see http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/desktopedition
” Ubuntu ‘Just Works’

We’ve done all the hard work for you. Once Ubuntu is installed, all the basics are in place so that your system will be immediately usable.
”

That is true for installation from CD. How much more free from problems can Ubuntu be pre-installed? It is a desktop GUI with menus. Everyone who knows how to surf can use it, even a newbie. GNU/Linux is on about 70 million desktops today. There aren’t that many GNU/Linux geeks in the world but there are that many PC users willing to try GNU/Linux. ASUS sold millions of eee PCs with GNU/Linux to newbies: kids, women, students, and mobile folks. They scarcely mentioned GNU/Linux because GNU/Linux is not a problem for newbies when installed in the factory. There is an abundance of documentation that comes with the installation, so once a newbie has it booted, the are in business. Other OEMs have maxed-out their supply chains selling low-end machines with GNU/Linux installed. Those millions of machines installed form a base of consumers who will accept GNU/Linux pre-installed for back-to-school and Christmas/birthdays. They tell their friends that those systems are OK for newbies. New models of these things come out every month and the Atom will be available in quantity soon so another bottleneck is gone.

I am a teacher. I have introduced GNU/Linux to thousands of newbies. Once they start clicking that mouse, I have to lead, follow, or get out of the way. All barriers are gone at that point. There are a few individuals who have trouble with a GNU/Linux GUI but they are the same people who phone a relative asking how to start and app, edit a document on XP.

For example, I installed a complete GNU/Linux system using Ubuntu in a school with 500 students. Three staff members needed more hand-holding than all the other users combined, two because they wanted more, more, more and one because he could not navigate a menu after dozens of examples. Apt-get fixed most of the problems of those who wanted more. One out of 600 users had difficulty with Ubuntu. Staff had a one-hour intro and passwords for their students. Students had no intro except those who attended my classes, the high school kids.

If GNU/Linux is not ready for newbies then neither are MacOS or XP because the GUIs are all closely related. Since many millions of folks have little problem with those other OS, I cannot see how GNU/Linux is any problem for them. Newbies are often not locked-in. Newbies are often kids who have to fear to click on anything. Adults who have installed a virus by clicking on things in that other OS may be gun-shy but that is for stuff from the web not the desktop.

I have not used XP seriously for many years. This year, I had a lab dual booting. I was absolutely amazed that folks tolerate pop-ups and stuff preventing use of an XP system for a lengthy period of time after logging in. My students mostly used GNU/Linux that booted in 22s and let them use their desktop within a few seconds of logging in. Newbies appreciate little things like that. How is that a problem for them? My students used a GNU/Linux terminal server and liked to get into OpenOffice in 2s. XP had nothing better for them in terms of selection of applications or performance. Certainly GNU/Linux was easier to use for them and most of them were newbies to GNU/Linux. A few were experienced before I met them and they were glad to see GNU/Linux in my lab.

We tested several new machines running Vista in our lab. Not one person who saw them liked Vista. They all observed that Vista was slower than anything we had in the lab (side by side tests) and newbies to Vista certainly have problems, pre-installed or not. One newbie to Vista asked my help in setting up a box with Vista pre-installed adding a printer and some applications/AV stuff. I have 40 years experience with all kinds of computers. It took hours to accomplish this task with many re-re-reboots. We never did get the AV stuff to install. The response of the newbie Vista user? “If I had known how much trouble this would be I never would have bought it.” Is Vista ready for newbies? I think not. If that other OS is not ready for newbies, it is a straw man to claim that GNU/Linux is incompatible with newbies.

If one looks on the web one finds many newbies having problems with GNU/Linux. They are not typical. They are usually dealing with some rare bug or installing new hardware. Many millions of PC owners can do nothing about bugs in that other OS and they cannot install hardware, too. Lose ‘95 and ‘98 shipped with no security, tens of thousands of bugs and more malware and they were ready for newbies, apparently. GNU/Linux is a far superior OS to anything M$ has produced since, even for newbies.

There are distros with blank desktops that might puzzle a newbie but Ubuntu and others are very user-friendly.

1. Dell and Canonical HAVE posted some videos on YouTube and elsewhere. In fact, we offer up those videos on http://www.workswithu.com, a sister site to The VAR Guy.

