While Dell recommends the use of Windows XP Professional, in France Dell and Mandriva have announced the availability of a Dell laptop preloaded with Mandriva Linux. This is the first time any Dell laptop with pre-installed Linux has been sold or supported by Dell. Previously, only Dell N-Series Precision Workstations with Red Hat Linux were available from Dell. 
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Member since:
2005-07-06
The system seems a little expensive considering you can find laptops w/ XP on them for about $100 less in the US. However, I'm all for it.
It would be nice to have a laptop that doesn't need to be kludged to work w/ Linux, such as WiFi cards. Is this going to be a test bed to see how well a Linux laptop will sell? I hope they start selling something like this in the US.
Member since:2005-06-29
Latitude 110L default configuration price for the US with Windows XP:
$1,194.89
http://premierconfig.dell.com/config/config.aspx?c=&ci=K1549&custom...
That link will likely die within an hour or so. Go to dell.com. Go to Government. Go to k12. Go to a state. And go from there.
I'd take $940 over $1200 anyday. Obviously, there's some sort of hardware difference; or Government prices here are ridiculous...
Member since:2005-07-06
The last I heard Dell's pricing is not consistent due to it having 3 different lines of business. One for home users, one for business, and one for government. Each line of business sets its own price, so you may see a variance in the price depending on where you look on their site. But lets also take into account the amount of money the government actually spends for supplies. They have been known to pay quite generously for simple things.
Member since:2005-06-29
Yea, but that was under K12. Which is trying to sell to sucker students. I didn't even need any sort of proof that I'm anything official... The other student stuff requires registered login numbers.
I know Dell rips off others. But this is the only place you can get a Latitude 110. So there's still the question of where all the extra cost is. I almost wonder if they aren't putting an extra low price on this for that market (ya know, like a local sale).
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2005-07-12
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One of my favorite distributions is finally sold by a big OEM, and not just any OEM, but DELL. The temperature in hell just got close to freezing point.
I hope this is a huge success. I will be in Europe in a week and I intend to order one of these laptops since my old P-III isn't working all that well anymore.
I belive Linux has reached the maturity point that will make it an awesome seller if OEMs only bother to make it available to people. I can only hope for a similar move by Dell in the US
Member since:
2005-06-29
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Man, move to Europe! 
I'm buying laptop right now and I'm choosing only between those wchich come with Linux/FreeDOS preinstalled instead od Windows . Not only because I don't want to pay for Windows - I will use Solaris/Linux/*BSDs on my laptop but using windows isn't a need for me. And yes, there are plenty of laptops models available here (Poland) that come without XP, but with Linux (unsupported of course ) preinstalled. Of course, most people who choose Linux laptop, immediately after buying install pirated versions of XP, but that doesn't matter for me - this is only their choice. My choice is not to install Windows on my laptop and not to pay for it.
Member since:2005-07-06
"there are plenty of laptops models available here (Poland) that come without XP, but with Linux (unsupported of course ) preinstalled."
Great country, Poland 
I only hope that people realize soon that there is no need to buy a pirated copy of Windows, because linux is already better.
Member since:
2005-07-06
I hate that LE 2005 will be the representative from Mandriva, becuase 2006 is a much better release as the upcomming community release will prove, but hey, I suppose that you cant have it all. Wow, who'd a thunk that Dell would have the balls to do this even if it is currently only available in France. I wonder what Redhat and Microsofts take on this will be?
Member since:2005-07-04
I hate that LE 2005 will be the representative from Mandriva, becuase 2006 is a much better release as the upcomming community release will prove, but hey, I suppose that you cant have it all. Wow, who'd a thunk that Dell would have the balls to do this even if it is currently only available in France. I wonder what Redhat and Microsofts take on this will be?
Red Hat could care less, student laptops aren't their target market. They specialize in tons of fixed function desktops and big SMP servers. As for Microsoft...they may up Dell's prices for Windows, but I doubt it over a single laptop model available in a single country.
The reason I think the OEM's are only doing this in Europe shows they are testing the Linux waters to see if it is worth it pursueing the Linux desktop while risking Microsoft's rath.
Member since:
2005-07-23
but a giant leap for Tux!
