Dell Opens Up About Desktop Linux 517
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Dell explains his company's Linux desktop strategy in an interview at DesktopLinux.com. He says that it's not practical for Dell (the company) to support numerous distributions due to their incompatibilities, but that he doesn't want alienate large segements of the Linux community by selecting a favorite Linux distro to standardize on (Ubuntu appears to be his favorite, at the moment, by the way.) What he'd really like to see, is for the popular Linux distros to converge on a common core platform, according to the article."
Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'd like from Dell (Score:5, Insightful)
All I want from Dell is a commmittment to ship hardware for which open source drivers are available -- for them to say, for example, we need open source audio drivers or we won't ue your soundcard/integrated chipset, or your graphics chipset, or whatever. If Dell leaned on vendors, they'd give open source developers the info they need to support their products.
The not having to pay for windows thing is tricky, and I know it bugs a lot of people. I understand why. But for me the bottom line is that I just want stuff to work, and a Dell with a windows license is still a good machine at a good price, even if you don't use the license.
It would be cool if Dell could make sure that dual boot people could reinstall windows in a differently sized partition, though -- if they could make sure that you get the installation CDs or whatever else you need to do that. I haven't really been following things, but I hear that some people get machines with ghost backups of windows instead of a real install CD. That sort of thing is a problem from a practical point of view for a linux guy who wants the ability to dual boot.
Support the Hardware (Score:0, Insightful)
Common core platform? (Score:1, Insightful)
Good for you (Score:5, Insightful)
Decisions, decisions. (Score:2, Insightful)
He is absolutely right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately, all mainstream Linux distributions could derive from the same basic base (with the exception of those which try to fit Linux in tight places, for example). There is no reason that RedHat, SuSE, Debian, et al have to have so many differences beneath user-space software. (Consider the wildly different boot-time initialization scripts in each of those distributions. Ironically, there is a modular system in place.) Consolidate the similarities and expand by extensions which do not eliminate cross “distro” compatibility. There are already efforts [autopackage.org] to this effect. This is no magic bullet for any particular problem, but it will help eliminate the throat-cutting within the community and encourage computer manufacturers like Dell to offer Linux solutions.
Re:Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
No they don't - they want hardware that works out of the box on the distro they chose.
I'd be happy if Dell supported one distro (or hell, even netBSD). It would mean that other distro's could look at the drivers used & have an easy time supporting Dell.
Its not rocket science Michael, don't try to make it harder then it really is. Support one distro (my suggestion is Debian, as you get a nice slow moving target, or Ubuntu, for predictable release cycles) but it doesn't really matter which one you support
Re:Why don't they...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Talk out of both sides of the mouth (Score:5, Insightful)
Err, duh. RTFA instead of just the opening. Where Dell does offer a desktop computer with Linux is in its Dell Precision nSeries low-end workstation line. These come with RHEL WS 4 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux workstation 4) preinstalled.
...and...
However, he also said, "We've had number of communications with Ubuntu. Most of those have been about giving Ubuntu better driver support, but we're open to all those things."
So apologies for the KJR (knee jerk reaction), but still: the question is hardware driver support.
Re:I agree with Mr Dell (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as all the hardware in a computer has linux drivers (preferably open source, but
I'll live with things like Nvidia's drivers), then any version of linux with a suitably
recent kernel (i.e any current distro) will work with the hardware.
Any incompatibility between the distros is a result of different file structure etc.,
this isn't a Linux (i.e. kernel) issue.
When I buy a budget computer from Dell I feel that I am gambing on the hardware being
operable under Linux (and I've lucked out so far).
Mod parent up: LSB is the current best answer (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see what would be so bad if Dell started doing what a lot of software companies do--support the biggest few (Red Hat and/or SUSE). Hobbyists will be happy knowing the hardware works with SOME distro. If Dell finds it economically feasible, they can add support for other distros (possibly even as some pay-extra-for-support). Monarch computers and others do exactly this--installation costs for various distros depend on the cost of a license & time and difficulty of install. The support for some of these is provided through the O.S. vendor. Or you can purchase extended support at a fee (which can also relate to the time and difficulty of support).
