“Is Dell is on its way to becoming the first tier-one PC vendor to offer a mainstream business Linux desktop to US customers? It’s starting to look that way. Dell has started advertising a trio of affordable workstations with RHEL WS 4 preinstalled.”
So what’s next, the sky will turn red ?
Ok, so this is good news, in a sense… I mean I can’t see people jumping up in joy and running off to buy linux-preinstalled machines just because Dell begins to sell them. Otherwise, it’s nice to see when a big player (and Dell does sell a fair amount of desktop machines to the crowd, or doesn’t it
) starts to see some prospect in putting linux there.
I just wish they didn’t put RHEL WS 4 on those… yes I know RH linuxes all over, for many years now, and still I wish they didn’t put it on those machines. Especially since these are in the price range where almost everybody could afford to by one. Why ? Because I believe these machines will be also bought by people who are fairly new to linux so a more user friendly lame proof distro would have been better, IMO, $.02. I know, one (i.e. Dell) needs a company-backed OS on those boxes, still, there’s not only RH out there.
From the article:
“…Dell has always been willing to pre-load Linux on desktops to large-volume customers who asked for it…”
Makes sense to me. Dell is a hardware company, and they deal in what sells. They aren’t interested in one-off sales; that costs too much. But ask for 1,000 or 2,000 computers with a specific configuration of hardware & software, and that’s a different story. Dell can make money on that kind of volume.
Didn’t HP have business workstations with Linux on them…so how does this make Dell the first?!
I recently (a couple months ago) got an HP desktop with Linux. The catch was that Linux (Suse Pro 9.3) didn’t come installed. It came with no OS installed and the Linux install CDs. I don’t know about their workstations, but their desktops don’t seem to come pre-installed with Linux even though they will ship with Linux.
Dell as always been availaible on Workstation and for those with high enough volume.
The problem is Red Hat is a really bad as a consumer desktop and that Dell whont load it on everything they sale.
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_…
Where is my GNU/Linux option on that model ?
“The problem is Red Hat is a really bad as a consumer desktop”
Accept that Linux itself is not (yet) a consumer OS, and consumers will not be buying these Dell systems pre-loaded with Linux.
I thought Microsoft preassures Dell against including non-Microsoft OS’s on their systems..anyway this is good news for business users who may want to buy an end to end Linux soultion.
This is a good sign.
I’m a windows guy by trade and I work for a very large company. We have a windows install for nearly every customer in the company. Even the guys who use UNIX (AIX primarily) can log into a terminal services session on a windows server for using outlook etc.
We now have a transition going for most of our shared workstations (the systems anyone can use that are scattered throughout the company) to Linux. I have not seen or heard what distro yet, but summer ’06 and we will be rolling out a couple thousand linux systems. For email people will be using outlook web access. I have not heard what the company standard browser will be (prob mozilla)
Granted moving our shared workstations over is likely less than 5% of our total workstation count but its a start and I never thought I’d see it happen.
linux has a good chance of getting corporate desktop market within the next 10-15 years. I mean really getting it. From there anything could happen.
I’m not really surprised to see a company like Dell looking at more Linux options. Everyone is looking at how linux might fit into their business these days.
Edited 2006-02-25 16:06
Are we sure this has nothing to do with the fact that Windows Vista is about to be shipped? Perhaps Dell just wants to have a little more leverage during the negotiations with Microsoft, which must surely be under way now. This is classic Dell, as I am sure Intel may confirm.
I think that the second reason to believe that it is a bluff is – as other in this thread have commented – the choice of distro.
And, thirdly, this quote is just hilarous: “They’re very targeted to professionals in the workstation space who deal with applications such as CAD, digital content creation — which includes 3D animation and things like that,” Bolen said.”
Right, CAD. One of the very applications where Windows still holds a tangible advantage over Linux.
call microsofts bluff ?
are you serious man ?
This is about getting bulk computers shifted to companies like call-centres who just need basic computers that can be installed and forgotten about.
Actually not. A lot of people use Pro-E, which runs on *nix and Windows.
Just because some like AutoCAD are Windows only doesn’t mean that’s what every professional uses.
And there’s a LOT of 3d animation done on Linux boxes, although they tend to get used as the workhorses instead of the workstations. But who says you can’t buy a few high end workhorses? Might be easier to maintain than 200 machines dug out of the trash; not to mention the lower likelihood of errors.
