Dell Ships Ubuntu 7.04 PCs Today 422
javipas writes "Today by 4:00 PM CST Dell will start selling three machines with Ubuntu 7.04 pre-installed. The two desktops (XPS 410n, $899 and Dimension E520n, $599) and the notebook (Inspiron E1505n, $599) will be the first three machines with the popular Linux distribution installed by default. There is little or no price differential between the Linux and Windows models; in fact, the entry level E520 Windows desktop is cheaper. Dell has announced that they will provide hardware support, and they've created a new site devoted to giving further Linux support and updates. At the moment the offer is only available in the US."
Re:Typical (Score:5, Interesting)
I think for Linux installs they don't get revenue from Symantec's trial of the worst security suite in the world, WildTangent, Office trials, Quicken trials, video game trials, some poker, etc.
So maybe it DOES cost less overall to install Windows.
Next to worthless (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll be happy to be proven wrong by history though.
Price Subject to Change? (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be silly to introduce a new version of a product and sell it for less than an existing product.
If it were me, I'd start with the price up a little bit for two reasons. 1, less complaining when the price goes down versus up (yes, someone will complain on a price drop!). 2, with a higher price I have a cushion in case these things start selling like hotcakes and the volume murders my margin as I burn resources to keep up.
SOP, nothing to see here.
Re:Mod parent up; not a troll. (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. This is the kind of marketing Linux has needed for a while to begin to impinge on the consciousness of the average user. As long as they had to call their geeky neighbor and have him/her install it on their box then spend weeks getting acquainted with the differences, Linux was not going to get any respect. Now, there may be a chance.
Re:Inspirons (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless you are going to be buying a used Mac Powerbook, I doubt that will be happening.
A used notebook is going to be used, abused, and worn out. Even the much-vaunted Thinkpads are not indestructible, and the notebooks that sell at the prices you mention are going to be more than 3 years old, and completely out of date.
I've not found the Dell laptops to be any better or worse than the competition, and I carry my laptop with me pretty much everywhere I go, so it gets plenty of abuse. It sounds to me like you just have a bug up your butt about Dell. With that I cannot help you, as no matter what I say, your obvious irrational hate of all things Dell will not allow you to take a balanced approach to this issue. It's too bad, because Dell and Ubuntu really do need our support as a community if this is going to work. Trolling Dell for personal reasons just gets in the way.
And before you go off on me as a Dell fanboy, Keep in mind that I was hired into an already established "Dell shop". My company as a long-standing relationship with Dell, and regardless of my personal preferences, Dell is what we use. We have thousands of machines, all Dell, and I have had to work on EVERY ONE of them. I have dealt with Dell support, and I have worked with a Dell Rep. So I'm not just working on the one or two machines owned by family and friends, these boxes are my job to keep running. I have found that duty to be reasonably easy. Yes, we have had our share of lemon machines, but no more than I have run into at other places, with other makes of PC. Dell is no worse or better than any other manufacturer in regards to the general quality of their PCs, excepting perhaps Apple, but those aren't so good in a Windows software programmer shop, so I can't get them.
Dell deserves our support. They listened to their customers, and are giving us what we wanted. They deserve to have this risk rewarded.
Meanwhile, in the UK... (Score:3, Interesting)
We get a very mixed message. Searching Dell's UK site [dell.co.uk] for 'Ubuntu' brings up this page [dell.com], but if you go through all the options on the online store, Linux isn't there.
Price ranges (Score:3, Interesting)
XPS 410 [dell.com] ranges from $899 - $1699 with Vista. Ubuntu base is price is $899.
Inspiron E1505 [dell.com] ranges from $699 - $1,560 with Vista. Ubuntu base price is $599, difference is -$100.
Re:Mod parent up; not a troll. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll pay to be sure Linux works now AND later (Score:5, Interesting)
At first, the base price may be more expensive than the Windows laptop, but:
In the past, I have proudly emerged from the entrails of my machine saying, "Yesss! What a breakthrough! Am I a geek or what? After countless hours of Googling, downloading drivers, messing with the hardware, and writing my own script files, my computer now finally works properly!" Meanwhile, my wife's machine has worked from the beginning. Well, been there, done that; now I want to move on. I want it to just work.
So, when I tally it up, it's definitely to my self-interest to get the Dellbuntu system, even if it looks more expensive at first.
Changing the rules of the game---in MSFT's favor?! (Score:3, Interesting)
It just occurred to me that Microsoft has been accused of abusing their monopoly power by bundling applications with their operating system. E.g., IE versus Netscape, Windows Media Player versus RealPlayer, etc. (For anyone who's not familiar with this idea: Microsoft, due to their operating system monopoly status, has an unfair advantage in the applications market.)
Now, clearly you can build and ship an Ubuntu (or just about any other Linux distribution) machine pre-loaded with tons of free software. And that probably needs to happen to make Linux effective for the "unwashed masses".
But, is it possible for Microsoft to take a look at this, and use it as an excuse to start forcing more 3rd party software developers out of the market? If I remember correctly, Microsoft's defense to the monopoly abuse allegations has always been something like "but these applications are part of the operating system." Dell shipping Ubuntu plus a lot of applications kind of supports Microsoft's claim (in a weird, twisted way, which I'm sure Microsoft's well-paid lawyers could use to their advantage).
Re:OK fanboys... (Score:1, Interesting)
You know there is no way in hell that will happen. The evangelists want everybody else to use Linux, but already have plenty of machines running Linux themselves (why else would they be evangelists?), thus the people who asked for this will not be purchasing these machines, that is plain to see.
