Dell dumps linux? [but introduces n-series]

[gbburkhardt at aaahawk.com (Glenn Burkhardt)]

I'm still not sure that the "no OS" prohibition prevents Dell from shipping a 
computer with Linux.  They might be using that as an excuse, but it's hard to 
believe with the antitrust suit so fresh, that even Microsoft would try to 
prevent shipments of linux boxes.  A more likely reason is that Microsoft 
wants to prevent users from installing Windows themselves, without paying a 
license fee.

Derek Atkins writes:
> Ron Peterson <ron.peterson at yellowbank.com> writes:
> 
> > Buying a computer with Linux pre-installed is not analogous to buying a
> > grill item from McDonalds.  It is not difficult to get Linux working on
> > most PC's, but more importantly, you only need to do it once.  Dell does
> > not set up each computer leaving their premises individually.
> > 
> > Getting a computer out the door in working order is not the problem.
> > Supporting it is.  Dealing with MS contractual bullshit is.
> 
> The problem is that you're going to want Debian, I want Red Hat, my
> sister want's SuSE, my cousing want's Slackware...  There are just
> too many "Linuxes" out there.  Even worse, I might want Red Hat 7.3
> and you might want Red Hat 6.2 (perhaps you want a 2.2 based system).
> 
> This gets to be hell for the big guys.  hard to maintain.  hard to
> support.  At least with winblows they have a single version and users
> are dumb enough to just take what they're given.

Somehow the small guys seem to manage.  PCs for Everyone has a small number 
of options to ship with Linux.  They have RedHat and SUSE, and different 
prices so one can choose support from RedHat or SUSE.  

They manage to provide good hardware support (for us, at least), even though 
the first thing we do at the office is load Mandrake on the systems.

I don't believe that in fact Linux systems are hard to maintain for a vendor.