Dell with pre-installed Linux coming soon

democrates

Due to overwhelming demand on the dell ideastorm site the company has committed to rolling out pc's and laptops with linux pre-installed click

Redhat and suse have been available for some time on the sme/corporate side but this will be the first time it's available to the soho market. What's even more encouraging is they seem to be saying that they'll listen to what the community wants and talk to distro suppliers about certification.

I wouldn't expect them to support a raft of distros, but if the choice includes say linspire and ubuntu it'll be a huge benefit. I mention linspire not because I want it, but because it is a more plausible first step towards full floss for many win users who want those proprietary codecs.

At last I can upgrade my inspiron 2500

aidan_walsh

Though they say they are working with "other distributors", imagine my shock to see the recently Microsoft partnered Novell as the only named distribution so far.

democrates

aidan_walsh wrote:

Though they say they are working with "other distributors", imagine my shock to see the recently Microsoft partnered Novell as the only named distribution so far.

lol.
Maybe sick boy Ballmers embrace..FUD strategy is working on bunny biz buyers, "if you're mad enough to ignore vista then go with novell and there's no legal risk cos we're patent buddies but go with any other distro and by jingo we'll probably sue your ass, we'll get back to you on the exact ip involved but we've hired SCO's old attorneys so watch out". He's headed for a padded room that fella.

NutJob

They need to get a non-ms backed linux distro on there as at the moment it smells like a cartel.

Can i get my pc with no os please Dell just leave it blank and ill get my debian disks out.

leeroybrown

The more interesting piece of information there is that Dell will extend their "No Extra Software Option". The option to buy a piece of hardware with no unused OS, software discs and other junk would be nice. Recent Dell custom Windows installs I have seen have been a bloated mess, hopefully they won't do the same to the Linux install.

Historically in cases where Dell offered Linux (RedHat) as option it was actually more expensive than picking the cheapest version of Windows and wiping it. Hopefully this doesn't repeat itself.

bman

Most people in the linux community wouldn't be very interested in buying the Novell installation computer but think of the audience this will get to. How many people have never heard of linux?! At least this way they find out theres an alternative to MS and they can then look around on the net or wherever and find out that theres loads of flavours. And they can download and try almost all of them for free.

Without this most of these people would end up buying a computer with windows on it anyway so this can't hurt.

aidan_walsh

Dell says "Ah jaysus lads. Ye got the totally wrong end of the stick, loike."

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=linux_and_unix&articleId=9011907&taxonomyId=122&intsrc=kc_top

The company said today that the note was just about certifying the hardware for being ready to work with Novell SUSE Linux, not an announcement that the computers would be loaded and sold with the operating system in the near future.

"Our point of view is that we are listening to our Linux customers," said Jeremy Bolen, a Dell spokesman. He noted that the company already offers factory-installed Linux on some specific Dell Precision workstations for high-end corporate users, but is not currently installing the OS on its other laptop or desktop machines. "However, I won't rule out the option of expanding the pre-installation program at a future date," Bolen said.

Oracle

I haven't tried Novell Linux but as far as I can remember from the IT course I did Novell is not the most user friendly OS. Surely Ubuntu, Linspire or Fedora would be the more logical choice for first time Linux users?

democrates

Ok in the original note:

As this community knows, there is no single customer preference for a distribution of Linux. In the last week, the IdeaStorm community suggested more than half a dozen distributions. We don't want to pick one distribution and alienate users with a preference for another. 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. We are continuing to investigate your other Linux-related ideas, so please continue to check here for updates.

So though "We don't want to pick one distribution and alienate users with a preference for another." now we're advised that they're reserving the option to do just that.

Thanks Michael, way to win hearts and minds with an innovative strategy of raising expectations with fluffy buddy talk then adding a shower of cagey ifs buts and maybes. Time will tell substance from style and whether ideastorm produces a firestorm of disaffected prospects.

Nutjob is right on, at least start the ball rolling with the option of no software bar the bios, they already offer this to business customers on some products.

Capt'n Midnight

As long as they remember to price it accordingly. If they still sell windows bundles with all it's discounts and free offers of delivery / double memory for about the same price as one with linux then you are better off getting the windows one -
- increased resale value
- you can try to claim back the microsoft tax
- it's handy for games ?

In the past Dell just sold/supported Red-Hat (and sco / novell if you go back further ) , be interesting to see how well they sell if they put linux on a dimension or inspiron