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Linux Business Hardware

Dell's New Linux Blog 317

Posted by timothy from the tentative-steps dept.
comforteagle writes "I've just written up an interesting find: Linux engineers at Dell have started their own Linux site and weblog about Linux at Dell. From the announcement: "Welcome to the Dell Linux Community Web. This site is dedicated to providing any information that may be useful regarding your usage of Linux on your Dell equipment. While Dell primarily works with and officially supports Red Hat Linux, many of our customers choose to run other distributions." And perhaps more importantly it appears that the new site and weblog is run and maintained by the engineers themselves. It certainly has that 'made with vi' look." And kudyadi points to this PC Magazine interview with Michael Dell, in which Dell talks "about Dell's expanding product line, the company's late entrance into the Media Center space, and where the PC giant and the industry go from here." He touches on Linux just a bit, too.
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Dell's New Linux Blog

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  • Also toshiba has one (Score:5, Informative)

    by Yag ( 537766 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @05:46AM (#8217441)
    Toshiba has an unofficial linux (and also *nix in general) support site at http://newsletter.toshiba-tro.de/main/ this is a lot useful to find machine hardware spec and linux (netware, *bsd) compatibility.
    • i think the least the slashdot community could do to show their support for the dell linux blog is to not slashdot their blog. IMHO of course.

    • Re:Also toshiba has one (Score:5, Funny)

      by bruthasj ( 175228 ) <bruthasj@yaho o . c om> on Sunday February 08, 2004 @07:23AM (#8217651) Homepage Journal
      Hurry, read the site before the battery runs out in 10 minutes! :P

    • Micro$oft is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @12:18PM (#8218958) Homepage Journal
      Behold: Intel, IBM, Toshiba, Walmart, Dell.

      Six years ago, if you put your head to the ground, you could hear a rumble.

      The largest seller of corporate desktops openly embracing and encouraging Linux and free software is about as subtle as a passing freight train. So much for the careful dance Dell was supposed to do to avoid the wrath of Microsoft. Do you think for one instant that Dell wants Microsoft's DRM future to happen and leave them even more in Microsoft's grip? No one does and they are all breaking free. Everyone will follow Dells lead and it's going to go everywhere, the desktop, portables the works.

      This leaves Microsoft with very little. With the acceptance of an alternate platform, Microsoft's hardware and software incompatibility extortion is over. As that alternate platform is technically superior, there is little reason to shell out big bucks for legacy software. Why would any company trust it's record keeping to Microsoft formats when free alternatives have widespread comercial support? There is competition in the future and everyone knows it. Standardizing into the upgrade cycle will soon be a thing of the past. Microsoft will compete by improving their code and EULAs or die. Let's see how long it takes them to figure out that their current business model is dead.

      • With $40 billion in cash and many extremely successful products, they sure as hell aren't dead yet.

        The Microsoft we see in 10 years may be very different from the Microsoft we see today, but it will still be around.

        • Four quarters to zero. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by twitter ( 104583 )
          $40,000,000,000 sounds like a lot of money, but it's not when you are spending about eight and a half billion each quarter. See this story [slashdot.org] about their last quarterly report. They could, in theory, bankrupt themselves in less than two years.

  • Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08, 2004 @05:59AM (#8217476)
    Stuff like this is very important for Linux as a whole and dell as a company.

    For instance I would of bought a Dell laptop in a heartbeat if I knew dell supported it and offered a Windows-less or linux OS pre-installed.

    I just didn't want to pay the "mircosoft tax".

    So I just got a slightly used gateway from Ebay instead.

    Desktops I don't care so much about since I build my own computers, but laptops and such are only aviable from manufacturers and linux support is a big plus.

    • Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)

      by neoThoth ( 125081 )
      It will still be a long time before you see consumer level machines roll out with Linux on them. The amount of support required to hand hold dell consumers through something like, oh a kernel recompile would be enormous!

      This is really focused on the enterprise effort (e.g. those who have enormous budgets and would like to make servers cost a lot less). The only possible consumer device that will come out of Dell with linux is a media center device. This is because users don't generally need to muck aro

      • Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

        by passthecrackpipe ( 598773 ) * <.passthecrackpipe. .at. .hotmail.com.> on Sunday February 08, 2004 @08:20AM (#8217759)
        Why would a consumer have to go through a kernel recompile? what a ridiculous world view -- linux support for consumers can't happen because of the handholding needed for a kernel recompile. If I buy a supported laptop/PC, with a dell supported OS, there is no need at all for me as a consumer to even know that i could recompile the kernel, let alone do it. Your definition of an enterprise effort is likewise clueless, as is your absolutely nonsensical notion of what dell can and cannot do with Linux. If you would have bothered to visit the site, you would note that dell does indeed ship desktop machines with linux preinstalled. Kernel recompile not required.

      • Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)

        by whovian ( 107062 )
        Places like Dell could roll their own knoppix cd-roms. The customer can try linux and come up to speed before actually installing linux on their machine, which at that point would be at their own risk.

        The only problem is lack of driver support. I wonder if Dell doing this would encourage companies to provide at least binary only drivers.

      • Re:Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Daengbo ( 523424 )
        It will still be a long time before you see consumer level machines roll out with Linux on them.
        Oh, I don't know abou that... Over half the machine in any hypermarket I walk into are pre-loaded with Linux, and one manufacturer, Liberta, even has their own branded version, which now stands at version 1.2 and comes with Pladao, the Thai localized version of OO.o. It has been this way for almost two years.
        Consumer level Linux is happening, just not in the places you are looking. Dan

    • Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)

      by blixel ( 158224 )
      For instance I would of bought a Dell laptop in a heartbeat if I knew dell supported it and offered a Windows-less or linux OS pre-installed.

      I don't care if they support* Linux or not. Just give me the laptop without the Microsoft tax and I'll do the rest.

      * By support I mean that if I have a problem with Linux I don't care if they have people around to help me with my problem. But if you meant that they actually do a little bit of research to make sure the hardware that goes into the laptop works with
    • did you consider these guys power notebooks [powernotebooks.com]?

      they claim to sell alot of the same laptops as the major vendors less the ms tax. i read somewhere on their site that they buy the laptops from the same place as dell or gateway. the major vendors basically stick their logo on them and sell the laptops as their own. they will even preinstall linux [powernotebooks.com], and they have a bulletin board where they answer linux related questions.

      since it's not a name brand company, you can check out the reviews at reseller ratings [resellerratings.com].

      i gue

  • Linux/Dell is an expanding platform. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JPriest ( 547211 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @06:00AM (#8217484) Homepage
    There is a huge shift right now in several major companies to build servers with Dell rather than Sun/Solaris. I know a few companies that seem to be ordering 2650's by the truck load these days.
    • The reason: hardware maintenance contracts. For the annual fee of a Sun maintenance contract, I have purchased a Dell/Linux solution for hardware redundancy (Oracle server). The Sun maintenance contract would have expired in one year; the Dell server has a 3 year warranty. Same 24 hour service for both platforms; but the 3-1 ratio of coverage period is attractive.

      This also provides a 3 year window for benchmarking and comparison. As a research institution, I know users will try the Linux platform just for the geek factor. Their feedback will determine whether I continue with Big Iron, Big Iron with Dell hardware redundancy, or Dell with Dell redundancy.

  • Clever way to get on-side (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @06:00AM (#8217485) Journal
    Linux people typically prefer blog-type sites than flash-enabled marketroid zero-content stuff that pointy-eared bosses prefer.

    Given that it uses a comments section, it'll probably turn into a useful technical resource as well... Could do with a decent search though :-(

    Simon

    • Re:Clever way to get on-side (Score:5, Funny)

      by Negative Response ( 650136 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @06:18AM (#8217525)
      marketroid zero-content stuff that pointy-eared bosses prefer.

      Um, so you are implying that marketing drones are likely to have elves as their bosses?

    • Zero content? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I recently got promoted to a managerial position and I've begun to understand why us managers may appear like idiots to the code-grunts in the trenches.

      We don't have the time to read blogs or address every silly detail in the same way as you do. We deal with the big picture (like making sure you get your salary next month) and delegate the details for you to work them out.

      When we want feedback from you we want it on a couple of slides. We don't want to know how you tweaked your code to get 1% performanc

      • Re:Zero content? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by rainer_d ( 115765 ) *
        When we want feedback from you we want it on a couple of slides. We don't want to know how you tweaked your code to get 1% performance increase. We want to know how we're progressing and if there are any show-stopping problems.

        All true and understood, but the real problem is when websites don't contain anything else than marketing fluff.
        Just imagine the Oracle website without OTN. Or Microsoft without KB and MSDN. I mean, yes, you could make a buying-decision based on the "fluff" of the corporate pages,

      • When we want feedback from you we want it on a couple of slides. We don't want to know how you tweaked your code to get 1% performance increase. We want to know how we're progressing and if there are any show-stopping problems.

