Dell Inches Toward Preloaded Linux PCs

What about hardware design? HP has been concentrating a lot on design lately - even on their lower end computers. I was at a local Best Buy a couple of days after Vista'a launch. People actually said "wow" when they looked at HP and Sony Vaio laptops. Of course, they were probably only reading the Vista ad, but who knows?

Open Office is definitely more than enough for a typical home user but what exactly does Dell gain by offering this option?

"how is this going to win back the home users who've been switching to HP?" it won't. obviously offering Linux is not a consideration when you look at why HP has bested them for the #1 sales slot. it has to do with Dell's build and service quality of late. "the manufacturers will then need to find a way to add all of thier adware to the Linux distros, which is one of the worst things about the pre-installed Windows" despite what Dell (and others) have done in the past with bundling adware (Dell partnered with MyWay, maker of MyWay SearchAssistant adware) and garbage apps, Dell always did give you [an option to purchase] a generic Windows XP installation CD with their systems. those CD's did NOT include any bundled apps, and most of them only had generic non-machine-specific Dell OEM branding such as the Dell logo at the bottom of the Start Menu and support information in the System Properties Control Panel. many systems actually came with those CD's without an extra charge. with one of those CD's you could get a 100% clean install of Windows. that was one thing that Dell did right. XP

I find it suspicious that the UIF in that bogus report for the mac is 0.08 and the UIF for Windows is 0.52. It sounds to me like they are judging Windows Vista's performance based on Mac criteria. The whole report reeks of bias.

"your assumption that spying is error reporting is completely misplaced and misguided" hmm....lets just take a look at that for the moment. you said that Vista is spying on users. i asked you what you *thought* was spying and made some conjectures on what those things might be, but you never did really answer the question in the first place. you're avoiding the question altogether, which is a tactic that losta relies on. all you're doing in spreading FUD, and methinks you've been brainwashed by the folks over at BadVista.org, as well as all the Mackie's that frequent here [for no reason whatsoever]. "the rant about who has more patches than who is silly" ....and who started that one? let me look up the quote i referenced in my counterpoint....what's this? you're withdrawing your original comment? "What I want is productivity, not slick production" that's the stupidest quote i've heard all day. well, we'll see if someone can top that tomorrow i guess. oh yes, Microsoft is evil, and rain falls up, and software should be free, and your sh!t don't stink. sorry pal, but putting down Microsoft here just puts you in the league with bdk, losta, vandil, and all the other bonch identities. XP

"Pfeiffer Consulting conducted the research based on an independently financed series of benchmarks " Hehe, right. Here is their list of 'recent benchmarks' The 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display Benchmark Report 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 Quad Benchmark Project The Adobe Creative Suite 2 Benchmark Report Sense a pattern? Oh wait, let's check their archives, 2002 Power Mac G4 Benchmark Report The Apple Cinema Display Benchmark Report Macintosh G4-450 Benchmark Report Independent my arse. The only benchmark they have did on a Microsoft product was the one cited by that it-enquirer. And to think, I followed that link thinking it wouldn't be flamebait. Look at what you have done! You can dress up your site to make it look legitimate, but CSS doesn't give you credibility. A troll in a fancy suit is still a troll.

Glad to see everybody is still alive in here... ;) and I haven't fallen out of any trees lately either. Rock on! I am with Open Office and Microsoft Office 2003...... the 2007 stuff can wait until they come out of their stupor at Microsoft...... Seriously (Nate, Waethorn, Etc.) I know how to work with 2007 and I could care less whether or not my presents are wrapped with a ribbon. What I want is productivity, not slick production. Productivity is dollars. Also, the rant about who has more patches than who is silly. Who cares and your assumption that spying is error reporting is completely misplaced and misguided by someone or something that has you baffooned into believing that Microsoft is the Almighty. Again, your perspective really does baffle me. Musta fell outta the tree again an bonked my noggin....contrary to what I had initially thought.......er gee whiz, glad to see the blood still boiling around here......

