The Agony and Ecstasy Of Becoming a Linux OEM 164
jammag writes "An article at the site Datamation, entitled Becoming a Linux OEM: A Roadmap, talks about the challenges (and rewards) of selling hardware with Linux pre-installed — most likely a growth market in the years ahead. The interesting part is the description of how some smaller Linux OEMs have made it. The bottom line: surviving as a Linux OEM requires far more than making it as a Windows OEM. In particular, you have to make the systems idiot-proof for users who don't care a whit about what OS they're using."
The 2 sides of the coin (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless you're talking about Vista.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Vista on the other hand is still playing catchup. And by the time Gutsy Gibson comes out, you think they'll have those problems licked? Christ, they're talking Service Pack now... remember what happened last time Microsoft tried to do one of those? Anybody with SP2 was being advised by just about every support department (I know because I was working with MSN support at the time) to downgrade back to SP1. For over a year after SP2 was released. A YEAR! I'll put money that Gutsy will have more hardware natively supported quicker than Vista. And its final release is still two months away!
I dunno. I think now that Dell and other major OEMs are starting to jump on the linux bandwagon, the commercial driver support is sure to follow, if it hasn't already (Big Blue, Novell, SGI, just to name a few).
And user interaction increasing between Linux and Windows? I dunno about you, but I've found the Ubuntu install process [dantup.me.uk] to be more intuitive and easier to deal with than Vista's billion-screen install [windowsreinstall.com]. Not to mention you can browse the internet, chat on messenger, listen to music, etc. WHILE THE OS IS INSTALLING. The default settings are made so the transition from Windows is fairly easy.
Yeah, there's still a few kinks. But whereas Linux was for tinkerers and hobbyists in the late 90s, and around when RH8 came out it became simple for the experienced computer user, now I'd be willing to throw linux in for any intermediate computer user. That is to say, not ready for Grandma yet but a hell of a lot closer than it ever has been.
I've been Ubuntu-cheerleading a lot here, but it's nice to see that over the last 5 years of linux (the time I've been a user of it) it's improved tremendously in the user-interface department. And it's only going up from here. And a lot of that has to do with some of the more recent distros, namely Knoppix and Ubuntu.
THAT is the real last hurdle. (Score:5, Interesting)
And from TFA:
I remember submitting reviews of NIC's years and years and years ago to one of the public hardware sites. That was then bought out and killed by a media company.
Ubuntu is collecting the information, but it hasn't put it out in a friendly format yet.
I'd like to see a bootable CD from a Linux distributor that will identify everything it can on a box and output that to something that I can upload to a website.
Then that website would identify the components that auto-magically work with their distribution (version A or B or C
And try a "best guess" at the components that it did not recognize AND the components that it did recognize that do NOT work auto-magically.
And allow the user to enter descriptions of the components that were not recognized.
The final goal being that I can take a CD into Fry's and ask to boot it to see if I want that system or not. Down to the component level. Yes, I like that system, but I want it with a soundcard that is supported.
Do that and you'll see more HARDWARE sales tied to Linux. And happier Linux users.
And I want a pony and a plastic rocketship.
The embedded space is different (Score:2, Interesting)
That's because everyone's got Linux. The same isn't true for Windows.
The worst case scenario means I have to modify the source code myself. At least I'm able to do this with Linux. I can't with Windows, unless I pay extra for it. And that's an added cost to the Windows-based project. I have the option of avoiding this if I have a team which understands the code. Yes, you can buy commercial support from Windriver, MonteVista, RedHat, etc. which brings the price closer to Windows. But I've never found it that useful other than to give higher management warm fuzzies. Most small scale embedded projects don't bother.
But the point is that I can choose.
linuxdevices.com has run a number of surveys over the years. Linux has gone from a very tiny market share in 2000, to where it is the dominant player, outdoing all versions of Windows combined today.
Every year... (Score:1, Interesting)
... is the year of the Linux desktop. The article says things like "Remember, it's the job of the Linux OEM to simply make everything work - out of the box, no excuses," but I don't know how true that is, unless we are talking about niche markets. Most average Jill users don't get an OEM computer that just works (unless they bought a Mac :D) -- they get what would be a decent PC were it not for it being bogged down by bloatware (and, very likely, a bunch of useless system restore crap that was put on the hard drive to save a DVD :P). Yes, power users expect things to work (I don't want to buy a Linux box from a company who expressly provide a "Linux PC", and find out that it has a freaking Broadcom Wireless Chipset), but power computer users, especially power Linux users, are not a sizable chunk of the consumer PC market. These companies sell a "working PC" and not a "weekend project", until the end-user wants to A. play a game that isn't Frozen Bubble B. get help from their pseudo tech-savvy friend (who may well say "Linicks?!") C. enjoy true compatibility with Office D. use iTunes (I think that matters a tonne, given the number of (non tech-savvy) iPod users out there), especially the iTMS E. etc.
Much as I loathe Windows, and love *nix, I'm still weary to recommend it to any of my friends who need a computer. I think Mac OS X is an excellent alternative (hey, it's what I use primarily too!), and it seems like the Ubuntu folks aren't too far from making a distro that average Jill can use, but there's still the matter of user-friendly (GUI) apps, which I think *nix is still lacking in.
The article also mentions frustration with Windows boxes and them having Linux-incompatible hardware. But again, these sound like niche frustrations. When's the last time your aunt said "Goddamn! I wish SuSe worked on my lappy so I'd stop BSODing all of the time!"? More like "Which one is the internet?"
A lot of end-users still find Macs exotic and are grossly misinformed about them. Linux for someone who hasn't heard of Linux, to me, is, at best, just as good for them as an XP box.