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Dell to offer Linux Computers

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Nice!!!!!! I might look into a Dell for my next computer. :) LOL
 

cwa107


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It's about time. They've been quietly supporting Red Hat on some of their products for some time now. This definitely gives Linux more credibility and more mainstream support. Let's hope this is the start of a trend, as more Open Source adoption can only be seen as a good thing, both for the Linux community and us Mac users.
 
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as I saw the picture with that Dell computer and ubuntu: I just installed ubuntu on my iBook with beryl as window manager and I really like it. Everything works pretty good, I even got the airport running. Wouldn't be a complete replacement right now for OSX on my MBP, but it's nice to play a bit around. And the eye candy of beryl is just amazing! :dive:
 
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But whats the difference ? I mean you can run Linux on any current PC by downloading it for free.

Btw, Isnt Mac OS X better than Linux in terms of user-friendliness and usage?
 
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But whats the difference ? I mean you can run Linux on any current PC by downloading it for free.

Btw, Isnt Mac OS X better than Linux in terms of user-friendliness and usage?

Some people don't like to bother about searching for drivers, compile sources, google for solutions for some hardware/software problems, ... By buying a dell laptop with linux everything will be ready for use and you probably get support for it. I guess that's the advantage.

MacOSX is definitely mor user friendly (my opinion), but also more expensive.
 

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But whats the difference ? I mean you can run Linux on any current PC by downloading it for free.

Btw, Isnt Mac OS X better than Linux in terms of user-friendliness and usage?

The difference is that it's "supported", at least to an extent. For some people, this will make it an appealing option and lends more credence to Linux as an alternative to Windows.
 
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I don't care what OS is on it.. It's still a Dell.
 
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Dell is also slowly starting to stop selling Vista. They recently brought XP back.
 
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Dell is also slowly starting to stop selling Vista. They recently brought XP back.

of course they did; not everyone switches right away. dell was shortsighted for only offering one choice, but they have seen their error. folks will continue to use XP for a long while still. kinda like how many OSX users will jump to Leopard when it first comes out? not all. in fact, many will stay with Tiger until 10.5.1 or so comes out. (some are still using Panther or earlier!)

XP should be a choice. i'm glad they are adding Linux now; gives the buyer more choices. (buyers tend to like that)
 
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But whats the difference ? I mean you can run Linux on any current PC by downloading it for free.

Btw, Isnt Mac OS X better than Linux in terms of user-friendliness and usage?

Gives more options to people who don't want to install an OS. Most people in this world have never installed a system in their life. Opens alternatives up to more people. As to the last question: not necessarily. There are a couple of Linux distros that are just a user-friendly and with great assistance. To to Mac is the "ultimate" OS.
 

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This is really great news I believe. Having a major (if not #1, not sure where they sit right now) PC manufacturer shipping Linux will (over time) force more of the 3rd party hardware and software manufacturers to begin support for more than just one OS. This should be only the first major PC manufacturer to do so as it will also force the others to keep an eye on Dell to find out what kind of market they are missing out on. That last 10% of sales with many companies can be the difference between making ends meet and making a profit.
 
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Btw, Isnt Mac OS X better than Linux in terms of user-friendliness and usage?

Linux is a kernel :)

With a Linux based system you have access to many different window managers and desktop environments.

KDE is highly configurable and Windows users can get their KDE system to mimic Windows quite easily.

Gnome is closer to Mac OS in some ways.

There's also Enlightenment, Fluxbox and others.

I love KDE but had to face up to the fact that it's best if I get rid of all my computers and settle on one. Too many cables and too much time playing around with computers and not creating things.
 
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as I saw the picture with that Dell computer and ubuntu: I just installed ubuntu on my iBook with beryl as window manager and I really like it. Everything works pretty good, I even got the airport running. Wouldn't be a complete replacement right now for OSX on my MBP, but it's nice to play a bit around. And the eye candy of beryl is just amazing! :dive:

Beryl looks amazing - does it work on OSX?
 
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Linux is a kernel :)

With a Linux based system you have access to many different window managers and desktop environments.

KDE is highly configurable and Windows users can get their KDE system to mimic Windows quite easily.

Gnome is closer to Mac OS in some ways.

There's also Enlightenment, Fluxbox and others.

I love KDE but had to face up to the fact that it's best if I get rid of all my computers and settle on one. Too many cables and too much time playing around with computers and not creating things.

The Linux Kernel and OS X Kernel have quite a lot in common.

GNU Linux has certainly become easier to use, but the biggest issue I still find after a fair number of years of using it is the whole 'dependency <this word is censored>'. For those not familiar, it's where you try and install an application or utility which has multiple dependencies on other files and these can become problematic tracking down and installing and each may have further dependencies themselves.

GNU Linux is not the only platform to have this issue though. If you're ever bored, do a Windows XP fresh install with only the standard 'newbie' install components... then try and run the MS Vista compatibility programme... you'll need to install at least 4 different apps to get this to work, including .net 2.0 which can take a long time depending on your hardware. In fact, just to get the Vista compatibility wizard to work from scratch, requires about 30 minutes worth of downloads and installations, plus a restart!

Anyway, I think Ubuntu has addressed this dependency issue as well as anyone, with the system automatically downloading most dependencies from the repository, which is a great system.
 
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but the biggest issue I still find after a fair number of years of using it is the whole 'dependency <this word is censored>'. For those not familiar, it's where you try and install an application or utility which has multiple dependencies on other files and these can become problematic tracking down and installing and each may have further dependencies themselves.

Anyway, I think Ubuntu has addressed this dependency issue as well as anyone, with the system automatically downloading most dependencies from the repository, which is a great system.

Depenancies are only an issue with the inferior RPM package managers.

Anything Debian based is usually pretty flawless. Gentoo is ok too if you have time to compile.

Gentoo and Debian/Kubuntu are the only Linux distros I could ever use. Anything else was just a pain in the behind.
 
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Depenancies are only an issue with the inferior RPM package managers.

Anything Debian based is usually pretty flawless. Gentoo is ok too if you have time to compile.

Gentoo and Debian/Kubuntu are the only Linux distros I could ever use. Anything else was just a pain in the behind.

SuSE has improved quite a bit too - I haven't tried Gentoo ever, which is a shame.
 

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