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Linux Software Technology

Dell to Ship Linux Desktops in Europe 207

Posted by CmdrTaco from the somebody-stop-the-insanity dept.
Anglophile writes "Looks like Dell has launched a new line of desktop computers. The Dell Optiplexes will be sold in Europe, come with the Linspire operating system and include a one year free membership to their download warehouse. "
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Dell to Ship Linux Desktops in Europe More

Dell to Ship Linux Desktops in Europe

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  • great (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fr0dicus ( 641320 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:13PM (#9623816) Journal
    Something wrong with the big distros?

    • Re:great (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:15PM (#9623849)
      This is Dell we're talking about. The other distros didn't suck enough for them.

    • Re:great (Score:4, Insightful)

      by clester ( 744726 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:16PM (#9623866) Homepage
      I agree... Although I prefer Debian, Something like Mandrake would be more suitable for the average joe. The tools that come right out of the box are great for anyone that wants to use linux. Not to mention a decent package manager...

      • Re:great (Score:5, Informative)

        by manabadman ( 589984 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:36PM (#9624107)
        Linspire is Debian. Debian based distributions are even more similiar than rpm based ones. Once installed, you can hardly tell Debian distros apart. In fact many people call these Debian based distros alternative [linuxmafia.com] installers

        • Re:great (Score:5, Informative)

          by Red Alastor ( 742410 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @02:04PM (#9624418)
          I thought that maybe the bad comments on Lindows were made by Linux zealots. I read a good article on it on osnews that gave a discount number that made you able to download it for free for 2 days.

          I decided to try it... It is as bad as you heard.

          First, you log as root by default. No attempt to tell you that you should create users. You must know it, find it in the menus and compared to the rest of the distribution the dialog box that let you finally add users looks cryptic (from a total newbie point of view).

          Second and more important : this distribution is all about lock-in. They try to give you the impression that it is a different operating system than Windows and Linux. They rename everything to "make it easier for beginner". Other newbie-friendly distributions will write something as "Mozilla (Web Browser)" while Lindows will write "Web Browser". You can hardly switch for another application, you don't know what you are using to begin with.

          The commands are renamed.

          If you take a Knoppix CD and try to make a Lindows user use it, he will be confused.

          apt-get doesn't work if you don't pay. You don't just pay for their Click-N-Run gui, you must pay to use apt-get itself.

          And finally on a more philosophical point of view :

          They don't respect the GPL (they put a disclaimer that basically say : everything in there is copyrighted by us and us alone, don't steal !).

          They also don't mention like Mandrake and Fedora (don't know for SuSE) that what you are using is the result of a communauty effort).
    • Dell Optiplexes will be sold in Europe, come with the Linspire operating system and include a one year free membership to their download warehouse. Hmmmm... well, as long as they don't institute BestBuy's new "The Customer Is No Longer Always Right" policy, then I should be able to buy an Optiplex, get the one year free membership of downloads, and return the Optiplex. Woohoo!
    • Mandrake with the URPMI repos' pre configured and with working 3D drivers plus MP3 Encoding support and you'd have a great average joe distro.

    • Re:great (Score:5, Interesting)

      by igrp ( 732252 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:24PM (#9623966)
      I guess - and I am only assuming here - that a big distributor could get away with a lot more with a small distro.

      The big distributions aren't exactly operations run out of a garage any more. Redhat has some (serious) money. SuSe is backed by Novell. The Debian folks probably wouldn't exactly be too thrilled to budge to Debian's demands (well, let's say requirements) and customize a distro. They simply don't really need the money that bad. A lot of the other distros either have their own agenda or niche or simply are too specialized (e.g. Gentoo).

      Things are different if you're running a small distro though. There are bills to pay and contributions are always more than welcome. A company like Dell could therefore easily push some changes they deem necessary through. That way, they don't have to put their own people on it and, effectively, save a whole bunch of money.

