Posted on March 14, 2007 - by jono
Ubuntu on Dell machines
Our friends at Dell have opened a survey asking for feedback about which Linux distribution they should install on their machines. Any Linux support would be a win, but naturally I favor Ubuntu. So, Ubuntu community people – head over and make your vote count!
Lets really make Dell realise the demand for Ubuntu on their products. 
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March 14, 2007
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I got a laptop from dell yesterday and i am up and running with ubuntu feisty. Everything works, 100%! More here http://eugenia.blogsome.com/ (several posts)
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March 14, 2007
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Surely before DELL shifts Ubuntu (of which I am now a proud user) on their machines, ubuntu needs to fix a certain set of issues. The one that springs to mind is the driver updating for nvidia binary drivers. Specifically if you have a kernel which has not got the binary module built for it then you’re screwed. This is of course why DELL came up with DKMS. I am a big fan of DKMS as it works a treat on fedora fixing up nvidia, lirc, ntfs and a variety of other drivers for the running kernel on boot if there is no existing compatible driver. I’d like to see DKMS support in Ubuntu, I think it would add something to what is already a great OS (Sun java saved my life
IMHO SLED is a more appropriate distribution, or fedora. Although Yum/pirut on fedora is still a heap of horse shit things like wine work better on fedora than ubuntu. There are always trade offs, right now my ideal distro for running on an off the shelf machine would be;
j2re from sun flash player real player MP3/DVDCSS stuff Freevo/MythTV configured for basic usage out of the box Nvidia/ATI drivers including proprietary and open source (choice being the important point) LIRC drivers configured to work with common remote controls which ship with PCs and pre-configured to work with installed media players. Evolution exchange actually working well Tango tango everywhere Compiz or beryl if it gets stable
These are the things that I have to do every time I install a distribution and its a pain in the backside to spend a day messing around with this that and the other in order to get this stuff working. So for an off the shelf machine used to entice users these things need to work out of the box.
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March 14, 2007
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Please, let’s encourage Dell to do it’s linux support the right way instead of focusing on one distro. Warren Togami makes the case better than I can: http://wtogami.livejournal.com/15101.html
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March 14, 2007
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I don’t actually think that call to go out and vote is appropriate.
Dell wants to know what their (potential) customers want, it’s not a Linux popularity contest. So if you consider Dell an option for your next computer purchase, by all means go out and fill out the survey (more than just a vote, eh).
Id you’re a DIY system builder like me, or never would consider a Dell laptop for any reason, this survey is not for you. (I’m taking a leap here that most current linux users fall in the DIY category or are laptop buyers, because of anecdotal evidence
)
As such I would be very much surprised too if the result of their survey didn’t show a priority for Linux on their laptops.
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March 14, 2007
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Elroy – of course they know its going to be a popularity contest – I doubt they are solely going to use this as evidence of which distro to choose, it is just a request of opinion. There will be many factors that will affect which distro would be picked by Dell, not just this.
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March 14, 2007
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Everyone should be voting for Dell to ship gNewSense on their machines. I don’t understand why anyone would want them to do otherwise? Surely, the fact that Ubuntu ships binary drivers is because a lot of machines come with hardware that requires them… we should support Dell in creating and selling machines that do not require any non-free software, instead of having a “my non-free distro is better than yours” contest?
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March 14, 2007
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Though I voted for Fedora as that’s the distro I use, I’d be happy to buy a laptop with Ubuntu on it* and their survey didn’t allow me to express that so I worry they’ll look at the results and say they are very split and decide not to bother.
(*= I’d probably put Fedora on it anyway but if they sell it with Ubuntu then it’ll be more likely to work with my choice of distro than a random laptop I bought with a different operating system on it)
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March 15, 2007
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I completed the survey on DELL’s website and chose Ubuntu as the main distrobution that they should concentrate on although to be honest it was a difficult choice between it and openSUSE as they’re both very good distributions in themselves.
I find it amazing this past month as to how many articles I’ve read via Slashdot.Org that related to companies, and Government agencies migrating their Desktops to Open Source software meanwhile Microsoft can only offer a comment of ’support’.
Well done DELL!