Ubuntu On Dell After Four Months 378
mrcgran sends us to LXer for an interview with John Hull, a manager of the Linux Engineering team at Dell, where he reports on how the Ubuntu machines have been working out for them so far. "Embracing Ubuntu Linux on our desktops and laptops seems to have really raised Dell's visibility within the Linux community. We have been supporting, testing, developing for, and selling Linux for 8+ years here at Dell, but before the Ubuntu announcement, a lot of people didn't know that we did any of that... Previous to our Ubuntu product announcement... we would have a conversations with vendors about pushing Linux support for their hardware, but without a Linux product offering from Dell for that hardware, it was very difficult to convince them to release Linux drivers. That has certainly changed now... The original sales estimates for Ubuntu computers was around 1% of the total sales, or about 20,000 systems annually. The program so far is meeting expectations. Customers are certainly showing their interest and buying systems preloaded with Ubuntu, but it certainly won't overtake Microsoft Windows anytime soon."
1% of PC Sales? (Score:1, Interesting)
Within the retail sector... (Score:5, Interesting)
okay... (Score:2, Interesting)
the negative experiences i've had with dell are really not linked to the OS; they're all hardware issues and service issues related to the hardware. show me that they'll support linux equally on the software side *and* that they've stepped up their hardware support, and this will be a bit more interesting.
yeah, this is great news as far as the visibility of the linux community is concerned, but IMO, this changes very, very little about the pre-built PC market.
i'm still gonna build my next linux box.
Re:Within the retail sector... (Score:2, Interesting)
Well it IS ubuntu (Score:0, Interesting)
Windows is a one size fits all solution, linux isn't and despite a minority 'turn it into windows' mentality (Hi Miguel) most long-term users think this is a good thing.
Ubuntu Preloads (Score:5, Interesting)
laptops as a loss leader for selling servers (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Within the retail sector... (Score:3, Interesting)
Really, though, package installation is incredibly easy in most distributions now, with repositories handling all dependencies. In Ubuntu, for instance, there is an "Add Programs" icon in the Applications Menu by default, that lists the most popular applications and separates them into categories so there is no information overload. If you know the exact name of the package to install (such as subversion or tomcat), open up synaptic and choose the package there. Either way, all dependencies are automatically taken care of and installation is entirely automatic (once you enter your administrator password).
What happened? (Score:3, Interesting)
Dell has more or less had a reputation of being deep in the pockets of Microsoft and Intel. It was no secret that Intel was giving Dell huge perks for not selling systems with AMD chips, and I'd be surprised if Microsoft wasn't offering similar perks for keeping Linux off of consumer desktops.
Now, we're seeing dell open up a lot more options to consumers.
So what happened? Did the payola from Intel and Microsoft stop? Was there a management shakeup? Are they trying to re-focus their image as a serious business vendor to step into the void left by IBM? Or are they just emphasizing "choice" to avoid losing any more ground to Apple (this theory strongly lends itself to their decision to distance themselves from MS because of the Vista backlash)
Or maybe they're finally waking up to the fact that "nerd cred" seriously does sell computers. I would credit OS X's acceptance within the community as being instrumental to the sort of success Apple's been seeing over the past few years -- OS 7,8, and 9 left them with a pretty bad reputation that they needed to shed themselves of. When the guy who's fixed your PC multiple times recommends getting a mac, it lends some serious credibility to the brand. Given that Dell's a pretty generic brand, I doubt that anyone has serious qualms about buying from them, but it's a whole lot better than having a negative brand-reputation, or being badmouthed by everyone in the industry. (See also: Article yesterday about AOL losing $100 billion)
Re:Technically... (Score:3, Interesting)
Your point is perfect, though. How much running around and acreaming about those scurvey Pirates (Yaaaaarrrrr!) has Microsoft been doing lately, while tightening Windows Genuine disAdvantage. How many fleets of new machine orders with complementary Windows(tm) tax have resulted in redundant licenses that sit unused?
Seems to me Linux on Dell has at least three big wins:
Re:Within the retail sector... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Within the retail sector... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Within the retail sector... (Score:3, Interesting)
I then went to install subversion on windows. Ubuntu install was 100 times easier than windows as I had to search for a version that was acceptable. I finally settled on TortiseSVN which was nice.
Overall install on my ubuntu and my Fedora Core 7 box took very little time. Ubuntu was the least time and least effort. windows ended up the most as you had to find the software and then install it. fedora was as simple as your example, ubuntu was easier as it was in a list of icons I can click on.
