[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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