[wplug] What do you think? a $99 computer
Patrick Wagstrom
pwagstro at andrew.cmu.edu
Fri Jun 1 10:08:04 EDT 2007
Michael H. Semcheski wrote:
> Dell probably sells a machine that fits your bill. Personally, I'm
> not that aware of what they sell for $400, but there is something, and
> I'll bet you can get it sans windows. The whole Ubuntu + Dell thing
> is nothing new. They've been selling Redhat and SuSE for years.
Ubuntu on Dell is new for a couple of reasons:
* It's provided on DESKTOP machines. Yes, you've been able to get Linux
servers from Dell for a very long time, but you haven't been able to
order a Dimension or Inspiron with anything other than windows.
* It creates a price differential. On many of the server systems you
still ended up paying quite a bit for the OS because RHEL and SLES both
require licenses. Ubuntu saves you from that, and that's why it looks
like folks have calculated the Windows tax to be $75ish.
* It's going against the wills of Microsoft on the desktop. Microsoft
has never claimed that every server sold without Windows was going to
end up using a pirated copy, they have with Windows, and because of the
threat of lawsuits for inducing infringement, most vendors backed down.
* Support issues. Dell is doing most of their own support for this.
Previously Dell had some modicum of support for Linux on the server, but
from my experience it usually got farmed out to Red Hat or Novell. End
users want support. Servers have nerds paid to do that.
So, I wouldn't say it's nothing new, because until last week it was
quite difficult to get a personal machine from Dell sans Windows.
--Patrick
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