But Dell still recommends Window$

Posted Sep 15, 2007 9:22 UTC (Sat) by ottavioc (guest, #47418)
Parent article: Dell produces customized Ubuntu Linux for customers (DesktopLinux)

I still wouldn't buy from Dell because they still recommend Window$.

This is not a great day for FOSS!

http://www.pledgebank.com/boycottvista

But Dell still recommends Windows

Posted Sep 15, 2007 9:25 UTC (Sat) by pjdc (guest, #6906) [Link]

It's likely that their OEM contract with Microsoft requires them to recommend Windows.

But Dell still recommends Window$

Posted Sep 15, 2007 20:20 UTC (Sat) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link] (3 responses)

I'm not surprised by that. They don't want to get a big increase in support calls from people who have no idea what Ubuntu is being upset that the computer they got didn't have Windows on it.

A bigger problem is that they're still only selling Ubuntu to 'home users' and not businesses. There are a lot of businesses who are already comfortable with Linux because it's already all over their server room who might consider Linux on the desktop if they could get it from an OEM.

But Dell still recommends Window$

Posted Sep 16, 2007 0:32 UTC (Sun) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link] (1 responses)

Dell offers SLES and RHEL on servers / workstations. Rather schizophrenic, if you ask me -- I'd like to see Fedora or Red Hat Desktop offered for home desktops, and conversely, don't see why they could not offer Ubuntu LTS for business offerings.

Not at all schizophrenic

Posted Sep 16, 2007 3:31 UTC (Sun) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

It's a matter of support. Red Hat and Novell are eager to support their server distros, and Red Hat in particular is not interested in providing commercial support for the desktop, and certainly not for laptops. Canonical is proving support to Dell's customers for Ubuntu on the desktop and laptop.

Now, I run Fedora 7 on a Dell laptop myself; it can be done and works pretty well. But it shouldn't surprise anyone that Dell chose Ubuntu, because it all has to do with a company being ready, willing, and able to back them up.

But Dell still recommends Window$

Posted Sep 16, 2007 3:38 UTC (Sun) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

It depends on the size of the business. For big business, Dell has supported Red Hat Linux as an enterprise-supplied factory-loaded disk image for over five years.

But Dell still recommends Window$

Posted Sep 17, 2007 20:00 UTC (Mon) by amikins (guest, #451) [Link]

And why shouldn't they recommend Windows? For their purposes, Windows is a mature, known element. They know that their hardware works with it, they know what kind of problems pop up, and it's generally predictable.

Yes, Linux is better, and Dell is seeing that there's a market for it. The effort they've putting into this honestly astounds me, considering their business history. They clearly really mean this, they just can't afford to let go and recommend any form of Linux for home users as of yet.

As an additional note, I'd like to say that throwing dollar signs into arbitrary words adds little to a discussion; if you aren't able to speak about a product using its proper name, that makes it difficult to view your statements as anything objective.