Re:I agree with Mr Dell (Score:2, Insightful)
Dubuntu anyone?
drivers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Compromise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I agree with Mr Dell (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:He is absolutely right. (?!) (Score:3, Insightful)
Release early, release often. (Score:4, Insightful)
This question of "which distro" is a misleading one. Pick one that you think will meet the needs of your customers. Ubuntu is a nice fit for home machines and laptops. Dell already has some enterprise Linux machines out there so they could easily offer a choice of Ubuntu or Enterprise on workstations and servers. Once one distro works on a Dell machine, the likelihood is that any other distro of choice will also work. All this talk of fragmentation in the Linux distros misses the important point that open source is more about source-level compatibility than binary compatibility. As long as software can be compiled successfully on a Linux distro, it can be used.
It is also important to track the latest stable release. If Dell produced Ubuntu-configured machines, it should attempt to make sure that the version is current with the latest stable release. This would also encourage hardware manufacturers to provide Dell with Linux-supported hardware and that might in turn help increase the number of devices that have linux support. Wireless networking is a key area where support is tricky.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
It will never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I agree with Mr Dell (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't wait up for Linux to become Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux and most open-source software are by nature a federated, bottom-up form of software development where multiple versions abound. This is because there is no one single entity(person or corporation) who knows which features are best for users, *and* the best way for those to be implemented. Hence forks abound which allows users, aka the free market, to decide which versions/software suit their own requirement. Compare this to proprietary software where the corporation decides which features you want, when you want them and in what form you want them.
Waiting for Linux to converge into a single platform with a market share >80% would imply that other versions have failed to see what users desire, and one company(or group of individuals) has been able to capitalize on that and advance its market share.
Now Ubuntu(I use that myself) has to an extent been reading what lay users desire from a distro and implementing many of their needs well. But as Ubuntu becomes more popular are other distros going to sit still watching it reap all the laurels? I don't think so. They will evolve too. If you think that isn't possible then ask yourself how the hell Ubuntu managed to gain so much in the last couple of years? Do you think such innovation will stop after Ubuntu?
Finally, imho lay-users are not going to want to switch to Linux in the near-term. Because switching an OS for them represents a huge task which they will undertake only if:
1. They are thouroughly dissatisfied with Windows, or
2. They are thouroughly enamoured by the benefits that Linux offers
Unlike what we may all think, on the whole most people are not thouroughly dissatisfied with Windows. Sure they may have to deal with patchy security and those occasional crashes but hey, who says Linux doesn't have issues? I've had Ubuntu lock up on me more than a few times. I've spent a better part of the first month trying to get streaming videos to play on Firefox. Did I quit? No...so why would a Windows user?
To sum up, expecting Linux to converge into a super-distro isn't going to happen. Simply because open-source by nature is designed against the formation of monopolies. Since code upto a certain point is freely available to all, a new fork can be established by a brighter, more innovative, more responsive group in much lesser time than in the prop. s/w market. So an 80%+ distro would mean that nobody else read the market and changed course.
Re:Inspiron runs FC4 fine (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's the core of the problem. 99% of users don't care enough to spend a "few months" just to get digital sound and wireless access. I just bought a mac Mini, and I had my wireless and digital sound working right out of the box (it might not be a fair comparison driver-wise but it at least shows that Unix can be an excellent desktop OS). It's those 99% of users you are targeting when you go after the desktop market. When I got FC1, (I know it's been a while), it took me 8 hours to get my wireless card working and I learned 20 different things in the process. I didn't mind it, but most users shouldn't have to care about such things. And just based on that, I don't think i'd be able to recommend Linux to anyone non-geeky for a while. (I've used Ubuntu as recently as last year and was pretty impressed, but still is nowhere near where it has to be.)
I've had one harddrive completely die (replaced next day), but now I have bad sectors and htey won't help me because I'm running an unsupported OS.
And that is perfectly acceptable. Why should they have to waste their time diagnosing something unless they are absolutely 100% sure that some driver in some Linux distro that they don't know about could've caused your hard drive to overwork itself and get corrupted... (it's a possibility.) It would be unfair to other users who are running "supported" software. That's why you're a Linux geek, you are probably fine with spending 20 hours diagnosing hard drive sectors.
Michael Dell with a bit naive view (Score:4, Insightful)
For a company which has been supplying $300 low end machines with scrap hardware and shady driver, this doesn't make much sense to me. Even with failed venture in Linux market with Red Hat back in 2001, I don't ever recall Dell ever putting any effort in supporting customers half way decent.
Sure, they had "support Red Hat and SuSE or United Linux" logo. And because of that, Dell's association with so called "leading or highly preferred version", it treated Linux as an OS, not a kernel. and when someone states "I support Linux" normally you don't convertly support only "some portion" of GNU/Linux distro, but work with Linux kernel developers with half way decent driver support so that EVERY distro can benefit from it.
