Posted on 02/25/2006 7:09:32 PM PST by Halfmanhalfamazing
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.
In the recent past, Dell has toyed with shipping a Linux-powered PC to the US market. But, when push came to shove, the results -- a Dimension E510n PC shipped with an empty hard drive, a copy of the obscure, open-source FreeDOS operating system and no support if you did install Linux -- were less then impressive.
It's a different story for so-called workstations priced nearly as cheaply as desktops. Dell has started advertising a trio of affordable workstations with RHEL WS 4 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux workstation 4) preinstalled.
That means dell is socialist.
yo
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We have some dell servers that shipped with Red Hat, and we have converted many of our old Novell servers to openbsd, freebsd and Fedora.
Novell has a decent desktop linux...might give it a try in userland and see how it works out.
GNOME sliding Linux onto business desktops
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6041615.html?tag=nl
The latest Xandros is pretty cool.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
never heard of it, i gave up on Linux just seemed way to confusing to me. And yes i did give it a shot, i borrowed books from library and everything just could never get a grip on it, guess im just dumb :)
It might be a litle more flexible than that but I didn't care since I was putting it on a fresh machine. The Crossover stuff is interesting so you can run all sorts of Microsoft junk on it. I've been messing with Linux since 1991 when I ran across Linus himself (long story) and have only really been using Linux for server related things. But this distro is pretty neat for a desktop. Very windoze-like.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Cool yea i have used LILO It was in Mandrake or Redhat can't remember which one. Out of the 2 I liked Mandrake better.
That can indeed be an issue. The general mindset of what you can do and how you can do it is somewhat different, especially when you start working with multiple desktops. Personally, I find the capability of having multiple desktops really makes it much easier to actually get work done on a PC. To give you an idea of how I make this work for me, here's how my week normally starts out at work.
My main work computer is a laptop that I take home with me on the weekend in case I get called to do things, so the first thing I do is boot up on the network and login. In the first desktop, I open a copy of Firefox, and fire up a few tabs that link to some administrative consoles.
In Desktop 2, I open a terminal. From there, I execute a script that fires up logins to my dev, test, and prod servers. In all it's about 40 terminals in tabs on 4 console windows, all sorted by system type and whether it is dev/test/prod.
In Desktop 3, I open my email program (at work it's Evolution), so I'll have ready access to email/calendar/and phone/addressbooks.
Desktop 4 is where I'll put Office-type applications as needed. I don't generally fire up the office apps until there is a need for them. My HTML editor (Quanta) will go here as well if I'm working on documentation.
Desktop 5 is used for a music player (XMMS) and sometimes other miscellaneous apps.
I don't normally have anything running in desktop 6 or 8 unless something comes up that I want to isolate by itself for some reason, like for instance Ethereal if I need to process packet dumps. If I need to work with graphics, the GIMP would end up here.
Desktop 7 contains a system resources monitor that shows me memory usage, ethernet activity, system temp, and similar stuff.
This has all evolved over time to suit the way I work. Even though I have essentially dozens of processes running to give me access to anything I might need, I can quickly go to exactly the application I need, because everything is organized, and logical and consistant. In those rare occasion when I have to use windows, it drives me absolutely crazy that I can't organize things nearly as easily, and that finding a given app on the taskbar if I have very much stuff open is a serious PITA. I think that is one reason why Microsoft emphasizes program load times and similar things so much, because it is hard to deal with having too much running at any given time, so people tend to use an application, then close it when they are done, then restart it later and so on.
Just thought I might give you an example of how the Linux and X-Windows environment can be made to work for you rather than the other way around. :-)
HAND!
Sure, it's is cheaper to sell it that way and you can put your own operating system on instead.
Not dumb, just not used to the way it works. It is a bit different. You've spent a long time learning MS-Windows. To really use Linux to its fullest, some of that will have to be unlearned. :-) A lot of it translates pretty well in the Linux world these days though, depending upon what desktop you use.
hi, were you aware that microsoft has a vitual desktop manager?
http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/DeskmanPowertoySetup.exe
And that is the problem with Linux right there! whats up with that command prompt thing! bin/dev whatever all that stuff, its like you have to take classes just to learn how to use the OS! And trying to update linux forget it! rpms and binarys WTF! LOL why cant they just have an auto update like windows? or like an exe file that you click and it updates it for you. I don't have all the time to waste figuring all the stuff out.
Because this:
is so much better.
Besides, it's not like you have to tweak the registry for anything like important items. Only for things like games.
And trying to update linux forget it! rpms and binarys WTF! LOL why cant they just have an auto update like windows?
WTF, indeed.
From a command prompt:
#apt-get update
#apt-get upgrade
And if that's too hard for you, you can use one of the available GUI tools such as kpackage or synaptic:
I don't have all the time to waste figuring all the stuff out.
But you apparently have time to waste running updates from windowsupdate and installing third-party software to scan for viruses, scan for and remove spyware, defrag your hard drive and firewall your box.
Oh and all of the Windows skills you've aquired will be obsolete when the next version (we'll get it right this time for sure!) of Windows ships.
So why not learn something useful that won't be shoved aside with the next hotpatch?
Actually, I have the same concerns ET does. I like Firefox and the free software I've used so far. But I haven't made the Linux leap because frankly I'm worried that I'll have to sit there searching for drivers for my computer to make the basics work, and I'll be waiting for the lockup ala the early windows blue screen of death. And that doesn't sound like fun at all.
I'm willing to learn. I like the idea. I don't fear change, and I do dislike Microsoft's market domination. But I want a software transition that is easy, and without me risking the computer becoming a doorstop in the process.
At home, just for personal use, I have an old pentium III 128 MB on the board laptop that is currently running WinME (which I loathe). But my wife, who is not particularly computer literate, likes it. She can use it. I can use it, but I don't like it--but I also won't load up XP to a pc with 128 MB on the board.
So I'm willing to set up Linux as a section OS to experiment, but I need it to run simultaneously with the WinME right now, and I need Linux to not put me in a situation where my hardware gets acting funky for my wife or me to do our business on WinME. I will convert her to Open Office and Linux when I trust myself to show her how it works, and delete WinME--but I have to trust it first.
I know you're not offering, KB, but perhaps someone can make some suggestions on a good place to start and a good route to go from there to continue to utilize this as a home computer. I'm certainly willing to consider what y'all may have to offer.
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