Dell Opens a Poll On Linux Options 404
narramissic writes "In response to overwhelming user demand for Linux, Dell has posted a survey on a company blog that asks 'PC users to choose between Linux flavors such as Fedora and Ubuntu, and to pick more general choices such as notebooks versus desktops, high-end models versus value models and telephone-based support versus community-based support.' Votes will be collected through March 23, and Dell plans to use the feedback to begin selling Linux-based consumer PCs." The poll is pretty minimal. Wonder how much it will really guide Dell's choices.
Re:Naaa. (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't even ensure that they'll work properly.
Fully testing a distribution on a given piece of hardware probably takes a man-month.
Trying to fix issues that don't work increases that time line.
The best they could do is set up a standard test- run it against a given distribution and give it a percentage pass rating.
Would you seriously pay them $890 for a laptop with a version of linux that passes 97% of tests and they'll show you a list of the 3% of the tests that fail so you can decide if you want to figure out and fix them or not on your own. Myself- I want everything to just work. And that means they can really only use a couple standard flavors.
Well, they've GOT to pick something... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that it's impractical for Dell, or any other company, to support every distribution and version of GNU/Linux that's out there. It's also impractical for them to test every hardware configuration with all of those distributions. They've got to pick one. Or two. Or five. Or whatever practical number their support people can handle. (Which I'm guess will end up being one or two at the most.)
Personally, I think they should go with Ubuntu, as it is extremely popular and arguably the most user-friendly distribution. If you want a different distribution, you're free to install it, and it will probably work since you know that the Ubuntu drivers will work on their hardware. But if you get a Dell with Linux, along with their support and guarantee that it will work on their hardware, you'll have to go with the distribution they've actually tested and that they support.
Options (Score:1, Insightful)
That's the problem, not the solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the reasons that Dell et al have always used as an argument against installing Linux by default, is that Linux users are too hard to please, and the market is too balkanized. With Windows, you have (well, you did, pre-Vista) Home, and Professional, and you can charge extra for installing Professional. With Linux, you have Ubuntu, Novell, Fedora, and god knows what else, and you really can't charge extra for installing one or the other without alienating users.
I think they need to pick ONE easy-to-use "beginners Linux" distribution, like Ubuntu or Lindows, and then offer a 'bare drive' option for users who want something else. Let's face it; if you are enough of a Linux user to have developed a preference between distributions, you can install the damn thing from an ISO. As long as the hardware is compatible and has Linux drivers available, you ought to be able to put anything you want on there.
The argument for pre-installations is really about novice users who can't be bothered to install an OS onto a fresh machine, and just want something that's going to work with minimal fuss. They need a distribution that's as idiot-proof and "polished" as possible, and that's what the criteria for choosing it should be.
Re:Obquote (Score:3, Insightful)
I do not think that joke means what you think it means.
(Dell's servers seem pretty overwhelmed at the moment)
Re:A choice of all distributions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not gonna happen. Not in a million, billion, trillion years. Dell has to maintain some semblance of quality and reputation. People who don't know what they're getting into, and buy a Dell box with some kind of Linux, are going to be sorely disappointed in Dell once they realize what their support options are. Also, how is Dell going to handle warranty issues? How can they possibly troubleshoot a PC is it has god-knows-what software on it?
Back to the ubiquitous car analogy: Toyota isn't going to sell you a car without tires. It's a hell of a lot more headache than it's worth.
My vote (Score:2, Insightful)
My vote: not that much.
Re:None Please (or DOS if you must) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Naaa. (Score:5, Insightful)
Laptops please (Score:4, Insightful)
What Dell really lacks is laptops with obvious Linux support. It's still a pain in the ass to look through their website and pick up a laptop that you know has working 3D drivers (ATI blows), wireless, and hibernation support. You can go look around for third party reviews and match model numbers but that leaves you looking off site (and evaluating against competitors) and Dell has a huge turnover in model revisions.
Dell? (Score:2, Insightful)
explanation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Naaa. (Score:2, Insightful)
The biggest problem we have now is that you never know if all the hardware in a machine will work with Linux, the distro is pretty much irrelevant until you start using it. My notebook is from HP (dv8000t), and it works great with any distro I've put on it, since 2.6.14. I bought it without knowing this. When I was making my purchase, if there had been a manufacturer that put out a machine in the same price range with a simalar screen size and was certified for Linux, they would have gotten my money instead.
Keep in mind that this experience is only regarding notebooks, I've never purchased a brand-name desktop.
Re:Dell? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's because they're cheap, and are of basically predictable quality.
Most of the companies that specialize in "Linux laptops" that I've ever seen, charge a significant premium. In some cases, more of a premium than top-of-the-line Apple hardware. But more than that, it's hard to tell what you're buying. If I order a Dell, I have a good idea of what I'm going to get. With a no-name laptop, which is what most of the Linux ones start off as, it's harder to say. I can't go down to Best Buy and hammer on one of their keyboards to see whether it sucks or not. I can't go ask 5 out of every 10 of my friends what they think of theirs. That's a problem.
