Dell to Offer More Linux PCs 282
head_dunce writes "According to this article, Mark Shuttleworth from the Ubuntu camp says Dell is seeing a demand for the Linux-based PC and, "There are additional offerings in the pipeline." I'm starting to see flashbacks of the days when Microsoft partnered up with IBM to gain control of the desktop market. Will other Linux flavors find their way to the likes of Lenovo or HP, etc, or will Ubuntu claim the desktop market working with other PC manufacturers?"
Re:Advantage lost (Score:5, Informative)
Can you please elaborate?
Look in your local newspaper.
There'll be a dozen shopfront computer stores advertising pre-built computer systems. They build them in their backrooms and sell them to local families and businesses. Those guys pay wholesale prices of about AU$160.00 for Vista home premium, AU$320.00 for Office 2007 Standard and AU$50.00 for Norton Antivirus.
They can retail a Sempron/Ubuntu home or small office system for less than it costs them in wholesale MS/Antivirus licenses.
That's what Dell (and the second tier vendors) are scared of. If they drop the ball now, and let these little guys get a big enough foothold in the home/SME market, they could be in trouble.
Re:The year of change (Score:3, Informative)
I'm guessing you're either a linux or mac fan. I have 2 copies of Vista running, one on my laptop and one on my desktop. Both work flawlessly. I have not experienced any problems with IE. I've used both the 64 bit and 32 bit versions of IE without any problem. The only issue I've run into is that there isn't a 64 bit version of Flash, so I'm forced to use the 32 bit version of IE until Adobe release an update. This isn't really a Vista issue.
Can you back up your claim with specific numbers and details of problems, or are you just spouting FUD?
Re:preconfigure (Score:2, Informative)
Re:preconfigure (Score:3, Informative)
No, a reboot is required much more often than a distro upgrade. An example of this would be a kernel security upgrade.
--
BMO
Re:Advantage lost (Score:3, Informative)
Re:preconfigure (Score:5, Informative)
Since nvidia's 9xxx series of drivers, the graphical configuration utility allows you to hotplug monitors and set up dual head without touching xorg or even restarting the X server.
it's a bit disappointing that the feature isn't there for users of other cards, but it appears X is going through some big changes and hopefully soon enough it will hit the 21st century...
What is it about the Linux Desktop GUI that sucks? (Score:1, Informative)
I even love having the CLI on the desktop. In fact, I make my Windows XP operate as much like the Linux CLI as I can. Use the Run command, and drop shortcuts in your path. Install GNU's UnxUtils in your path, and you've got the entire Unix commands at your CMD fingertips. Very powerful stuff.
In college, I used Linux on a Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop. 300 Mhz, 64 MB RAM. I loaded Red Hat 6, then switched to Mandrake on it. It was running the current version of KDE. And for the most part, it worked.
It was rough around the edges, but the graphical system usually always sorta worked. If XWindows crashed, then I would just CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE it to reset X. Execute startx from the command line and I'm back up and running again - no need to reboot the operating system. So the base OS was stable. I loved that.
The alternative was to use Windows 98. Which ran good as a fresh-off-the-CD installation, but once you started loading 3rd party software, it immediately took a nosedive.
This was around 1999 to 2000.
Flash forward seven years, to 2007, and we've got Ubuntu with the Gnome desktop GUI. And it looks pretty and all, but beauty is only skin deep. Literally. Once you have to start using the GUI and navigating around it, you just want to pull your hairs out.
I just installed Ubuntu on my 4 year old computer, an old AMD Athlon XP 2200 with 1 GB of RAM. And boy is the desktop GUI slow! My Windows XP ran super smooth all these years on that computer. No complaints on its responsiveness.
What I loved most about Ubuntu, was the ease of installing new software. Fire up Synaptics Package Manager, search for your software, select install, click OK, walk away, and it's done! Wow! Now that is something to brag about! I didn't even have to worry about scanning the file for a virus, or even think of where to install it.
Search for Azureus, click install. It searches for dependencies. Java is required. Select Java for installation too. Click OK. 10 minutes later. Done!
Search for DVD decoders, click install. Done! I even found out how to rip my DVD's to XviD using MEncoder the next day. And I never even knew how to rip a DVD previously before. That was easy!
But man, the desktop GUI still sucks.
So now I'm at a crossroads. I need to buy a new computer. And I hate Windows! But I love the Windows GUI. It's clean, simple, and it works. Period. Microsoft did a really good job with the desktop GUI. But, I'm sick and tired of all its insecurities. All of the stupid worms and viruses that I constantly need to worry about, and the pop-ups or pop-unders that hoses Internet Explorer as well as the security of your system. (Don't worry, I use FireFox.) I don't even let anyone use my work's notebook computer, because I'm fearful that they'll browse the internet and accidentally click on a pop-up, and get spyware installed on my business computer. So hands off - only I can use this computer.
And don't even get me started about user restrictions - because in Windows, you need to run as an Administrator to avoid having to deal with all the crap that wouldn't work if you ran as a less privileged user. Ever tried running as a regular user and wanting to change your screen's resolution? Good Luck! Or if you want, you can spend a few hours and try to figure out how Windows Group Policies work, and install a policy for yourself.
What I want is an out of the box, secure OS to use. I can be a regular user, and if I need access to critical system files, I can enter a root password to get there. Linux/Unix is great for this.
So what are my other options?
Apple's famed OSX. And I've been seriously looking at it now. The GUI works like butter. Everything seems to just flow like water with it.
Dell got a big discount on Ubuntu (Score:3, Informative)
Now: 80% discount on $0 is ....
Re:The year of change (Score:2, Informative)
Well I had my first experience of Vista last night, setting up a 2GHz Celeron laptop a friend had just bought which came with Home basic.
Whilst everything worked OK and actually looked pretty good I was hugely unimpressed with how slow it was. Opening an application like firefox took 20-30 seconds and logging a user in or out seemed to take forever. Also, even though vista came pre installed it went through innumerable setup routines when first booted (including at least 2 reboots) such that I could have done a linux install in the same amount of time it took me to get to a desktop.
Were it not for my friend wanting to use a load of kids CDROMS on this machine I'd have swapped it over to linux in a heartbeat and they'd have had a much more usable machine.
Re:Mandriva (Score:2, Informative)
Ubuntu is basically Debian Sid, but rebranded with Ubuntu artwork. Essentially, you're running Debian Sid if you use Ubuntu. (Interesting fact: Shuttleworth used to be a Debian developer/maintainer)
Personally, I use the stable version of Debian on servers and other places where security/stability is paramount. But I use the testing version on desktops, where sacrificing very, VERY good security/stability for more up to date programs is more acceptable for me. I really dislike running the unstable release, as it's usually just that.
Re:The year of change (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What is it about the Linux Desktop GUI that suc (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe my system's just a bit faster to get over some threshold, but my laptop's 3 years old and nothing to brag about anymore (was a nice gaming laptop when I bought it). I'm guessing you had some hardware issue or, perhaps, were you using Edgy Eft? Feisty Fawn feels lightyears ahead of Edgy.
Re:Europe (Score:1, Informative)