      • He may be a bit of a prick in a lot of Linux users' eyes, but he's got a set of brass ones and doesn't tend to back down from a fight. He's also a hell of a marketer. He's been pushing Lindows/Linspire, since its inception, as a commercial desktop distro. Other than Mandrake and SuSE, we haven't seen another "Desktop Distro" yet that isn't fairly fringe (ala Xandros and Lycoris), much less one that's been pushed to Major OEMs. Dell "tried" with Redhat not too long ago, but their effert was flaccid at best.
        Y
    • Something wrong with the small distros?

      I imagine Dell evaluated all of their options and found that Linspire was the most suitable solution. Besides, it's a good thing they picked a small player - it brings someone new to the market.

      Though I'm a Gentoo user, for its target market Linspire looks pretty nice to me. Have a look at their flash demo.

  • Less is more? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xOleanderx ( 794187 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:13PM (#9623820)
    So are they gonna be $150 cheaper?
    • "That's what Microsoft said too; that's why they sued Lindows. But of course, anyone who suggested that they might just be right about the confusion got flame broiled..."

      A.) No because Lindows.com will want some money back out of it.

      B.) No because it's not clear that Dell actually spends that much to get that license.

      C.) No because Dell will want at least a little bit of profit out of it to offset the cost of technical support issues.

      It might be a little bit cheaper, but it won't be $150 cheaper.

    • Re:Less is more? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jayaramk ( 793787 )
      yes but only if Dell agrees to ship AMD chips too. I fail to understand why a major like Dell continues to remain the last holdout when companies like HP and Compaq have started shipping AMD powered systems. Having used AMD for a long long time now..I can atleast say that it does not lack in any manner...give the customer the choice and let him decide rather than some corporate honcho somewhere deciding that NO AMD

    • Re:Less is more? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Bullard ( 62082 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @06:00PM (#9627027) Homepage
      Some more details has emerged

      From another news article [yahoo.com]:

      Starting at about $575, the systems will be targeted at businesses, schools and consumers.

      The Dell OptiPlex systems loaded with Linspire are available only through Questar. Dell was not offering any Linspire-based systems on its Web site.

      Dell spokesman Jeremy Bolen said Questar purchases the computers from the PC giant and then resells them to its customers. He said Questar is a direct customer of Dell and not a partner.
      "That's the extent of their relationship with us," he said.

      The basic Questar system ships with an Intel Celeron processor, 256 megabytes of memory and a 40- gigabyte hard drive.

      No similar configurations are shown at Dell's U.S. Web site, though a low-end OptiPlex PC running a Pentium 4 with Windows starts at about $400.

      Executive summary:

      • Dell isn't offering any Linux preloads.
      • Some Dell customer (Questar) buys boxes from Dell, installs Linspire and charges hefty premium.
      • These boxes would appear to be at least $150 more expensive than Dell's own low-end MS boxes.
      • Dell wants to distance themselves from this outrageous Linux offering.
      • The Redmond Overlords most probably get their usual cut as it is nigh impossible to get Dell to ship anything without a pre-paid Microsoft licence.
      • Linux customers should consider patronizing vendors with bona fide Linux support instead.

  • I wonder... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by cbrocious ( 764766 )
    When will we see the same thing for Xandros?

  • Finally we have someone like DELL doing it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SlashingComments ( 702709 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:14PM (#9623836)
    This is great ! If DELL is putting their weight behind that will be a major policy shift for *many* corporations.

  • Soon (Score:4, Funny)

    by gustgr ( 695173 ) <gustgr&gmail,com> on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:14PM (#9623840)
    SCO x DELL

  • Dell & Linux Try #2? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jo42 ( 227475 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:15PM (#9623858) Homepage

    A few years ago, didn't Dell ship desktops, laptops and servers and sich with Red Hat Linux on them, nyet?

  • One year free? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by GICodeWarrior ( 794483 )
    Sounds like a scam...

  • it runs linspire, but (Score:5, Funny)

    by lanswitch ( 705539 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:16PM (#9623864)
    does it run linux?
    • Parent should be rated -1 troll rather than +4 insightful.

      No matter what your personal feelings are about Linspire and Dell, this is a step forward for Linux
      • Indeed it is. I have few things to say about Lindows, including that it's a poor excuse for a wanna-be Linux distro. But, it's still based on the Linux kernel, it still will give the Linux nubes a taste, and it shows that an important segment of Microsoft's users will be quite fine and happy with Linux.

