Dell Selling Dual-Boot Laptops 289
rsmiller510 writes "The EE Times reports this week that Dell has released a hybrid laptop running both Linux and Windows clearly aimed at business travelers. Linux for quick tasks and Windows for more intensive ones, but will such a machine really fly in the business world?"
Will it fly? (Score:5, Insightful)
NO!
Rebooting is a chore. Once people start up, they don't want to shut down to start up another application. It's not what they are used to. On the other hand, if this were done as a VM where the Linux machine were to boot and they installed Windows XP in a VirtualBox or some other VM, then that might be acceptable. Then they would have their safer, virus-free environment for email and web browsing and then a VM to host the applications they need to run. This stuff works really well.
Re:I could see this making sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Once they innevitably complete botch their windows partition: I could imagine some people trying linux.
Good Idea but (Score:2, Insightful)
it won't work. People will boot to the 1st OS (as they don't want to select one and they will get annoyed if the 1st OS in the boot menu is not windows because they won't be able to leave the computer unattended to boot.
Sadly it's human nature to be lazy. The computer would need to select the correct OS by reading the user's thoughts before it would be viable.
Disagree with summary (Score:2, Insightful)
>>>Linux for quick tasks and Windows for more intensive ones
This implies that Linux can't do intensive work, as if it's not a real OS. That's not true, is it? Besides the real benefit of abandoning Windows is you can lower your retail price by ~$100, since Linux is free. With this dual boot configuration there's no price savings.
Well whatever. Bottom line is: If I could buy a Windows Vista machine with a Linux at no additional charge, then sure I'd go for it. I enjoy free extras.
Re:Will it fly? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the ARM side has access to the hard disk and wireless, I'll definitely be running it in ARM mode for 10x the battery life.
Re:Honestly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Will it fly? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would you care if Linux had NTFS support if you're running windows in a VM?
It's helpful to be able to access the files on your virtual disk from your main OS. Being able to mount your virtual disk in GNU would be sweet.
Re:Bad for Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you can keep your bosses from ever reading the parts about using Linux in a limited way (and NEVER let them touch one of these) then it would be good. But you can't. And you can't control the perception that Linux is limited once they start using it in a stunted environment like this.
No doubt--it seems to me that most people rarely forget a bad experience with new things. Let them see Linux for their first time on this wacky machine, and they'll be telling their friends for the next 5 years that they "tried Linux and Windows on the same machine and Linux was slow as hell."
I suppose there's some awesome technical issue beyond my comprehension that would explain why I can't just run either OS on either processor. If anybody knows what it is, I'd love to hear about it.
Re:Will it fly? (Score:5, Insightful)
That'll change. 64-bit OSes are now mainstream -- and even VMs are becoming mainstream -- so it's only a matter of time before chipset and mobo manufacturers push the limits of more and more of their consumer-grade commodity stuff beyond the previous '4GB barrier'.
Re:Will it fly? (Score:1, Insightful)
What they should do - what I am sure someone will do at some point - is to make an "LPARable" PC/laptop after the same general principle as IBM's newest pSeries servers. The system would come with a VM hypervisor in NVRAM, as the "BIOS", and all other systems would run under that, concurrently.
I'd rather they just get rid of Windows myself, though in my personal opinion I consider Windows to be a generally lower-quality and less-secure solution that is better avoided if possible. That people so often take the "all viewpoints are equal" or "I'll ignore overwhelming evidence and pretend this is a matter of taste" cop-out when discussing Windows or comparing it to anything else amazes me. About the only things that Windows can do that another OS may have difficulty achieving is driver support for rather unusual hardware and availability of proprietary software such as Adobe Photoshop or various CAD solutions. Of course, both of those are market decisions and neither are inherent properties of the OS.
I just don't know any technically knowledgable person who is familiar with and skilled with multiple operating systems who still prefers Windows. I'm sure this mythic beast exists someplace and I'm sure lots of people will pipe up with their anecdotal answer to my anecdotal observation, but I have never seen such a person and outside of a few examples of Slashdot hearsay, I've never heard of such a person either. Granted, there are businesspeople who prefer Windows because it's not the Linux users who are spending $50-75 a pop to have a virus removed, but I'm talking now about a genuine non-financial preference.
Perhaps the same effort it would take to write a hypervisor and place it in NVRAM could be put towards asking their users why they still need Windows. Dell is a large vendor with at least some industry clout. Maybe they could remedy some of the reasons why their users still need Windows. Whether that would mean pressuring proprietary software companies to go multiplatform or whether it would mean contributing to the WINE project is unknown to me but I wonder if they have considered the option.
