"As far as I see there is no market for a big box shifter like Dell sticking Linux on its PCs. Given how easy it is to install Linux in the first place I really don't see the point. Ubuntu installs in about six clicks of the mouse and providing it finds all your hardware (which unless it's really exotic it will) almost anyone can do. Linux is still far too much of an unknown quanity for Harry Homeowner to order sight-unseen. People need Windows preinstalling because for amateurs it can be difficult, Ubuntu on the other hand is a no-brainer. If I really need Dell to click the mouse to install Ubuntu then really I shouldn't be running Linux at all."
Yes, it's easy to run Ubuntu (even though I have spent quite a lot of hours modifying my xorg.conf...), but the amateurs are hardly likely to shift to it, especially after paying quite a lot of money for windows.
If they instead can buy a computer with it from sctratch, which logically *should* be cheaper than the windows model, don't you find it more likely they will?
But also as a person who runs Ubuntu of my own free will, I would appreciate to buy a machine with it pre-installed. Since I run an ATI-graphics card on my current computer, getting OpenGL to work is a bloody nightmare, and I don't really fancy buying a laptop with the same problem.
Register
Easy, yes, but why should they?
"As far as I see there is no market for a big box shifter like Dell sticking Linux on its PCs. Given how easy it is to install Linux in the first place I really don't see the point. Ubuntu installs in about six clicks of the mouse and providing it finds all your hardware (which unless it's really exotic it will) almost anyone can do. Linux is still far too much of an unknown quanity for Harry Homeowner to order sight-unseen. People need Windows preinstalling because for amateurs it can be difficult, Ubuntu on the other hand is a no-brainer. If I really need Dell to click the mouse to install Ubuntu then really I shouldn't be running Linux at all."
Yes, it's easy to run Ubuntu (even though I have spent quite a lot of hours modifying my xorg.conf...), but the amateurs are hardly likely to shift to it, especially after paying quite a lot of money for windows.
If they instead can buy a computer with it from sctratch, which logically *should* be cheaper than the windows model, don't you find it more likely they will?
But also as a person who runs Ubuntu of my own free will, I would appreciate to buy a machine with it pre-installed. Since I run an ATI-graphics card on my current computer, getting OpenGL to work is a bloody nightmare, and I don't really fancy buying a laptop with the same problem.