  • Makes sense. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Future Man 3000 ( 706329 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:16PM (#9623871) Homepage
    In an office environment where the servers and workstations are Linux (as they are in increasing numbers throughout Europe) the secretaries might as well operate in parity. The cost efficiency of these machines and the number of 'low-end' systems that tend to be deployed in a business environment make these a good solution for places that desire something a little better/easier to implement than a dumb terminal.

    I'm surprised Dell hasn't done this sooner. But then again, Linspire is of recent vintage and was the first to make desktop Linux feasible on the large scale. Now people can obtain an entirely-Linux solution from Dell -- from the server to the desktop -- and all I can say is it's about time.

    • Re:Makes sense. (Score:3, Informative)

      by sloanster ( 213766 ) *
      Linspire is of recent vintage and was the first to make desktop Linux feasible on the large scale.

      I rather think that suse/novell have made desktop linux quite feasible, and IMHO would be a much better fit for serious widespread deployment - Linspire (nee lindows) is interesting, but I would characterize it more as an attempt to make desktop linux easy for Aunt Tillie and her nephew Joe Sixpack, than as any sort of "large scale" paradigm.

      As well, most competent admins find the weak security of Linspire t

  • Linspire!?!!??? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Moby Cock ( 771358 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:17PM (#9623880) Homepage
    Why Linspire? Why not use a bigger, (dare I say it) better distro. SuSe 9.1 is Europe's biggest distro, why not that? Is there some anger between Novell and Dell?

    • Re:Linspire!?!!... why not? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Linspire is Debian-based and one of the most windows-like distribution. Besides, it has an excellent software upgrade system that is esy to use for everyone. It makes sense.

      And I am a Mandrake user and apologist :).
    • Why not use a bigger, (dare I say it) better distro. SuSe 9.1 is Europe's biggest distro
      One reason: SuSE 9.1 Personal Edition comes without an C compiler.
      • Then they can add one before shipping (if it really matters for the market segment they are targetting, SuSE didn't leave out the compiler out of malevolence) or just ship Pro. SuSE/Novell would certainly give them a great discount. If this is needed at all, as the distro is now freely (as in speech) available, so they just could put together their own version of SuSE and ship it (like Fujitsu has been doing for quite some time in Germany).

      • Re:Linspire!?!!??? (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        And also no Emacs, only vim, so SuSe is completely unusable as a desktop.

  • They used to... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mustangsal66 ( 580843 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:17PM (#9623883)
    So Dell returns home to Linux...

    I bought several PC's from Dell in 2001 with RedHat preinstalled... They shipped with driver disks too...

  • Download Warehouse? (Score:5, Funny)

    by AceJohnny ( 253840 ) <jlargentaye@NoSpam.gmail.com> on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:17PM (#9623885) Journal
    Download warehouse? is that like an apt-get repository? DAMMIT! It was so OBVIOUS! To get Linux on the market, it had to become paying, then add free offers!

  • Linspire? (Score:3)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda@NosPAM.etoyoc.com> on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:18PM (#9623891) Homepage Journal
    What on earth? I figured for Europe they would go with Suse. But Linspire?

    The article I read inquirer.net didn't say if the machine was for whoreporate or home use.

  • a bit misleading (Score:5, Informative)

    by theonlyholle ( 720311 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:18PM (#9623892) Homepage
    looks like this is a bit misleading - in fact, Dell is shipping them, but they are actually being sold by an Italian company called Questar. So while they are technically Dell machines and even shipped by Dell, this is not a big move by Dell onto the European linux market, it's a smaller company taking the initiative in partnership with Dell...

  • Who gets the savings (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MrMojado ( 786565 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:19PM (#9623903)
    Do they still pay the microsoft tax? I would assume Dell passes the savings of not paying for an OS right into their pocket. Consumers will not see lower prices.
    • That's OK.

      I'd rather Dell get the money than Microsoft.

  • Trickle-down economics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dankney ( 631226 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:20PM (#9623914) Homepage
    Finally there's a version of the trickle-down theory that actually works.

