[Sussex] Dell going with Ubuntu

[Karl E. Jorgensen]

On Tue, May 01, 2007 at 08:57:34AM -0600, linux at oneandoneis2.org wrote:
> Looks like they made it official now:
> http://enterprise.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/05/01/1333205&tid=23&tid=3&tid=13

Wow! The line that really stood out for me was 
    ... the Ubuntu offerings should "come in below a typical Windows
    machine" with the same configuration".

I thought that OEMs got kickbacks for preinstalling "crapware" (e.g. the
AOL icon, some-antivirus etc)? At least this was the reason given in the
past for why Windows would be cheaper than a free Linux... 

With due repect to Canonical, I hope they won't preinstall similar
stuff. I'd hate to see an AOL icon on a Ubuntu desktop!

> Being optimistic, I'm hoping this prompts a rash of hardware  
> manufacturers suddenly wanting to make sure there's decent Linux  
> support: Since Dell will be offering the same machines with either  
> Vista or Linux, it's natural to assume that Dell will want to use  
> hardware supported by both. So a Windows-only manufacturer will be at  
> a distinct disadvantage.

Depends on the demand I guess. But it's going the right direction

> Plus there's that standing offer of free Linux drivers from Greg KH  
> that was made a while ago. Maybe at last I'll be able to buy that  
> computer I always wanted, where every part of it has an open-source  
> driver...

I presume you mean this one?
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/1/29/345

Reading between the lines, I guess this was aimed at ATI/NVidia (and
others)...  Dell usually uses one of those two chipsets for the graphics
cards... Wasn't there something about Ubunty separating out non-free
drivers, and not installing them by default?

> A man can dream! :o)
And what a nice dream it is :-)

-- 
Karl E. Jorgensen
karl at jorgensen.org.uk  http://www.jorgensen.org.uk/
karl at jorgensen.com     http://karl.jorgensen.com
==== Today's fortune:
Debug is human, de-fix divine.
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