“The eWeek headline read ‘Linux Desktop Needs Major Vendor Support.’ A hopeful Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols opinion piece that someday, somewhere, some company will have the guts to face down Microsoft and make it possible for anyone and everyone to easily buy a GNU/Linux desktop. The ‘some company’ he was referring to was obviously the tier one vendors: IBM, HP, and Dell. While we’re waiting for these tier ones to become so inclined, perhaps the GNU/Linux community’s appropriate course of action should be to do what we should have done long ago. That is, to create a Linux-specific hardware vendor (or vendors) of our own.”
And we could name it VA-Linux. And it could lose money until it gave up the Linux-specific hardware business.
Honestly, this is a good idea. VA-Linux failed because what it sold wasn’t very good.
VA is still in business , they just dropped the hardware side there OSTG ( Slashdot , Newsforge , etc … )
VA had bad managers who invested too much in the wrong things and they got out before it made too much damage. They where suffering the Dot.com problem , too much cash not enough bright managers.
The heading “Insufficient Market Volume Presently To Go It Alone” says it all. What this also means is that there is insufficient market volume to make it worthwhile for any of the major PC vendors to support Linux on desktop PCs. This isn’t meant to be a slam on Linux. I like the idea of having Operating System choices, but these companies are in business to make money and if they don’t see an opportunity to make more money than they already do selling Windows boxes, then they have no incentive to sell Linux. It would just add to there resource costs to support another OS.
It would just add to there resource costs to support another OS.
This is the most important part of what you said. It’s bad from a business standpoint because it will cost them more money to support Linux as well. People who buy these computers with Windows usually have a better chance of finding someone to help them with a problem that isnt the OEM than those who buy these computers with Linux.
For those readers living in the U.K. I can tell you I’m involved with a start-up hoping to cater for Linux followers. This isn’t even that far away, we should be ready to start shipping within 2 weeks!
Anyone after a custom built PC with your choice of linux distribution pre-installed should keep an eye out for my posts which now I know there’s interest will include further details soon.
Be sure to advertise in Linux Format.
Something that is sorely lacking is a linux oriented hardware shop. Sure, a lot of hardware just works in Linux, but a dedicated shop would make things a lot easier.
Margins on hardware are down to almost nothing. It would be very hard for a hardware company to make money of specializing on desktop linux.
Margins are higher in the server market and there is more demand for linux there. I think has the demand for Linux desktops increase hardware vendors will follow.
From the commentary piece conclusion: “I can’t image a better way to truly give the customer/end user a choice of GNU/Linux Distributions than when all of the various distros are sharing the exact same hardware.”
—–
You aim to give users the freedom of software choice…by removing the same consumer’s freedom of hardware choice?
This is counter-intuitive. You’re trading one problem for another.
Well, removing some freedoms to bolster other freedoms can make sense sometimes, if the result is a net gain. Isn’t that how standards work?
(Not saying this is necessarily one of those cases)
You’re marketing to a market who notoriously build it themselves. It’s like selling a pre-built kit car to kit enthusiasts. And you’re going to have a real hard job marketing Linux to regular people over OSX and Vista.
HP is already selling Linux desktops in Brazil.
They are following brazilian´s ‘PC Conectado’ plan, which aims to provide affordable PCs for poor househoods. Several other brazilian companies are doing the same. I, for one, just had bought a Linux computer for my 11 years old daughter. She´s doing very well with it, as the distro (Kurumin, based on Knoppix but installed on the HD) is very friendly specially for portuguese-spoken people. Now she´d became a young Linux advocate among her friends.
sub300.com
penguincomputing.com
emperorlinux.com
…three that come to mind immediately, in addition to an entire list here:
http://www.linspire.com/lindows_feature_reseller.php
No those vendor dont sell that much and arent interesting enough for people to say “Hummm , which should I pick a Macbook Pro , Or an Iceberg Titannic” , they look at those vendor product and compare them to others and go with others more reputable and trusted vendors.
If you recall Linspire whas the first to introduce a 400$ Laptop at Walmart (with crappy CPU) , as soon as the other saw this they started offereing similar priced models but with an wifi rooter and with INtel and Amd CPU.
“Raise The Bridge!”
LOL…ROTFLMAO!