Even today, Michael Dell either can't see it or is too naive. One would think, Dell had learned their lesson and support Linux kernel developement and community and not "leading or highly preferred version" distros. However this goes to show, Dell didn't.
Re:I agree with Mr Dell (Score:5, Insightful)
He's got the right idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies do not want to invest money retraining their staff. It was hard enough getting them to learn MS Office or WordPerfect the first time. There are a few things that need to happen before Linux makes a big push for the corporate desktop:
-- Make it "just work." Windows' big strength is that I can go to CompUSA, buy any old crappy piece of hardware, plug it in, and have it work without having to load kernel modules, edit config files, etc.
-- Standardize it. Pick an office suite. Pick a window manager. Pick _a few_ of the hundreds of obscure GNU applications and bundle them as a standard tool set. Wrap in some administration and deployment tools that are brain-dead simple to use. No normal user wants three office suites, four window managers, etc.
-- Completely hide the guts from the end user unless they want to see it. Mac OS does a great job of this. I have the command line and access to the config files if I want it, but the GUI is more than adequate to tweak most items.
Dell's other big market is home users. The same rules apply, just more so. Home users do not have the patience to learn Linux internals. My advice would be to start with an Ubuntu-like base, and go to work making the OS just work for normal users.
Self-fulfilling (Score:5, Insightful)
If Dell starts shipping every box with some Linux distro, that distro will immediately become the "common core platform".
Re:Inspiron runs FC4 fine (Score:3, Insightful)
That's weird, we buy Dell all the time for desktops. A fair number of the "os-less" ones, too, for Linux and OpenBSD. Have had a few die over the past while with bad caps on the board (whole different story) and Dell has never refused a claim.
Re:I agree with Mr Dell (Score:3, Insightful)
Do they also sell PCs without hard disks, to avoid alienating certain hard disk manufacturers?
vista? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I agree with Mr Dell (Score:3, Insightful)
The strength of Linux is that it's not a monopoly system like Microsoft. There are lots of options depending on what exactly you're looking to do. Dell should figure out what most users of their desktop systems want out of their computers (Corp/Govt vs Home Office vs Gamers) and choose (K)Ubuntu^H^H^H^H^H^Ha distro or three that best support those needs, in a way not dissimilar to Windows product lines, I'm not going to by 2k3 Server for WoW playing, or WinXPHome for hosting a website. (to be fair, I wouldn't choose Windows anything for hosting a website, but that's beyond the point here). Dell is hiding behind this excuse, when really, they should just choose one and move on.
Re:I don't buy it (Score:2, Insightful)
My guess, however, is that Michael is telling the strict truth, but the subtle lie.
The word Linux never specifically comes up during license negotiations, but everyone knows what the code language actually employed really means.
And honestly, once you've been playing ball for awhile you get to know the rules of the game without being told. Most industries run by explicit rules that you had better not cross if you know what's good for your company, without anyone ever having to explicitly lay them out, nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean?
KFG
Re:Good for you (Score:3, Insightful)
Since Dell seems more or less happy with the state of affairs now, and you're complaining about it, I'm going to suggest that the evidence would suggest the opposite: your problem, not Dell's.
SUPPORT Linux != choose a distro. (Score:1, Insightful)
We do not need his company to support Linux distro's - what we need is Dell hardware that 1) comes without a preinstalled operating system and accompanying tax, and 2) is built using parts that are supported by free Linux distro's drivers, such as Debian.
Case in point: I bought a HP zv6025EA laptop last July, but had to work on it without X until Debian testing included the newest X.org release (by February, 15th). Now, *for me*, working without X is not much of a problem (I'm a GNU Fortran developer and meteorologist - I use the thing for *computing* - but a lot of other Linux enthousiasts might not want to buy such a lacking machine
Cheers,
Toon Moene.
Chicken or the Egg? (Score:3, Insightful)
Think if Dell offered Linux to the average consumer and worked with the Vendor to provide support it'd give them the market share? Of course. Dell would make colourful foldout instructions for whatever Distro they choose. Dell would make drivers specificly for the distro they choose. Just like they did with RedHat on the server OSs (try getting OpenManage to run on other distros... hell in a handbasket).
So I'd say this again- if Dell were to pick one, that'd see a big boom in popularity and familiarity with users.