It hasn't really been a problem to get a computer that will run Linux in a while, if you're willing to pony up bucks. The reason people are so interested in Dell, is that it would mean (hopefully) cheap, known-quality Linux machines, being sold right next to Windows ones. That's a big deal, particularly for the vast field of people who are 'on the fence' about "that whole Linux thing."
Take the easy way - dump it on Linus. (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty much the same way they provide "support" for Windows.
Take your installer disk and re-install the system and it will be back to the same way you received it. Too bad about your data.
Come on. The distributions can do better than that without even trying. Dell doesn't provide any support beyond returning your system to the configuration you received.
As for upgrading your kernel and breaking things
Almost every Linux distribution out there has a package management system that means that the problems Windows users have will be non-existent on Linux.
You've claimed to use Debian and Ubuntu. How easy is it to remove an application? That's how easy tech support is for Linux. On known hardware.
Smells like a trap. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:None Please (or DOS if you must) (Score:2, Insightful)
And this is precisely why dell doesn't bother selling linux on their hardware, at least up to this point. Because the linux fanatics are going to build their machines from spare parts and load their favorite distro of the month on an underpowered box just to talk about how technical they are on slashdot forums.
Don't think about this offering as something you are going to be using. Think of it as something your non-technical neighbor is going to be using. You know the one who has his PC running vista on 1 gig of ram and a 3 year AOL agreement pre-installed with 5 gigs of spyware eating away and his processing speed? You know that guy who inadvertently clicks on pop-up ads...that's who this should be for.
The less technical the average linux user is, the better off the linux fanatics are. The better personal computing is in general.
Stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about the typical user. Please.
Hard to take seriously a poll with bad HTML (Score:4, Insightful)
Not just that (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it just me, or doesn't anyone else thing that MS must be rather worried about the fact that a large manufacturer is looking hard at selling a non-MS operating system?
Re:NO they DO NOT have to... (Score:1, Insightful)
56 MB wireless card driver? 36 MB video card driver? 96 MB audio drivers? Gah, thats terrible.
Re:That's the problem, not the solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Even if I don't use the version they installed I will know that there are drivers (hopefully open source) available for that specific hardware and these drivers can likely be ported to my distro (if they haven't already).
2) If piece of hardware X isn't working right now I have no idea if it's a hardware or driver problem. If they have a pre-installed version I can throw it on pre-installed distro and test it. If the hardware still doesn't work that still means it's either the hardware is broken or the driver is broken. However with the pre-installed distro I now have the ability to bug Dell about it since in either case it's still their problem.
Re:What I would like to see from Dell (Score:3, Insightful)
If Dell were to say "sure, we support Linux, just use the binary-only Nvidia driver", that approach isn't going to make a lot of Linux users happy.
But Dell is in the position of selecting the best hardware components based on what their users want; if Dell said to Nvidia "we'd like to use your stuff, but it doesn't work for our Linux customers, who now represent 10% of our customer base, so we're going to offer your competitor as well", I'm going to bet that Nvidia sees the light. They simply wouldn't want to lose that many sales through Dell.
Dell language (Score:3, Insightful)
Dell assumes that customers 1) know the difference between an Inspiron, a Latitude, and and an XPS, and 2) care. Even GM gave up on that nonsense and discontinued the Oldsmobile nameplate.
Support wanted (Score:4, Insightful)
Everything else can be done through normal channels.
Re:Support? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dell? (Score:2, Insightful)
I've been to a large electronics store in Beijing, China, and I saw Linux and Windows machines side by side. And that was back in 2002! I haven't been back since then so I don't know what you'll find there. I was so surprised by the number of computers for sale to the public with Linux installed (it was a mix of Red Flag and Red Hat at the time). It was approx. a 50-50 split between Linux options and Windows options.
Re:I think what he means (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmmmmmmn, on the one hand we've got a whole bunch of people saying 'we want Dell to pre-install linux', on the other hand, we've got just you saying 'its a bunch of zealots trying to game Dell to make linux look good'.
I know which I'd believe.
Re:Naaa. (Score:3, Insightful)
I paid more than that for a laptop that was 0% guaranteed to work with Linux.
I recognize that not everybody is up for that brand of adventure, but y'know what? If Dell gave me a test suite to run, I'd gladly hunt down what problems I can in the 3%. I get a community-helping project to chew on, Ubuntu (eventually) gets a "compatible with Dell laptops" endorsement, and Dell gets a new product line for free*.
* Yes, the initial development of said test suite might be expensive, but they probably have to do that anyway even if they only support one distro. Each successive distro that works on passing said tests costs Dell nothing, but they get to say, "See! We support all kinds of Linux!"
Re:That's the problem, not the solution. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not a novice user, and 'something that's going to work with minimal fuss' sounds pretty darned good to me.
I have a couple geek friends who formerly used Linux but are now using the OS/X that came on their Mac laptops. They're easily smart enough to slap a Linux distro on it if they wanted, but they don't. They've got a complete little no fuss package that works just fine and with which they're happy. Power geeks can do all sorts of stuff mere mortals cannot, but that doesn't mean they want to. Something that 'just works' right out of the box might be really nice for a change.