Dell has confirmed plans to offer Linux pre-installed on systems beyond their existing servers and Precision workstation line. Dell will provide an update in the coming weeks that includes detailed information on which systems they will offer, their testing and certification efforts, and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-04-21
Member since:2005-11-11
support at the kernel level and open driver support
Wow. They listened. No matter what distro they chose they couldn't satisfy everyone. While they may still choose a distro to ship, at least we know we can ourselves install whatever distro we want, since they are trying for hardware with open drivers. That is certainly better than standardizing on a distro/kernel and shipping binary drivers for stuff. Kudos to Dell, they'll have my support next time I buy a machine.
Also nice to keep in mind that Linux compatible hardware is in no way Windows incompatible, so there should be no downside for the masses who use it, things will basically be the same. Huge positive for the minority, no change for the majority: can't hurt.
Member since:2007-03-26
Also nice to keep in mind that Linux compatible hardware is in no way Windows incompatible, so there should be no downside for the masses who use it, things will basically be the same. Huge positive for the minority, no change for the majority: can't hurt.
Good point
(why doesn't my + / - voting buttons work?)
Member since:2007-02-22
That alone is a major reason for me to make my next laptop a Dell ;-)
I would strongly suggest you not get a Dell. Every time I have seen a friend or family member buy from them, they have either got recycled hardware (which failed quickly), a system which had hardware other than what they bought (my mother's Dell didn't include a DVD drive, although they gave her a processor faster than the one she ordered), a system loaded with adware/bloatware (which you can bet will be even worse now that they have source code access -- heck, if they use an open-source BIOS, they can modify it to prevent the machine from booting into anyting other than the official Dell distro), or worse yet, a system that couldn't fully run the OS it shipped with (my mother's machine again; it took 10 minutes to boot XP because the amount of memory it came with was only marginally better than the absolute least needed to load).
Until they get their act together, Dell is not a company I would reccomend to anyone.
Member since:2007-03-26
Until they get their act together, Dell is not a company I would reccomend to anyone.
Agreed to a degree, but I've found most *nix systems can work really well on even the nastiest of hardware.
A good example was a fried motherboard i was given for free - it was too damaged to even boot windows, but it ran FreeBSD fine so i turned it into a file server).
Member since:2006-11-17
"a system loaded with adware/bloatware (which you can bet will be even worse now that they have source code access -- heck, if they use an open-source BIOS, they can modify it to prevent the machine from booting into anyting other than the official Dell distro), or worse yet, a system that couldn't fully run the OS it shipped"
That won't happen if they use linux, because it's GPL. I don't want just open source, I don't want some OS/X-like BSD relicensed, or some crap like that. I want a free as in GNU system. People asked for linux because linux is the most advanced GPL'ed kernel. The Hurd is crap and openSolaris is not yet GPL'ed. What people really ask is GNU freedom.
If Dell offer linux, they can't offer anything less than freedom, because they can't modify it to be less free than GPL.
Member since:
2006-12-28
If they pull this off, we have ourselves leverage! That alone is a major reason for me to make my next laptop a Dell ;-)