Posted on 08/08/2007 11:44:21 AM PDT by N3WBI3
I hinted at this before, but today, it's official: Dell announced that consumers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany can order an Inspiron E1505N 6400 notebook or an Inspiron 530N desktop with Ubuntu 7.04 pre-installed.
Since we began offering Ubuntu in the United States back in May, it's no secret that we've received many requests from customers all over the world to offer Linux there. This represents another step in broadening that offering. Before Ubuntu, we've offered Red Hat Linux as an option for Dell Precision workstation and PowerEdge server customers.
Similar to what we've done in the United States, we will configure and install open source drivers for hardware, when possible for these new products. See John Hull's Technical Details post for a more detailed explanation.
Recently, some IdeaStorm readers asked why we discontinued the Inspiron E1505N in the United States. The answer is that we transitioned to the Inspiron 1420N, which is a product that we do not offer in the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
Update: 8/7, 3PM CDT: In his LinuxWorld keynote, Kevin Kettler announced that Dell and Novell intend to offer SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 factory-installed on select consumer notebooks and desktops in China. This is another step in making Linux available to more customers worldwide. We already offer SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 as an option on PowerEdge servers. In the coming weeks, we will share more details on the which notebooks and desktops we will offer, support options, and more. Our plan is to offer SLED 10 on systems to meet the broad needs of our customers.
Beyond the Ubuntu expansion, we also have worked with Red Hat to develop a JBoss-based solution to help customers migrate from legacy applications. Because the press release summarizes this better than I can, here's more detail from it. This new offering features three solutions:
OSS PING
I've had lots of luck setting up Linux boxes as file servers and cross-compilers at work, it always seems like Linux takes too much effort to use as a home PC. I have two computers at home. One runs Linux and the other runs Windows. It seems like I spend more time fighting with the Linux one than using it. Windows, is far, far from perfect, but I usually have far less trouble using it for what I do at home.
Trying to do the things I do at work on Linux using a Windows box would probably be equally painful. Sometimes different tasks require different tools.
Oh goodness Fedora Core is not for the faint of heart, I love it as a power workstation but its not my first choice for a desktop.
However, when I loaded Fedora Core 6, the automated update thing showed hundreds of updates, but when I try and apply them, they fail dependency checks. This is with a bare install of the distribution before I even started screwing around with it.
I am running gnome on it which has some nice utilities to configure things, but they seem to keep changing them significantly from they way they utilities worked in the past, and things as simple as using the volume control utility to enable the microphone aren't persistent between reboots.
I've never had to screw around with anything to enable the microphone in the past, and most of my experience with Linux is on boxes that I rsh into anyway, so sound card configuration is something I haven't had to screw with in the past, but it is something that should be simple and work on a desktop system, and the default shouldn't be to have the microphone input disabled.
The thing I liked Linux for the most on a home PC was MythTV, which once I eventually got it working, I really liked. That was several years ago, and I no longer have that PC.
It also seems that the older I get, the less I want to screw around with computers at home. I do it enough at work. When I use a computer at home I want it to be a tool that simply works. I used to tinker with my system to try and get it to play games better. Now I just turn on my new Nintendo Wii and enjoy the simple pleasures of a simple, fun system that I don't have to fight with all the time.
For right-out-of-box use I like Mandriva. I have a purchased copy that has everything already installed and it detects all my hardware. Not many people on here talk about, but I have tried numerous other distros and have always come back to Mandriva.
OK, I've seen this comment several times and am slightly confused. Why do you believe this?
I use FC6 as my main desktop. To install, I just stuck in the DVD, chose the packages I want, and let it install. It finds my sound, network, etc.
Keep in mind that I am coming from FC and Red hat before that. I've never really tried other distros other than to quickly load them into a VM to see what they're like. Am I missing something? FC does everything I want in a desktop.
Maybe I'm geekier than I realized, and I just don't find this difficult, while others do. Let me know.
Thanks!
Shadow,
I like FC but its not a distro for newbies (well except me ;) its too bleeding edge! If you want a stable redhat without subscription go with CentOS.
The apps themselves are not as polished as they are when the ymake it to a mainline distro like redhat. If you know what your doing this is np to overcome.
I did that too, but didn't have your luck.
It installed just fine, but when it downloads the updates, the dependency check fails when I try to install them.
Automatically checking for updates is great, but when they won't actually install on top of a fresh clean install, it is pretty much useless.
It would also be nice if Gnome's volume control utility actually saved the settings you change between reboots. For some strange reason the default is to disable the microphone input, and every time I reboot I have to go back in and reconfigure it or when I use skype to make a call, the person on the other end thinks I'm making a prank call because they can't hear me.
If I want to set up a cross compiler system at work where I telnet or rsh into it all the time and I don't need a graphical front end or sound it works fine.
However, when I start doing different things on it, packages fail to compile all the time and I have to debug someone else's poorly commented and often hacked together code to do anything.
While I get paid to do that at work, I don't want to spend my time doing it at home as well.
If FC works well for you, by all means use it. It works well for me for some tasks as well, and I've got not problems using it for those since I usually have to test our products on it anyway since some of our customers are bound to call up with questions.
However, I've had problems with FC1, FC2, FC4 and FC6 when trying to set up relatively simple things when using it at home. I'm tired of wasting my time on it. As soon as I find some time, I'm going to start with a clean download of another distribution, and if I end up with too many problems with that, I'll just have two Windows PCs at home. Life is too short to spend my time screwing around with an OS that's primary appeal is that it is free. At some point my time simply isn't free, and the price of Windows starts seeming cheap in comparison.
According to Andrew Morton yesterday more of you should be beta testing the kernel.org kernel for them. He said if you don’t you’re just taking but not giving anything back, which would be true especially if you’re using CentOS.
I will tell you once in every thread, I don’t see your post I just see that you posted *if anyone else wants to know how to filter this troll pm me*.
So if your post addresses me you wont get a response unless I jump onto a computer without firefox/greasemonkey I wont see what you said thus cant respond.
If youre posting to the world at large good for you, you’ve managed to stop stalking me..
“It would also be nice if Gnome’s volume control utility actually saved the settings you change between reboots.”
Its been along time since I left the gnome camp. I prefer xfce or kde now..
I really recommend CentOS for wht your doing (or better yet buy RedHat)..
Not true, since you whine to the moderator the instant I say anything you feel is remotely inappropriate. You also reply on occassion, further proof that what you say is not true. You can keep claiming you don't see my posts but the truth is you usually just don't have any legitimate answers.
I've been running Ubuntu as my main desktop OS for over a year now and rarely boot Windows at all. First with Dapper Drake and now Feisty Fawn. I skipped over Edgy Eft and will probably do the same with Gutsy Gibbon. I love the customisability of it and the Beryl/Compiz Fusion 3D Cube are awesome eye candy. Not to mention that I love having multiple desktops with open applications available on a rotating cube that spins with a simple roll of the mouse wheel. The only apps that I've found it hard to replace are mostly video editing ones. I have been messing around with Cinelerra, Kino and DeVeDe lately with some success.
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