        Okay. This raises the question of why, if the primary task of a manger is to simply take in input and regurgitate an obvious yes or no based on some simply risk and profit analysis that *anyone* could do, we need more than one manager per twenty engineers.

        I just don't see a hell o
        • Don't forget: one of the important tasks of a manager is to help reduce the number of meetings the engineers have to attend uselessly. Note the diff: they're not always useless meetings.

          In those meetings the decisions won't be made based on technical reasons, and even if there is any tech stuff involved, your manager would know it (coz you told him) and if it gets more detailed than that, the rest wouldn't know anyway, plus they're probably discussing the wrong thing in the wrong meeting.

          Think OSI 7 layer
          1. Okay. This raises the question of why, if the primary task of a manger is to simply take in input and regurgitate an obvious yes or no based on some simply risk and profit analysis that *anyone* could do, we need more than one manager per twenty engineers.

          A good manager with reasonable work loads can handle 20+ people. A good one with a hellish work load and/or pushy upper manager will handle vastly fewer people effectively.

          Tip for managers: Don't ask the same damn question of 20 people constantly...

        • Okay. This raises the question of why, if the primary task of a manger is to simply take in input and regurgitate an obvious yes or no based on some simply risk and profit analysis that *anyone* could do, we need more than one manager per twenty engineers.

          Not all places organize like that. My department has one real management person (who is actually very sharp about the technical capabilities of our products), with three direct reports acting as team leads, those team leads have 30 programmers, 8 testi

    • Maybe "pointy-eared bosses prefer" (the ones that bring enough money into the business to pay your wage) have different priorities to you. I work on the website of a largeish software company and we produce content on our site with the information that different users need.

      "zero-content" stuff may contain zero technical content, but not everyone wants the deep technical content. They want to know how our software will help their business. The "pointy-eared bosses" find the content aimed at geeks quite usel
      • Non-technical web pages contain much less verifiable information and seem to encourage exaggeration and deception. Non-technical information often masquerades as technical information, as a gee-whiz number in a software product, golly wow trade names for standard capabilities in a hardware product, or meaningless statistics about a golf club.

        So it is not that technical people hate any web page that isn't written in technobabble - it's that we prefer substance over style. Those of us who have been in the i

      • You know, at one point I would have felt that your argument was weighty and official-sounding and something that's worth stepping aside for.

        The problem is that I've run into an inordinate number of utterly incompetent corporate IT people who throw out lines that read *exactly* like the ones that you just wrote, and are utterly wrong. That doesn't necessarily reflect on your own abilities, but I've found that it's really amazing how often giving people non-sanitized communications with honest and in-depth

  • Blog? (Score:3)

    by peterprior ( 319967 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @06:00AM (#8217486)
    Looks like the blog is little more than a news feed for new software releases. I doubt they would be able to post any significant stuff about where / how linux is being used within Dell.

  • Dell Linux Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tronicum ( 617382 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @06:11AM (#8217506)
    It is quite interesting that Dell allows their departments to setup their own information systems in the way the focused customer is used to.

    In such big companys there are often rules how to communicate with customers and they have common ways ("old fashioned") stuff like newsletters, discussion boards, press releases. If they now allow them to setup their own way this sounds like a benefit to the customer. Maybe they start a IRC Server next or publish their own set of linux patches (for dell specific needs).

    BTW I would not buy a Dell labtop again my Inspiron is so poorly processed, if you press on the left side, it jiggles at the other....

  • Hopefully they change things at Dell (Score:5, Informative)

    by mr_lithic ( 563105 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @06:28AM (#8217544) Homepage Journal
    This looks promising for those who have tried to deploy Linux on Dell Kit.

    The lack of official support for linux on the Dell Desktop and Laptop Hardware has been one of the biggest impediments to rolling out a Linux User Machine in our enterprise.

    While many of the development machines and older kit are fully integrated with the Linux OS, the new and less expensive kit is a complete pain to get to work.

    One example is the Inspiron 1100 which has a massive problem with the video BIOS and Linux and takes a lot of work to get it right.

    If Dell makes moves in the direction of support linux in the desktop, it can only help sales. I would definitely make Linux Desktop Support a part of a purchasing decision.