Re:What happened? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's easy. AAPL ate their lunch.
When the market grows say 10% and one of your competitors grows 30% and your own growth is flat (at best), you know you're just a couple of quarters away from a big disaster.
You don't have to be a genius to figure that out.
Growth is hardly in selling laptops to new customers (just like the total number of people drinking beer is not going to increase significantly).
So, you've got to appeal to your customers and even lure customers from other companies away.
As the hardware is commodity (except AAPL), and people didn't exactly run down Dell's (virtual) shop doors to get a laptop with Vista, there's only Linux left. Fortunately (for Dell, and Linux), somebody at Dell was smart enough to figure all this out in advance and their lineup is now pretty good.
As the spokesperson says, it's more a question of perception than actual sales.
Re:Within the retail sector... (Score:2, Interesting)
>I'm 99% sure that Ubuntu or Debian people can do similar things with DEBs. Of course, the >downside with the package approach is you have to have one package per distro (take a look at >Skype; skype isn't in any linux repositories, but it supplies 4-5 RPMs and a binary tarball).
Actually I type apt-get install skype, and I've got skype
They also distribute
Debian based distro's can also make use of something called automatix2 (http://www.getautomatix.com/) which can be used to install Windows apps (via CodeWeavers) even. I would not necessarily recommend it, but it is certainly something for Joe-user and
Michael Dell uses it too
Re:Within the retail sector... (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly klik isn't KDE's though it did start out dependant on some kde features. The initial k in the name reflects the knoppix roots, which reflects Klaus Knoppers name rather then the desktop environment he happened to also choose! I sometimes wonder what difference it would have made to klik's adoption if it's name hadn't started with either a k or a g!
Secondly you don't need a kio-slave to use klik, you can use it from the command line if you want or via any browser which can be convinced to pass the name from a klik:/foo "uri" to the klik client. Installing the standard klik client will usually set you up so you can use a mozilla based browser to "install" applications from the klik site. Support for running the resulting file again is merely a case of what the standard installer automatically configures (I think just gnome/kde/xdg.desktops at present). Configuring or adding support for other environments should be trivial as again it only needs to supply the desired filename to a program.
One of the benefits of klik in this context (though not one I care much about myself) is the ability to "package" other installers and without having to distribute any non-redistributable files, so klik can provide a wrapper to even run things like google* apps or realplayer without any risk to your base package managed system (though as a corrollory with limited integration into that system). There's even been repeated discussion of getting klik to provide windows applications via wine (some people have their own custom apps built like this including multiple IE versions or even Office with Crossover).
Note the above isn't meant to imply that klik is perfect (klik2 should offer some significant advances and hopefully see klik getting packaged in more distros) but there are still plenty of use cases where it is the best answer e.g. no-root/read-only/portable software "installs".
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Who knew? (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine that.
Eight years, and I still have my choice of 1 - 14" laptop in the small business section. And I can't even get there from the main page unless I know enough to type in the Linux URL. And then I get a paragraph explaining that I might not want this unless I'm an advanced user and a link back to the Windows stuff.
I'm surprised they weren't in the basement in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
Re:Within the retail sector... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Within the retail sector... (Score:2, Interesting)
Dell specifically states that they still consider linux for the "advanced user/hobbyist" and *not* for the average person yet. They believe that if you are savvy enough to use linux, you will have no problems finding it on their site. For that matter, Mr. Shuttleworth actually says something pretty similar; he said that Ubuntu is not quite ready for mainstream.
Dell *is* working on getting linux on *all* their offerings, but they have to do a ton of work for each offering; work with vendors for driver/hardware support, test & fix issues with software, set up/prepare tech support, etc. They're banging them out but it takes time.
I applaud our new pro-linux dell (they've actually been pro-linux for around 8+ years now). From what I read, they are doing a ton of work in pushing linux and they're doing it the right way. For instance, the linux crew at dell have made quite a few patches to the kernel, but if you were to get a pre-installed ubuntu machine from them, it would appear to be a vanilla installation. This is true because they don't patch the system on their end and roll it out like that, they actually send the patches to kernel.org and try to get them integrated into the kernel.
They, according to their blogs and this interview, have and continue to do a ton of work with their vendor partners in getting them to contribute specs and/or create open-source drivers for hardware, which helps us all.
From what I see on ideastorm and what the linux dev people are saying on their blogs and in interviews, they are doing the linux thing the only practical way it can be done; offer linux as-is with a big warning ("For Advanced Users!"), and actively work on making it better, so when it is ready for the average joe, they can sell it side-by-side with windows.