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76 Comments
- hockey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33Actually no. This could be the thing to finally get more official hardware support in Linux. If Dell pre-install's Linux maybe finally Wireless NIC companies will start writing official drivers for their software.
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -5/+28That is spot on, because Dell would not likely want to stock basic hardware components en masse that were not linux-compatible. After all, its not like such components are very feature competitive from vendor to vendor. So there will be at least a perceived "if you want to do business with Dell, linux support will really increase your chances, even if the marketshare is still small." sort of stigma.
Also, is it just me, or does it seem like Shuttleworth is in line to be the new king of open source at this rate? Finally Stallman and friends can be put into retirement. - Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23"And add to that that these Linux laptops are not going to be pushed as hard as their Windows machines..."
Says who? It would be incredibly stupid for Dell to not put forth their best effort to sell Ubuntu boxes after clearly spending much time and resources on it. - doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21The gaming industry is big, but not the whole enchilada. Young consumers are one thing, but most people I know don't have to get their daily dose of WoW, and even if they did, they can still run many games on linux (including WoW).
- Scyth3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20The gaming excuse is getting rather lame. My mom and dad don't play games -- and the free one's packaged with distro's like Ubuntu are more then plenty action for them if they decide they want to do something entertaining on their laptop.
There's a base for every type of OS. Look at Windows, it's built around gamer's and those who want things to "just work". OS X is for those who want an artsy/stylish/glossy desktop and an overly-simple desktop. Linux is for those whom want to tinker a bit. However, the Ubuntu distro of linux is almost good enough to the point of where I'll switch my mom and dad over when they get new computers. They don't need games, therefore it's a perfect fit for them. And if they do, I can get them for free for them via the add/remove manager.
Again, it comes down to the person's personal taste and computer usage. I love my Ubuntu because once you've set it up, it "just works" and I don't have tons of time for gaming (short of frozen bubble). - Novagenesis, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19I know a lot of people who took years to learn windows and picked up ubuntu linux in 15 minutes
it's a lot more organized in a lot of ways.
now, I wouldn't want my grandmother actually INSTALLING linux, or even configuring it...but then, I don't want her installing windows (which leaves configuring...linux is trying like the little train that could on that ;) ) - Novagenesis, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19Hate to say it..if nothing else, Ubuntu has the same ease of use as XP...
- Novagenesis, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17@flag
"As long as you have to use something like the terminal for any significant purpose or have to fiddle with a Xorg file, then their is no contest. XP wins."
"have to" is funny... you don't -have to-. 9 times out of 10 you never need to touch a config file, and when you DO, you might as well open it in a graphical text editor... the terminal lives because it's powerful and it has a lot of fans. it's no longer necessary.
You have to open config files a LOT in windows...worse, some stuff can -only- be configured in 'regedit' which is not only ugly, but scary and somewhat dangerous.
Sorry, but you are wrong. You -cannot- compare something complex (like modifying your apache webserver) in linux to something trivial (oh, say changing resolution) in windows. - Novagenesis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15@flag
no evidence
no argument
all hype
I use both windows and linux. I enjoy both windows and linux.
I find linux easier to use due to an organized windowing system.
I find it not only possible, but -easy- to avoid the terminal altogether.
I -prefer- to use it. I use the terminal to copy files (very easy without).
I use the terminal to create my cron jobs (even though there's a gui that can do it easily)
I use the terminal for alot.
And the funny thing? I use the Cygwin terminal for many of those same things in windows. Why? Because that's the best tool for the job in EITHER OS.
You don't like it doesn't mean it's crap.
Just because the terminal is powerful for a terminal, doesn't mean it's trying to make up for some shortcoming in the GUI - carrett, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17@kibibytebrain: I understand that Stallman can be tedious and obnoxious, but we wouldn't have ANY of this without him. Linus wouldn't have even had a gcc to compile his new, baby kernel. I think the man still deserves respect. I think he's gone a little crazy with his philosophical and political agendas, but I still respect him for founding the FOSS community, and though I think he could be less annoying about it, I still mostly agree with his philosophy.
In short, I don't want him to retire and I certainly don't think he should be forgotten. Anal? Yes. Sometimes a pain in the ass? Yes. Founder of the project that got this whole thing started? Yes.
