Netbooks Are Little Notebooks, and Linux on Netbooks Rocks

it.

One of these days, I'll find the time to improve on that, but, in the meantime, the little thing hooks into wireless networks, prints through my printer, does OpenOffice, Firefox, Hulu, and -- most important (I got kids) -- Tux Racer.

Cool cool beans.

If I ever get a netbook, I'm sure it will be Dell, even if I get a Windows machine and blow it away. I have a Vostro and it has run every Linux distro I have thrown at it flawlessly, right down to the multimedia keys working. There is a lot to be said for buying Dell. Even as they deal with their Ubuntu machines with carefully gloved hands (by some accounts), their hardware works great with the Penguin and it's easy to find a great machine to run it on. Others complain about their non-Dell hardware not working quite right with Distro X, Y, Z (including me on my wife's laptop, a Toshiba), but I just install whatever I feel like on the Vostro and move on with my work.

> ...even if I get a Windows machine and blow it away.

If you can get a Linux preloaded one, it's probably worth the extra effort to do so, if it's cost effective.

@jdixon, very much agreed.

j & r:

Yes. You have the absolute assurance of knowing that everything will work fine -- even if you don't like the pre-loaded distro.

Don't forget that with Dell, even if there are no Ubuntu laptops or Desktops on their site in your country, you can often order them by phone. That's what a consumer watchdog organisation found here in The Netherlands.

This is what really kills me about Linux preloads, be they from Dell, HP or (fill in the blank). I'm not sure even the dedicated Linux-installing companies do this right:

With a Linux DISTRIBUTION, you get an extremely full complement of applications that you can install, remove, tweak or not -- but you don't have to resort to stealing an OS and the applications to go with it. Or worse: pay inflated prices for an OS and the applications to go with it.

Does Dell even mention that? When they're so busy warning the unwashed that a particular PC running, let's say, Ubuntu, doesn't come with the Windows OS everybody knows and presumably "loves," do they ever expend a few characters on what you get with a Linux distro that you will never get in the proprietary-OS world?

Or is the Ubuntu thing just a way to mollify the choir of forum-posting Linux geeks who already know what a distro is?

I think Dell is selling to those who know Linux. That's fine by me. The problem with promoting the apps that come with Linux is that Windows users, who are human beings, will demand that Dell provide support for those apps. "I bought this stupid machine because you said it will do word processing, and it doesn't."

Quoting:The problem with promoting the apps that come with Linux is that Windows users, who are human beings, will demand that Dell provide support for those apps.

Do they demand from Dell support if their Dell is struck by a virus? - is what I'm wondering.

Ok, education time for me.

What does "support" mean? Ok... I know what it means... but... what does it mean?? What do people who make their purchasing decisions based on available support expect it to mean?

> What does "support" mean?

If you sell Ubuntu + OOo, that means the user expects you to tell him/her how to format the document, read MS Office documents, etc. If you sell someone anything, they will expect you to explain how it works.

> Do they demand from Dell support if their Dell is struck by a virus? - is what I'm wondering.

Yes, in fact they do, based on complaints from friends who have worked tech support for a large OEM. One of the most difficult parts of the job was explaining to those who were new to computers that we sold you the software, but we won't tell you how it works.