I'm very happy to see this, finally. Hopefully they might expand that to a wider range of products. And (wishful thinking), even lower laptop prices even more if they did that with the lower-end models (which would be surprising to me).
I'll have to follow this closely. This might get interesting. Now, this is still choice limiting. I'd prefer to have "no preinstalled OS" so that I can install something myself (gentoo, ubuntu, whatever).
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Member since:2005-07-06
Actually, I'd be interested in any OEM-produced Linux laptop if it was reasonably priced. I can always put my distro of choice on it later, but the fact that it came with a distro would at least assure me that there won't be any hardware troubles when I switch.
Of course, first I would have to have money to buy said laptop, which I don't at this point in time. Oh well.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
"Those want to use linux will just buy a osless laptop. People that want a pre-installed OS will just windows. It'll be a miserable failure."
A lot of BS. It has always been said that one of the main factors hindering the adoption of linux on the desktop (and laptop) is that it doesn't come preinstalled. Besides, I'd imagine that a big name like Dell has made sure that its laptop and Mandriva work together well, which is a hell of an advantage.
On top of that the price is very good for an EU country.
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I somewhat agree with you. I bet they wont see any huge sales in the near future, but if they decide to stick with it anyway I think it will pay off in the long run.
For now most people will make the "safe choice" and pick one with Windows installed. But if Dell ever decides to offer Linux desktops/laptops worldwide, other OEMs will say "me too". If people see Linux desktops for sale at most stores they will start to think of Linux as a serious alternative.
A lot of people are already afraid of computers and have no clue what to buy when they go shopping for a computer. They won't buy something that isn't supported by a major company, no matter how l337 their teenage neighbour says it is.
Personally I wouldn't want Mandriva on my box, but I wouldn't mind buying one with it pre-installed. As long as my money doesn't go to Microsoft I'm happy.
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Yes, I agree with that. But I didn't mean "safe choice" as in "choice for best security" I meant that the person feels safer choosing a brand that they know about and they know that they will be able to work with. MS has put a lot of energy into marketing Windows as the "safe choice" both in their advertising but also in their software. MS has the "we will help you" impression while the linux community has the "you will help us" impression.
Also, many Joe's who has heard about linux has got the impression that it's hard to use and only for poeple with technical skills.
It will take some massive marketing to change that. Simply offering a computer with linux pre-installed won't change much.
If all the linux developers, distromakers and users teamed up to market linux, both in the media and on the streets. The question is what to market? A kernel won't turn peoples heads. So will it be Gnome or KDE?
Member since:2005-07-09
Member since:2005-07-06
"the linux community has the "you will help us" impression."
Has it? Funny, I never realized that, since the beginning, when I downloaded 2 distros in two days...
"The question is what to market? A kernel won't turn peoples heads. So will it be Gnome or KDE?"
I don't believe it matters very much. Both are very mature. Maybe give people both and introduce them to the notion that you can choose between several desktop environments?
Member since:2005-07-09
Has it? Funny, I never realized that, since the beginning, when I downloaded 2 distros in two days...
Yeah, either "you will help us" or "you will help yourself". Now I'm not saying that this is always the case, but that is the impression the linux community in general gives me and many others. OSS developers doesn't need to feel the same responsibility towards end users as commersial developers do. And it clearly shows. Though it's getting better in many areas much thanks to the commersial support from various companies.
I don't believe it matters very much. Both are very mature. Maybe give people both and introduce them to the notion that you can choose between several desktop environments?
Well it's important to have something concrete to build a marketing campain on, something people can relate to. Be it a specific product, brand or icon, it needs to be something people can easily recognize and relate to. Linux doesn't really have a face that people can recognize as being linux.
I think it's important to make people familiar with linux before you throw a hundred choices at them. Choice is good, but choice alone isn't worth anything if you don't know what you are choosing from, or even why.
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Member since:2005-07-09
Member since:2005-07-06
"So apart from games what does Windows XP offer that Linux desktop don't?"
Well, download this one if you can:
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=02899#0
and you might even reconsider your opinion about Linux and games
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
I'm willing to bet that there's hardly any whitebox laptops around and if there were, I bet they cost *more* than an equivalent big OEM laptop that comes with Windows pre-installed. BTW, if you go to the big OEM sites (Dell, IBM, HP and so on), do *any* of them even sell a laptop (or a desktop for that matter) without an OS? I really wish they would (I'd be willing to agree to no software/OS support on the machine whatsoever if that was the case)..
