News Dell to sell Linux PCs

I realised that there could be many other reasons as to why Dell chose to support Linux but whatever the reasons are it can't be bad for opensource development.

Dell's choice to support Linux provides more variety for the consumer aswell and is sure as hell gonna boost the popularity of Linux and other opensource variants..

Therefore, I think this is a good move by them.

 

Thats fantastic, if you just want a basic office machine, you can get all the software you need for free, I'd buy one!

 

Linux is all about CHOICE, and dell is now just offering one from the manufacture, this may mean my new laptop may just be a dell... I wonder if this has anything to do with that guy last year who forced dell to refund the XP portion of his laptop

 

personaly I think this may be due to all but the high end dells (which incidently arn't the big sellers) been sold with vista home basic to try and keep the prices low. Vista home basic is so unbelivably crippled that it is seriously going to displease alot of people that use it:

*No windows restore... the newb fix all
*No areo glass (what apears to be the primary feature of the new Os!)
*No media tools (apart from media player)
*No hard disk eyncrption (the lack of it may make the user feel insecure)
*No built in remote desktop and networking tools (oh noes I can't setup my wi-fi)
*No power management for laptops
And most importatly no new "premium games"

That is one very crippled OS.... which costs alot.

Just look at the DELL leaflets this is what there shipping there pcs with.

 

You mean Mac users

 

this can only be a good thing..... and kind of accelerate the production of drivers for linux.

 

I've been using Linux for a few weeks and IMO it is not suitable for the average joe. Mainly because the Linux community has taken care not to make it user-friendly in the way Windows is.

Example - I download the latest firefox.tar.gz (or any other tarball). Now what do I do? Explain to the noob who's bought a Linux box. I should add I've seen answers to such questions on Linux forums, generally penned by Linux fans who may know their stuff but have the communication skills of a goldfish.

It can be made easier - Slax uses program modules, copy into the modules folder and the program self-installs. Why don't all distros adopt this or a similar simple system? Why does Joe need to read the manual? Most Windows users don't.

In an Office environment, where the end user isn't expected to change anything, Linux is OK. For home use, it's for people who prefer tinkering with the car to driving it.

 

quite frankly, i agree with this so much
This is probably one of the biggest gripes i have with Linux, it really isn't n00b friendly

I tried Knoppix before, and i had the same problem, how do you install a tar.gz file (or whatever) its just not self explanatory at all
One of the biggest things IMO that is going to stop Linux being readily distributed, is the fact that it just isn't standard enough, and its not user friendly enough, and a lot of people who use Linux have their heads so far up their own ass its not even funny

Now i have 2 Linux boxes in my house, but they are both servers (1 firewall - IPCop and 1 Internet server - Fedora Core 5) and neither have a keyboard, mouse or monitor connected, so a lot of non-standard things have to be done by the command line, and its not simple

Maybe if games were on Linux i would learn it and swap to it, but for now both my main PC's are windows based, because that's what i use, that's what is easy to use and that is where most of my software is

Also, trying to compile software on Linux boxes is the biggest PITA (pain in the ass) ever i mean that is the one thing there just isn't much good help on

Just my $0.02

 

to be fair, most linux distros do include this. Gentoo has portage, Debian (ubuntu) has apt get. Basically, though you *can* download these tarballs to do your install, there are easier and faster ways to do it - ways that even Windows doesn't have duplicated.

For example, Windows doesn't have a feature where you can go online and update every program on your computer in one shot to the most recent version - but Gentoo does, and so does Debian. Parts of each OS are far more civilized than the other. Rather than worrying about automatic updates for Windows, updates for FF, updates for this and that, you can click on one button that does an update world....call it a day. THAT is easy.

I agree with the basis of your point - not all of linux is ready for mainstream. Then again, as a Vista user, neither is Vista. Either way, it's a choice and each one has some strengths.

 

Maybe I'm off in delusional land, but I can't help but think this is a good thing for M$ as well. Now they get a real opportunity to hype and "sell" the user on why one would pick Vista over Linux, and tout all the advatages to it instead of just falling back on "well who else is there". We saw a bit of that marketing happen with the launch of Vista, but its all dried up now.

