February 10, 2003(Computerworld)Readers had a range of responses to news of a new consortium promoting Linux on the desktop (see story). Here's a sampling:
Regarding Dell's failed effort to push Red Hat on the desktop, a couple of years ago, I priced identical Dell desktops at Dell's Web site. The only difference was that one system was loaded with Microsoft, and the other was loaded with Red Hat. I expected to see a $100 discount on the Red Hat system because Dell didn't have to purchase a Red Hat license. Surprisingly, the prices were the same.
I purchased the desktop with Microsoft and then installed Red Hat from scratch, using my existing Red Hat media. This gave me an extra license of Windows XP in case I ever needed to build a Microsoft system.
In a nutshell, Dell didn't offer any incentive to purchase Red Hat over Microsoft.
For the record, I have been using Red Hat on both my home and work desktop since 1999. As of today, my work desktop has been up for 59 days. How many Windows desktops can claim that level of stability?
-- Stan Larson, IS manager, Freedom Sales & Marketing
- - - - - - - - - -
I believe that Linux on laptops would help the success of Linux on the desktop a lot.
The question that has to be pushed to the major vendors is not, "Is Linux cool?" but, "Can retailers offer their major customers high-performance, inexpensive preconfigured systems that meet the complete needs of low-end office workers and students for a lot fewer dollars and similar convenience of buying a machine with Microsoft XP and Office Pro and IE6 and Quicken?" The benefit of the sell should be on the value of the bundle, not on the benefits of Linux.
I know from helping family and friends that right now, a lot of low-end users are driven out of the market because they just can't afford to buy the bundle with the popular features they need. A properly bundled Linux on the laptop and low-end desktop could reopen this market.
I recently tried to purchase a laptop with Linux preinstalled. Unfortunately, a laptop configured with Linux currently runs $400 to $600 more than the same laptop shipped with XP Home. This is because none of the major vendors are shipping the machines directly. As a result, you end up paying for the aftermarket integration/installation.
Even though I like Linux, it's hard to justify the premium for when I would intuitively expect to save $50 to $100, since you aren't paying Microsoft. After experiencing the difficulties with drivers, though, I am hesitant to buy and integrate Linux on laptops. The net result is that I am still running Windows on my laptop.
If the Linux on the desktop consortium wants to be a success, they need to work out some sort of warehouse deal that allows them to work in conjunction with a major hardware vendors to offer laptops with Linux, OpenOffice, Evolution, network drivers, sound drivers, power drivers, Wi-Fi drivers, basic NT file-sharing and display drivers preinstalled. And, they need to do this at a price which will be at least $50 less than the same machine loaded with XP Home.
Such a bundle could revitalize the lower-end laptop market, which has effectively been killed by the performance load of XP and Microsoft Office.
-- Joe Ellsworth, chief technology officer, Xdobs.com
- - - - - - - - - -
There already is a Unix based desktop operating system that has enterprise level support. It's stable, elegant, user-friendly and yet has all the power and flexibility of Unix. It's called Mac OS X.
To all the IT pros who approach this statement with disdain: Put aside your preconceived notions and "my team can beat your team" attitude. Look at OS X, find out why many of us who have been computer geeks since before there even was such thing as a PC have found OS X to be, by far, the best desktop operating system in the world today.
