| What Dell's desktop Linux move means |
May 01, 2007
In 2004, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. In 2007, Dell, a top computer manufacturer, is introducing pre-installed Ubuntu Linux on its main PC lines. The worlds of baseball and the desktop will never be the same.
In both cases, people worked long and hard to reach the top. In Linux's case, the top is the recognition that it is not just a hobby operating system, and that it is not an operating system that's only for servers. With its arrival on Dell's desktops, Linux has proven that it can compete in the same league with Mac OS and Windows.
This is only the start. I have reason to believe that Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and Toshiba will soon be joining Dell in making Linux easily available for desktop users.
Some of you may be thinking, "Why is this such a big deal?" Linspire has been successful in getting smaller OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to offer Linux on the desktop for years. Some small OEMs, such as All Around Geeks and System76, offer their own house-brand Linux desktops. Other companies, such as EmperorLinux, have long sold brand-name computers from Lenovo, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony, and even Dell after they installed Linux on them.
It's a big deal because for the first time, without hemming and hawing about it the way Lenovo did with its Linux-powered ThinkPad and Dell with its no-operating-system computers in the past, a top-of-the-line company is saying to the world, "Yes, desktop Linux is real."
Dell also is saying something else that's equally important about the desktop world. It's saying, for the first time in more than a decade, that standard x86 PC users have a choice. For the first time since OS/2 mattered, users have a choice again. No more are users stuck with Windows. No more are they forced to pay the Microsoft tax.
Even users who never intend on using Linux should be glad to see Microsoft's iron hand finally lifted, albeit just an inch. Just as the arrival of Firefox forced Microsoft to improve Internet Explorer, the arrival of Linux on a mainstream desktop will force Microsoft to make significant, rather than cosmetic, improvements to its own operating systems.
This isn't just a big day for desktop Linux users. This is a red-letter day for all PC users.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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