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?"
This is new? (Score:2, Interesting)
I could see this making sense (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Will it fly? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. And you can even suspend/hibernate/resume and both OSes will retain their state. This is what I did for my wife's laptop. She occasionally needs Windows for a few things (like loading/converting other people's Microsoft Publisher or Visio files), and it works great. Just make sure you buy lots of RAM.
Re:Disagree with summary (Score:3, Interesting)
Retail price won't go down, may go up. Dell, et al, get $$ from application vendors for including trialware w/ icons on the desktop. AOL, McAffee, etc. all pay for "product placement". Ever wonder why a new in box machine has all sorts of icons, etc. on the desktop when a clean install of Windows doesn't?
Re:I could see this making sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Wooo! Now That is a perspective that had not entered my mind! Suddenly Windows becomes "broken-slow" mode and Linux becomes "Reliable Backup" mode.
A Linux "spare tire" might well be a good way to prove its reliability to the average user/consumer.
Re:Disagree with summary (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Will it fly? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Bad for Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to be in technical marketing for a desktop Linux distro. People listen to the marketing message especially when it is negative. What does that mean? Well lets look at the implied marketing message that is given by this system:
ANY corporate non-techie is going to see that if they have to boot Windows to get their big tasks done they obviously don't want Linux on their main system.
Now let us think about the actual environment you get with each:
Seriously ... things like this are the WORST thing possible for getting the idea of Linux as a desktop replacement out to the mass market. They not only have to fight the current battles regarding custom apps not being written for them but they add artificial misperceptions about the limitations of Linux.
Sometimes no exposure -is- better than bad exposure. If you look only at the bullet points it is cool that a laptop is shipping Linux. 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.
Re:This is new? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is different because the Linux install does not run on the relatively power-hungry x86 chip.
Re:Honestly (Score:3, Interesting)
I dual boot for one simple reason: The machine I bought had XP on it, it's a legal copy, and having it provides some level of compatibility with Windows only software for now. I don't use Windows, but keep that drive installed and updated should I ever need a Windows machine. I boot to Windows about twice a month just to upgrade and run anti-virus software and make sure it still works. Other than that it just sits there. It's cheaper and more resource respectful to use the dual boot option and leave Windows on its own drive rather than VM options. I don't have to test/reconfigure things every time I upgrade Linux, just like two machines that I cannot use at the same time. It works for me.
Will it fly? Sure It Will (Score:2, Interesting)
Easily enhanced (Score:5, Interesting)
Surely the obvious thing to do with this is to scrub Windows and install Linux on the other processor too. Then you can have low-power instant-on Linux for long battery life and quick tasks, then a fairly transparent transition to high power Linux when you want to do something requiring more grunt. It would be interesting to see whether you can have both running at the same time and communicating with each other.
Re:I could see this making sense (Score:1, Interesting)
This is my only condition for fixing someone's computer for free; they get the newest version of Ubuntu booted alongside their nice clean Windows partition, just in case that Winpartition should get sick again. Not a single complaint, though most people still want their Windows fixed even when their Ubuntu works for gaming reasons.
Re:Will it fly? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Easily enhanced (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting... share your home directory (diff partition) between the 2 oses, and you wouldn't even need to move settings around... Boot the ARM version for long battery life, boot the x86 side when you want lots of speed.
Linux is ready for business - Why use Windows? (Score:4, Interesting)
My Dell Latitude D820 is loaded up with Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex. My co-workers use Windows. Yesterday I got our department Sprint data card. They told me it would probably take me a bit to get it working on the laptop (because it took them a while to get the driver installed and setup to run). So I took the card and inserted it into the PCMCIA slot. In about 20 seconds (without my doing ANYTHING else) it was connected to Sprint's network and I was using it like the laptop was born to use it.
I use it for doing every task that I have to do for work. There are over ten thousand windows users here at work. We went through a big change from Groupwise to Exchange and Outlook. I use Evolution, and I get complete access to everything I need - scheduling, email, the works.
When people say that Linux is not ready for business use, they smoking somethin' that making them see the world in a false and distorted way. I'll never go back to Windows.
Summary is bad (as usual) (Score:5, Interesting)
The Linux install is actually running out of a little embedded ARM card, not the main system. Dell call it Latitude ON, and it's activated by a dedicated button near the power button.
Since suspending/hibernating (rather than sleeping) a Windows laptop usually means you got through much of the boot process anyway (where this thing can kick in), it *might* have some practical value.
Unfortunately I got my E4300 before Latitude ON was available, but I was under the impression that when it was finalised, I'd get the necessary upgrade for free.
Might have to give my Dell rep a call...
Problem with "Dual-Hibernate" (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no idea how a "Dual-Suspend" would work if you mean "suspend-to-RAM"! How can you even start the other OS while one is in suspend? How do you tell each OS to only use a part of the memory?
Re:Will it fly? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, Linux supports NTFS. You've referenced the right module NTFS-3G. Ubuntu has had this module included by default since version 7.10: gutsy gibbon. Prior to that, it had to be manually installed.
I run a windows XP / Ubuntu 7.10 dual boot setup at home & the NTFS support is great. Ubuntu can read and write to both windows & linux partitions flawlessly. All of your windows files are accessible in the linux mode. I think that there is a slight performance hit (10% or so) for using linux rather than windows to write to the ntfs partition.
The sole downside to that arrangement is that it does not provide any facility for fsck-type maintainance of the NTFS filesystem. The NTFS-3G userspace driver unfortunately does not come bundled with anything of the sort and I've had difficulty trying to find a standalone fsck.ntfs type of program. You can find good programs to read, write, and resize an NTFS filesystem but no Open Source software seems able to repair one. I'd love to find out I'm wrong about this. A friend of mine used a setup like this and eventually experienced a small amount of data loss after unexpected shutdowns (power failures) that were not immediately repaired like Windows would have done on bootup.
If anyone does know a reliable way to repair NTFS filesystems under Linux without actually running Windows, please let me know. Otherwise I'd recommend staying away from NTFS filesystems if at all possible or considering an alternative like FAT32 (as terrible as that may be). If you don't mind Windows having read-only access to your data, you may want to try the EXT2/3 driver for Windows as an alternative.
Re:Will it fly? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
RTFA.
First, your average business traveller doesn't want to un Windows in a VirtualBox.
Second, these aren't really 'dual booting' in the usual sense. These have an embedded linux, that's almost instant on, running on a low power ARM chip.
Windows is on the hard drive, and runs of the Core2Duo or whatever the main cpu is.
So when you boot, you can choose instant on, embedded linux, running cool with long battery life on the ARM, or you can launch the full blown windows install on the intel cpu.
Re:Will it blend? (Score:1, Interesting)