It's not like this one was too difficult to see coming, but it sounds like
Dell just may have a few more
machines ready to take the
Linux dip in the not-too-distant future. According to Mark Shuttleworth, noted as creator of
Ubuntu, "Dell is happy with the demand it has seen for its Linux PCs," and he also mentioned that "what's been announced to date is not the full extent of what we will see over the next couple of weeks and months." As if that wasn't clear as glass, he concluded by stating that "additional offerings [are] in the pipeline," and while Dell wouldn't directly comment on the allegations, a spokeswoman did note that firm "was pleased with customer response to its Linux PCs." Chalk another one up for the open-sourcers.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
kirby @ Jul 26th 2007 7:56PM
Gosh
Everyone knows Linux Sucks,
Why can't people just stick With Windows, everyone knows thats where the money is.
Lol, Just joking.. :D Opensource FTW. Maybe one day we'll be released from the shackles of copyright infringement on software!
paloooz @ Jul 26th 2007 8:03PM
You had me going there. My mouse was on its way to the [-] button. But then I read the end and you got [+].
Low @ Jul 26th 2007 8:16PM
Yeah dude. I've been a fan of Linux since I got to try it on my DS. I want my first laptop be one of these.
Biffy @ Jul 26th 2007 8:24PM
@ paloooz
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Kunikos @ Jul 26th 2007 8:29PM
There's nothing wrong with closed-source software if it is done right, the price is reasonable, and the company plays fair. I have no problem buying plenty of PC games, and I think people running Linux with Cedega buy closed-source PC games with no qualms either. Having a company that open-sources certain portions of their games right away or after a certain time is pretty cool, though! (id software, etc.)
StrangeBum @ Jul 26th 2007 8:45PM
Damn you kirby...I'm sorry..but I minused you. Itchy trigger finger tonight, but you are totally right, I wish I could take it back now, you totally desert a plussed comment.
And yes...opensource is totally FTW!!
kirby @ Jul 26th 2007 9:17PM
Lol,
Aw Strangebum, how could you?!.
But yes, Linux is a path towards the future, Just imagine what it would be like if a majority of devices could be like if they supported Linux. For example, if people coding/testing it on numerous platforms, e.g. cell phones/PDA's (PPC-6700 comes to mind) can be able to do what they do now (mind you, it's not much but a start). Just imagine what it would be like if they had the original team use that platform instead of their proprietary (or in this case Windows Mobile), or just in that case imagine what it would be like if Microsoft released Windows source code (course it'd never happen, but heh.).
Kunikos @ Jul 26th 2007 8:29PM
"Creator of Ubuntu", assmastersayswhat? More like he just forked Debian and runs Canonical to support users of his fork. Volunteers do all the work on Ubuntu anyway, not Mark.
ILUVJENNA @ Jul 26th 2007 9:00PM
not sure if you just trolling or what.
Ubuntu started out by forking Debian, yes. But to say "he just forked Debian" is sort of like saying Mac OS X is just another variant of BSD, or to imply that this is something easily achievable successfully.
Significant work has been done on Ubuntu to make it easier to use in many aspects, such as install process, hardware detection, general usability and so on. It sees a new version every six month or so, significantly more frequent than even Debian unstable distribution.
Shuttleworth is certainly the "creator" of Ubuntu. He started out the Ubuntu Foundation with $10M, and while there are volunteer coders who contribute codes, there is a core developers that are paid by the foundation that do the majority of the work of putting together a linux distribution.
I don't understand what you are objecting to. Do you somehow hold a grudge that Shuttleworth is being acknowledged for spending his own money to fund an organisation that aims at providing quality free software?
Kunikos @ Jul 26th 2007 9:05PM
Would you call Steve Jobs the creator of the iPhone? Do you really think he did the work himself?
JENNYHATESU @ Jul 26th 2007 9:11PM
I'd call Steve Jobs co-founder of Apple Inc. Apple has gone through a lot of changes and have many many different products.
Ubuntu Foundation only has one product, and Shuttleworth is the direct cause of that product coming into being.
Why are you so bitter?
cmonkey @ Jul 26th 2007 9:17PM
I would call him the founder, or even creator, of Canonical. I agree that calling him the creator of Ubuntu is a mistake, and calling him it's founder is even a bit of a misnomer.
JENNAORNEVER @ Jul 26th 2007 10:12PM
Did he create the Ubuntu Foundation? Is the Ubuntu Foundation's purpose to make the Ubuntu distribution available? I mean, for Jenna's sake they even send CDs out for free.
Why all this grudge? Nobody's saying that he single-handedly wrote every piece of code in Ubuntu.
kunikos @ Jul 26th 2007 9:55PM
Why do you think it's a grudge against Mark? What are you, some kind of rabid fanboy? I just think the original poster made a mistake saying he was the creator of Ubuntu when he hasn't created anything except for a company.
JENNALUVSALL @ Jul 26th 2007 10:13PM
wow, this is really getting to you.
KunikosLUVSJENNA @ Jul 26th 2007 11:30PM
you are in serious denial.
You do realise that Ubuntu/Canonical does a lot of coding work/testing/QA on the Ubuntu distro, right? they are not just doing user support. You seem to have very dim view of what is involved in actively maintaining a Linux distribution.
Call me a fanboy, but I'd say pretty much the same thing about many other Linux distros.
"More like he just forked Debian and runs Canonical to support users of his fork." is seriously trivialising the work being done there.
kunikos @ Jul 27th 2007 12:29AM
So? A statement like "creator of Ubuntu" trivializes the work of everyone else who put in code other than Mark. I think that hundreds of contributers to Debian, the GNU Project, the Linux kernel, and everything else are more trivialized by attributing the sole creation of Ubuntu to one man than any of the examples you have come up with thus far.
kunikosLuvsRocco @ Jul 27th 2007 2:30AM
ah... and now you are splitting hair.
