Michael Holloway wrote: > 2. How many Linux users would buy a one? I'm not sure i can answer this, but > i imagine not too many. Most linux users like to customise their machines, > and put all the latest and greatest (or cheapest and oldest) compenents into > it.
10 years ago, that would have been me. In fact, about 10 years ago I _did_ build my Own PC (a Pentium-90 in fact.) Now, I want a machine that works, with an operating system that works. Don't get me wrong - I work in IT, I'm into the latest toys as much as the next geek, but desktop O/Ss aren't an exciting playground for me compared to Ajax apps :-) As I said, I want a machine that works, with an operating system that works. Hmm... let me think? Should I go with (out of date) XP? Should I go with (utterly, cripplingly slow) Vista? or... can we think of another O/S that might run a lot faster on modern laptop hardware AND be more reliable? I'd be INCREDIBLY tempted to go with a pre-installed, manufacturer-supported, Linux-laptop next time round. Mainstream buyers have a different mind-set, and the "Dell with Ubuntu pre-installed" is hitting a lot more of those buttons than "download this distribution" ever did. The worst case is that Dell do the work (or get Canonical to) to come up with a standard image for their Ubuntu laptops, and that image sits on a server farm in Ireland not being installed from much. Net cost to Dell, a small amount of disk space. Net benefit to Dell, marginal increase in customer choice. Marginal benefit to Ubuntu - huge - endorsement from Dell that our chosen distro is supported by the biggest and the best. (Yes, I know, HP / IBM / RedHat, but heh... Dell has the biggest mindshare for desktops / laptops, I suspect.) And, for people like me, who are already on pure Ubuntu-servers at work (4 in the operational farm, 2 development servers, and a spare box sitting around to swap in in the event of catasrophic hardware failure), this has a marginal benefit to ME even if I never buy a Dell Linux Laptop - it helps convince my board (who to be fair, I've trained to trust my technical judgement) that I am backing the right horse with Ubuntu..... Regards, Mark -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