2. This isn’t about the Dell/M$ relationship. Remember, Dell had the guts to introduce Ubuntu systems the year Vista launched. Such a scene would have been IMPOSSIBLE to imagine in 1995, when MSFT launched Windows 95.

3. Advertising? To whom? You can’t expect novices to know what Linux is, how it works, or why it’s a good choice. My family quickly adapted to Linux once I got the Ubuntu PC. But novice consumers should not be buying these systems. If Dell pushed these PCs on novices, it would hurt rather than help the Linux movement at this stage.

I offer these thoughts to stir conversation. Although we disagree with each other, I appreciate the fact that you’ve offered up extensive thoughts on our site.

Best
-jp

or not.

Ubuntu is designed for newbies. On most installations, newbies have few problems. With installation by Dell on compatible hardware, problems will be less. I have introduced a lot of newbies to GNU/Linux using Debian. Even young children can deal with it. Ubuntu/Canonical is doing the support.

No. This is not about newbies. It is about the Dell/M$ relationship. A few thousand Ubuntus per month is under the radar. If Dell became serious, sales of that other OS would drop and Dell would be punished. M$ can no longer forbid GNU/Linux, but they can charge higher licence fees for Vista and that would hurt Dell in competition with other OEMs who keep getting the lowest prices. Nothing else explains the weirdness of Dell’s sites.

Look at any retail site. No seller in their right mind tries to discourage customers from buying a product, any product. Think what it would take to make newbies comfortable with Dell+Ubuntu:
1)a few videos on Youtube or Dell’s site demonstrating how to use the product.
2)some documentation on the site.
3)some advertising.

Would those steps take some sales away from M$? Yes. Would it hurt Dell? No. A sale is a sale. Would the total sales increase? Yes. They would bring newbies to GNU/Linux via Dell. Where is the downside except M$ gets less? Should Dell be concerned about that in the sense of sound decisions about business? No. M$ can sell its product at reasonable prices in a competitive market. Dell gains nothing buy preserving the monopoly and must be losing out on a hot market.

The goal is to get true believers to buy the systems as Linux continues to mature. Dell isn’t perfect. But at least they actually offer Ubuntu to consumers. That’s a lot more than other big PC companies do in the consumer space.

1)A search for “thin client” with or without quotes yields a Latitude XT, “thin and light” notebook as the first hit. Of 13 hits, only one is a Wyse “Winterm” thin client for $349.99 CDN.

2)A search for Linux does find a link to Ubuntu stuff right off. This is an improvement. I guess it pays to complain. Still the link provided has “wouldn’t you rather have Vista?” hazards all along. Other links have equipment with Vista OS. Strange. Really strange. There is no feeling that the continuing relationship with Ubuntu includes integration in the Dell infrastructure. Why can GNU/Linux not be on radio buttons/drop-down tabs (with prices) on the site?

1)They push Vista mightily while one has to dig or memorize Dell.x to find products with GNU/Linux. Search is better with Google than with Dell’s own search facility.

2)I have seen zero advertising of GNU/Linux or Ubuntu from Dell. It pays to advertise, doesn’t it?

3)Dell is divisive. They have units which compete with each other but not with M$. Requiring customers to be in a fixed category and denying them access to other products/quantities is weird.

4)Dell does not push thin clients/low-end machines where GNU/Linux shines.

5)Dell does not sell identical hardware with M$/Ubuntu choices. This makes it very hard for GNU/Linux to compete on price. This is illegal anti-competitive behaviour in my country.

Why are thin clients and GNU/Linux systems so hard to find on Dell’s sites? If I were wanting to sell such products, they would have a prominent place: search/links/selection of OS. Dell appears to want to maintain its sweet relationship with M$ by no pushing alternatives. That is short-sighted. They will not be able to catch up to other OEMs who catch the wave of adoption of GNU/Linux which started in 2007 and is already a hundred times larger than the ripple caused by Dell.

Without radical change, Dell is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Btw, I read this article on an Inspiron 1420 + Ubuntu preinstall – Microsoft tax . Three Ubuntu releases later, it is still a great machine.