    • If Dell makes moves in the direction of support linux in the desktop, it can only help sales. I would definitely make Linux Desktop Support a part of a purchasing decision.
      That is, until MS decides to nip Linux in the bud and add a clause to the contract that no company which resells Windows OEM may support or contribute to Linux. Remember, MS thinks that we are a viable threat now, and they have been known to do such things... hence the DOJ lawsuits. Speaking of which, they won't mind the cost of being s
    • That is, until MS decides to nip Linux in the bud and add a clause to the contract that no company which resells Windows OEM may support or contribute to Linux. I know that they did this before with other Hardware Suppliers.

      I am wondering why the Anti-Trust people did not look at this aspect of Microsoft activities rather than the link between IE and the OS.

      What is the answer to this? I would be deploying Linux on Windows licensed kit since the OS expense is already part of the budget. Also I would not

    • If your running an enterprise what in the name of are you running Inspiron's for? Those are what we call "consumer" laptops and generally for small/medium business and .. well consumers. There's no backwards compatible hardware support in that line, that's why there is Latitude. If your running an enterprise I'd highly suggest going in that direction. Latitudes aren't perfect (I find the 'l' key to get iffy after a year or two) but the beauty is I can get parts all over the place for cheap because the
    • If your running an enterprise what in the name of are you running Inspiron's for?

      Easy. Unapproved purchases by the marketing department that had to be integrated.

      Inspirons are cheap, nasty and non-standard. They can have up to four different NIC's in them, three different makes of video card and the list goes on. It has made imaging a nightmare and taught the idiots in marketing a lesson. The average turn-around for laptop image is a day - for the boys in marketing it is four days. Now they are looking

  • Where the f*** is IBM!?! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lonesometrainer ( 138112 ) <vanlil AT yahoo DOT com> on Sunday February 08, 2004 @06:31AM (#8217548)
    So, even Dell offers you *some* kind of installation support for Linux on Desktop Systems and Laptops (read: links to community supported laptop-groups, i bet that there's one or two active dell employees). I bet that there'll be some more support on that page in the future.

    And our big linux brother IBM? Nada. At least where I live (europe) the official statement is and has been since 1999: IBM only supports Windows on these systems.

    There are good internet resources and mailing-lists, *but* the only way to get there is google (no link at ibm.com, etc.)

    IBM is cheating on us.

    • Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Requiem Aristos ( 152789 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @07:12AM (#8217629)
      IBM has a goodly chunk of linux info on their site.

      For example, try this:
      Linux for IBM personal systems [ibm.com]

    • Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?! (Score:4, Informative)

      by bruthasj ( 175228 ) <bruthasj@yaho o . c om> on Sunday February 08, 2004 @07:19AM (#8217640) Homepage Journal
      What are you smoking? Here in Asia, there are frontend vendors that are "IBM" distributors. They do provide support here and for all kinds of servers. For example, I've setup 4 different x330 series clusters from 15 up to 28 computer racks and the local IBM has given great support, including but not limited to:

      1. Setting up the OS.
      2. Downloading and recompiling appropriate kernel modules.
      3. Setting up monitoring systems.
      4. Setting up networking and hostnames.
      5. Setting up some services.

      Your problem is not IBM, it's the local vendor company who says they are "IBM".
      • I think the parent post is referring to IBM desktops/laptops rather than servers. It is clear as day servers have top-notch linux support from IBM, but I'm not sure on the Thinkpad/Desktop systems that is the case.
    • Your absolutely right. Spending millions in legal fees for what is inevitably going to be a keystone judgement for Linux is small potatoes compared to a website with installation information.
    • When I (actually my employer) bought my IBM Thinkpad T20 they did sell it with some kind of officially supported Linux distribution. I ended up getting it with Windows 98 anyway, because at the time I wanted to dualboot. It was nice to know that some kind of Linux would run on the thing, though. I much prefer my Fedora installation nowadays, though.

    • Re:Where the f*** is IBM!?! (Score:4, Informative)

      by root_42 ( 103434 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @07:47AM (#8217701) Homepage
      So, even Dell offers you *some* kind of installation support for Linux on Desktop Systems and Laptops
      And what about this:

      http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-48 NT8D.html

      It took me not about 3 clicks from the IBM frontpage to get there. The site mentioned above includes some articles about installing RH Linux on ThinkPads and configuring stuff like Bluetooth. I think that's pretty neat and there are also vendors who sell Thinkpads with Linux preinstalled.