-M
Re:drivers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What I'd like from Dell (Score:5, Insightful)
All I want is drivers period. Proprietary is fine with me.
Re:Funny (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called listening, folks. Maybe if the Linux community started listening to what users are SAYING they want, instead of dictating it to them, Linux would see wider adoption.
Major Mountain of Mikey BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Your service hasn't been worth much since about 2001, so it's no big loss for the user. Then you can stop making bad excuses for not wanting to offer Linux because MSFT will find a way to raise your OEM license costs if you do.
Dell's misunderstanding (Score:4, Insightful)
So, what Linux operating system to pick? It doesn't matter! Choose whatever distro you think you can support the best. Preinstall Weezix (distro maintained by George Jefferson's wife) for all I care. If you can show me Weezix running, drivers and all, that means that I can copy the config to my distro of choice. Yes, that takes some expertise. But there are tons of people with that sort of expertise nowadays.
And here's the kicker: within two months, step-by-step instructions will appear on the forums and wikis of the major distros. Within six months, most distros will automatically support that machine out-of-the-box.
It doesn't matter which one you choose, it only matters that you choose! Though you can make everybody's lives a lot easier by selecting hardware with open source drivers. Too bad about the graphics card situation...
Re:Self-fulfilling (Score:3, Insightful)
How many Linux boxes do you really think are going to sell? I don't see why slashdotters are even concerned...
Practically every one of you scoff at the "off the shelf" system and don't currently support the prebuilt system. Are you telling me that if Dell offers some random Linux distro you're really going to buy it to put your own favorite distro on it?
I don't think dell can win this battle, Mike is right. Too many distros, too many people in the community who don't buy prebuilt systems and too few current dell customers who are looking for an alternative to windows.
Re:What I'd like from Dell (Score:2, Insightful)
I also want a commitment from Dell to support the principle of Freedom
While we're making unrealistic requests of Dell, I'd like a Moon Pony. k'thx.
Maybe is IS wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is, when you put companies in the driving seat for a push to a single Linux distribution, you get crap like RPM being made part of the standard. Personally, I'm glad UnitedLinux failed to gain overwhelming momentum, because life's too short to have to deal with RPM.
Re:Funny (Score:4, Insightful)
How can you get any "wider adoption" than that?
You too can listen as well as anyone else. This is not an issue of the linux community not listening to somebody. This is not Windows. It's a different environment, and it doesn't work the way you think it should. That doesn't mean it can't work.
Practice what you preach and listen
"I'd be happy if Dell supported one distro (or hell, even netBSD). It would mean that other distro's could look at the drivers used & have an easy time supporting Dell."
As soon as that happened the rest of the linux community could more easily get their distro of choice working on Dell machines as well. Why is that so hard to understand? That's how the linux community works.
- Kevin
Well, he may be right, but it's still a ruse (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, it's hard to believe that Dell cares what Linux partisans of various stripes think at all. While they probably do sell the odd machine to evangelists and hobbyists, those people can be counted on to customize the machine beyond the pale of supportability anyway.
No, for whatever reason, Dell doesn't see profit maximization in that direction at this time. <portentious music> We may not, probably are not privvy to all the reasons why this is so. </portentious music>
Re:Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
The key to Linux is diversity and who cares if we alienate Mr AOL etc. Everyone everywhere seems to be trying to tell the community what to do atm yet we are still here plodding on in our own directions some totally contrary to others and yet still making great things happen our own ways.
Thats what made Linux and OSS what it is in the first place by not conforming to someone in a suit who probably types with one finger and assumes to know what is best for us.
Re:Funny (Score:4, Insightful)
YES !!
An industry powerhouse like Michael Dell tells the Linux community what he wants
Said in another way, the VENDOR is telling us CLIENTS what he wants. This is BS of course, and not at all the way it works.
Let's see what your conclusions are
and how does the Linux community respond? By insisting that he's wrong and telling him what he actually wants
What ? You mean us CLIENTS are asking the VENDOR what we want ? We tell him he's wrong and tell him what we want.
That looks like a very good thing to me. Now, does he listen ?
It's called listening, folks
Exactly, Dell has to listen.
Maybe if the Linux community started listening to what users are SAYING they want, instead of dictating it to them, Linux would see wider adoption
And there you lost me. The Linux community is the users you talk about here, so your sentence does not make any sense. Dell sure enough is not the user here.