RMS is a lot like women: can't live with him, can't live without him. - Novagenesis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15big risk how? They're offering -more- features with almost no added cost to themselves...
Only risk is a SCO-esque lawsuit like IBM faced.. thing is, dell might make a lot of money back on a suit like that now - doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Most people that took years to figure out the computer had more trouble figuring out how to double-click a mouse than deciding what to click. Don't sell people short on converting from one system to another. And nobody said they HAVE to use Ubuntu. It's an option.
As for installing... I'd rather give someone Ubuntu to install than XP or Vista. - mucnix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12My Dell laptop has an ATI card in it. Maybe Dell could push ATI to finally support the X composite extension so I could use AIGLX rather than XGL.
/hopes - Chandon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Why would hardware manufacturers need to release drivers? All they need to do is release the specs, and high quality Free Software drivers will get written by the community. Here's an explanation of why the driver issue is so silly: http://www.openbsd.org/papers/brhard2007/mgp00001.html
- brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13It's one thing for Dell to offer Linux as an option, but the sales are going to depend on how much they let customers know that it's an option.
If the linux option is a link made of 8 point text at the bottom of some obscure page, it isn't going to do very well, and then Dell and Microsoft can say, "see? we tried it but Windows is what the customer wants!"
The only way these are going to sell is if the Ubuntu option is right in the list of the Windows versions you can choose. - thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Who knows... they may see a huge drop in support costs as they aren't giving the same level of support to linux that they do to windows.
- straxus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@flag "Have you ever been to help forums for Linux? Almost every problem I've had, had to be solved using the terminal."
There's a very good reason for that. It's easier to give command line instructions to someone in IRC and on forums, because both mediums are text based by nature. It's a bit more difficult to describe all the click steps and dialog boxes of a GUI. GUI instruction is best given via images. It's also very easy to cut and paste command line text. The only problem is that the end user usually walks away from the experience with little understanding of what they just did, or how to reverse it if need be. That can be intimidating, and I certainly understand that argument. But you are incorrect in assuming the GUI can't be used to accomplish the same tasks. - geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Any printer will work with linux, but there isn't an infrastructure to make it easy like windows. Buy a printer these days and it comes with step by step instructions on how to install it for OS X and Windows 98, 2000, XP, etc. Soon manufacturers will make Ubuntu instructions. And boxes will list Ubuntu compatibility. Windows started out without all of these things so this transition will be easier. There will be growing pains but they will be temporary, and I know Microsoft will jump all over this. But at the end of the day, compatibility is there, but the ecosystem of manufacturers, Dell, etc., will gel together over time.
- specialK16, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Say what you want to say, but installing Ubuntu takes about 5 minutes while fully installing Windows takes around 40 minutes and add the installation of drivers it didn't picked up and Office, and other apps.
The way I see it, the problem affecting Linux is not its usability anymore. It is now the turn of software developers to write software for Linux. - doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@CrazyZ
pebkac - motters, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Hark. Can I hear the sound of Steve Ballmer hurling office furniture?
- Chandon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6And... that's the whole point of having the OS pre-installed. Dell definitely won't be using unsupported hardware, and Dell users definitely won't be having to install Ubuntu on their systems.
- sqrt7744, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5uh... how are all your "devices" going to run without an operating system?
- generalloy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"As long as you have to use something like the terminal for any significant purpose or have to fiddle with a Xorg file, then their is no contest. XP wins."
People do that because of driver issues. Hopefully Dell goes with Intel since they have free open source drivers that work fine for AIGLX.
BTW xorg.conf is not needed in the next version of Xorg, 7.3. - williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@flag
Ubunutu's live-CD style of installation is ridiculously easy. Within minutes you see that Linux runs on your machine, and that you can easily use it.
Once installed, Linux is much simpler to use than Vista. All the software you need for a user's basic productivity needs is already installed.
Evolution or Thunderbird walk all over Outlook Express and if you add a few plugins, are much faster than Outlook 2003 for power users with huge mail databases.