Re:Will it fly? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad for Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a non-corporate techie and I don't have Linux on my main system. Once I decided that I had to have Windows directly on the metal at any time, I had to jettison Linux. Why? Because pretty much anything I can do in Linux, I can do in Windows, and this way I don't have to multi-boot. Sure, Linux does many things BETTER than Windows, and if I need to attack a device with dd or something, I'm not running dd.exe. I'm plugging into one of my Linux systems. But for day to day use Windows will do everything, and if I need a bash shell or something there's cygwin. (I haven't figured out powershell yet and I hope never to have to.)
The simple fact is that multi-booting is annoying. Windows has a hard time reading Linux filesystems and Linux has a slow time reading NTFS, so you end up with files that you can't conveniently access from one OS or the other (or both) and having to bounce back and forth to move files around, et cetera. Every so often you add or remove some big waste of disk space and then you have to repartition and the most entertaining Linux filesystems can't necessarily be moved around conveniently, so you have to shuttle Linux off to another disk, repartition and resize Windows, then bring it back.
With all that said, a quick-booting mini-Linux distribution that booted into XBMC and with a couple of programs under the programs launch menu (like firefox, skype, etc) could be a great additional feature for a laptop, especially if it loaded from flash. Granted, I can do this myself by leaving something in my SD slot, but then I can't view photos from my camera in XBMC with autorun on insert. It could be a strong selling point on consumer-grade laptops which are marketed as a media player (glossy screen at. al.) I could also see a teensy linux web-only boot on a netbook that has windows installed - sometimes you just want to browse the damned web. And again, probably it should also have a SIP client and Skype.
You should be able to accomplish this in a pretty small footprint, tucked off in a corner of a flash drive. It could be a standard feature on 12GB and 16GB models which would never even notice the lack, and an optional install for others.
Re:Will it fly? (Score:3, Insightful)
so it's only a matter of time before chipset and mobo manufacturers push the limits of more and more of their consumer-grade commodity stuff beyond the previous '4GB barrier'.
Yep, but for now multiple active VM's are a non-starter when Windows itself needs 4GB. The only way I can see it is if one had a very lightweight version of Linux that did nothing but host the VMs, and then a VM of Windows and a VM of Linux to alternate between.
Re:Disagree with summary (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to keep reading...
The the different OS's run on different processors.
Linux, running on the power efficient ARM on a flash drive is for quick tasks.
Windows, running on the more power hungry yet more powerful cpu, is for more cpu intensive things.
The only thing it implies (to me) is that windows is less suited to small & quick applications.
I've only been using Linux for... (Score:1, Insightful)
I've only been using Linux exclusively for 9 years, or so. I am really glad someone finally pointed out that I can't actually get any work done in it and that in order to do any work I need Windows.
Now, who is going to break this to the fortune 500 companies, governments, schools and thousands of other organizations using Linux and FOSS?
Re:I could see this making sense (Score:1, Insightful)
Or it may further solidify Linux's reputation as a throw away environment that you do not use to get "real work" done.
Re:Honestly (Score:3, Insightful)
Is This Good For Linux, Or Harmful? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd usually applaud any OEM's decision to sell their kit with Linux installed, but I'm seriously questioning whether this particular implementation style is going to help Linux or not.
Why?
PHB's, that's why. Already articles like the one linked to are setting-up Linux as a "light duty OS" by saying things like:
The Linux OS provides a quick boot for checking email and other "light" computing duties while the Windows side allows "heavier duty" computing like running Microsoft Office applications.
Taken out of context that's a complete load of crap, but it's something Microsoft must be just loving to see.
You and I would understand that, in this case, it's because Linux is installed and running on an ARM-based subsystem with less memory and less bandwidth to play with, but PHB's will get this light-duty reference stuck in their heads. And this will be reinforced when they try to do something "difficult" with it, and it happens slowly or not at all, and they'll come away thinking "Linux is crap" when they really should be thinking "Windows is crap, why does it need so many resources?"
Why should I care? Because it's the PHB's, unfortunately, that sign the cheques to get new hardware and if they get the wrong ideas about Linux then Microsoft with their Windows and other software will continue to dominate the market.
Why couldn't Dell just quick boot into Linux and then run Windows apps under Wine, or even VM the whole Windows installation? :(