Waethorn, Microsoft deserved to lose that case. Also, I have tested Microsoft Office 2007 extensively and found it to be a downturn from 2003. Especially in the case of Outlook. Excel seems to be the biggest improvement but the other portions of that system seem to have suffered due to the "ribbon" and eye candy. You havee to get under the hood of this system to actually find all the junk. Care to elaborate on why you are wowed by this system? That baffles me. In fact the whole Vista and Office 2007 thing baffles me in that Microsoft and the enamoured (hypnotized?) users of this new system would proclaim its proficiency, artistry, and its evolutionary prowess. It is a mystery because Vista is an especially clunker of a system. Yes, it will get better, but Windows lovers would be smart to wait until Microsoft works the kinks out. If one can stand the spying, paranoia, patching, upgrades, and rudeness of Microsoft, then XP should be just fine for the time being.

"certification is the key to a good user experience with any operating system." Yep. That and a good $1 sticker.

@lotsa I don't know *what* they were testing on, but my experience has been the complete *opposite.* I tried to find the actual report, but came up empty. I am wondering what they mean by "Mouse Precision." Vista has larger buttons, in both the shortcuts, the minimize/close buttons, the sides (for resizing the window), the lack of tiny text menus (the options in Explorer are large, colorful buttons), and other ways that the user can more easily perform mouse related tasks. I do some 3D animation/simulation work as a hobby, and I have noticed *0* difference between editing my models in XP vs. Vista. Regarding menu latency - I have absolutely _no_ clue what they are talking about here. The menus come up instantly for me. In fact, I no longer have to wait to display all the programs in the start menu, like in 2000 and XP. Everything appears instantaneously for me. Are they measuring the fade time? If so, I fail to see how that impacts productivity. I can't move my mouse fast enough to select an option in the menu while the menu is fading in. Desktop operations-this consulting group must have been running Vista on a USB 1.1 storage device. Opening, deleting, and viewing files acts *exactly* the same as it does in XP. In fact, opening explorer is actually _twice_ as fast as it was in XP. I want to see the actual criteria and tests-I doubt this "consulting" group is actually competent in measuring OS performance. Have they done a study on how easy it is to find new features? Probably not. Have they done a study on searching files in XP vs. Vista? Probably not. Have they done a study on how easy it is to change settings? Probably not. What about finding programs? Even _they_ admit that "UIF [User Interaction Friction] is a Pfeiffer concept..." In other words, they are using their own criteria in judging how well *they* perceive the UI to be. I fail to see how the criteria presented in the article actually hinders productivity.

off-topic: http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Microsoft-ordered-to-pay-1_52-billion-for-patent-infringement.html ;) possibly bad news for the future of the MP3 format if Microsoft can't appeal this. XP

@sticknick: "Sorry, the average Joe would buy Linux boxes. People want ease of use. Period. They want to get their computers home, plug 'em in and go for it. " I agree with this. People want an as small as possible learning curve. While I consider myself a "power user" of Windows, I have not much background on GNU/Linux. However using GNOME I am using GNU/Linux happily. GNU/Linux has progressed much in the last years. I think that if "ordinary Joe" is provided with a limited GNU/Linux installation (like choosing "Desktop" option during installation of Scientific Linux, if I recall well), I think he can manage work his way around. I think GNOME is very simple. With the upcoming EL5, I expect things will be even better. @treeorc: "Would be nice to be a bit more aware that some of us out here don't have the time to buy parts and tonka toy them together. " I am not buying parts and build a computer, I am getting it already built from the shop. @Waethorn: "will, that's why nobody is going after Linux. who wants to type on the commandline anymore?" Actually I am using yumex which is a GUI software update/installation/removal tool. Thank you very much. :-) As I said I am judging GNU/Linux from the user perspective. I am a recent adopter. "compare that to a commercial OS (like Windows), where it prompts you to enable Automatic Updates on first boot. that's simplicity, and the end-user can easily understand it." In my system there is an indicator in the system tray, that indicates if there are any new updates with a red "!" icon, and no updates with a dark blue OK sign. If you double click on it, you get a list of the updates available and the option to launch yumex for taking the updates. Also a user has two options: In Services, one can enable "yum" ("Enable daily run of yum, a program updater.") that checks and auto-updates the system, every 24h or something, and "yum-updateonboot" ("Runs 'yum update' at boot."). I prefer not having autoupdate enabled.