What the evangelists need to do is participate in word of mouth advertising for Dell and recommend these machines to all their non-techie friends and family. Though myself, I would not recommend a Dell to my worst enemy, and I bet many of the Linux evangelists feel the same.
Don't get me wrong, its nice to see this option and perhaps enough average folks will be interested for the line to survive (plenty of store display models would help, and a little advertising campaign). Either way, this will not make or break Linux for the mainstream, the merits of the Linux product alone will determine that(despite all the conspiracy theories that tell you otherwise). Linux's biggest enemies are multiple distributions and non-free, non-open Linuxes like RedHat's and Novell's.
Myself, I think QNX has a better chance at producing a successful desktop OS for average domestic use, though that is no their target market, but if they set their sights on it, it would be a snap. With the increase in ubiquity of embedded computing devices we may yet see a day when QNX is the most popular OS running on dozens of devices in the average home and car. Granted the OS is not free, but man its good at what it does.
The success of this line of Dell products will depend entirely on word of mouth advertising, television advertising and the quality of the product (the weak link in the chain with Dell). Linux evangelists will not be buying them, we already know that.
Re:Inspirons (Score:3, Interesting)
they must be saving a LOT putting OSS on the machine.
Re:Of course entry-level windows is cheaper... (Score:1, Interesting)
> learning curve of the GIMP.
Do you actually understand what ``alpine learning curve'' means?
It means that you get to a very high level of capability in a very
short period of time.
If you're telling me that with Paint Shop Pro I'd spend a long
time learning and not actually become very capable then I'm
glad that I use The Gimp and CinePaint!
Re:Dial Up (Score:4, Interesting)
What's the point? (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus, for a group of people that make such a big deal about OS choice, they'd probably be likely to wipe off Ubuntu as soon as possible (if not for a newer version of Ubuntu when it's available or for their distro of choice). So why not just get the desktop with Windows? They're not more expensive, you just have to install Linux versus having it done for you.
Yeah I know, I'm being facetious. I know this is all purely a symbolic thing. A big name company is selling Linux boxes. Woo hoo. And they're going to stop selling these Linux boxes when Linux geeks either don't buy any (because they want to build their own machines) or the Linux geeks who buy one or two boxes just to show support, well, stop buying boxes. No one outside of the Linux world would care about these machines since they can just get one that has Windows for the same price.
I'm one of those 3. Here's the system I'll buy: (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition to the basic notebook at $599, I decided to upgrade the memory from 512MB to 2GB (+$200), since it's probably the most precious commodity around; if I try to upgrade later, say in 2 years, some new memory standard will probably have come out and I won't be able to find the proper chips.
I figured I'd upgrade the hard drive, too, from 80GB to 160GB. I had thought I would upgrade the 2.5" HDD myself, but it comes with a SATA hard drive, and I've only worked with PATA hard drives[1]. Anyway, that's another +$125 for the HDD upgrade.
My third upgrade is for the DVD burner. The original price comes with a CD burner/DVD-ROM drive, but I've always had problems with Linux and DVD burning --my Kubuntu box has the LITE-ON DVD DL burner, and so far I've had to power up our Win2k box to burn DVD's. For +$40, I'm happy to get the DVD DL burner, and I want to see if K3b will let me burn all 8GB+ onto a DL DVD. Would be sweet if I could.
The only thing I don't like is the screen size. I don't care about widescreen[2], and you can't directly compare diagonal screen sizes of 16:9 (widescreen) screens with 4:3 (conventional) sizes, so I converted. The diagonal of a 16:9 screen is 1.22 times as long as a 12:9 (that is, 4:3) screen for the same height, so I divided the 15.4" diagonal length of the widescreen by 1.22 to get 12.6". So I'm really getting a 12.6" screen, except it's wider. That's tiny. The ThinkPad that my work gives me is 15" (4:3 aspect, same screen height as 18.3" widescreen) and I don't think it's big enough. Well, at least the small screen size makes the laptop smaller and portable.
By the way, what the heck is "TrueLife (glossy)"? I have the option to have it or not have it for my screen, at the same price, but it sounds like a load of MarketSpeak.
So, anyway, here's my system, cut&pasted from the Dell page:
Intel® Pentium® dual-core proc T2080(1MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB
Ubuntu Edition version 7.04
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife(TM)(glossy)
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 DIMM
160GB 5400 RPM SATA Hard Drive
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g
1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
Recycling Kit and Plant a Tree for Me
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
Integrated Audio
Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor
I'll probably sit on this till next week, and then make the purchase.
Any comments? Is this a good deal, or am I being foolish?
I'm experimenting with the Slashdot journal, so maybe I'll post stuff in my journal [slashdot.org] about how the purchase is going, and I think I can set it up so that people can post comments.
-----
[1] PATA notebook drives: It's not that I'm afraid of SATA drives; it's that I've been standardizing on PATA 2.5" drives because I have a number of 2.5" notebook enclosures that, for $25, turn the internal notebook HDD into an external USB HDD that fits into my shirt pocket.
[2] widescreen: Please don't give me that crap about "But if you're screen's not wide enough, you don't see the whole movie --it will be chopped off at the left and right sides!" Well, then, just shrink the movie! I don't see anyone ever saying, "You need a 4:3 screen, because your TV show will be chopped off at the top and bottom by a 16:9 screen!"