| Waiting for Dell |
Mar. 06, 2007
Analysis -- In Samuel Beckett's masterpiece, Waiting for Godot, Godot never arrives, and the play ends with our characters still waiting. I sometimes think Linux users are also stuck in a barren landscape endlessly waiting for Dell, HP, Lenovo, or another major vendor to finally deliver a mass-market Linux desktop.
The major desktop players keep flirting with the Linux community, but then they never go all the way. Take, for instance, Lenovo. Last summer, Lenovo agreed to preload Novell Inc.'s SLED 10 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) on its ThinkPad T60p mobile workstation.
Then, Lenovo started retreating, and hemming that they really didn't mean that they would offer it pre-installed. No, no, it's just that you could install SLED on the T60p if you really wanted to. Today, if you look at the T60p listing, you'll find your only operating system choices are Microsoft's Windows Vista Business and XP Professional.
If you really dig around the Lenovo site, you'll eventually find the Linux for Personal Systems page. There, the company lists a motley collection of old and new laptops and desktops, which have been certified for use with a hodgepodge of current and out of date Linux distributions from Novell/SUSE, Red Hat, and TurboLinux.
But, buy a Lenovo system with Linux pre-installed? If there's a way for Joe User to do it, I can't find it.
And, then there's Dell. Dell has been toying with the idea of offering a mass-market Linux desktop or laptop for years now. The Austin, Texas-based PC vendor does offer Linux-powered workstations and PCs without an operating system, but that's about it.
Recently, Dell asked for help from its users in righting its declining fortunes. The users rose up as one and said they wanted desktops and laptops with pre-installed Linux.
Dell quickly replied, "We are working with Novell to certify our corporate client products for Linux." This will include "our OptiPlex desktops, Latitude notebooks, and Dell Precision workstations."
This still wasn't a popular Linux desktop, but it certainly sounded promising. Some optimistic observers even took this news as meaning that Dell had given in to customer demand and would now start selling Linux desktops.
Dell quickly threw cold water on that notion. In an interview with Todd Weiss, Jeremy Bolen, a Dell spokesman, said that Dell was simply certifying the hardware as being ready to work with Novell SUSE Linux, not announcing that it would actually be selling computers loaded with SLED. "However, I won't rule out the option of expanding the pre-installation program at a future date," added Bolen.
That's nice of him.
I'm tired of this. I'm tired of waiting for the big PC vendors to really support desktop Linux.
The next time someone asks me about a brand-name PC with Linux pre-installed, rather than tell them to hope for the best and check out the narrow offerings from the big companies I'm going to point them to VARs (value-added resellers) like EmperorLinux that offers laptops from Dell, Lenovo, Panasonic, Sharp, and Sony with Linux pre-installed. These systems aren't cheap -- you won't find any sub-$1,000 laptops here -- but EmperorLinux does deliver the goods.
I'm also going to tell them that brand names don't really mean that much. Many small companies offer systems with pre-installed Linux for prices that almost any wallet can afford.
OK, so maybe you've never heard of AlphaPCStore, IbexPC, or System76. But, you know what? These, and systems from other vendors, look to me to be every bit as good as the ones from the big-name companies. And, most important of all, they're not asking us to wait to get a system with Linux; they're willing to give us Linux now.
I don't like waiting, and if you don't either, you'll start checking the small Linux hardware companies out. You'll be glad you did.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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