Also any competition might be a good excuse for M$ to tighten up on lacking drivers for Vista as well. They can now engage the market as a OS "player" and not as the OS "Monopoly".

I think this is a win-win for both camps.

 

I would like to see someone besides apple being distributed mainstream and support can only get better from here then, I do not think it would be easy at first but a lot will happen for linux when this gets bigger. Good or bad is totally debatable.

 

True; I'm using Mepis Linux (now based on Ubuntu) on one of my machines and have never added or updated anything except through Synaptic (apt-get GUI) - It works quite well. BUT - now that Ubuntu is moving to use Linspire's CNR (Click and Run) (pimp my own thread link) it should get even better easier to install and update software in some distros.

 

So you're saying it's the Firefox team who are the real anal ones, not offering alternatives to make life a bit easier?


/me puts away **** shovel

 

Dude? apt-get firefox. portage firefox. It's not hard. Add it to the world once (it's pre-installed on most distros) and it will update with the world in one click...what's the issue? Maybe I"m misunderstanding the deal you're making of it.

 

well apart from not all distros have apt - not all stuff actually distributes through apt either
There's also yum (which i use on my fedora core box) but again the same deal as apt

although at least fedora core understands an rpm <_<

I think his point is, Linux is not simple, and although some stuff on it is pretty simple, some things which are simple as anything on windows, are quite hard on Linux, and of course if you ask anyone for help you get the holier then thou attitude that a lot of Linux users have

 

The thing with linux development is that its done by un-paid users who dont care if its up to your standards or in any way user friendly all the developer cares about is that its good for his uses. alot of windows users dont understand that

dont all distros have a package manager of some sort?

 

I haven't learned you well

And installing from source is an ever repeating procedure of unpacking source ; ./configure ; make ; make install and you are done...

All big and selfrespecting distro's (except LFS) have package managers nowadays...

So does gentoo, RPM is a package you can install, and with that piece of software you can just 'install' RPM packages... (actually, an RPM package is more like a tar/zip then an actual install)

While this is true for a lot of cases, it also is wrong for even more. And while a lot of people complain about Linux support, I don't know what they are whining about. Ok, Linux developers expect you to at least use google. But if you really have a problem, they will be nice and helpful. I usually get my in dept support via IRC, most packages have a channel somewhere... I call it Live support 24/7

EDIT:

T B H, Y E S And there is plenty more where that came from...

 

Yes help can be found but not all developers are nice enough to do that, its normally random people (not to be offensive in any way) isnt that help through irc or fourms

lol eh confusing i didn't even know that my Firefox wasn't called Firefox.

 

1) a lot of users (read as noobs) dont know you can google for support, this is true, i hate it, but it is true

2) if they do not know you can google to find support / what the weather will be like, do you really think they know what IRC is? - its like MSN innit? *shakes head*

if lots of people started using linux, there would have to be some standard distro to easy help and support for the masses.

the code would have to be tested, commented and checked to make sure it meets x y and z standards for a lot of things, but which distro would you check?

Users have grow up with windows, and even though noobuntu has stolen all the good ideas of ergonomics and intuitive designs of windows, MS will always have the larger budget to push into RnD for their software to bring out better more intuitive software -- where as linux has no real funds other than some old rich men (ubuntu) so the RnD budget is very limited.

also the standard tools for a noobuser :

MSN - talking to his mates innit!
IE7 - lookin at pr0n innit!
Word/Works - doin my essays inniiit!

now, you can replace MSN with AMSN or GAIM, IE7 with Firefox or other browser, and Word/Works with OO, however the learning curve // the backwards step in functionality will make users wonder why they are bothering.

Some one said that if i look back at office 3.1 it was shite (compared to office 2k7) yes , that is true, but times have moved on, as has office, yet Open Office still lags behind MS Office, so why bother using an application that is WORSE than the one you are used to at the moment? That would be like using a teleprompter when you could use a 21" wide screen TFT instead...

 

Well, this will be interesting. I just hope they go with Ubuntu, because virtually every other desktop distribution is total rubbish.