If you have ever spent a day ***** someone's Windows box that got p0wned by a trojan, you know the TCO for Linux is waaaay lower in any environment that does not have an IT department dedicated to keeping your Windows boxes secure and cleaning them up when they ***** the bed. To me, this is the biggest reason for putting Linux on my kids' PCs. If my mom wasn't a Mac user, I would recommend Linux for her, too. - geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Sounds like you should have done your research on linux-compatible wireless cards. I'm betting Dell will do their research.
- Chandon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Scyth3 - The gaming excuse is the *only* relevant excuse left for users who are even slightly mainstream.
- williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Linux doesn't need a high-spec machine. I put it on a very nice, but by current standards very slow, IBM Thinkpad with a 768Mhz CPU and 1G (which was hideously expensive when it was new) memory and it works great. Eclipse might be a bit of a pig on that setup, but what would a typical user need that that machine doesn't do?
- Gerz1219, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I think this is a pretty good argument. Dell can keep costs down by keeping the same exact hardware across a line, and just installing Ubuntu on a minority of the machines. All hardware runs on Windows, but only some hardware runs on Ubuntu without issues. Therefore, Dell will pick hardware that works well on both platforms. Hardware manufacturers don't have to pay attention to Linux in order to sell Linux boxes. They'll have to do it to sell Windows boxes.
- Novagenesis, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9@brstilson
Yup... cedega.. wine with commercial parts, and a pretty front end that crashes half the time.
I'm a computer programmer with 10 years linux experience and I've spent at least 6-8 hours trying to get WoW working "just so" to no avail. I've tried everything on the docs and on the site, and the slowdown makes it unusable. Wayyy too hit-or-miss.
Average user + Cedega = frozen system that requires hard reboot...hell, engineer + cedega = frozen system that requires hard reboot
PS: Goddamn comment genie thing..I've written 4 comments in 5 minutes and that's apparently "spam-level"..Is that new? I'm not commenting fast. - bcmiller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You are right but that's why it does matter.
This internet as an application future that you are talking about is only possible because of the success of the Free Software Movement (and to a large extent Richard Stallman, who should never retire @ whoever suggested it above). The internet largely runs on GNU/Linux.
The fact that you will use the internet and that your "device" will become less relevant is more reason to avoid vendor lock-in on that device. Using a free and free OS with free drivers on your hardware will ensure you keep access.
Why does the Dell story matter? It will allow more hardware compatibility and more open drivers for hardware that will allow true freedom of choice. As a best case, all of the companies that assist the MS vendor lock-in by supporting only MS Windows will also support FOSS and then you will be able to choose GNU/Linux or Windows based on it's merits alone. - prammy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@kibibytebrain
"Also, is it just me, or does it seem like Shuttleworth is in line to be the new king of open source at this rate? Finally Stallman and friends can be put into retirement."
Why slam RMS at all? You do realize that without him, there would effectively be no free software. Stuff like gcc, glibc etc were available for use by many other free software projects as well. The BSDs use gcc after all. Now if you mean his political views, he does not _force_ people to have free software only. And if it weren't for the assurance that other companies could not just take the source and make a competing proprietary product, companies like IBM, SGI, Sun would not have released their contributions to Linux.
Mark Shuttleworth is most definitely NOT the king of open source or free software. He is a popular face for well done linux distributions but please do not confuse free software with Linux distributions. Linux distros are the most visible product for Free software but its not the only one. Basically, let Mark do his thing, but don't make him the poster child for Free Software, simply because he is not. For example, source for Launchpad is still not available AFAIK. - brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9"Ehem...
Average user + wine"
Ehem...
Cedega - straxus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@novagenesis
Are you using an ATI card by chance? Cedega (and pretty much anything else in Linux using extensive 3D acceleration) plays much nicer with Nvidia cards. The ATI drivers are crap, and the most likely candidate for a system freeze. You probably already know this, but I just thought I'd throw it out there. My freezes vanished after switching. - JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I work for a company that will be competing with System76 soon and we will beat the ***** out of their prices (at the least their desktops). Can't say much now but think Core 2 Duo E6420 1 gig of "gaming" ram 800mhz timings 4-3-3-8 320gig SATA II and a graphics chip which supports pixel and vertex shading with Beryl running out of the box we've picked out some very nice cases and are debating over which to use.
We've been talking and talking we can sell them realistically for about $790 but we've decided to sell them for $777.
w00t - specialK16, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4enchilada...
that sounds so tasty.