I don't think there was any intent of belittling anyone's effort in calling Shuttleworth that, nor do I believe there was any intention of doing so.
He is attributed such because he was the one that made extraordinary effort to start it, and he certain directs how the distro should develop. Whether or not you agree, Shuttleworth founded and funded the organisation/company that enabled the creation of Ubuntu Linux distro, as such, I don't think there's any issue to say he was the creator of this particular distribution. Nobody is saying that he single-handedly wrote every piece of code. Whether or not it is as significant as RedHat or SUSE in the overall contribution of Linux development is yet to be seen, but Ubuntu certain made a lot of converts to Linux.
So in your opinion, Linus Torvalds shouldn't be credited as creator of Linux? considering that he was working from previous knowledge of computing science? (and no, I am not trolling, I am merely pointing out that branch of knowledge builds on previous work.) And merely calling it Linux takes away all the effort made by the hundreds or thousands of people who have contributed towards the kernel development? So Linus just wrote some basic system calls and maintains the overall code? he's not really all that important in development of Linux kernel?
You are probably going to twist this to some point like saying that somehow I am arguing Shuttleworth's contribution is as great as Torvalds. That's not what I meant at all, and I don't care to compare them either. But I am merely applying your logic on another situation. (but then, perhaps I am twisting your words too...)
Whatever, i am finally getting bored with this and bored with arguing someone who just wants to piss on other people's work.
FehFoo @ Aug 11th 2008 5:29PM
Yeah, you're right that they do a lot of QA type work. Ubuntu does feel pretty well-polished. But I really feel like a lot of the credit goes elsewhere and Ubuntu reaps a lot of the benefits/compliments.
I'm not sure that any of the Ubuntu hackers have really innovated that much and come up with something that serves the whole community at large the way hackers from Red Hat and Novell have. Even Sun and IBM both employ full-time hackers on Gnome accessibility and on Firefox and stuff. Red Hat employs a lot of the major developers of GTK and Pango. Novell has crazy hardcore hackers like Federico doing really serious work optimizing GNOME, plus they're developing Mono (and while I know a lot of you may not like Mono because of some perceived association with Microsoft, Mono is really amazing). Aside from general QA and random bugfix kind of work, is Canonical/Ubuntu really producing anything of any significant worth?
pupkick @ Jul 26th 2007 8:41PM
People buy those cheaper Dell's with Linux on them because it saves them money. They're still putting windows on it, paid for or not ;)
teacupstorm @ Jul 26th 2007 9:08PM
I call BS, or perhaps that's what you really think, in which case the adoption of Linux is greater than you realise.
Microsoft is not making it easy for people running dodgy copies of windows, and the risks of running unpatched/unpatchable and outdated Windows is pretty high. For people that just want to surf the web and check emails, Linux is a cheap way to go, not just because it is free but also it has lower hardware requirement than Windows, in general.
White_Pheonix @ Jul 26th 2007 9:10PM
First of all, that makes very little sense. It costs more if you buy a PC with Linux (or no OS) and then install windows, because you don't get bulk discounts from M$ for buying a lot of their products.
Second of all, in some cases, it has been found that, with the same configuration, Linux systems being sold are actually more expensive, not less.
Trace The Hedgehog @ Jul 26th 2007 10:32PM
lol that's what I'm thinking of doing
AlexP @ Jul 26th 2007 8:53PM
I would've gotten a Linux Inspiron, but their current Ubuntu line is outdated.
JENNALUVSME @ Jul 26th 2007 9:02PM
do you mean the hardware is outdated or the software is outdated?
JENNA4EVER @ Jul 26th 2007 9:17PM
yeah, but it's the _CHEAP_ Vista, i.e. Home Basic, lacking in many functionality and eye-candies of the other versions, basically more restrictive than XP at the same time still bundled with all the bad bits of Vista and doesn't have any of the goodies.
Dell is supposed to fix the problem and make the Ubuntu version equivalent to the Windows counterpart, i.e. the only difference should be $50 towards Vista Home Basic.
AlexP @ Jul 26th 2007 9:13PM
Hardware.
Plus you get a cheap copy of Vista, so harrr.
AlexP @ Jul 26th 2007 10:09PM
Actually I get Home Premium.
Only HP ships PCs with home basic ($1K+)
JENNA4UN @ Jul 26th 2007 11:24PM
in that case, I have no idea what you are talking about.
Dell ships Vista Home Basic. Inspiron desktops and notebooks are configured with Vista Home Basic at the lowest level. Upgrading to Home Premium cost varies, cheapest I've seen is $25, probably worth it if you really want to run Windows.
In machines that are available with Ubuntu, the price difference between Vista home basic and Ubuntu is $50. There were some pricing problems when Vista machines turned out to be cheaper than Ubuntu onee, because they forgot to make the various "free upgrades" available to the Ubuntu machines. Dell's "official" blog said they've corrected to problem now.
There is no hardware difference between Ubuntu machines and Vista machines, IF Ubuntu is available for that particular model. Or at least this is the message Dell is broadcasting.
Rik @ Jul 27th 2007 5:07AM
Hey, I got my Latitude (through a premier deal that is) with home basic... off course I immediately tossed it off and put XP pro on it...
But talking about linux, and other non-windows OS-es, how many people actually put a different OS on their PC? Maybe 3% of all users..., and that number is probably even high. How many people actually know that you can replace your OS, maybe 25%? Off which 15% doesn't care. So the vast majority of computer users, let's say 75% hasn't even got a clue. Maybe a lower price will let these people use linux, but only if for example it's Dell lowest priced offering of the whole range. "Oh, I just saw that you can buy $300 laptops these days a Dell..."