Dell: One small step for GNU/Linux...
Well it seems my initial skepticism about Dell and there apparent efforts to big up the Linux community have actually bared some fruits. Here's a quote from BetaNews.com
Reading some of the comments from the post of Dells site (Link to original post can be found within the link above) it seems most people are happy with the progress Dell are making.
However typical of the Linux community, the one thing which will always creates barriers is Open/Closed drivers specifically graphics cards. To be honest, I don't use open source graphics drivers because they are slow and don't perform anywhere as well as the closed source drivers. It's not that I wouldn't support the open drivers, it's just I spent over 900GBP on my laptop and it's kinda unfair to ask me to use them when i'm not getting my money's worth. But hey, thats my two pence! I expect alot of other people feel the same. I understand the point of view from the open source standpoint, however I think sometimes the open source community forgets that ATI and Nvidia are in direct competition with each other and that letting the competition have access to your optimized and expensive source code for drivers only stands to give away your market edge.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Dell_to_Ship_Linux_on_Desktops_Laptops/1175108192
"Dell confirmed on Wednesday plans to offer Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebooksystems, beyond its current Linux-based servers and Precision workstations. The decision comes after feedback on its IdeaStorm site and a survey that garnered over 100,000 responses.
No specific timeframe was given for the expanded Linux plans, although the company said in a blog posting that it will provide an update in the coming weeks regarding the effort. It will detail "information on which systems we will offer, our testing and certification efforts, and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available," Dell said, adding that, "The countdown begins today.""
Reading some of the comments from the post of Dells site (Link to original post can be found within the link above) it seems most people are happy with the progress Dell are making.
However typical of the Linux community, the one thing which will always creates barriers is Open/Closed drivers specifically graphics cards. To be honest, I don't use open source graphics drivers because they are slow and don't perform anywhere as well as the closed source drivers. It's not that I wouldn't support the open drivers, it's just I spent over 900GBP on my laptop and it's kinda unfair to ask me to use them when i'm not getting my money's worth. But hey, thats my two pence! I expect alot of other people feel the same. I understand the point of view from the open source standpoint, however I think sometimes the open source community forgets that ATI and Nvidia are in direct competition with each other and that letting the competition have access to your optimized and expensive source code for drivers only stands to give away your market edge.
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