This is one of the areas that I agree with the DOJ on regarding MS. They did bully PC suppliers to sell PCs loaded only with Windows. It will be a good thing to see PC's shipping with Linux pre-loaded...of course, the manufacturers will then need to find a way to add all of thier adware to the Linux distros, which is one of the worst things about the pre-installed Windows. --tayme

Remember the motherboard issue I posted a couple months ago? It was having several issues-namely the integrated network adaptor froze Windows when transferring mult-gigabytes of data, the computer refused to go into "sleep" mode, and sometimes it "forgot" to send a signal to the monitor when the power was turned on. I bought a mid-to high-end Asus motherboard, and have had no problems. In fact, the computer runs *much* faster with the same CPU and graphics card (Vista's Aero had a low framerate with the low-end motherboard). Note to self: *never* buy cheap motherboards-they will end up costing more. @Sharky-you can download a 60-day free trial of Office, or you can try Office online without downloading anything. I would suggest that you try the built-in math tools in Office 2007 - they are *much* improved. Here is the link to try Office 2007 in your browser (must be IE 6 or 7) - http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=HA101687261033&Origin=HH102122861033&CTT=5

"I've heard lots about bad HDD/ODDs from Dell in the past, just assumed by now they would have chosen a decent vendor/model, maybe they havn't. I still feel the quality of parts has to be higher than the budget systems." don't assume anything from Dell. several of the HDD's that i've seen in Dell systems are refurbished (including some, but not all, of the bad ones). eMachines favours using refurbished parts in their systems - that's why they're cheap. "Some of the system boards in the budget systems I can't even find" in eMachines systems, they often use Asrock (Asus' super-ultra-low-budget spinoff company) and refurb'ed Gigabyte boards. the odd time i've also seen Jetway and Mercury too (eek!). "I'm not saying cheap system boards are bad" consider yourself lucky if it works beyond a year. boards that sell for less than ~$60US usually include built-in obsolescense and inferior quality to boot. i've seen too many cheap motherboards or more expensive motherboards from the above mentioned companies die, to recommend them. for the systems i build, i usually build for low (but not super-budget) to high-end using decent mainstream parts. so far, i've been impressed by Intel's build quality on their retail parts, and i've never had a board with bad capacitors or any other issues so far. XP

"I mean, how do you expect people who still think it's cool to forward every damn joke they get in their email in box to learn how to compile a basic video editing application if they want to try and get that vacation footage off their handy cam?" Aptitude. apt-get install --- "In fact the whole Vista and Office 2007 thing baffles me in that Microsoft and the enamoured (hypnotized?) users of this new system would proclaim its proficiency, artistry, and its evolutionary prowess. It is a mystery because Vista is an especially clunker of a system. " Any new mid-tier cpu matched with 2GB of memory and a decent video card will run vista with plenty of slack. The only 'slow down' from XP I've noticed is when switching focus of 3D applications like games forcing the aero shell to be reloaded.

btw will, the systems i listed above were ONLY XPS models! i've seen several Dimension desktops and Inspiron notebooks with similar problems, not to mention my brother's Inspiron notebook that had an internal power surge (scorched) 1 year and 1 month after he purchased it. he didn't have an extended warranty either, so they wouldn't do anything for him - not even for the sake of 1 month out of warranty! ....and Consumer Reports says not to buy extended warranties for computers. XP

"consider yourself lucky if it works beyond a year." It's still up and running today, it's actually my fileserver running S2003 enterprise heh. I can tell that some components are low end though, the nic controller will never give me a real gbit, or even close to what some other boards will. I broke down and bought a fancy 200+ asus board for my gaming PC and it's transfers with another PC are noticably faster. --- So wait, the company that creates redundancy and confusion by generating another acronym UIF [User Interaction Friction] instead of just using the common phrase 'ease of use' is going to tell me about how hard it is to use something? No thanks, I'll just stick with my own observations.

