Dell makes excuses for backing off Linux
By Triston McIntyre
In response to overwhelming feedback on Dell’s IdeaStorm costumer suggestion forum regarding Linux, Dell announced that the popular open-source OS would soon be pre-loaded on business laptops and PC’s; however, it is a dark day for Linux fans.
Just days after announcing their plans to include Linux on business platforms, Dell has formally announced they have no immediate plans for pre-loading systems with any version of Linux. Why the cold feet, you ask?
Dell claims they do not want to pre-load one build of Linux that may not be popular with ALL Linux users; because Linux is an open-source operating system, many distributors have modified their own unique versions of Linux, and Dell is claiming no favorites.
However, Dell is preparing a peace offering for the Linux community. The corporation is moving to certify its business machines with Novell SuSE Linux, and might also move for multiple certifications across the platform’s market. The key term here is certification, not pre-load.
Needless to say, Dell can start inserting its corporate foot directly into its corporate mouth; the backlash from the Linux community is less than pleasant. Many of the community feel like Dell is doubly shunning Linux users by promising them pre-loads and then immediately reversing their decision.
One IdeaStorm commenter calling himself “Shrewduser” writes:
“Tell [Dell] that this lip service thing they seem to be doing sucks, tell them we want what we asked for…”
Other comments were of a much darker tone…many users feel like Dell is afraid to package Linux with their machines for fear of a Microsoft backlash.
On the topic of Microsoft and Linux, Dell’s spokesperson Jeremy Bolen portrayed the artful dodger, opting to highlight Novell SuSE Linux certifications, but we feel that might not be quite the soothing reassurance Linux users need.
Bolen also commented that Dell is searching for the edition of Linux that will appeal to the most users universally; it seems Bolen has missed the entire point of an open-source operating system, which is to cater to each individual’s desires and needs specifically. We’re sure the Linux users on IdeaStorm will explain this notion to him fully.
Dell may have truly done themselves more harm than good by promising Linux and then with-holding it; it will be interesting to see how they proceed with this delicate situation.
Update 1: Apparently someone posted this article on IdeaStorm, and the article has since been removed. Touchy touchy, Dell. Did we bring up a sore subject?
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Read more entries by Triston McIntyre.
Stumble It!
February 28th, 2007
What’s the point of promising something if later you’re just going to change your mind? All it does is piss people off.
March 1st, 2007
At the very least Dell could install a lightweight linux distribution that would give the users an immediate boot into a running system with basic tools.
Anyone who knows enough about Linux to really ask for it probably knows enough to install their own distribution anyway.
And those same people could install from a CD boot almost as
easily as from a hard disk partition.
As far as hardware compatibility goes, the mainline kernel has almost all the drivers, so why wouldn’t Dell just certify a mainline kernel (or kernels) rather than a whole distribution.
Dell could have made a nice gesture but they didn’t. Perhaps the fix was in: a curt phone call from a Microsoggy higherup.
A few years ago a pre-install would have meant more; now that linux installers are getting so much better it is hardly a big deal. But Dell is still behaving like a….. major MS partner.
Cheers…..
March 1st, 2007
It’s better to never make a promise than to make a promise and break it.
March 1st, 2007
Anyone who knows enough about Linux to really ask for it probably knows enough to install their own distribution anyway.
Installing/upgrading Linux is easy enough (at least with Knoppix/Fedora Core). The hard part is installing a multimedia ready version of Linux with media players, ATI/nVidia 3d graphics drivers and favourite games (Falcon’s Eye etc…). Using ‘yum install’, ‘apt get#, or ‘rpm -i’ is easy enough, but some files are still hard to find. Finding the correct module name, the right CPU, kernel version can still be tricky.
March 1st, 2007
Anyone who knows enough about Linux to really ask for it probably knows enough to install their own distribution anyway.
But why pay for Windows to be pre-installed if you are going to wipe it and start again?
March 1st, 2007
Why is Dell so worried about choosing the wrong distro? They all basically come with the same software. Just pick one. Just let users choose between Gnome and KDE. Also, Dells are custom made. For a little more work, an assortment of distros could be available.
March 1st, 2007
I did some searching on Google News and I can’t find anywhere where someone from Dell said that they’d be pre-installing Linux. Everything I’ve read from them is in regards to *certifying* some of their product lines for SUSE and, in some cases, shipping some hardware with FreeDOS so that the machine was all set for the user to install their Linux distribution of choice. (http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/ideastorm/ideasinaction?c=us&l=en&s=gen)
What happened after *that* is that some bloggers interpreted that as what they *wanted* to hear and posted “OMG! OMG! OMG! Dell’s gonna ship Linux! W00T!!!!!”, and other bloggers read those blogs and re-blogged it… until everyone assumed that it was fact.
Dell didn’t back-pedal. They reiterated. It’s the *bloggers* who need to back-pedal… but they never will.
March 1st, 2007
RE: Update 1: Apparently someone posted this article on IdeaStorm, and the article has since been removed. Touchy touchy, Dell. Did we bring up a sore subject?
Actually, IdeaStorm is not a forum or a blog. It is a Web site designed to capture your ideas. Since the blog post in question isn’t an idea, it didn’t meet the guidelines for inclusion and was routinely removed to reduce clutter and make it easier for the community to gauge the popularity of ideas.
March 2nd, 2007
The moral to the story is,
“Don’t buy from Dell”.
http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/23168/
http://lxer.com/module/db/index.php?dbn=14
March 3rd, 2007
Dell has done this act before: abandon a Unix OS. Back in the early 1990’s, they were marketing a popular UNIX from AT&T called SvR4, which they suddenly dropped all support for. But, SvR4 continued on for 6-7 years before it was eventually superceded by Linux. The last folks to sell SvR4 were SCO. Back then, Micro$oft wasn’t the reason for Dells move. But, Dells latest move away from Linux is undoubtedly due to M$ pressure.