I'm hungry. - Chandon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The "thin client future" is way overhyped. Desktop computers are massively powerful for very low prices. If you use them as thin clients, you're basically just forcing yourself to pay for the processing power a second time on a server.
Serverless distributed data storage / processing is much more interesting. - geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3http://groups.google.com/group/corel.wpoffice.office2000-linux/browse_thread/thread/4aa05b8bb5c70c2f
hplj4m seems to work. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Isn't comment abuse when people make a comment a reply to the first comment even though it's not actually a reply, in order to increase the visibility of information they think is particularly important? You didn't make your comment a reply to an early comment, so I don't think your comment was "comment abuse" at all. *shrug*
- inactive, on 02/25/2009, -0/+3Big risk? lol. Recently I heard that MS was putting some kinds of 'product activation' code, module or something like that (and it's not a rumor anymore. It's official now and has been verified by several american software developers, hackers and specially two indian hackers who has been cracking XP and Vista for a long time) into the bios of any PC or Laptop that has or will have Vista on it, only to make the product activation piece of crap (seriously, it's nothing but a big bunch of raw ***** because not only me, but anybody with a sound mind and body wouldn't and shouldn't have the desire to pay a company money for a product that they would never own legally in true sense, and a product that would choose to turn its customer into a bitch by commanding him/her that he/she can't install the product onto several systems or more than once) more stricter (although hackers were able to find a work-around on zero-day after vista was released). And as soon as I heard that, I just braked real hard and stayed away from dell's website, because I was almost about to order a laptop from them. But I don't want my hardware that I would pay for with my hard-earned money (and yes I don't do burglery to earn my salary) to be modified or altered by anybody.
Good news is that right after my decision of not ordering a laptop from dell, they announced that they would soon come up with linux preinstalled on their laptops and desktops and now here I am waiting for the big day. And I know for sure that millions of americans, europeans, spanish and people from all over the world are waiting for that day when they would be able to purchase something and call it their 'own' instead of having to worship a particular company for the rest of their lives.
I'm not a linux fanboy by any means, although I entirely deleted my windows installation and replaced it with Linux and gave my pc a new life. But seriously, Dell would not, by any possible means, loose sales. As a matter of fact, sales would increase manifold. Take my word for it. Nowadays most of the PC and laptop users are conscious and worried about their rights and freedom. If they weren't, millions and millions of users wouldn't have switched to Ubuntu already.
Of course MS has got some tricks up their sleeves and probably someone is gonna sue someone, but if someone from redmond is planning on playing with the linux community, he/she would be playing with danger. Windows is meant to be used by n00bs and kids and that's for sure, and as the old saying goes, "kids shouldn't play with fire".
Let's see where the game takes us. - JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Blackmask
Agreeing with you these games not being compiled to run on GNU/Linux isn't a shortcoming of GNU/Linux it's a shortcoming of those games anyone who can't ***** comprehend that probably doesn't even know what a compiler and we don't want them using our software anyway I've always said. =) - daradib, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3http://duggmirror.com/linux_unix/Mark_Shuttleworth_Free_Software_Milestone/
- prammy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@novagenesis:
Yea cedega causes a hard lock on my system as well, but I was able to get quite a few games working under plain old Wine, including WoW. I get like 50fps while in Shattrath so the performance is not all that bad at 1440x900 widescreen windowed mode.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Linux/Wine - specialK16, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It is called a thin-client. Say you have a very powerful server hosting Windows Server 2003 (or whatever OS with terminal services support). You don't want to spend much money in the computers of your employees, so you use a thin-client, a low end, low spec, computer capable connecting to the server and use it as the CPU, remotely displaying it in the thin client.
Now days, not a cost-effective solution for the whole world to use. Who will host those servers? Who will give the BIG amount of bandwidth needed? - generalloy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"My Dell laptop has an ATI card in it. Maybe Dell could push ATI to finally support the X composite extension so I could use AIGLX rather than XGL."
Or have ATI give specifications to free software developers so that they can do it themselves. If you use r300 and below cards, you'll find AIGLX and other things are supported better than in fglrx.
Most complaints about Linux are actually about ATI and nVidia's binary drivers.
