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104 Comments
- Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -2/+45Nah...Microsoft, as always, will do something completely goofy and absurd to counter this.
Like dressing Steve Ballmer in a penguin outfit, sending him up in a blimp, and having him personally air drop free copies of Vista over a crowded sporting event. - Langford, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28It's fine if it's SUSE, I can always format and put another distro on a system. What we should all be happy about is the idea that they will be taking an interest in making sure their hardware supports Linux.
- jlebrech, on 10/12/2007, -6/+26A tiny little petition for Mark Shuttleworth to make Ubuntu branded laptops, and the major manufacturers all go into a rush to break some DEALS finally.
Don't mind Ads galore to bring the prices down, it's Linux what could be the worse they could do, Sponsored Themes??
Here's a sales pitch, they could advertise that it frees your second core from having to run an antivirus!! - DiggerT, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21SUSE is actually a great distro, just its parent company novell which is a bit dodgy!
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -9/+27"We are involved in a number of massive deals for Linux desktops, and those are the kinds of things that are indicators of critical mass. So we are really looking at it very hard"...
Finally they have woken up. - Fordi, on 10/12/2007, -10/+24Rar. It's SUSE again. Nothing to see here.
Go to System76 and get a Ubuntu desktop. - alamko1999, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19sure, as you requested
- wvdavis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Just yesterday on digg there was two articles on Dell coming out with Linux pre-installed on their computers. The fact is that they already have computers available to the public with Linux pre-installed on it ( http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/precn_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd ). I guess today is HP's turn.
- GruntboyX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Look what vista has gone and done. People are tired of viruses mal ware and ect.... Now with vista and everyone having to rewrite or reensure that all their applications are working; everyone is considering linux. Vista has made the playing field level. However, i feel that what we are seeing is not a critical point for the linux desktop, but a testing point. Linux is either going to gain significant market share and get a strong foothold on the desktop, or Linux is going to get glossed over again because it is missing some app, that some business deems necessary. I mean think about it, how many apps do you use and relay on at work, that dont have a clear Linux equivalent, or it does have an equivalent but switching to it would require a lot of time and effort that would actually detract you from being productive. Not to mention it is missing some "special" feature that you happen to rely on.
But i would like to see what happens competition is nothing but a good thing. Look what AMD did to Intel. AMD forced Intel to reconsider its netburst architecture, and pop out the whole core lineup. Now Intel is clearly back on top and AMD is the one scrambling again. Competition is a good thing it keeps compainies from getting complacent and bloated. - pgoetz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11@chaersi
The point is that most of the problems people have with linux are installation problems, usually due to poor driver support. Once linux is up and running, I find that it takes a lot less effort to support than windows. The 20 windows users I support take up a lot more of my time than the 300-400 linux users. The 20 Mac OSX users fall somewhere in the middle; but no question, it's more expensive to support windows than linux ONCE THE OS IS INSTALLED AND EVERYTHING IS WORKING. - loconet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10@No. Finally, the demand is there.
The demand has always been there (atleast in the past 2-5 years). What HP needed was the threat of Dell eating the linux demand pie all by itself. - chaersi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Agreed, plenty of the people that are saying "about time", "finally" and similar, will probably also sat they would never buy a PC from HP, Dell or any major vendor.
And why don't we hear people crying for Apple to offer the choice?? /s - nixfu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Guess what..thats what most fortune 50 companies are doing right now...with great sucess too. Maybe you should emulate success.
- MonkeyMCSE, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9or they could just get rid of you and hire someone who can do the job rather than complain about it. Last time I checked, alot of companies have an IT department that is paid to work for said company. You don't like it, resign.
- Lionhart, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Great. If it happens, you people better actually buy them if you want to see this continue and prosper.
- Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Much of the problem lies with unsupported hardware. Looks like HP, Dell, etc. will be looking to "certify" Linux-ready machines.
Should get rid of most of those problems you're having hardware-wise. - nixfu, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13>Considering the fact that close to 90% of the worlds computers
You mean it has 90% in your little world of PEE CEE's....
News Flash about the REAL world of computing that exists outside your parents basement... Microsoft Windows is a MINORITY of the server market and absolutely NO WHERE NEAR the dominate platform. - chaersi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@Phocion55
Using that logic, any PC with an OS pre-installed will never have a problem. So what's wrong with Windows?
BTW - using Ubuntu. ;-) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+18 I never thought I'd see this.
- Ravatar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@You mean it has 90% in your little world of PEE CEE's....
Microsoft controls over 30% of the server (web server, that is..) market share. I'd say that's not a very bad number, considering the only higher contender is Apache at ~60%. Not to mention the fact that Windows Server is trending upwards, as Apache does just the opposite. I'm not here to judge which product is better, but the numbers speak for themselves..
