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Re: [LUG] Re: today's meets and some observations etc.



On Sunday 26 September 2004 17:38, Neil Williams wrote:

By your measure,

No...

The point is that having won the race[1] to make a better development cloud, 
pulled ahead in the race to make better software first with the operating 
system, then with the network and some server applications, and now in a few 
areas with the general purpose applications[2] it is now highly desirable 
that preinstalled copies go around.

The installation routines have become good, SuSE installs more friendly than 
Windows, Debian installs better with less fuss[3] than Windows, but this is 
in a big sense off the point - reinstalls are what users do, installs should 
be done by loading a zillion standard copies of the OS plus base applications 
(or in Hill house Hammond's Marseilles supplier's case a couple of hundred 
special to purpose program suites on the standard image) onto hard drives in 
the manufacturer's factory, which are then built into PC boxes, and then do a 
bit of stuff when first switched on.

So, how hard it is it to generate preinstalled hard drives for a standard PC 
device?  (Asus Terminators are £299 incl a blank 20Gbyte HDD... what price 
loaded to go?)

and how does one make those marketable by a channel, which might be in shops 
or in a supplier of office automation to professionals...?

So... lets see some standard kit that doesn't have a Windows tax and a 
standard load (cut it _down_ and then down some more, and then rely on 
apt-get to impress) ready to go from a stack of cardboard boxes and with a 
phone number for support.


[1] it isn't a battle.
It was won when MS moved from saying
"Of course you have to spend more on our stuff, its better and you always pay 
more for better stuff" 
to
"actually our stuff you pay for is cheaper overall than the Libre[4] variety 
and we've bought a study that doesn't say it isn't".
[2] specific special purpose applications don't count - they depend only 
weakly on the environment they run in for their virtues.
[3] imagine the irritation of having to turn your laptop over half way thorugh 
the install to read the serial number of the OS, stuck to the bottom, and do 
it more than once at a go ... an irritation absent from reinstalls of Linux.
[4] of course they didn't, they said "free", but they no longer sell on 
quality they sell on price and since we can drive costs down to theirs the 
channel can sell better for the same cost.
-- 
Adrian Midgley                   Open Source software is better
GP, Exeter                       http://www.defoam.net/

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