  • But don't call Dell they're busy right now! (Score:5, Funny)

    by badzilla ( 50355 ) <ultrak3wl&gmail,com> on Sunday February 08, 2004 @06:31AM (#8217551)
    Hmm but I'm not convinced that they're really fully behind this! [tinyurl.com]

  • Vi look works (Score:5, Insightful)

    by POds ( 241854 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @06:33AM (#8217559) Homepage Journal
    I only saw the first page, but thats one of the nicest web pages i've seen done by engineers...

    Plus who says you cant created good webpages with nothing except a text editor of your choice?

  • My favorite quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by watzinaneihm ( 627119 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @06:41AM (#8217579) Journal
    From the interview, Micheal dell speaking about windows ME
    MD: I went over to a friend's house the other day. He was having problems with his computer and he asked me to look at it, and I realized he had Windows Me and it's like, oh no--that's your first problem.

  • They should call Dell in Sweden (Score:5, Informative)

    by LarsWestergren ( 9033 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @07:06AM (#8217624) Homepage Journal
    If they are so damn Linux friendly they should call Dell in Sweden and talk to them.

    I was looking for a new computer a couple of months ago. Some of the Dell laptop deals looked pretty good. I called them and said "I'm interested in that model. Is it possible to get it with another operating system, say Linux, installed?"
    Dell: "No, I'm afraid that is not possible."
    Me: "Would it be possible to get it with a blank hard drive then?"
    Dell: "No, I'm sorry, we have a deal with Microsoft. You have the choice between Windows XP home or Pro, that's basically it. You know, you could always reformat the harddrive and install Linux yourself if that is what you want."
    Me: "So you will not sell me a computer unless it has Windows on it?"
    Dell: "I'm afraid so."

    I said thanks but no thanks and hung up. Even if Dell gets Windows at a huge discount, I don't want to pay for software I'm not going to use. Nor do I want to add to Microsoft's false sales statistics.

    This is all a very familiar story to all Slashdot regulars I'm sure. I do hope the major PC sellers are starting to come around though.

    • Re:They should call Dell in Sweden (Score:5, Informative)

      by fred87 ( 720738 ) <mailNO@SPAMfredemmott.co.uk> on Sunday February 08, 2004 @07:47AM (#8217704) Homepage
      After getting the laptop, contact them saying you don't agree with the MS EULA, which entitles you to a full refund for the software.

    • You're looking at it from the wrong perspective... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Think about it another way:

      Dell offer support on all their kit, it's part of the sales procedure. So while you might want Linux on your laptop, it opens them up to a boatload of questions and issues regarding support.

      How does a company offer support on a PC sold with a blank drive?

      Sure, you could do hardware only, but ascertaining what the problem is usually means ruling out the software/drivers first. If you send your laptop back with a faulty video card, how would they test it and get it back to you?

      W
    • Well, I haven't tried with laptops, but they certainly have good suppoort for servers (we have a lot of 2650/1750/1650 boxes running linux.)

      They even sell linux with them on the web, although the swedish pages haven't got RHEL 3 yet, just 2.1, but you can call them and you'll get 3.0. No "MS tax" there.

      Desktops, at least some of them also seem well supported, they replaced a batch of emu10k1x-based sblive cards for regular emu10k1 ones about a year ago when the "x" version first turned up.

      /August.

  • it's great to see ! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by maharg ( 182366 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @07:44AM (#8217694) Homepage Journal
    EDD Disk Signature patch accepted into kernel 2.6.2-rc1-mm1
    Dell engineers have submitted a kernel patch which allows Linux to determine which disk the BIOS believes is the system boot disk. Without this patch, Linux must guess which disk BIOS believes is the boot disk, which is pretty easy in a simple system configuration, but impossible in a system with multiple disks attached to multiple controllers.

    Yep. It's great to see people from companies like Intel,IBM, SGI, HP, Dell all contributing [kernel.org].
    I would imagine that these guys *really* want linux to succeed so they can stopping sucking up to redmond.
    [/zealotry]

  • Microsoft will love this (Score:4, Funny)

    by JonathanF ( 532591 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @07:47AM (#8217703)
    So how many seconds will it take before Microsoft pulls its license agreement with Dell and files a lawsuit? :)

  • DELL, Linux, RAID and all that (Score:4, Interesting)

    by j.leidner ( 642936 ) <`gro.mca' `ta' `rendiel'> on Sunday February 08, 2004 @08:17AM (#8217754) Homepage Journal
    Good news. But at the same time, and as usual, this is a grass roots movement, while officials can't be bothered too much.
    I asked DELL support about a Linux-related problem and they told me they don't support Linux. They said my laptop was shipped with Windows 2000, so they can't be bothered. While this is certainly true, it's not MY fault that they didn't ship Linux in 2001 when I bought it.
    I've also contacted them about RAID systems, and they corporate sales folks I had contact with didn't really know what they were talking about, so I had to get in touch with a RedHat developer to answer my question (which he instantly did).
    Maybe here's a good way to make money for distro companies: try get a service contract with hardware vendors like DELL, who haven't got enough inhouse expertise (at support level).
    I do hope this engineering effort is part of a wider wave in the company.

