Dell offering Linux (Ubuntu) on select PC's

ID:183669
 
May 25 2007, 6:02 pm
Dell.com/Open

Pretty interestin' stuff! Wonder if this will catch on?

~Kujila
May 26 2007, 2:08 pm
Yeah, they've had that stuff for awhile. I just hope everything comes preconfigured.
May 26 2007, 4:08 pm
In response to SuperAntx
Of course it does. I also find it interesting that they sell FreeDOS machines. Although it would be of no use for personal machines, many businesses are still working with DOS programs.
May 27 2007, 11:06 am
In response to Danial.Beta
Danial.Beta wrote:
...(FreeDOS) it would be of no use for personal machines...

how so? there are several text-based word-processors, email, and browser programs that work just fine, not to mention the wide range of DOS-based VGA games (King's Quest anyone?).

and not much would stop anyone from using it as a base for a GUI interface on top of FreeDOS. (rumor has it that GEOS for the PC would work under FreeDOS).
May 27 2007, 11:22 am
In response to digitalmouse
Good point... except I doubt you would need to buy a new machine just to run those programs. Even still, DOSbox is normally good enough for 90% of those programs.
May 28 2007, 6:33 am
In response to SuperAntx
Heh, "a while" means a day or two before I made my original post :P

~Kujila
Jun 7 2007, 6:57 pm
Well people wanted it (Dell IdeaStorm)
and now they have it
Jun 7 2007, 7:27 pm (Edited by moderator on Jun 7 2007, 9:35 pm)
In response to Atomic1fire
Well, it hasn't really gone far enough yet. However, Dell has made a lot of statements saying that they are interested in participation in open source driver development and stuff, so if they actually pull through then Dell will become a real platform of choice for people who want to use open source but don't want to <font color="green">[bleep]</font> with hardware incompatibilities!

<font color="green">Mod edit: No swearing on the forums please. You know better.</font>
Jun 11 2007, 8:05 am
It's the same price as windows, yet you can DL it free. BOO!!
Jun 11 2007, 8:52 am
In response to King Gunnerblast
Well, a lot of times those Ubuntu PC packages have stuff already attached to them. Like, look at the little Dimension desktop, it has an LCD monitor on the package.... remove it to get the price to come down.

~Kujila
Jun 13 2007, 1:37 pm
In response to PirateHead
PirateHead wrote:
... want to use open source...

you realize that not all the software that coes with Ubuntu is open source? free, yes, but not necessarily open source.
Jun 13 2007, 7:16 pm
In response to digitalmouse
I personally do realize it, and I have trolled many of the discussions about it. Many users consider the use of a few critical binary blob components trival, especially when it makes the operating system significantly more useful in the immediate term.

Furthermore, there is a strong desire on all levels of the Ubuntu community to replace the non-free components of the operating system as soon as better free components become available and mature. There are also plans to release a flavor of Ubuntu that contains no non-free components, in a fashion similar to the Free Software Foundation's GNewSense Ubuntu-based operating system.

For those reasons, I regard the Ubuntu operating system as open-source, if a bit pragmatic, and usually do not mention the few exceptions to that fact unless the person I am talking to are interested in open source for mostly ideological reasons (which isn't very often).