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/02/23/march_2007_web_server_survey.html - Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13I'm suspicious of preinstalled Suse. I have a feeling there may be a nasty suprise for the buyers of Novel stuff in the future coz right now, they are in bed with microsoft.
- terog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6This is great news. I like HP laptops and just bought one (with WinXP). It is a cheaper model but I'm quite impressed by its quality nevertheless.
However, I was very disappointed to find out that HP locks out non-hp mini-pci cards. This makes it difficult and/or more expensive to replace the Broadcom wireless with something that works better with Linux. Also this kind of "Trusted Computing" is very bad in principal (IMO) and doesn't mix with Linux philosophy at all.
I hope the increasing popularity of Linux and LinuxBIOS will stop this stupidity.
More info here:
http://hogbender.blogspot.com/2005/02/welcome-to-trusted-computing.html
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=659018&admit=-682735245+1173360953814+28353475
There are possible workarounds which I have not tested:
http://www.dagarlas.org/stuff/computing/article0001.php
http://stachon.webpark.cz/ipw-eeprom.html - Troopy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7It will be interesting to see who's linux prebundles will hit the shelves first and what distributions are available with what hardware support etc.
Someone wake me up when this happens...! - nixfu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6>given time as it becomes more mainstream and in the home it will suffer the same fate.
PROOF!???? THERE IS NO PROOF of this lame theory in the real world. Not a SINGLE data point to prove this. In fact the only examples we do have like the OS's that HAVE THE MAJORITY of servers (Unix/Linux) are the total OPPOSITE.
This is nothing but a scare tatic by Microsoft.
Grow up and use some real logic. - redxii, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"Now with vista and everyone having to rewrite or reensure that all their applications are working; everyone is considering linux."
And they know for sure their applications will work in Linux? - bmartin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Linux users wouldn't be on Linux in the first place if they were heavily-dependent on FPS games. A lot of Photoshop users would be able to get by w/ Gimp, but going from PS to Gimp is only slightly less painful going from Notepad to VI.
Linux is a very productive environment to work in; the problem is that people are so used to "the Windows way of doing things" that they struggle migrating their skills over to Linux. They expect "Windows plus more" when in fact they're getting something different. For designing web pages, programming, keeping my system up to date, etc., Linux is superior. It's different from Windows, plain and simple, and the more used to Windows you are, the more different it seems and the harder it is to switch. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7About 4 years ago there was much hoopla about this very thing and it was.. you guessed it. Dell that came out and said they were going to provide Linux on the desktop. What ever happened to that endeavor? Now they say it again, generate a ***** of PR for a product that in reality they will barely give the time of day to, and HP sees the reaction and does the same thing. So now two competitors are using the promise of a product to compete with each other without actually really providing the product. It's hilarious that you all are falling all over each other about this when it's old hat...... Dell and HP get good PR, you get nothing out of it, and Linux still doesn't gain anything. Who wins here? Who's the fool?
- Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Look at all the positive comments getting dugg down!!!! This place has many paracites-on-a-payroll.
- sanguinemoon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Nasty surprise like what, it will play nice with MS boxes by default?"
Or actually the other way around. We have my machine dual booting FreeBSD and Linux, a couple boxes running NetBSD, another machine running FreeBSD, my laptop used to run FreeBSD - but r.i.p :(, and there used to be one running XP. Every machine worked and played well togather, I had an NTFS driver for Linux and could read AND write to XP. But it was XP that had trouble even connecting to everything else. It was made to work, of course, but that ***** little OS was such a nuisance. That XP box now runs Vista and even with that Network Center, it was still a pain in the arse.
Let me repeat it for the MS fanboys, its the Microsoft OSs that have trouble with the other boxes, not the other way around. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Dell have desktops available to business, not the general public.
- nixfu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6You do realize that only 10% of desktops are purchased "off the shelf".... about 90% of desktops are organziational purchases made usually directly to the mfgr.
Millions and millions of Windows NT desktops were deployed, but you NEVER saw one "on the shelf"... Many many millions of Linux desktops could be sold long before you will ever see one at Best Buy, just like Windows NT. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I really can't see why this took so long, I mean, better software in better hardware, where is the problem?
- bmartin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There are very few ways for a virus to propagate on and do damage to *nix systems. It'd have to get root access to do anything tragic. Due to the fact that Linux doesn't use RPC for 99% of its day-to-day functions, you're probably pretty safe. I'm no expert, but your most likely route of infection is an installer that requires root privileges to run; stick with reputable repositories and you're extremely safe. If anything goes awry (e.g. MD5 checksum is wrong), Linux will send up red flags.