    I'd bet that Dell made this decision because there are many large users (Munich decision, with many more considering) who will be switching over in the work-place.

    Many non-techie employees of those organizations will want to have the same environment at home as at work -- two OSs is simply too "confusing" for point-and-click types.

    And as more and more large institutions move to Linux whatever reason (there are many), I think we will see more and more pre-packaged systems available on a retail level.
    • If you actually bothered to RTFA (which almost no one on this thread has seemingly done), you might have noticed that these PCs will be shipped with the "English or Italian" versions of Linspire.

      This line will not, for the short term, be targetting the French or German markets, where there's been the most high-profile noise about switching. Rather, it seems to be aimed at Britain (where the noise has been mixed and lower-level) and Italy, where I can't recall any high-profile switch stories.

      If there is a

  • Linspire = Lindows = Debian (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eloquence ( 144160 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:21PM (#9623935)
    From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], licensed under the GNU FDL:

    Linspire, previously known as LindowsOS (also Lin---s, pronounced as Lindash), is a Linux distribution based on Debian. It targets the consumer user - its distributors market it more intensively than all other Unix-based or Unix-like distributions except Mac OS X. As Lindows, it was the first Linux distribution to replace Windows in home consumer desktop systems at a substantially lower price than Microsoft Windows.

    Michael Robertson, the founder and former CEO of MP3.com functions as the CEO of Lindows, Inc. It is still called "Lindows, Inc" even though the product is now Linspire.

    Microsoft Corporation sued Lindows, Inc for its use of the term "Windows", which Microsoft claimed constituted a trademark infringement. In February 2004, a judge rejected two of Microsoft's central claims. Though Microsoft lost the core of its case, and says it will appeal the decision, for uncertain reasons it also called the decision "a victory". (See Microsoft vs Lindows for more information.) Lindows was renamed Linspire to avoid further legal action by Microsoft. Michael Robertson called the legal action "Sextuple Jeopardy", which is like "Double Jeopardy" but sextupled.

    Lindows, Inc had the initial goal of developing a Linux-based operating system capable of running major Windows applications as well. It based its Windows compatibility on the development of WINE by the Linspire team. Lindows.com later abandoned its initial approach in favor of making Linux applications easy to download, install and use. They achieved this using an application called Click-N-Run, a program based on Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool, providing an easy-to-use interface and a slightly modified package system for an annual fee (apt-get costs no money, but has less user-friendliness). Click-N-Run has over 1,000 pieces of software for download.

    Lindows, Inc sponsors many open-source projects and events, including the Gaim instant messaging client, the KDE-Apps.org (http://www.kde-apps.org/) and KDE-Look.org (http://www.kde-look.org/) websites, and the Nvu project, which has started to develop an open-source WYSIWYG website editor (based on the Mozilla composer code) to rival FrontPage. In the past, Linspire.com has contributed over $500,000 to the WINE project.

    Editions

    Several varieties of Linspire, known as editions, target different markets. Three main editions exist: Standard, Developer and Laptop.

    • Standard - The standard edition offers the standard distributions, intended for most consumer desktops.
    • Developer - A version designed for developers, this version comes with many development tools such as text editors, compilers and libaries for developing software.
    • Laptop - A version of Linspire optimized for notebook computers, which have different hardware requirements from desktop computers.
    • LindowsLive! - Potential users can download a no-cost LiveCD version of Linspire in ISO image format from P2P networks.

    External links

    • Developer - A version designed for developers, this version comes with many development tools such as text editors, compilers and libaries for developing software.

      So are they saying the non developer edition doesn't come with a text editor??

  • Maybe Dell can work out a deal where anyone can sell their machines with any o/s preloaded as a ghosted image, provided you send them the CD and you're liable if the image is crap... that would be sweet! Then we could all compete with our favorite o/s's and with wal-mart (to some tiny degree)
    • Maybe Dell can work out a deal where anyone can sell their machines with any o/s preloaded as a ghosted image, provided you send them the CD and you're liable if the image is crap... that would be sweet! Then we could all compete with our favorite o/s's and with wal-mart (to some tiny degree)

      Dell already does this. They call it Custom Factory Integration...or Dell+. It costs a fair bit, because interrupting their normal manufacturing process for your special requests is pricy for them. Also, if you have

  • File Compatability with ms office? (Score:3, Informative)

    by jzilla ( 256016 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @01:30PM (#9624036) Homepage
    "All Dell computers sold by Questar will be equipped with word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software and file compatibility with Microsoft Office."

