Linux Preinstalled

Dell picks Ubuntu for Linux PCs

News.com wrote:

Dell is trying a second time to sell personal computers with Linux preinstalled, this time using the up-and-coming Ubuntu version of the open-source operating system.

Are you going to buy one? Will this begin to turn the tide of the industry? Yes, I know Dell has tried this before, but market conditions are continually changing.

Transparency gone mad, if you ask me.

I suspect Dell will learn the hard way the dangers of paying too much attention to the noisy kids on their blog site....

AndyC wrote:

Transparency gone mad, if you ask me.

I suspect Dell will learn the hard way the dangers of paying too much attention to the noisy kids on their blog site....

With all the extra crap Dell always puts onto their boxes, I think this will make a bunch of people really hate Ubuntu, and will, ultimately, increase off-the-shelf buys of Vista.

Or piracy of Vista. One or t'other.

The OEM Windows costs you less than buying a retail one, while the OEM Linux costs you more than downloading yourself.

AndyC wrote:

Transparency gone mad, if you ask me.

I suspect Dell will learn the hard way the dangers of paying too much attention to the noisy kids on their blog site....

I remember how they started idea storm. It did not require any one to login to cast their vote and there was no demote. It was sent to digg+slashdot and they got owned.

fdisk wrote:

Dell picks Ubuntu for Linux PCs 
Are you going to buy one? Will this begin to turn the tide of the industry? Yes, I know Dell has tried this before, but market conditions are continually changing.

No, and No.

Having seen a friend wrestle with the supposedly 'easy to use' Ubuntu, I'm not impressed, and find it incredible that anyone would dare to suggest that Linux is in any way 'ready for Grandma'.

I presume Dell will be farming out Tech support to Canonical?  If I were Dell I certainly wouldn't want to sink money into setting up a support deparment for an unproven market.

--
Badgerguy

Yes but your missing one thing...

The reason why this is such a good idea, is that dell will (hopefully) make sure that the linux install will work with ALL of the hardware out of the box.

Have you ever tried to get linux to reconize hardware AFTER the linux install?

Example?  If you have TV out on your video card, or 5.1 sound on your sound card(haven't tried this one in a while, maybe it works better)  or heaven forbid you want a wireless network card to work on your linux box...


and if any linux geeks want to say that i don't know what i'm talking about... tell me how to get my dlink wireless networking card to work on FC6.  I would be GREATLY appreciative....

When will it stop? The minute the linux community wants it installed on a PC where they have a TPM chip? Or some other DRM issue?

It's nice that Dell's doing this but Ubuntu is the wrong distribution.

It's not secure enough to be ready for a mass of users and not stable enough either. Far too many bugs and glitches.

JasonOlson wrote:



I honestly think this is GREAT news (yes, even as a Microsoft employee). There is no denying that competition is GOOD for the consumer (granted, too many options can be bad).

If this turns out to be successful for Dell, it could be a great way to "encourage" Microsoft to win by quality and innovation. That's assuming, of course, that we don't act like "Old Microsoft" and find some underhanded way to make Dell change back (PLEASE don't do this Microsoft!!!!!)

Your a good man Jason.

We can only hope Microsoft will let the little guy enter the market before competing with their checkbooks.

I think the main problem with captialism is companies are allowed to  become so big and powerful that potential competition is smashed before they become any threat at all.

And I'm not just talking about Microsoft either. Think of Walmark and how they used predatory pricing to smash many local small buisnesses.

Heh well, its a good thing its preinstalled since Ubuntu won't boot on Dell's best selling laptops.

Xaero_Vincent wrote:



It's nice that Dell's doing this but Ubuntu is the wrong distribution.

It's not secure enough to be ready for a mass of users and not stable enough either. Far too many bugs and glitches.

You harp on this every time Ubuntu is mentioned. Sure Ubuntu may not be as secure as it could be, but no operating system is. From my experience, SELinux causes strange, hard to find problems with a lot of common applications, so I'll bite the bullet and not run it since I trust the rest of the system. I find the constant berating of Ubuntu security to be a bit hypocritical in light of ridiculous vulnerabilities in Windows like the animated cursor exploit.

If the machines are the same then this is great.

Dell laptop, Ubuntu, dual boot with Vista MSDN license....Cheap as chips!

I really can't see ubuntu wanting to 'infect' the OS with all the free crap, which means Dell can't make money off it, which means it will be the same price as Vista?

Plus, how many of the people who have their software preloaded have actually got linux versions of the applications? Based on what I uninstalled on my dell, I think none.

Good move, but I don't think it will be as great as many think. 

From Ubuntu's point of view, this is great as they get big backers and hopefully their OS will have much better hardware detection going forward...

Ubuntu isn't secure at all; well no more secure than XP. It has no active security features.

All it has is a firewall and a sudo account.

The same thing Mac OS X has and it failed miserbly against Vista.

SELinux is necessary or at least some MAC implementation: RSBAC, PaX, GrSecurity etc. SELinux is barely a hassle with the SELinux troubleshooting tool.

On top of SELinux or w/e, Ubuntu needs things like ASLR, Exec-Shield, /dev/mem write locking, ELF DH, pointer encyrption, buffer overflow checking, variable reordering, stack protection, heap checks, so on.

Vista has some of these but Ubuntu has zero. Any attack vector could take Ubuntu down in a hurry.

And on top of that, Ubuntu is buggy in most releases. Not as bad as Mandriva but still noticable. Only LTS releases tend to be acceptable in the respect.

glennyboiwpg wrote:

Yes but your missing one thing...

The reason why this is such a good idea, is that dell will (hopefully) make sure that the linux install will work with ALL of the hardware out of the box.

But doing that is going to cost Dell. Will enough people really order Linux machines to make that worthwhile? And how many of those  that do, regardless of how much they might whine about paying for Windows, would have ordered a Dell PC anyway?

The cynic in me is just saying this is a way for Dell to grab head-lines because they need good head-lines.

Xaero_Vincent wrote:

Ubuntu isn't secure at all; well no more secure than XP. It has no active security features.

You're looking at academic security. When was the last time a Linux vulnerability lead to a wide scale security crisis? (Code Red, Sasser) The "security through obscurity" argument may have some degree of truth on the desktop, but not on the server side. Linux may not be secure enough for you on paper, but the fact is it stands up to the real world.