OT: Dell to offer linux pre-installed on desktops

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Pavel Zaitsev wrote:
> At volumes that Dell Sells, linux drivers of whatever quality will be
> written, in short time. To get contract from Dell or keep having one,
> hardware parts dealers will do whatever it takes. Considering their
> volume.

Including making stripped down hardware with the same name but less
features that the normal one.  The SB Live! Dell OEM for example, which
did not in fact have an emu10k1 DSP at all.  Yes it was capable of 16bit
sound and multiple channels, but it did it all with software in the
driver, which only ran on Win XP (no other version).  Many customers
were unpleasantly surprised to learn that their sb live! was in fact not
an sb live! except in name.

In the past they have also made video cards with less ram than the same
model would normally have, without ram upgrade connectors that the
normal model had, etc.  I think they even had a 3com network card
without the netboot rom socket on the board, just to save a buck.  Same
model number as the retail card with the socket of course.  Wouldn't
want the customer to notice they are getting a custom piece of hardware
that doesn't actually match what the competitors are shipping.

I would hence not be surprised to see Dell perfectly happy with binary
only drivers for whichever version of linux they happen to device to pre
install and certify, since historically Dell has never had the
customer's best interests or long term support in mind.

--
Len Sorensen
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