It doesn't really matter how many people use Linux, provided you don't download and install things from untrusted 3rd parties. If you're only downloading from authentic repos, your risk of infection is almost zero. Many distros have very few open ports by default (Ubuntu has 0, if I remember correctly: you have to install an SSH server to be able to shell into your PC from another PC). You're pretty safe from remote attacks. - andycr512, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Free != Better"
Free != Worse, either. In this case most agree that GNU/Linux is better than anything Microsoft can provide, technology wise. The main complaints are compatibility and ease of use. - geezas, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Gotta sell M$ stocks....
- rtrypowred, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"You mean like what Apple did when OS X came out?"
I would call that more of a "cutting your losses and getting out while you still can" move. Does any one remember trying to actually use OS 9 (freeze-reboot) (freeze-reboot) (repeat ad-nauseum) ? I think OS X was a galactic sized leap in the right direction....Well, after 10.1 that is. - KennMac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This really surprises me because up until now, HP laptops have been far from Linux friendly. The community has been requesting driver support (broadcom wireless) and compatible BIOS for years with no acknowledgment.
- BrainInAJar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Put the heat on MS, Sun, IBM and Apple to do better"
Put the heat on Sun to do better than what?
For one, you can buy a Sun system with linux preinstalled, and for two Sun makes their own free-software OS... it's licensed under a modified Apache/Mozilla license. Sun was also discovered to be (through heavy use of perl on the debian repository) the biggest corporate contributor to free software in the world, and that's before the GPL'd JDK or OpenSolaris....
So, tell me... How could Sun micro. do better? - thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9No. Finally, the demand is there.
I like linux as much as the next guy, but do you know the support costs they are going to incur by trying to support windows and linux? - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Games will be XP compatible well into the 2010's as they were Win98 compatible for so long.
- Ravatar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Linux server machines are more secure because the god damn sysadmin isnt clicking the flash banner to WIN A FREE RINGTONE, IPOD, REDUCE HIS MORTGAGE, AND BE LUCKY WINNER #9283642864.
I've been running Windows XP x64 for more 18 months now, daily, without a single hiccup.. virus threat.. spyware infection.. or any other issue for that matter. I don't use security measures (beyond a hardware firewall). The user is infinitely more important than the operating system.
Just wait until novice users invade Linux, it WILL suffer the same fate. All in pursuit of that neato free iPod. - stef686, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8Never thought I'd see the day...
- davidrools, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4A noob is a noob no matter what OS they're running. Linux is as easy/difficult as windows for anyone still learning how to use a PC. Linux only gets more complicated and needs more configuration when you put it on a computer with hardware that was designed for Windows.
- chaersi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@pqoetz
Sure, I agree with you there. My point is that users who are used to Windows that switch to Linux, will have usability problems that will create extra support calls for the vendors, no matter how well it is installed or whether it has the correct driver for the new flash NvATIa xyz card. I want to see more linux too, and am even pushing it as an option at my work, but it will create extra support calls, at least initially until people are used to it. - sanguinemoon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ pgoetz,
Yep. Preinstalled easily takes care of the problem. - CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"windows is just what is mainstream right now so its a target."
Myth.
Linux has been on a majority of the systems reachable on the 'Net since before 2000. Why are they not being attacked?
They are. The attacks just don't work.
The fact is that it is much, MUCH harder to attack a UNIX style machine than a Windows one. It's because of basic design, which Microsoft refuses to change.
That is why Microsoft systems remain the "targets of choice".
Now, when Microsoft does what Apple did and puts a compatibility layer on top of commodity BSD, then the attacks will be less effective. - DubbleA, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If HP really wants to move to Linux, they NEED to stop using Boradcom wireless chipsets and cards. Broadcom does not support Linux in any way. The only way to get them to work is by using ndiswrapper.
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/ - CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ 1jaxstate1,
"the install went ok, but after that there we audio and networking problems."
Those are usually the bits that the manufacturers play with the most, and then provide drivers only for Windows. It's not a Linux problem, it's a manufacturer problem.
If the OEMs have Linux working, then the drivers and working settings will already exist.
"I guess if someone buys a preinstalled machine, they will never have to upgrade and keep the same version forever."
Such a condition would not be conducive to selling those machines.
The only "danger" is that the OEMs create proprietary drivers that cannot be given back to the mainstream kernel. Any OEM that does that is just asking to be boycotted, since people would be crazy to buy "open" systems that embody just another version of OEM lock-in.
So far, the Linux kernel developers have made Herculean efforts with remarkable success at reverse-engineering popular hardware. I fully expect this will continue. - JimmyRyan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I love the idea of more people using linux because it will suddenly get all the support it needs, but there is also a selfish part of me that likes that there are so few people using it that I don't even have to run any antivirus software or anything like that! I guess its a trade I am willing to make! lol
- chaersi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Microsoft don't sell PC's, Apple does. What about the choice that everybody seems to want!!
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