Linux Goes Mainstream

mjr600

Finally a mainstream manufacturer is installing Ubuntu Linux instead of Windows and its DELL.

Although pre-installed Linux has been available before it has never had the staus which it now afforded by its association with DELL. As you might expect it's just in the US at the moment but I guess Europe won't be far off.

After a frustrating afternoon trying to get Vista to recognise hardware, run games and generally work on a £1700 Alienware PC I really hope that Ubuntu takes off in the way it deserves.

Why did the guy spend £1700 with Alienware ? Because the case looked like a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica !!

http://www.ubuntu.com/

griff.

I've not heard of Ubuntu before. Any good ?

Cool design on the Alienware Aurora 7500 btw

wolfman

Good suggestion, and it's been known for a while. Just be careful if trying Linux.

Many people will put Windows down, but at the end of the day it works and people are familiar with it.

Linux is very good, but I've yet to do an installation where "everything" works out of the box. And the things that don't aren't always the easiest of fixes. Linux is an operating system best aimed at some that wants to take control of their pc, and has the time to do so.

superscaper

I agree with Wolfman. I had to reinstall xp from scratch last week but within the day I had everything installed and working properly. I also have an old pc (made up from spare/replaced components) that I installed ubuntu on a few weeks ago and I'm still having problems getting all the hardware to work properly and getting hangups. Expect a lot of fiddling about, which is why I have only got it on a machine I can afford to experiment with.

As an aside, Wolfman, I managed to get my blasted netgear WG111 on ubuntu working but the entire pc hangs (requiring hard reset) if it downloads anything significant, even ubuntu updates. Any ideas? Admittedly very low spec machine (PIII 550MHz, 128MiB RAM)

raptorman

Ubuntu linux is very impressive and I have had no problems getting it to work. It is worth trying and if you go to the link posted by the OP you can download the liveCD which will let you try the OS without installing to check your hardware works.

The people on the Ubuntu forums are also very helpful if you have any problems and you can find them here...
http://ubuntuforums.org/

Give it a try.:)

mjr600

Seems that same spec Dells configured with Ubuntu will be a fair bit cheaper than the Vista versions.

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~ntuck/dellbuntu/

BillScarab

mjr600 wrote: »

Seems that same spec Dells configured with Ubuntu will be a fair bit cheaper than the Vista versions.

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~ntuck/dellbuntu/

Presumably the cost of the Vista License.

Linux is a good OS but it's not for everyone, it's not so good if you want to play a lot of games for instance.

Funnily enough I run Vista on my home PC and have had no problems with it recognising hardware or running any of the games I want.

It will be interesting to see what level of support Dell will be able to provide for Ubuntu.