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Re: [LUG] Dell, doing linux wrong

 

On 01/12/12 07:57, tom wrote:
> On 30/11/12 15:31, Matt Lee wrote:
>>> I'm sorry what staff? Last time I worked in PC manufacturing plant
>>> (1995)
>>> almost everything was automated - the os is installed and the only
>>> human
>>> intervention is if there is something wrong - very very rare. The
>>> packing is
>>> automated and its near posting time before a human gets near.
>>> Have  look at the Dell web site and ask yourself can your really
>>> charge Â150
>>> for a, what 2 or 3 minute image install, when you can choose a thousand
>>> different parameters for your build at 'cost'.
>> The staff who talk to you on the phone when you call Dell with a
>> problem with your computer.
>>
>> I called Dell in the US recently with a desktop, and was able to speak
>> to someone knowledgeable about Ubuntu, because I have ProSupport.
>>
>> For the consumer laptops, those people are required too, and they
>> don't exist presently.
>>
> And do you pay extra for ProSupport and was it a linux problem or just
> a hardware problem.
> I'm not sure how much support is required for linux and is it over and
> above that for windows. When I used to help manage Dell machines we
> had maybe one or two hardware failures versus perhaps 1000 Windows
> problems.
> Granted Ubuntu are shit but if Dell are providing support they will
> have set up their own repositories for the hardware drivers to stop
> Ubuntu messing with them and we're down to hardware failures and time
> wasters to manage.
> I have bough brand new machines with supported linux installs for Â85
> - which is about what windows costs so Dell should not be charging more.
> Tom te tom te tom
>

We should definitely give Dell a little bit of credit when it comes to
Linux - they have at least tried (unlike most computer suppliers) and
they do understand Linux. It's well supported by their server hardware
and their enterprise support guys are quite knowledgeable. The "D" in
DKMS originally stood for "Dell" - they wrote it in-house and your
distro probably runs it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support

They also went to the effort of writing Linux-specific BIOS flashing
tools as well - http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Repository/firmware

They actually have other in-house Linux repositories as well, mostly for
server management - http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Repository

Don't get me wrong, Dell's consumer level gear and their standard cheap
as chips enterprise PCs (Optiplex, etc) are really, really crappy but
the more expensive professional stuff (XPS laptops particularly) and
their PowerEdge servers are pretty damn good and fully certified to run
Linux. Just saying.

Regards


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