–bornagainpenguin
[voted for this story]
Edited 2006-02-10 17:26
Now when I buy hardware I expect it to spend its older age years running open source … no matter whom I buy for (myself or clients).
Being careful about chipsets (Ralink yes / Broadcom NO) reduces the agony down the line. This discernment is currently too hard to discover AND IT SHOULDN’T BE.
IMHO there should be a website or two where there are publicly observable scores showing how FOSS friendly each OEM and hardware vendor is. Let them compete to improve their rankings.
Furthermore there is an ecological angle in that we are less likely to ‘landfill’ (throw out) kit that has a second life with a Linux or BSD on it.
Just a bleary thought before wrestling the kids to bed.
I thought Sun was going to be pusing Linux on Ultra 20s. Or are they just ‘supported’ and come blank. I would buy one machine that was linux certified over another (dell) that was not. Also, even if the machine, let’s say, came with redhat, I would probably install Debian right away.
More helpful would be a single source on the Net that has up to date hardware vendor support for Linux that is constantly updated like Wiki.
Right now people seem to have to go about building a Linux box backwards by assembling a list of components and then going online and asking if the system looks good to current Linux users. It would be great to go online and look up the latest 2000 dollar dual core AMD Linux box that is built with the most supported components.
http://gentoo-wiki.com/Index:Hardware Like this?
While Gentoo might not be appropriate for everyone, it may be vendor-neutral enough that everyone can publish their WTF items as appropriate.
Perhaps an automated generic post install HW report (such as Ubuntu) to a distro neutral site. Each submission would probably be a minimal works/does’nt with this distro ver & kernel etc. The reports could be data mined and suitably presented to minimise duplication of mostly simialr distros.
Relying on voluntary wiki entries would’nt get nearly as much input.
I would imagine such an automated HW compatibility site would require some smarts but far less bandwidth than say a screenshot site and be very very useful.
It would be so nice to input your hw list and search for most comatible distros so far reported.
I’m going to bet that the fellows that run the current top-tier and mid-tier consumer desktop supply businesses (Dell, IBM, Gateway, etc…) all like making money. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it. As such, I’m also quite sure that they’ve had quite a few really clever people look into other avenues of revenue, such as offering the fabled Linux desktop. I’ll also bet that these guys found that the return on investment was less from selling Linux systems vs. Windows systems.
Hardware is a business of volumes. The volume required to make a Dell-competing hardware company based on Linux are not there. Want proof? None of the big companies are doing it yet. Why? The volumes aren’t there, and so, neither is the money.
Sure, it’s a chicken and the egg senario….if Linux isn’t available pre-installed on affordable hardware, how’ll it garner enough market share and mind space to be able to support a business running pre-installed affordable hardware.
Believe me, I’m a linux supporter through and through and think that choice in products is always good, however, the money simply isn’t there. Not only that, but if any company manages to slog it out and carve out a decent living on linux boxes, it won’t take long for the Dell’s of the world to notice, sell the same linux boxes and crush the original upstart. Trust me on this.
It really is all about economics. There’s no major supply today because there’s no profitable level of demand. Once demand grows, supply, very natually follows. Unfortunately, idea’s like this tend to see things in reverse, if Company X creates the supply, well, then, the demand will naturally follow. The problem is, it doesn’t work that way.
Edited 2006-02-10 21:42
There are plenty of places to get computers with Linux pre-installed. They just aren’t big name vendors.
< 5 seconds of searching got me to this:
http://system76.com/index.php
Hell, even the big name vendors offer Linux boxes. Just not in the states.
1) Most linux users (such as myself) tend to be the do-it-yourself types who wouldn’t buy from a large vendor anyway.
2) The boobs stuck on windows who do buy from the tier 1 vendors will never switch to linux if it means giving up programs x y and z that won’t run on linux. Viruses and worms be damned, they’re sticking with what they like.
3) The business sector would probably love to move to linux for the desktop, but their software vendors have no reason to port to windows, and their IT staff (at leat in small business settings) have the same bewildered look on their face in unix land as the 7 year old boy who accidentally wandered into a porn shop.
Linux is, for now, limited to the enterpise, small nitch markets, countries that resent paying 2 years income for an OS.