what's wrong with Dell's business model before you start connecting the dots? It's been on the news lately.

I've got no need for a new computer because my six year old hardware does what I need it to do.

So, you've been complaining for seven years about how you have to pay the "M$ tax", but you haven't actually bought a computer in six years? So "Windoze" sucks, but you haven't used it in six years (even though of course you know it BSoD's three times a day)? Interesting.

2007 is the year

Seems to me 2007 is going to be the year of business as usual if most professional GNU/Linux "commentators" are much like you. Suddenly no one wants to buy a computer with Linux because it "takes away your freedom" or "that's not my distro" and so on. Joe Windows is not going to buy a box with Linux because they don't know any better, and the people who do really don't have any use for a new preloaded Ubuntu box. Sounds like a win-win situation for sure. And you seem to be doing your part.

Re:Slashdot and the General Population.

[The Bungi]

It's not "being a jerk". And I don't mind other people giving credit to whomever they want, as long as they don't try to push the ideal on others.

As to the "GNU/Linux" thing, it's quite simple. When asked why not call it "Linux/GNU/Apache/X.org/KDE/etc" Stallman's response is a disingenous "well you have to draw the line somewhere" and he wants the line drawn where he think it fits best.

The whole history [wikipedia.org] of the "GNU System" is like a bad joke. "Hey, here are a bunch of tools! They don't have anywhere to run, but we demand that you consider us an operating system!!"

I would never argue that the GNU userspace contribution is trivial. But if Stallman wants naming rights he can write his own kernel.

As far as I'm concerned, it's "Ubuntu" or "Fedora" or "SuSE", or just plain "Linux". If that means "being a jerk" then that's too bad.

Re:Vista

[mrchaotica]

Why would they want to? For most things a home user would want to do, Ubuntu comes with better software anyway!