Linux coming pre-installed on Dells?

[Geoff]

From Slashdot:

 

When Michael Dell took back the reins of he company he founded, one of the first things he did was to launch the feedback site Dell Idea Storm. Following up on the recent Slashdot discussion of the early results of this experiment — an overwhelming expressed desire for pre-loaded Linux — Dell reports on what it plans to do with this feedback. Quoting:

 

"[W]e are working with Novell to certify our corporate client products for Linux, including our OptiPlex desktops, Latitude notebooks and Dell Precision workstations. [On the question of which distro to choose:] "[T]here is no single customer preference for a distribution of Linux... We want users to have the opportunity to help define the market for Linux on desktop and notebook systems. In addition to working with Novell, we are also working with other distributors and evaluating the possibility of additional certifications across our product line.

 

It'll be interesting if they pull this off. However I'm rather sceptical that they will. What does everyone else think?

[webman]

Anything but Novell But it's a step in the right direction, and hopefully other OEMs will follow suit.

[Midget]

Anything but Novell But it's a step in the right direction, and hopefully other OEMs will follow suit.

 

it doesn't really matter as long as its free.

 

Novell SuSE would be a good choice as its a pretty simple flavour and as it's a large company, joe public would trust it more.

 

Personally I'd go with a Debian based one, KUbuntu maybe

[Geoff]

I'm worried that Microsoft will strong arm them into changing their mind. Most likely by threatening to stop the discounts on Windows software they get as an OEM partner.

 

Also Dell might shoot themselves in the foot by doing something silly. Like offering Linux for more money that the equivalent Windows Vista enabled PC

[localzuk]

I doubt Microsoft would do that though as Dell is the largest home PC supplier in the world. It therefore has a lot of weight behind it when discussing things like price on OS licenses. To put it bluntly, at the moment Microsoft has nothing to worry about if Dell offer Linux across the board as the demand for it will be restricted to hobby linux users and the few savvy home users that exist.

 

Things will be different if Dell actually try to advertise it as a feature/push it to people. That might upset things a bit but I doubt they are going to do this.

[mattx]

t'll be interesting if they pull this off. However I'm rather sceptical that they will. What does everyone else think?

 

Good luck to them I say. What I would like to see is a large company giving the end user the option of what OS to install when they first fire off the PC.

A nice menu, with various Linux Options, and of course the MS route. Explain to the user the Pros / Cons / Costings etc and they make their choice.

With todays large HDs having a seporate partition for housing these is not a problem.

[Midget]

MS was able to strongarm Dell in the past, and if Dell were to stop offering windows then their market share would plummet. If MS object, Dell will probably cave

 

i like matt's idea though, have a PC with both windows and a linux option, and you get a nice little GUI asking you which one you want and firing off the installer for it.

[daveyboy]

webman wrote:

Anything but Novell But it's a step in the right direction, and hopefully other OEMs will follow suit.

 

You dont like Novell, webman - any reason why? (I'm Interested)

[tscnmuk]

I don't really know what to think about this. Whereas it is a good idea, giving the user a choice of OS rather than having MS pushed upon them; MS is still the "standard" for what most people will be running at home/in the office so surely thats what should get taught?

 

Tom

[Geoff]

You dont like Novell, webman - any reason why? (I'm Interested)

 

Lot's of people don't like Novell atm. Mainly because of the MS/Novell Patent deal.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novell#Patent_Agreement_with_Microsoft

[webman]

tscnmuk: Mainly because of the MS deal, and secondly I just prefer Debian-based, Eg. Kubuntu. There was an article about SUSE in a recent LXF which highlighted the latest problems with GNOME over KDE, packaging problems and multimedia playback.

[tscnmuk]

I'm not trying to say I don't like Linux webman, I actually quite like it, however (and yes, this is due to my own lack of knowledge), at the moment its just a toy to me.

 

I know I will probabaly get pounced on now by linuxy people but please understand that I am not knocking it at all as an operating system. I actually run an Ubuntu box to play with as I do honestly want to further my knowledge. The only thing I would say about OEM's putting Linux on a machine from factory is that I can see people playing with it for half an hour before putting a dodgy copy of xp on.

 

Tom

[webman]

Not knocking you at all

 

Linux isn't for everybody, but a choice is better than no choice at all.

 

MS is still the "standard" for what most people will be running at home/in the office so surely thats what should get taught?

 

The only reason for this is because of Microsoft's monopoly and their 'deals' with OEMs (the way I understand it is - if an OEM preinstalls anything other than Windows, then said OEM has to pay MS more money. Please correct me if I'm wrong )

[tscnmuk]

Webman - From what I gather reading on here ( and tend to be very wrong so excuse me if I am ) your school uses predominately linux based clients? How do you find this to manage/support. I have always been very microsoft biased (not that I like them, but I just am).

 

Also can I put a shout to anybody who happens to be running a similar setup in the Lincolnshire/Cambridgeshire area as I genuinely would like to see a system of this nature in action. Linux is often something I have contemplated but feel it is outside my knowledge by too much to sucesfully impliment in a working enviroment.

[Midget]

For your bog standard office monkey, who only uses Word and Excel (and somehow earns more than me), a locked down version of linux running OpenOffice or MSOffice with CrossOver Office should suffice and safe the company thousands of readies.

[webman]

No, unfortunately we still run Windows clients - CC3 network But we have around 7 linux servers and 4 windows ones though.

[tscnmuk]

Woops - told you I tend to get things wrong. Anyway, does anybody else have a linux network? :

 

Tom

[Midget]

what do you do with so many servers?

[tscnmuk]

Save a fortune on heating the school? 8)

[Geoff]

A lot of our back end servers are Linux (printing, web filter, VLE, room booking, helpdesk, nagios, cacti). I'd like to extend this further to DHCP/DNS + File servers.

We have quite a few Linux based APs, print servers and other similar embedded devices.

We are moving in the direction of thin clients. So it's also likely we'll have old PCs converted to thin clients running Linux.

We might also be able to offer a Linux based terminal server in the future too, it's certainly something we've experimented with in the past (Edubuntu/LTSP).

[webman]

Linux does file serving, proxy/content filter, web, mail and ftp. 2 of those are embedded on the Buffalo NAS devices but still

[Geoff]

I was thinking along the lines of full blown Samba servers running shadow copy + DFS + ACLs though.

[tscnmuk]

We have actually looked into kusing some form of Linux as webfiltering as I have heard many good things about the opens ource content filters that are out there. Our current solution, provided by county but run and managed in house, is less than useless. That is where my knwoledge unfortunately stops though, products like DansGuardian. I have no idea about and as of yet, have not had the inclination to learn. I suppose it will just have to be a job for the April-August dead period. Does anybody have any idiots advice for DansGuardian?

 

To bring this thread back to topic, a lot of webby type servers come preinstalled with different versions of linux so I suppose preinstallation on workstations is only the next logical step.

 

Tom

[john]

what do you do with so many servers?

If you think Craig has lots, you should visit my cupboard, 20 and still counting They get bigger, faster and more powerful each time I refresh, and I love it