    Linspire comes with Open Office 1.1 [linspire.com].

    While there is a great deal of compatability between Open Office and MS Office, there are still issues [com.com]
    Sounds a little misleading to me.
    • While there is a great deal of compatability between Open Office and MS Office, there are still issues

      LOL, there are issues with different versions of ms office trying to open a given document!

      Seriously, I am obliged to exchange ms office docs with my superiors, and I've been using openoffice 1.1.1 on suse for awhile now - no problems, and no complaints.

      Oh, I'm sure some shill will come up with a document that doesn't look right, but as I said, that is not the common case, and as I mentioned above, you
      • True, in some cases, OpenOffice is even better than MS Office when dealing with MS Office files.

        For example, a friend of mine had a problem with an Excel-sheet that included important data, was somehow corrupted and didn't open in Excel.

        I just said "try it with OpenOffice" and indeed, he could recover most of the data (some portion was corrupted, but it did open in OpenOffice)

  • ..coming from a company that uses Redhat on the server side of things. I mean, I know that Linspire has been geared towards former windows users who use linux for whatever reason, and the major desktop target audience from Dell is full of windows users, but now they are going to have to widen the support level won't they?
  • Will Dell's phone support be better than Red Hat's? When will we see a "help desk shootout", showing which Linux support line best helps grandma find the "any key"?

    • Re:phone support (Score:4, Informative)

      by emtboy9 ( 99534 ) <jeff AT jefflane DOT org> on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @02:00PM (#9624348) Homepage
      Things may have changed, but in the past, in the US at least, Dell's customers called Dell support for any issue. The Dell Tech determined if the call was a Linux issue or a Hardware issue. Then, if it was a hardware issue, the customer was handled by the Dell tech. If the issue was a Linux issue, the customer was forwarded to Red Hat's tech support.

      That was a few years ago, and since then, Red Hat has had some big changes in their support model, and Dell has sent all its tech support to India, and brought parts of it back again, so YMMV.

  • It's is the only linux distro I know of that will literally speak to you as if you're an idiot with Audiot Assist Tutorials [linspire.com]!

  • Checks Irish Site...
    No Linux option...

    This bugs me especially considering they make the danm things right outside my back door. And yet I will always be the last customer to get bargins.

  • The real mainstream distros (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @02:02PM (#9624380) Homepage
    While on Slashdot we hear endlessly about Red Hat, Debian, etc., the volume manufacturers are going with Lindows, Linspire, Thiz, and in China, Red Flag. Maybe those should get more coverage. What do the installed base figures look like?
  • "All Dell computers sold by Questar will be equipped with word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software and file compatibility with Microsoft Office."

    So Dell isn't selling these, another company is? I remember when Dell "used" to sell Red Hat based boxen for the desktop, but they dropped that, pretty quietly, a time back.

    CB

  • N-Series (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ibanez ( 37490 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @02:22PM (#9624601)
    It should be mentioned that they do offer the N-Series desktop, which is pretty much a barebones 2400 (Low end model) with nothing installed (blank hd) and a disk with FreeDOS on it. And this is available to just about anyone. Its a very lowend machine, but not a bad option.

    http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic. as px/featured_nseries?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s= dhs

    Blake
  • that it will be easier to support Linux than listen to all the complaints about XP SP2 breaking compatability.

  • Lindows has some cool things about it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hansreiser ( 6963 ) on Tuesday July 06, 2004 @05:31PM (#9626797) Homepage
    The biggest cool thing is that they really understand average users. They worry seriously about things like how hard it is for users to change the time, and what users will think of having to do more to change the time than click on their clock.

    Also they will be using reiser4 in their next big release.:)

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