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Dell less n-series systems that ship with FreeDOS
Desktops at http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/featured_nseri...
They also sell n-series notebooks, but mainly outside the US in areas like China
Member since:
2005-08-20
I was going to remark that it's interesting that they're not going with redhat (as they already offer a number of redhat systems), until rm6990 pointed out that this isn't redhat's target market.
I wonder if they will continue to use mandrake on the desktop when they expand this outside of france? Redhat may yet regret dropping the desktop version :p
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Member since:2005-08-20
Also...*ding!*...Mandriva is French.
So they're going to find a local distro for every new country they offer this type of machine? I'm sure the facts that they started in France and chose Mandriva are not a coincidence, but that can't have been their primary reason for choosing a distro.
Member since:2005-06-29
I'd say they chose Mandriva because it's a good distribution and it's well oriented towards home users compared to Red Hat.
SUSE might be a close match for Mandriva, but out of the two I've had better experiences with Mandriva. I can't wait to see if MDV 2006 will work nicely on the Toshiba laptop I have btw.
Member since:
2005-08-28
You would think that a laptop designed for Linux would include hardware that Linux supports well- no fancy or bizzare Wifi chips or any of that. It should be interesting if things like this take off.
Whatever happens, it seems fairly clear that Dell wants to weasel out of the position they're in, where they can only continue offering the prices they do by going Intel and Microsoft-only on the desktop.
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I think this is excellent! You may think that there isn't a market for this, but one should take into consideration that most Linux users would gladly support a company offering a computer with Linux pre-installed.
Also, there's actually quite a bit of people who would like to use Linux, but that actually want it preinstalled.
Anyways, very interesting.
Member since:
2005-07-06
I'm obviously biased , but seems to me this is better than some previous 'Linux on the desktop' offerings from the big firms in a couple of ways that haven't been discussed yet. Obviously it's only in France and it would be great if it were everywhere, but at least within France they're really promoting it: when you go to www.dell.fr there's two links to their student offers right on the front page, and this system is the first one you see on the student systems page (it's also the cheapest offering for students). That's much better than previous Linux systems sold by big vendors, where they generally did no marketing and buried the system several layers deep on their website with virtually no links from anywhere else. Happy to see Dell seem to really want to _sell_ the system this time.
BTW, it's worth mentioning we also have an OEM deal with HP in France (and the rest of Europe, in the future) and sell some pre-installed HP systems as well.
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2005-07-06
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Well, here is a somewhat related French news.
"The March of the Penguins" ( http://wip.warnerbros.com/marchofthepenguins/ )has just becone the most successful french film at US box office in all times ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4244444.stm )
The courageous fight of these birds for survival and their close cooperation to withstand the freezing climate of Antarctica can be a lesson...
[Treza]
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Advice wanted...any personal experience is very much welcome! I'm looking for;
* 1 Moderate to high end model.
* 1 low end cheap one.
Barebones preferred (pricewatch.com has a good section on these, btw).
On the high end, the Asus bare-bones systems seem like a good fit as at a minimum one model can swap out video cards.
What I'm looking for;
* Linux support (of course)
* Good 3D (game capable)
* 2G - minimum RAM possible
* 13 inch wide screen or higher
* Firewire & 3+ USB
* +80GB HD
* Sturdy frame (a modest but firm twist of the case doesn't cause any 'pop' or 'cracke' sounds)
* Low price is not as important.
Also, seperately, a modest laptop (use for a 2 years and toss/give away);
* 512M RAM
* 40GB HD
* Modest 3D
* Cheap is good!
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This is a milestone in the history of Dell. Up until now if you wanted to buy a Dell computer (not a computer & MS Windows) you had to redial at least five times in order to get through to the right person and even then Dell still charged you the price for computer & Windows and you got a merchandise credit or had to wait for a so-called Windows refund check by snail mail.
I am glad to see that Dell realizes the huge market of people who would buy Dell computers if they didn't get charged for software they don't want.