And basically, the GP is saying to Dell to stop assuming things about us USERS, especially because these things are BS, and that supporting any distro will do the job.
Same old FUD (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
There seem to be two competing factions among Linux users. One wants to keep Linux diverse, flexible, and (admit it) fragmented. The other wants to see Linux gain market share (especially at the expense of Microsoft) and see consolidation and standardization as the means to accomplish it.
You sound like the former. Michael Dell is backing the latter.
Re:Funny (Score:2, Insightful)
If the Linux community is trying to 'sell' Dell on Linux, he most certainly is the client.
Once you realize that, the rest of your points are moot.
Freedom is a messy thing (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm starting to think that most people are into bondage.
Freedom is a messy, messy thing. It's not clean, or easy, or cheap. It's not a delicate giver-goddess fashion-plate saint; it's a rough player, dirty and sometimes mean. It takes dedication to maintain, intelligence to master, and a willingness to honor others' freedoms.
I don't think most people are up to the task. Or, at least, there's a large portion of society that isn't up to the task. Leading the way are corporations, as Freedom is anathema to business. Corporations work hard to limit choice, or better, to dictate choice ("You can have any color, as long as it's black"). Second is the government, as Freedom is difficult to govern. ("You can have any choice, as long as it's mine.")
And I think most people allow that to happen, because they don't want to have to excersize Freedom. (Citizens in the US are notoriously averse to excersize.) They would rather be stupid followers instead of intelligent independents.
My evidence?
McDonalds. Budweiser. Wal*Mart. MS-Windows. G. W. Bush. Ribbon magnets on vehicles. Star Wars I, II, III. Etc.
Each of those are demonstrably crappy products, yet each is a "leader," in some definition of the word. Each is patronized by more people than competing products (well, except G.W. Bush, but he's patrionized to by more people).
I don't know what this says about society, but it keeps me up at night sometimes. I hope someone figures out how to fix it.
Re:Funny (Score:4, Insightful)
Dell has to pander to the kind of custoemr he already has - businesses who don't mind paying for something as long as it works, and works well. So if he picked RedHat (for instance), shipped a support contract with each box, they'd be very happy and he'd sell loads of Linux boxes. The Linux community would probably complain that it wasn't Debian though and wouldn't buy the boxes anyway, so maybe he has grokked the community correctly.
I agree that have any distro would be a good thing (and I think RedHat EL4 woudl be a good choice given the demographic of Dell's target audience - they mosty run CentOS for their web-connected servers anyway).
Re:Maybe is IS wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Its this kind of b*ll*cks that has stopped Dell from supporting Linux, read what the he said about the community complaining if he picked a distro, and you have exactly demonstrated why he's right.
Re:Funny (Score:2, Insightful)
Those developing are doing so because they want to do it for themselves, they want a tool(s) to do something and they are building on a tool box that is Linux based. Some of their driving factor may well be to make something better than windows or some other OS but in the end it's for them and who ever cares to use it and they are doing it their way.
So by sitting on the side lines and saying well I think Linux should be the same at the core so we can beat windows or be installed on Dells these people show they have no real understanding of what they are asking of the community and what the community they are asking it of is about and that if they want change they have to get off their ass and make that change because 99% of the community doesn't care if Linux comes on a Dell.
Re:Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
The nature of Open Source means that the Linux "community" is both the users and the distro maintainers. Poor Dell* is stuck in the middle.
*: I can't believe I just used "poor Dell" in a sentence.
Re:Funny (Score:2, Insightful)
Dell is referring to the Linux development community here, not the Dell PC buyers community. Dell would not consider Windows developers to be a CLIENT as you are referring to Linux developers. Dell would consider Windows development as a VENDOR, providing them with a product that fits with the product Dell is trying to sell.
Linux will never become a widely used OS among Joe Sixpacks unless the developers realize that they are the VENDORS and not the CLIENTS.
Follow the money (Score:4, Insightful)
So the GP's points are not moot whatsoever; they are spot-on.
The basic problem here is that much of modern Corporate America doesn't see their customers as anything but an ends to a means. Not a partner, not someone to serve; simply an ends to the next bonus. Dell is an excellent example of this; and if they truly wanted to serve their customers, they'd be providing what their customers wanted - not what Dell says they want.
Uh, no. (Score:3, Insightful)
Last I checked, I still had to pay for a Dell box myself. That makes me their client; and them a vendor.
I could care less what Dell wanted. I know what I want, and Dell doesn't provide it.
