STILL can't buy a Linux PC easily Post: 302463394

Sponsored Content

The Lounge What is on Your Mind? STILL can't buy a Linux PC easily Post 302463394 by KenJackson on Sunday 17th of October 2010 09:01:46 AM

10-17-2010

Registered User

STILL can't buy a Linux PC easily

A few years ago, Dell announced they were selling PCs with Linux (Ubuntu) preinstalled or with no OS installed. It was about time! So a couple years ago I bought the Inspiron 1525n laptop that I'm typing this on with Ubuntu preinstalled. Yea! (Though I immediately wiped Ubuntu and installed Fedora--sorry.)

So where do we stand today? Is the market free? Do we have a selection of OSes to choose from just as we do for cars, furniture, books, banks, and grocery stores?

No.

The Dell website offers only Windows under Home and Home Office. On the Enterprise pages they offer--count 'em--fourteen varieties of Windows! Oh, yeah, they do also list these:

Quote:

Ubuntu� Linux� (select countries)
nSeries FreeDOSTM

What's a select country? Is my country (USA) among the lucky select countries? Apparently not. I tried to customize a PC but only Windows choices were in the OS selection category, not Linux or FreeDOS either for that matter.

So why do I still not have the freedom to buy a Linux PC readily off the shelf?

The last 5 or so new PCs I've bought were pieces that I put together (except for this laptop). I sort prefer that, but I would like the option to just buy something ready-to-go. And I certainly would like to be able to tell friends how they can experience Linux without installing it. (Yeah, a couple have booted live CDs--that's at least something.)

How would you like it if GM was the only car company you could buy a car from? Fourteen GM cars to choose from should cover the market. You don't need any more choices.

Does anyone else want a free OS market?

KenJackson

View Public Profile for KenJackson

Find all posts by KenJackson

4 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

how to see all the subdirectories easily?

Suppose I have two directories a and b. Each directory has a few subdirectories, a1 a2 a3 and b1, b2, b3 respectively. Using ls, I can see a and b. Then I need cd a, ls, cd ../b, ls to see all the subdirectories. How to see all the directories and subdirectories easily, say using just one...

2. Fedora

Unix which can easily boot from a DVD

Hi, Really sorry if this is in the wrong place etc but I really need some big time newbie help :o I am a recent Maths graduate and have been invited to a 4 day job interview/assessment where I will be taught and tested on the following: "Fedora UNIX, Bash Scripting". Having no experience...

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

Easily search file and get line - little problem

hi, file1.txt: cell101 1 20.24.1.1 10 cell101 2 20.24.1.2 20 cell101 3 20.24.1.3 30 cell327 1 20.24.1.4 40 cell327 2 20.24.1.5 50 cell327 3 20.24.1.5 60 ... file2.txt: cell101 1 cell327 1 cell327 3 ... according to values in file2.txt, the script should search lines and get...

4. Linux

How to easily identify socket given a PID on Linux?

I have the PID of a process running on Linux mymac 2.6.18-417.el5 #1 SMP Sat Nov 19 14:54:59 EST 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux I need to get the ip & port i.e socket details of the given PID (32752). Based on a suggestion on my other thread i tried bash-3.2$ netstat -anpt | grep...

LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

byobu-select-session

byobu-select-session(1) 					       byobu						   byobu-select-session(1)

NAME

       byobu-select-session - select and connect to a byobu session

DESCRIPTION

       byobu-select-session  is an application that lists the available screen sessions running on the system, and prompts the user to select one.
       The user also has the option to create a new Byobu session, or launch the default shell without Byobu.

       If an invalid selection is chosen 3 times in a row, the user is connected to the youngest session.

       By default, if only one session exists, the user is connected to that session, and if no sessions exist, a new session is created  --  such
       that  there  is	no  interactive prompt in the normal behavior.	However, some users may choose to always be prompted, by touching the file
       $BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR/.always-select.

       Note that BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR=$HOME/.byobu.

       Named sessions that begin with a "." are "hidden" from byobu-select-session(1).	This is useful, for instance, if you do not want a session
       to be automatically selected at login.  Example:
	 byobu -S .hidden

FILES

       $BYOBU_CONFIG_DIR/.always-select

SEE ALSO

       byobu(1), screen(1)

       http://launchpad.net/byobu

AUTHOR

       This manpage and the utility were written by Dustin Kirkland <kirkland@ubuntu.com> for Ubuntu systems (but may be used by others).  Permis-
       sion is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document and the utility under the terms of the GNU General Public License,  Version
       3 published by the Free Software Foundation.

       The  complete  text  of	the  GNU  General  Public  License  can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL on Debian/Ubuntu systems, or in
       /usr/share/doc/fedora-release-*/GPL on Fedora systems, or on the web at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt.

byobu								    12 Jan 2010 					   byobu-select-session(1)