Mark wants hardware developers to contribute to the upstream kernel, not just develop binary drivers as they do in Windows. - Chandon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Every one of the systems that System76 advertises will run Ubuntu fine, even the laptops with a Celeron and 512 megs of RAM. Remember that the Celeron M 410 is based on a Yonah (Intel Core Solo) core, which means that it's pretty fast - much faster than a Pentium 4 at the same clock speed.
As for advertising a mid-range machine, why? *Everyone* advertises their lowest price and then charges for upgrades - that's just normal in the online computer market. It's not like Dell or Lenovo does it some other way. It's not like their prices are out of line with their competitors for similar machines or something. - inactive, on 02/25/2009, -0/+2I own a ps3, wii, PSP (PSP is my most favourite because it allows me to play any of my favourite ps2/ps1 games as well the ones made for PSP only wherever I want, whenever I want. and add to that movies, music, internet etc). All the consoles that I own so far can go online at my will and PS3 even have a keyboard device nowadays. Lest I forget, let me also inform you, unixer, that there is one official linux OS made for PS3, which is called YellowDog Linux and Sony has hired its developers already.
If I still want to play Windows games on my computer, shouldn't you say that I have issues?
It's true that Windows is the best platform for playing latest 3D games, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they can't be played on Linux. For your information, Linux versions of Unreal Tournament and Quake 1, 2 and 3 were developed by their respective companies. If you can't play a particular windows game on Linux or can't find a linux version of it, blame the game manufacturer, not the OS's developers.
I believe the majority of people is (or should be) getting tired of game fanboys who, whenever ample opportunity arises, giggle and say "oh you can't play this and that on Linux. So refrain from using it.". Just because you can't do certain things on a particular OS doesn't necessarily mean you should reject it. First of all, nobody really gives a damn about your opinion, for one, and secondly, Linux has its advantages and disadvantages just the very same way Windows has. Almost everything that's been and will be invented has and will have certain advantages and disadvantages. If you deny this universal fact, you certainly need to go back to 3rd grade and start your education from the scratch.
Game fanboys like you are giving Linux a bad name but that's really fine with me. 'Cause I sincerely don't want n00bs like you to touch linux, let alone comment on it. You can play your favourite windows games on windows and give a flying f*** about every kinds of malware, spyware, viruses, OS's internal glitches, paying loads of money to Norton or other major anti-virus developers and upgrading your hardware, software every two weeks and losing huge money in the process whereas I can simply not give a f*** about the aspects mentioned above and enjoy quality free software (free as in freedom, not price. Remember that america is known to be the land of the free and it doesn't ever mean that if anyone comes to america, people or the government will provide him with free food and shelter) and play games on my PS3 running under yellow dog linux. Thanks so much for your worthless comment on and contribution to 'nothing'. - brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6Sorry for the comment abuse, but I took a look at the System76 site and their prices are deceptively low. For several of them, the price advertised is for a sub-1.5GHz Celeron processor, less than 1 GB of RAM, and a 40 GB hard drive. With specs like that it's pretty much useless. I wish sites would advertise honestly and actually advertise a price based on a mid-range spec, not the lowest of the low. You're going to pay at least $1,000 for a decent usable laptop no matter what OS is on it.
- JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@novagenesis
Now that's just not cool, don't put Ubuntu down like that. - Chandon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1starsky -
Web clients are pretty heavyweight. Firefox running gmail starts to thrash in 96 megs of RAM if you open a thread with multiple messages in it. Once you're talking about 32 bit processor that can run Firefox and 128+ megs of RAM, you're basically building a PC - and we've seen over and over again that PC hardware gets more powerful much more quickly than it actually gets cheaper.
You get tradeoffs like a 128 meg RAM module for $15 or a faster 256 meg RAM module that uses less power for $16 rather than having the 128 meg module only cost $9 (which is what it would take for computers to get cheaper rather than more powerful).
Additionally, servers get exponentially more expensive as you try to push them to greater performance. Doubling your RAM and processor count can increase the total price by a factor of 8, and the next step may increase the price again by a factor of 10. Would you buy 16 thin clients and a server for 16*$400 + $15,000 or would you buy 16 thick servents for 16*$450? -
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