[Am-info] Dell and Linux

[Hans Reiser]

Roy Bixler wrote:

>On Tuesday 07 May 2002 09:04, Geoffrey wrote:
>  
>
>>I keep hearing all this waffling on Dell's part as far as Linux support.
>>  I just happened to scoot by their site.  Selected support->downloads.
>>  There's a dropdown where you select your OS.  Linux being the first in
>>the list.... ???
>>    
>>
>
>True, but it still doesn't appear possible to order Linux pre-installed on 
>one of their desktop systems.  There, "you can pick any color you want as 
>long as it's black."  Things are a little better on servers with "Red Hat 
>Linux 7.2" being the cheapest available pre-installed operating system apart 
>from the "no preinstalled OS" option.  Still, I noticed that "Windows 2000" 
>is highlighted in the list as "recommended."
>
>I consider the most interesting recent development in this area to be that, 
>Walmart gives the option of selling a PC without a pre-installed OS.  Also, 
>as this article at Newforge 
>("http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/05/02/1514240&mode=thread&tid=7") 
>shows, Walmart does have Linux users in mind.  Dell claims that they don't  
>preinstall Linux or other operating systems because "there is no customer 
>demand."  I wonder what they think of shipping a PC without an OS and being 
>able to knock a nice percentage off the price.  If Walmart's initiative is 
>successful, Dell will have to respond somehow.
>
>R.
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>  
>
Dell makes enough of a claim to support Linux to not get dropped from 
consideration when doing bids, but does not support it enough that 
anyone in their right minds would actually run Linux if Dell was their 
supplier and they wanted support.

If you want Linux preinstalled, you don't get to order most Dell systems 
(which means you can't really expect to get your users to restrict 
themselves to Linux supporting only systems), and if you buy a system 
without Linux preinstalled on it, they frequently refuse to support your 
hardware until you reinstall the "original operating system" that it was 
shipped with.  You can imagine having broken hardware, and them wanting 
you to reinstall windows before they talk to you about your clearly 
hardware problems, yes?  Get the word out, if you want to have choice in 
OS at your government agency or corporate office, you'd better 
disqualify those Dell bids, because they only fake the Linux support 
enough to land the bid and not enough to actually use Linux once the 
machines are ordered.

Hans