But you’re probably right, it probably is simply Dell looking for leverage against Microsoft.
And I do believe HP has sold machines with Suse as workstations for years. I seem to remember considering them about a year ago.
with RedHat I mean, a better choice for a business desktop would have been Suse.
I do not think it is anything to do with getting a “better deal” from Microsoft. I actually think Dell predict there will be less business desktops sold with Vista pre-installed.
Could this be because by default, Vista will need a beefier specced PC, and Linux doesn’t ?
I’m still waiting to hear from Dell when they will start offering Novell Linux Desktop/SUSE Linux as an optional installation for their home and business desktop/laptop line. I realize Dell does offer SUSE Linux Enterprise Server but there are no other details on their site if the other Novell line of services will be expanded across the entire Dell line for consumers. Until Dell updates their website to list Novell SUSE Linux/NLD as an optional install for their entire system line (laptop/desktop/workstation) not just server I won’t take their support for Novell seriously.
Edited 2006-02-25 18:03
In the last 6 years, I’ve seen the Linux desktop grow up from being pretty much crap to being quite a respectable contender feature and application-wise versus MS Windows. Is this the start of a new era and will 2006 be the infamous “Year of Desktop Linux?”
When you click to configure the workstation, the only operating system on offer is Windows with either FAT32 or NTFS. You have to speak to a representative if you want to know more about support for redhat….
That’s as far as it goes…
what are you on about man ?
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/precn_380n?c…
Operating System
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS v4 for EM64T 64bit system w/ 1 YR RHN, w/ Media”
take it easy dude, I was checking the uk site and although they show linux as a choice, you can’t order it straight from the web site.
take it easy dude, I was checking the uk site and although they show linux as a choice, you can’t order it straight from the web site.
Yes maybe – but they are offering it on the US website. They are probably a little bit slower in offering it in the US Empire’s colonies. I haven’t checked to see if they are offering it here in Canada yet.
When you click to configure the workstation, the only operating system on offer is Windows with either FAT32 or NTFS. You have to speak to a representative if you want to know more about support for redhat….
You are not looking at the right page they are offering pre-installed RH Enterprise Linux WS.
Follow this link to read about it:
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/precn_380n?c…
on the low end 380n model.
As I read it looking round the Dell website, is that Dell is offering RH Linux WS preloaded on 3 of its 6 Precision workstations. I assume the other 3 are Windows only. What they are probably doing is having small hardware differences between the Linux and Windows models so that they are then not offering the same system with the option of Linux or Windows. Thus falling within the limits the illegal monopoly sets for them. Still its the thin end of the wedge.
🙂
I guess it’s a pressure on microsoft to get more aggressive prices on vista. But anyway its good for linux in general.
Other big manufacturers offer RHEL and SUSE-EE includes:
1. IBM (Expensive)
2. HP (Dirt Cheap)
3. SUN (Very Expensive)
Now if Dell is to step for real to linux bandwagon, then it’s targeting HP from price perspective.
Dell in the past showed us alot of pilot sells, so what makes me think they are to stay this course for much longer.
Linux in general is the OS of choice when it comes to desktops and enterprises; but as a workstation it will need alot of work and popularity to convince Adobe, Autodesk, and other high quality software companies to code for them. So the “Workstation” name must IMO be dropped from the naming of such boxes and get replaced with SuperDesktop or SuperEnterprise (the super is praise linux stability).
I hope I am wrong and that Dell will continue selling Linux for very long time.
My employer has been buying Dell workstations with Red Hat Linux pre-installed for years now. I myself set up 10 Dell workstations, each of which had RedHat Enterprise 3 pre-installed, more than 2 years ago.
Now I just wish they would sell AMD machines.
I used to be a Dell rep, and I can safely say this is not new. Red Hat was some training stuff we had to learn (not much because it wasn’t mainstream) for the tech support. This was about five years ago. They’ve always offered (as far back as I remember) RedHat Linux on Workstations. I don’t know why this is a big deal. If in the past five years they’ve left Linux, oh well. They’re not doing anything new.
Well, I was able to find the linux offerings on Dell’s site this time. Playing around with install options, too bad I didn’t see these a year ago when I was odering a Linux Workstation.
I found one big problem, in the customization area, you can pick several pieces of software for your Redhat system. All of them are for Windows XP and no incompatibility box is shown!! I would be pretty pissed if my $3000 AutoCad software from dell was for the wrong operating system. This is a glaring oversite.