At 02:54 PM 9/14/2006 -0400, Marc Collin wrote:

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Le jeudi 14 septembre 2006 14:42, Lawrence Ferreira a écrit :

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Check it out:

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/04/2013248

i already read this news...

only one computer the ThinkPad T60p... and only one brand...... don't let a lot of choice for the user

without pushes from linux distribution, computer company don't have change to do something

Some time ago, I found a desktop computer, brand unknown, with reasonable properties as far as the CPU, the video, etc., with Linspire loaded. I bought it. Linspire went out the window quick when I found you had to _rent_ almost every ap separately--linspire comes with KDE just about _only_. It now has Suse 10.0 on it, which works well except for the problem that developed in KMail. (I'm going to try the solution proposed a bit earlier on the list here, to see if I can recover the stuff with the Asian fonts, but it's still awfully goofy.) Apparently Linspire has dropped the fees, and two places that you can supposedly get a computer with Linspire preloaded are Walmart and Amazon. I don't remember if mine came from Amazon or somewhere else. http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/52740.html

On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 15:34 -0400, Doug McGarrett wrote:

Apparently Linspire has dropped the fees, and two places that you can supposedly get a computer with Linspire preloaded are Walmart and Amazon. I don't remember if mine came from Amazon or somewhere else.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/52740.html

Also Fry's electronics in the western US. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/

On Friday 15 September 2006 4:51 am, stephan beal wrote:

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dell, hp, compaq, nec, gateway sale all their computer for the public with linux...

i worked for Compaq for 5 years, and i can assure they DID try to sell Linux (and BeOS) computers. The problem was that nobody wanted to buy them. Old colleagues of mine who are still at HP (HP bought Compaq in 2000, right after i left the company) have told me of several attempts to sell Linux-based PCs. The main problem, as always, has been people's reluctance to buy them.

AS ALWAYS, HP's error, is that their marketing people have their heads in the sand. IF you don't ADD "available with SUSE Linux" in your NATIONAL TV ads, you aren't going to see very many. It's the total gutless fools who control marketing depts. in all companies, EXCEPT MickySoft, who are to blame. I mention MickySoft only because they know how to market and get the job done. HP, DELL, etc., are controlled by gutless wonders. In addition, and I HAVE suggested this to HP, IF they ONLY used Linux compatible chipsets and cards (ALL hardware - goodbye Broadcom), then it's easy to preload and ADVERTISE that HP's systems are Linux ready! Considering their purchasing power, I know full well that their costs aren't going to go up. There's my 2 cents. Fred -- MickySoft, the ultimate corporate parasite.

It all comes down to demand and volume. HP used to sell some systems with Linux loaded, but the demand was very low. Dell, HP(and Compaq), Gateway, Lenovo are all high volume operations selling millions of consumer PCs. While the popularity of Linux is growing, it is not yet at the level where most of the vendors are going to put Linux on. (Although we saw the Slashdot article that Lenovo is preloading SLED10 on the T60P Thinkpad). I think you will see more companies preloading enterprise Linux on some of the higher end business desktops and laptops, but not on the consumer systems yet (at least in the US). -- Jerry Feldman Linux Expertise Center (PTAC-MA/TX) Hewlett-Packard Co. 200 Forest Street MRO1-3/K12 Marlborough, MA 01752-3081 508-467-4315 (http://www.testdrive.hp.com)

On Thursday 14 September 2006 9:37 pm, Mike Noble wrote:

One of the main reasons is: what linux distro do the companies install on their systems (SuSe, RedHat, Mandriva,etc....). For the windows side it is easy, there is only one, Windows XP (or whatever the current Windows version is at the time. Close. Microsoft does not issue a new realease all that frequently, and essentially it is a cloning operation.

And, on the Linux side, not only do you have the distros themselves, but you also have other choices, such as whether to configure for KDE or GNOME. we had a Linux installfest a few weeks ago, and one guy (a retired MIT professor) had a laptop with RHEL 4 installed (from PCs for everyone). He wanted us to help him configure it. Unfortunately, they apparently did not give him the root password. Since this was a new system, I sent him back to the store, but PCs for everyone closed their store in Cambridge, Ma after some drunk judge crashed into it (they were adjacent to the courthouse). What Linux needs is a simple cusomer configuration interface that would come up the first time, and allow the customer to configure the system. YaST comes close to this. Essentially, the system would be configured with the distribution sources (eg. DVD 1) set up as the installation source. The system would be configured for a typical office workstation. The first time wizard would be extremely user friendly, and after the initial root password and user password, it would take a very short tour. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9