I don't think we're trying to sell him, honestly.. (Score:4, Insightful)
They have had opportunities in the past to support Linux properly and they've discarded them for working with Microsoft- which is their right as a company. This whole sorta love it, sorta not affair with Dell has been ongoing for nearly 10 years now. I know about it because I was in the wings on parts of it all throughout.
The bulk of the argument Michael Dell's making is specious as it doesn't apply for Dell Computers as they're only really concerned about kernel support of the device buildup on a given machine- for all they care, they need only drop Debian, Ubuntu, or, god forbid, even Linspire on their product lines to "ensure that they work on delivery". If the kernel has support for the devices they ship on a given desktop and laptop, this will simply work and people can choose other distributions as they see fit for them- so long as any of their custom apps use something like the Loki Games installer or Autopackage (I'm for using Autopackage myself...).
This is all nice, but in the end, he's asking for Linux to be more like Windows (which it's not...) when he really ought to be less concerned about all of that and pick a default distribution they can comfortably support and support the devices in the Kernel however they can. It's not at all hard Michael- happens every day of the week. I've got a laptop from one of your competitors, any distribution will install on it, and the bulk of the devices (with the notable exception of the Broadcom WiFi (which there's a usable workaround, though I'd rather they didn't use that chipset...) and the silly on-board flash reader (which TI's preventing a version to be made- nifty device really, too bad TI's being stupid about it...), it all just went on and worked- with each and every distribution I put on it in 32-bit mode (64 bit modes work, but since the ATI chipset's...twitchy...it is more difficult to get 64-bit modes going. And it's nothing to do with the distributions per se, it's ATI's doing...).
Re:Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
A company the size of Dell doesn't ask us what version of Linux is going to be on a Dell, it tells us.
All he has to do is partner up with Red Hat. Dell supports the hardware, Red Hat supports the software. Done.
Umm, you must be kind of clueless yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
The truth of the matter is, I think what Michael Dell is talking about is that, if they are going to have a "Linux Desktop", they presumably would be putting a distro on the desktop, at which point someone's gonna be ticked that they are 'choosing winners and losers'. Someone suggested offering 5 or 10 Linux distro images which customers can choose from. This is somewhat ridiculous too, because then their Dell call-center helpdesk agents have to be able to remember differences between 5 to 10 Linux distros when trying to assist customers with problems (e.g., if someone calls in with an Apache question, does this particular distro store the configuration in
This is what Michael Dell is talking about when he says all the distros need to converge on a common core. All the files and configuration for stuff like apache, samba, X, KDE or GNOME, etc, need to be exactly the same across all distros so that support people aren't kept guessing at where stuff is and how it's setup. Even Dell CANNOT probably really afford to support multiple distros across thousands of customers (maybe if they ever reached the point where they had millions of customers who'd bought Linux desktops from them, they could afford to support multiple distros, but not from the start).
Binary Compatibility (Score:2, Insightful)
Binary compatibility, or lack thereof, is why the current fragmentation of desktop Linux distributions is so irritating. My #1 criteria for using a distribution is that it has best selection of software. Currently, I'm using Ubuntu because it's Debian with a commitment to a 6-month release cycle.
I've thought a lot about the distribution incompatiblity problem, because it really hurts my desktop GNU/Linux experience. It's not the Linux kernel, which has excellent binary compatibility with userspace. It all boils down to poor package and version management, especially with respect to shared libraries.
The first problem: there's no technical reason why you can't have multiple versions of the same shared library (in fact, that's what the
The other reason for distibution incompatibility is the packages themselves. There are a few different (incompatible) package formats and much worse, each distribution uses its own (incompatible) package naming scheme. Thus, I might have a package build for Fedora Core that depends on libsdl-ttf (Simple DirectMedia Layer True Type Font library), but who knows how it will be packaged or what it will be named in any given distribution?
So, it's the damned package format, package naming, and dumb handing of shared libraries that's to blame. What's the solution? Well, I think the answer is technically simple, but complex to implement. 1) package managers that are smarter about shared libraries, 2) standard package naming scheme, and 3) someone, either library developers or a standards body, needs to build "official" versions of each libary release. This would give GNU/Linux application developers a common "SDK" so they can build their application independently of their distribution.
Re:It will never happen (Score:2, Insightful)
1+1 = 2. So, that already makes two desktops for Linux. And that's just counting KDE and GNOME. Can you count how many different widget sets there are for *nix systems? Saying that Mac or Windows desktops are worse than that is ridiculous.
