The VAR Guy is choosing his words carefully for this blog entry. He doesn’t know for certain if Dell plans to pre-load Red Hat Linux on desktop PCs. But circumstantial evidence pointing to that possibility is mounting. Here are the facts.
First, Dell has publicly stated that it plans to announce a Linux desktop strategy within a few weeks. The company wrapped up a Linux customer survey on March 23. Shortly thereafter, Dell announced that it was prepping Linux desktops and notebooks. Wonderful. Three cheers for freedom of choice in the software market.
But which Linux will Dell choose? Michael Dell himself is running Ubuntu Linux at home–in addition to three Windows-based PCs. So there’s growing speculation that Dell will offer Ubuntu on selected systems. If it’s good enough for Michael, it’s good enough for the rest of us–right?
But wait. Hold everything. Now, sources close to Red Hat say the company could have some desktop-related news to share in a few weeks or by the summer at the latest.
So let’s review the situation: Dell is prepping Linux desktops. Red Hat is prepping potential desktop PC news. Hmmm. Coincidence, right? Could be… but The VAR Guy suspects otherwise. Red Hat’s strong position on corporate servers makes it a natural option for administrator workstations from Dell. And it’s possible to imagine Dell offering a mix of Red Hat and Ubuntu Linux.
Where does that leave Novell SuSE Linux? The VAR Guy is still digging around Dell’s desktop and mobile businesses for the answer to that question.
Interact: Add a Comment | Trackback Link | Permalink
Share: digg | del.icio.us | Technorati | StumbleUpon
Subscribe: RSS Feed
_3.gif&contenttype=gif "ManageEngine")
Dell would be foolish not to pre-install Red Hat. It’s the version most CIOs know. Ubuntu is far less known in the corporate world.
The people that requested these Linux notebooks and desktops are Linux enthusiasts. I doubt Red Hat would even be on their list, so the intelligent thing to do, would be to at least offer both, but definitely Ubuntu.
Have a look at this one:
Red Hat Linux Not Likely To Be Offered On Dell Desktop PCs, Pacific Crest Says
,—-[ Quote ]
| Dell does sell some workstations with Red Hat Linux already installed;
| but CEO Michael Dell indicated recently that the company has been
| reluctant to back any particular variety of Linux for the desktop.
| In an interview with the Web site DesktopLinux.com in March, he
| indicated that the Ubuntu version has lately been the most popular
| choices of its users seeking to use Linux.
`—-
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2007/04/11/red-hat-linux-not-likely-to-be-offered-on-dell-desktop-pcs-pacific-crest-says/
http://tinyurl.com/22jtwx
Also bear in mind that Dell himself uses Ubuntu GNU/Linux.
Part of what needs to happen for this to work but seems to be missing in a lot of these speculation articles, is the support side of selling linux computers. A tech support agreement with Red Hat to service the O/S side would go a long way in making this profitable for Dell. JMHO
The same could be said for Installing SuSe (SLED10) as we have found Novell support far superior to that of RH
All I am bothered about is good i.e complete Linux hardware support so I can use any distro I want. I am looking for a new laptop and it is a mine field trying to make sure I get one that i know will work without having to use workarounds etc because of no drivers being released by the manufactures.
People who will order Linux right out of the box are the people who knows what they want. For new starter on Linux, they shouldn’t care which distro to choose, because they have no prior Linux experience to compare with. So, I think Linux driver support on wide range of distro is far more important than arguing which Linux distro to choose.
It doesn’t matter which version of linux they preinstall and support. the win is knowing that you can buy a system where everything works flawlessly on linux. if it works on one, it can be made to work on another with little effort.
1.It is important which linux they install, the Ubuntu forums are far more alive than any other. On distrowatch.com it’s the only distro with the page hit ranking growing everyday and being far ahead of any other, leaving those like openSUSE every day further behind.
2.It is important to have full driver support.
3.It is important to be very user friendly and feature-rich.
And a few other conditions including support.
If any of these ‘conditions’ aren’t met, it will most probably fail - I’m pretty sure Dell understands that. I hope so.
Dell was suppose to this along time ago woth loading linux. I dont think it will happen I would like to see HP really push this too then giving dell some competion then maybe dedll will start loading it. There needs to be a marketing blitz too to promote linux advantages.
