Dell goes with Ubuntu

[Deathspawner]

A billionaire owns Microsoft so whats the difference?

And his OS happens to be the most widely used on the planet...

Mark Shuttleworth has billions of dollars... he could afford to push Ubuntu. That's why it's popular. It doesn't mean it's better than other distros out there... far from it since it offers nothing new, except a larger community thanks to the financial backing. It's Debian with a new coat of paint. So whys it so popular? Because it was marketed.

Same thing with the iPod. What does it -really- do different than a normal MP3 player? Nothing, except it's proprietary iTunes store. It was marketed well, it caught on, and other less expensive MP3 players that do the same thing are left in the dark.



Like I said, I understand why Dell is offering it. Ubuntu is one of the most popular distros out there. I just wish it had a good reason for being in such a place.

 

[enaberif]

And his OS happens to be the most widely used on the planet...

Mark Shuttleworth has billions of dollars... he could afford to push Ubuntu. That's why it's popular. It doesn't mean it's better than other distros out there... far from it since it offers nothing new, except a larger community thanks to the financial backing. It's Debian with a new coat of paint. So whys it so popular? Because it was marketed.

Same thing with the iPod. What does it -really- do different than a normal MP3 player? Nothing, except it's proprietary iTunes store. It was marketed well, it caught on, and other less expensive MP3 players that do the same thing are left in the dark.



Like I said, I understand why Dell is offering it. Ubuntu is one of the most popular distros out there. I just wish it had a good reason for being in such a place.

Can't agree more as they tried with Lindows and failed harsh but it seems to be working alright with Ubuntu.

The only thing I really don't like about the whole buying a system with linux installed is that to me its sort of defeating the whole idea behind linux being a free community, but on the flipside the community has been stale imho for awhile and major getting a major company behind it can make linux more worthy of a competitor of Windows.

 

[Deathspawner]

Well it is focused around a free community, but hardware is never free. I am wondering how much Dell is secretly charging to pre-install Linux for people though. No way it's free. I'd be even more interested in their support for it. I guess time will tell.

Lindows was bad in my opinion... it took Linux and dumbed it down WAY too much. As it stands, I do rank Ubuntu higher than Linspire ;-)

I do wish they'd support Fedora or openSUSE as well though. Both of those communities have HUGE support bases and communities behind them... and have done so far before Ubuntu existed. This Dell merger will only keep pushing people towards a distro that doesn't deserve more attention than the next one.

</huge grudge>

 

[enaberif]

Well it is focused around a free community, but hardware is never free. I am wondering how much Dell is secretly charging to pre-install Linux for people though. No way it's free. I'd be even more interested in their support for it. I guess time will tell.

Lindows was bad in my opinion... it took Linux and dumbed it down WAY too much. As it stands, I do rank Ubuntu higher than Linspire ;-)

I do wish they'd support Fedora or openSUSE as well though. Both of those communities have HUGE support bases and communities behind them... and have done so far before Ubuntu existed. This Dell merger will only keep pushing people towards a distro that doesn't deserve more attention than the next one.

</huge grudge>

Well arguing about whats a better linux is like arguing over intel vs amd we all have our own ideas. But yes I agree that there would have to be a fee involved because I know myself I was to install linux onto a machine for a friend I'd want at least $100 just to start!

 

[Deathspawner]

Not really. AMD and Intel do things differently ;-)