www.dell.co.uk/ubuntu

[Bodo]

Linux is here, supported by a big hardware vendor for consumers.

www.dell.co.uk/ubuntu

not sure if you can save the MS licence cost

[SneakyNeil]

Leonvo's supporting SLED on its laptops too

[fredf]

Are you sure you can buy a Dell with Ubuntu installed? The links to choose a desktop and choose a laptop are both broken!

[-DeaDLocK-]

On a slight tangent here, but here in Malaysia, some of the big players actually encourage piracy indirectly by offering a no OS option on their retail machines. This includes the likes of Compaq, HP, Acer and Toshiba.

You can choose between one than comes with Windows and one that doesn't (comes with FreeDOS). 24 hours after purchase, you can virtually guarantee that those machines have an illicit copy of Windows on them.

I'm sure that any move by Dell to offer Linux on their machines (for less cost than Windows-equipped machines) would attract a similar kind of market.

[SneakyNeil]

-DeaDLocK- said:

On a slight tangent here, but here in Malaysia, some of the big players actually encourage piracy indirectly by offering a no OS option on their retail machines. This includes the likes of Compaq, HP, Acer and Toshiba.

You can choose between one than comes with Windows and one that doesn't (comes with FreeDOS). 24 hours after purchase, you can virtually guarantee that those machines have an illicit copy of Windows on them.

I'm sure that any move by Dell to offer Linux on their machines (for less cost than Windows-equipped machines) would attract a similar kind of market.

I hear what you're saying, but should it be impossible to sell a computer without a Microsoft product on it?

[cyberface]

SneakyNeil said:

-DeaDLocK- said:

On a slight tangent here, but here in Malaysia, some of the big players actually encourage piracy indirectly by offering a no OS option on their retail machines. This includes the likes of Compaq, HP, Acer and Toshiba.

You can choose between one than comes with Windows and one that doesn't (comes with FreeDOS). 24 hours after purchase, you can virtually guarantee that those machines have an illicit copy of Windows on them.

I'm sure that any move by Dell to offer Linux on their machines (for less cost than Windows-equipped machines) would attract a similar kind of market.

I hear what you're saying, but should it be impossible to sell a computer without a Microsoft product on it?

This argument's been raging for years. Microsoft have the IMO monopolistic position on the corporate desktop due to this illegal business practice. Making it impossible to sell computer *hardware* without paying Microsoft for an operating system (which may NOT be what the customer wants) is IMO more immoral than a hardware vendor offering an OS-free box (knowing that a percentage of customers will install stolen software).

I had a massive row with Dell 8 years ago or so when I bought a small tower server off their business site - I phoned a rep and asked for the price without Windows server OS, since I was going to run Linux on the machine. I was not prepared to pay Microsoft for a licence for an OS I wasn't going to use, and worse a licence that wasn't resellable on the open market to recoup the lost money. Eventually I got the price I wanted, but I never knew whether Dell just swallowed the 'Microsoft tax' or I actually got the bare box I wanted.

It was a reliable machine running first SuSE Pro 7.3, then Debian, before being retired as the Macs moved in. I wasn't supplied with any Windows install media, so if Dell paid MS for the licence that I said I didn't want, then you can see how cheap dodgy sounding 'OEM' copies of Windows make it onto the grey market...

So has the deal changed - or are Dell now also offering a bare box with no software support whatsoever (i.e. choose your OS and distro and support it yourself)? Or are Dell offering a support package for Ubuntu only?

I seem to recall that Dell rackmount boxen have been available to large corporates with RHEL installed for some time now, not sure how the 'Microsoft tax' is handled in those cases though.

[minimods]

Very interesting! I still don't think I can go solely over to Linux, but offering Ubunto pre installed will be a step in the right direction towards competing with Windows.

I found this link to a 6400 (laptop) with Ubuntu

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.as...

[lippetm]

I read that Dell will be doing an experiment in America by offering Ubuntu as an alternative on systems and depending on the success, they may then offer the option in the UK.

[jamieboy]

cyberface said:

This argument's been raging for years. Microsoft have the IMO monopolistic position on the corporate desktop due to this illegal business practice.

As you say, it's been done to death. I think it comes down to supply and demand - MS wasn't born into a monopolistic position, they got there because a lot of people wanted their product. If I approached Dell with an offer to let them sell their machines with my home-grown OS installed* to the exclusion of all others, I doubt they'd go along with it. Most people wanted/want Windows, so the vendor licensing agreement made sense for both parties. Now that Linux is becoming more viable, the agreement makes less sense.

*which doesn't exist, but you get the point

At least MS doesn't force you to buy their hardware if you want to run their OS.

[ThePassenger]

Jamie, but Apple don't sell OS X and nothing but OS X. They, like any other designer 'thing' are selling a complete suite of stuff. Same as a designer kitchen/bathroom IMO, at least for the home user market.

Still back on topic, nice to see them gearing up for a possible UK roll-out of Ubuntu purchases. It's a shame that the 'blank' option you can get in the states isn't yet available; yes, Dell US will sell you a machine sans OS (selected ranges/models, same as Ubuntu).

And yes, I believe Dell are providing their own support mechanisms for these machines as well as feeding users in to the various Ubuntu communities.

[Bodo]

lippetm said:

I read that Dell will be doing an experiment in America by offering Ubuntu as an alternative on systems and depending on the success, they may then offer the option in the UK.

www.dell.co.uk/ubuntu available in the UK, France and Germany from today

[ThePassenger]

Ahh good. They've got the store running.
Well, it's only one model so far... but it's a good start.

[Bodo]

ThePassenger said:

Ahh good. They've got the store running.
Well, it's only one model so far... but it's a good start.

There's a desktop and a laptop to choose from for the German market: http://www.dell.de/ubuntu

[ThePassenger]

Bodo said:

ThePassenger said:

Ahh good. They've got the store running.
Well, it's only one model so far... but it's a good start.

There's a desktop and a laptop to choose from for the German market: http://www.dell.de/ubuntu

Yes, A laptop and A desktop. One model of each. As I said, a good starting point to test the waters with a cheapy little machine and hopefully they'll expand it to include the more monstrous machines, such as the XPS laptops; of which I have one and it is running Ubuntu with zero issues... and posting on PH as well

[lippetm]

Looks like Dell don't faff about then. Just hope it takes off as a viable alternative.

Passenger, did you have any problems installing Ubuntu? I found the Feisty Fawn version really good, but failed miserably with the install of the Gibbon version, I also tried the Kubuntu versions of the same release, which also failed to install, in the end I gave up and moved over to the Mandriva distro.