Yes, GNOME applications do run under KDE if you have both installed, but it doesn't look pretty nor are the application menus/dialogs consistent.So, I don't understand where you get your idea of "only one GUI for Linux".
To me a standard desktop is a desktop which forces every application to conform to the same look and feel - yes, one and one desktop only. If you want Linux desktop to gain wider popularity, that's what has got to happen first. The order and content of menus (where, for instance, you can find the preferences) as well as the look and feel of windows/buttons/etc. must be the same from one application to other. Mac is not perfect in this sense, Windows is worse but Linux desktop is the worst. There is too much freedom to tweak the GUI and, hence, every distro and every machine seems to have a slightly different setup. That is my point. I can handle it because I used to like working on such fast-and-loose systems, but such a variety of will confuse and annoy most people.
But the original topic of this thread was about distributions, not about the GUI. Nevertheless, the same concept applies to distributions as well: if you want corporations to accept Linux as a desktop platform, you will have to have a standard (in the sense that I am using the word here) distro, too. One and one distro only.
That is, if you want Linux on Dell computers.
Re:I agree with Mr Dell (Score:1, Insightful)
And then the choice of window manager can be narrowed down to 3 or 4 of the best. Gnome, KDE, Xfce, IceWM.
And then the choice of media player can be narrowed down to 3 or 4 of the best. amaroK, Totem, MPlayer, VLC.
And then the choice of browser can be narrowed down to 3 or 4 of the best. Firefox, Konq, Opera.
And then the choice of e-mail client can be narrowed down to 3 or 4 of the best. Thunderbird, KMail, Sylpheed.
And then the choice of word processors can be narrowed down to 3 or 4 of the best. OpenOffice.org, KWord, AbiWord.
And then the choice of spreadsheet can be narrowed down to 3 or 4 of the best. OpenOffice.org, gnumeric, KSpread.
And then the choice of instant messaging client can be narrowed down to 3 or 4 of the best. Gaim, Kopete, AYTTM.
And then the choice of audio engine can be narrowed down to 3 or 4 of the best. OSS, Enlightenment, ALSA.
And then the reasons for newbies to go back to Windows can be narrowed down to 3 or 4 of the best. Splintered application development, DIY support, "STFU NOOB" mailing lists, or weariness of trying to decide which application to do job x is best out of a half a dozen choices, most of them development versions.
Re:Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a mistake to think that all Linux users are hobbiests who want everything for free. Some of us spend big money on hardware.
Re:Maybe is IS wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
APT is a program which was originally designed to handle the Debian packaging format.
RPM is a packaging format.
There is APT-RPM out there, which lets you use APT to handle RPM files.
Re:Self-fulfilling (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
Dell sells much more to businesses than home users, so the idea of Dell selling preinstalled/fully supported Linux desktops to Joe Average users is a red herring.
Re:Maybe is IS wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
RedHat also originated ntsysv, and that beats the pants off Debian's craptastic update-rc.d.
The point is that because of the freedom associated with Linux, people are free to make decisions based on technical merit rather than marketing. Michael Dell's request is a marketing request: Linux would be easier to sell if it was unified.
As a user of Linux, I don't care how easy it is to sell--I'm much more interested in how easy it is to use, how reliable it is, and so on. Those things would be damaged by (for example) making RPM ubiquitous, making sendmail ubiquitous, making GNOME the standard desktop, making MySQL the only relational DB, and so on--even though those same changes would likely make Linux sell better.
In other words, what's good for marketing Linux to new users is often bad for those who are already Linux users. And absent the ability to force distributions to standardize, there will always be a market for distributions that do what's best for the users, rather than what's best for companies.
"Our competitors are smarter than us" (Score:3, Insightful)
I can tell you right now that the Debian folks aren't going to suddenly drop everything they're doing any time soon. Ubuntu might get folded back into Debian, but that's a long way away, and I wouldn't bet on it. The same thing goes for Knoppix. It's even less likely for Linspire, because it's sold by a for-profit company.
And those are just the Debian-based distros, for whom it would probably be technically easiest to merge. What about SuSE (Novell), Fedora/Red Hat, Gentoo? Do you think they will merge with each other?
News flash: If Michael Dell doesn't want to serve the *actual* market, instead of some fantasy market in his head, I'm sure his competitors will be glad!
Already happened (Score:3, Insightful)