I would have to say from experience with newer users of linux that Ubuntu is not the easy to use choice for most. How do you explain a simple routine like setting the picture folder screensaver to point to the folder you want without making that newbie go to a terminal and do a bunch of hacking that is not necessary. I have seen many new people think linux sucks by starting out on ubuntu, even if I myself think its good. Thye’d be better off with a more better built out of the box distro with a nice control center and a more normal way of doing things.
I prefer RedHat too. But which Red Hat? Enterprise is expensive, Fedora is too cutting edge. Maybe Dell buyers can get Enterprise for cheap!
Your ‘picture folder screensaver’ issue is pointless. It’s as right as one(some newbie) can say ‘windows is crap for it didn’t recognize my sound, I’m a newbie, how do I know which drivers it needs? And why would I know how to setup sound drivers?’
Or take it another way: “I’m a newbie, I can set my toolbar fully transparent in KDE making a right-click by customizing its properties, windoze is such a crap that doesn’t even have such an option”.
Got it? One has always to customize the desktop and depending on your needs/wishes it will be more or less painless, and windows is no better from this point of view.
I certainly wasnt saying windows was better by no means. Just thats what I have heard from new users, and that was one example of what happened. I put them on a different linux and they liked it better, easy to use ultimately….thats what my point was. Pointless to you, but it certainly wasnt to my mother.
Good. Ubuntu has its flaws too. However, the usual mistake when talking someone into moving to Linux is saying that it’s perfect or ‘much better’ than windows because the user inevitably thinks of this as of ‘the whole windows interface and widgets + bonuses’. IMO it’s important to let know/remind the user that he’s gonna have a learning curve, no matter how easy the desktop might be and also emphasize on the benefits of this learning.
As others have already posted, just knowing that Dell has models X, Y, and Z running some form of Linux will be a big boost. At least those machines will very likely be able to run whatever flavor I want to use. But I do hope Dell makes a “practice” of giving deferential treatment in the future to vendors who supply Linux drivers with all of their hardware. If that large of a company began to demand Linux drivers for all products from their vendors, we would see a dramatic change in the landscape.
As for which flavor of Linux is easiest for newbs, IMO Ubuntu (which is what I use) is not the easiest. It gets better all the time, but others are easier. And Mepis is a better “KDE-Ubuntu” than Kubuntu. But of course that is all just my opinion.
I agree with above posters that Ubuntu is good, but certainly not the easiest for newbies.
I am doing Linux now in my 3th year ( windows free ) and for the last 9 months, I only install PCLinuxOS for total beginners, explaining to them that once they got the hang of it, they should try something else, like Mandriva, Mephis .etc.
Hardware support is (or should be) the number one issue. As for the desktop, Ubuntu is a good choice if Canonical offers a Dell a deal with 1 to 3 yrs of support from Dell’s Desktop Linux PC customers. In my experience with converting windows users over to linux, Ubuntu has turned alot of people I know away. Then when I have convinced them to try another flavor of linux I’ll usually install a Mandriva system for them. Mandriva probably doesn’t seem like a good distro for most, but it is VERY newbie friendly, and acts alot like a windows system. I personally use Gentoo but I doubt any one will buy a Dell with pre-installed Gentoo. I say go with Ubuntu and Mandriva.
I have installed both Ubuntu Edgy and OpenSuse 10.2 on my Inspiron 1510. Of the two, the OpenSuse distro installed with the least amount of hassles (wireless setup went more smoothly with the OpenSuse box). The OpenSuse distro makes it easier to blend desktop and server functionality and makes a better developer box, IMHO. Ubuntu had broader support for multimedia apps (at least as far as binaries go) for tasks like CD / DVD ripping / authoring, etc. From a commercial perspective, it would make sense to install a distro with built-in support (Novell, Red Hat), and roll the subscription into the selected (1,2,3-year) warranty, just as they do with current offerings based on Windows.
BTW dear Ubuntu users when was the last time you tried Fedora, CentOS or RHEL ?
You might like to try FC6, CentOS5 or RHEL5 or perhaps test the waters of F7
Cheers,
Peace people
We love you