HP rolling its own Linux distro
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Steven_Rosenber Sep 22, 2008 8:27 PM EDT |
I haven't been able to find much news about HP's rumored Linux distro. Having a company that produces hardware either work on fitting an existing distro (Dell and Ubuntu) or creating a new one is intriguing. In HP's case, it would be a way to extend their branding beyond the case and into the OS itself in a way they currently can't/are not allowed to in Windows. Would they base it on a current distro? I've read that HP does a lot of support business for Debian users. |
| techiem2 Sep 22, 2008 8:35 PM EDT |
That's what I've been wondering too. Are they going to pull an Apple and build a proprietary locked down system on top of *nix? Or are they going to build/tweak a distro to make it friendly and easy (however they define that) and keep it open? |
| rijelkentaurus Sep 23, 2008 7:11 AM EDT |
IMO, there is no need for HP to build something closed...and it would make little sense to use Linux if they wanted to do that, since it's GPL and BSD is...um, BSD. Simply having a Linux distro like Red Hat and having update servers (complete with codecs, etc) would be enough, and they could easily compete with Apple on usability and "coolness". They could even roll access to an online music store into the distro. There's a lot that could be done with such a setup, I'm surprised that no one has done this yet. I would have expected Sun to have done something similar, although they might be heading that way with OpenSolaris (but they have a long way to go to make that usable as a desktop). Sun makes great hardware and I think they could make something that would be a little on the expensive side, but top notch quality. And given HP's recent financial woes, not paying a Windows tax on each unit would have to add up considering the volume of machines they sell, wouldn't it? Even a dollar a unit would be a ton of money. I would guess Debian, Red Hat or Mandriva-based. Or they could just buy someone, like Mandriva or Xandros. |
| number6x Sep 23, 2008 10:24 AM EDT |
HP, The real HP not the compaq part of HP, is an old guard Unix vendor. HP Unix is a pretty powerful contender. The other two major Unix vendors, IBM and Sun, are having flings with Linux. Maybe HP is just playing follow the leader? |
| gus3 Sep 23, 2008 12:09 PM EDT |
Are you talking about HP-UX? Just a few years ago, it was the weakest of the Big 3 proprietary Unix products (Solaris, AIX, HP-UX). Granted, there's "doing one thing and doing it well," but there were lots of gotchas that developers had to work around (check any configure script for special-case handlers specific to HP-UX). Even kernel tuning was well-nigh impossible without a rebuild, and that too was pretty opaque. Let's see if I remember it right: edit a config file, type "make kernel" or else just "make", and then reboot and hope your configuration options didn't result in an unusable system. The look and feel of this approach resembles old-school *BSD style, something Linux hasn't needed since... well, almost the beginning. Disclaimer: I understand the H-P developers did get a green-light to create system management closer to modern capabilities; I don't know how many admin tools are new since 2005. |
| Steven_Rosenber Sep 23, 2008 4:12 PM EDT |
HP could easily do a deal with Red Hat or Novell, or even Canonical. They could also pledge to work with the Debian or Fedora projects. I suspect that they would prefer to start with one of these distros as a base and build their own modifications on top of it. My best guess is that they'll do nothing. |
| tracyanne Sep 23, 2008 6:45 PM EDT |
Quoting:My best guess is that they'll do nothing. Mine too. It's all P1ss and W1nd. |
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