And selling PCs pre-installed with Linux OS and Open Office will somehow, magically fix Dell's problems? Now, I have nothing against this move. In fact, it's a very good idea. But how is this going to win back the home users who've been switching to HP?

I found this particularly sweet, "Pfeiffer’s report also covers Menu Latency --the slight lag that Windows imposes when displaying menus and submenus." This, in the context of the full report, is that windows intentionally slows you down by adding latency to menus, whereas OSX doesn't. Know what? That is absolutely 100% true. Every single bit. And it is a beautiful thing, shows the world that Microsoft does their homework. The average human brain takes a certain amount of time to react to visual stimuli, if movements occur that cause stimuli, it would be desirable that there be a certain delay, so the brain can interpret and react to this. Microsoft read common reports and determined this to be around 400 milliseconds. So there is a registry value that delays menu reaction by 400ms so that the brain can be happy. Funny thing is, this value is not constant, you can set it to whatever you want to be. Want your menus to wait 1 second for you? Set it to 1000, 10 seconds? 10,000. Want uber rapid menus running at max speed? 0. See, Phiffer thinks this 'lag' is a detriment of the OS, but it is only one of the millions of customizable attributes of Windows. It was there in XP, and it's there in Vista. It's not in OSX, OSX renders as fast as it can all the time... nobody notices a difference because... well OSX is slow at it's rendering process. If you want to see the difference, go to XP and change the value from 400 to 0. There, I just proved Phiffer spreads FUD. Article discretited, that is until they freely publish the report for uberhammertime on the FUD killin.

@treeorc "Also, I have tested Microsoft Office 2007 extensively and found it to be a downturn from 2003. Especially in the case of Outlook. Excel seems to be the biggest improvement but the other portions of that system seem to have suffered due to the "ribbon" and eye candy. You havee to get under the hood of this system to actually find all the junk. Care to elaborate on why you are wowed by this system? That baffles me." You're kidding, right? I taught a class in which I taught the Office 2007 interface. In the middle of the class, an 80-year-old computer illiterate lady could insert a pivot table in Excel without my help. She didn't know what a "Pivot Table" was, but she was able to find it. Try telling her to do that in Office 2003 or earlier. I am 150% more productive in Office 2007 than I ever was in earlier versions of Office. Period. I have used it since Beta 1. Explain to me how the old method of tiny buttons on 30+ toolbars and an illogical arrangement of hundreds of features on various text menus is more intuitive than the ribbon. I would bet my life savings that I could find a completely new feature in Office 2007 faster than you could in Office 2003 or earlier. If you don't want the ribbon, just double-click on a tab, and the ribbon will act as a menu. If you are a keyboard person, hold down the alt key. A list of keys you can press will hover over each feature in the Ribbon. These keyboard shortcuts are *way* more intuitive than previous versions of Office.

"Would be nice to be a bit more aware that some of us out here don't have the time to buy parts and tonka toy them together. " No, assembling FrankenSystems is a job for "Waethorn/PC-Bonch".

gnu-user: Sorry, the average Joe would buy Linux boxes. People want ease of use. Period. They want to get their computers home, plug 'em in and go for it. For the typical end user, There is NOTHING easy about Lunix. I mean, how do you expect people who still think it's cool to forward every damn joke they get in their email in box to learn how to compile a basic video editing application if they want to try and get that vacation footage off their handy cam? If average Joe bough a computer preloaded with Linux, thinking it was some great, awesome thing, easy to use thing, I can't even begin to describe how p*iised off they'd be by the end of one day Linux is for network admins or the hard core computer user. And I can tell you, the hardcore computer uses don't buy Dells. They buy parts from guys like Waethorn, assemble their own computers, and install their own OS. Everyone else buys from Dell, HP, or Apple. And don't give me the "People will learn" shpeal ... Don't give the average consumer that much credit. When it comes to computers, people are lazy. Always have been, always will be.

Here is the link about Dell that I had provided: http://www.techspot.com/news/24406-dell-customers-demand-linux.html

....and using a Fisher Price toy and calling it a computer is for losta. XP