  • Let's not forget Dell's contempt for desktop Linux (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08, 2004 @09:19AM (#8217917)

    When Dell stops this [cypherpunks.ca] bullshit, and offers a windows delete credit across their entire product line (without invalidating warranties), then you will finally know that Dell isn't paying lip service to Linux anymore (and pocketing the Microsoft tax), and is no longer flagrant in its utter contempt for its customers.

  • Obligatory SCO reference... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by surprise_audit ( 575743 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @10:15AM (#8218145)
    So maybe Dell is lining themselves up for a slice of "kick SCO while we can" action? On the list of mailing lists:

    SCO-PowerEdge SCO Unix on Dell PowerEdge Servers discussion

  • Superior Style (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gonoff ( 88518 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @10:37AM (#8218268)
    These pages are a much better advertisement for Dell than the complicated nightmares some pages are!

    I can well believe that these have been done by the engineers there and have had little or no input from sales staff, graphic designers, clueless PHBs and other people whose job description boils down to "wears a suit".

    My place of employment (a hospital) used a lot of Dell kit and I hope that the rest of the site learns a lot from this bit.

  • This isn't news. (Score:2, Informative)

    by someguy42 ( 609667 )
    This story is hardly news. In fact, this site has been up for quite some time now. Dell's had a Linux on PowerEdge(servers) mailing list for quite some time now, and you can purchase a PowerEdge preloaded with RedHat Enterprise. They even mirror the LKML there. And, interestingly enough, a decent chunk of Dell Employees (myself included) subscribe to these mailing lists.

  • This is about Server support, not desktop/laptop (Score:5, Insightful)

    by labradort ( 220776 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @11:45AM (#8218700)
    As someone who has been working with Dell to evaluate Dell notebooks regarding a possible 4000+ unit purchase, I can tell you that Dell has no official support for Linux, Redhat or otherwise on anything other than Servers.

    Our RFQ specified that Linux support on the laptops they provided was required, and yet they provided a model with the Intel 855GM video chip, which is not released as a driver in recent distros such as Suse 9 and Xandros 2. They are following up with a shipment of an alternate model with a Radeon chipset and this should have no problem working. But if Dell were any different than the other guys with regards to Linux support, we would be seeing recognition of the details in our RFQ saying that hardware support under Linux is required. However on quizzing them on which Linux distro they used to verify it worked with Linux, they would not say anything. Dell=HP=Compaq=Gateway, etc., when it comes to their awareness of Linux and hardware support.
    All of the blah blah blah you read about their support for Linux is only on the server line.

    Someone at one of these companies has to get off their ass, call up their hardware vendors and DEMAND that all components provided come with Windows AND Linux driver support. If it doesn't, REJECT the component and switch to another hardware vendor. That is the only way the hardware vendors are going to get the message. It isn't a hard concept. It isn't impossible, it just takes a shift in priorities for the hardware vendor which they will be very happy to do once their bottom line is threatened.

    Personally, I let Intel directly know that they could be out of sales of 4000+ of their Centrino chipset if they don't release supported drivers under Linux for our timeline.

  • Just bought a Dell-SuSE server (Score:3, Informative)

    by PizzaFace ( 593587 ) on Sunday February 08, 2004 @01:30PM (#8219482)
    Dell offers only Red Hat Advanced Server or Red Hat Professional (which is obsolete), so I bought the PowerEdge with no OS. P4-2.4 GHz, 1 GB DDR, 36 GB 10K rpm SCSI for $817 plus tax. SuSE 9 Pro installed without a hitch.

    Dell must be moving a lot of these no-OS boxes. Their official support has been quite RH-centric, but the new website has a page that directly addresses other distros [dell.com]. SuSE recently announced [suse.com] that Dell was working more closely with them, and SuSE has certified [suse.com] a bunch of Dell machines.

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