Robert Pogson

SJVN wrote, “I think it’s time for Dell, HP, Lenovo, and all the other big-time PC vendors to finally start taking the Linux desktop seriously. It’s clear that Microsoft’s agenda no longer is running in parallel with their plans.

Shifting to Linux won’t be easy. I’m sorry to say that in 2012 there are only two significant Linux desktop/tablet operating systems for original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to consider for partnering: Canonical of Ubuntu fame, and Google with Android and Chrome OS.”

I have to agree with SJVN on the first point. The doors have been opening in steps for years now:

• crappy code in the DOS and Lose ’9x era,
• waves of malware,
• shocks like forcing XP SP2 on innocent users whose apps quit,
• Vista, which forced millions to buy new equipment which did not run the OS and the OS was bug-ridden to boot, and
• now “8″ and “secure boot” and “Surface” are wreaking havoc with the world of IT and they are not even released yet.

The world is tired of M$. The OEMs are tired of M$. It’s long past time to use GNU/Linux in bulk shipping PCs from OEMs to retailers and wholesalers.

I disagree with the point about only a couple of distros being right for OEMs. ASUS had success even with a crappy distro on netbooks. All an OEM has to do with any distro is get involved with the packaging and source-code to be sure of a good fit. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, OpenSuse and several other GNU/Linux distros with history, a large number of contributors and wide distribution will all work with OEMs. They already do in several cases. Ubuntu GNU/Linux may seem to have the inside track with a long relationship with OEMs and real salesmen but OEMs need reliability more than they need to be sold stuff. They want distros with a simple user-interface, good security and bug-patching, and actual policies about how to deal with various problems. Distros like Debian have been around for ages because they have those characteristics.

No. Choice of distro is scarcely a problem for OEMs. They can put a small team on the job of choosing a distro, developing releases for their machines and doing it. Many distros have all the tools needed to develop code let alone distribute binaries and images properly.

OEMs do have some real issues that matter to them and their customers that they would have to address in releasing GNU/Linux desktops: long term support for businesses who will spend a bundle on an IT-cycle, and consumers who want systems that are easy to use and to maintain. Ubuntu has 5-year long term support but it is based on Debian testing flavour rather than Debian Stable. That means more bugs early in the LTS period, not something business would enjoy. Using Debian Stable with ~2 year support and dist-upgrading to the next stable may well meet business needs.

Consumers tend to want “the latest thing” and Debian testing or normal Ubuntu which is based on testing may be a better fit but there will be more problems/bugs that could be referred to retailers/OEMs for fixing. OEMs do have a valid option of scripting or remotely administering the package updates on GNU/Linux. The packaging managers make that feasible. For the greater certainty, OEMs could contribute to any distro with support for packaging and testing. Reliable bug reports from a contributing OEM might be desirable for any distro. The costs would certainly be less than OEMs pay M$ now.

Another benefit of GNU/Linux for OEMs is that they can more or less rapidly move to ARM to increase margins and increase specific performance ( MIPS/watt, noise, weight, cost, size etc.). Consumers love innovation and GNU/Linux or Android/Linux on ARM give a lot of flexibility to distinguish an OEM from competitors. OEMs do relish competition because they have good people and can compete fairly. They don’t need Wintel dictating to them and they don’t need to be limited by what Wintel wants.

See SJVN: Has Microsoft opened the door to the Linux desktop? | ZDNet.

Brian Proffitt who has been following the FLOSS scene long enough to know better recently repeated the lies:

• “Linux’s market share on the desktop has always been very small.” Utter nonsense, GNU/Linux share is larger than Apple’s and no one calls that small. Linux also underpins Android/Linux and that’s huge. Linux is not too small for Nvidia’s attention. Even M$ claims only 50-60% of PCs shipped by OEMs. Apple only claims 5%. There are plenty of machines shipped with GNU/Linux or are installed with GNU/Linux. Then there’s Android/Linux which shipped on more personal computers than M$’s stuff.
• Writing of problems with hardware drivers in Linux, “those situations are plentiful”. Again, GNU/Linux has tons of drivers and supports the vast majority of hardware “out of the box”. I have run GNU/Linux on thousands of PCs cranked out for Wintel and had very few problems with drivers. The last school where I worked had five kinds of PCs and a few other random computers without a single device not driven. A few students had WinModems but that was scarcely an issue in comparison to the ~100 PCs in the school. For $20 they could buy a nifty USB modem and were laughing. Naturally OEMs will ship GNU/Linux on machines for which all the drivers work and they ship many millions of them. That’s not woe. Canonical plans to ship on 5% of PCs next year. They are not worried about drivers. Why is Brian?

So, I don’t know what’s up but the pronouncement of GNU/Linux’s failure on the desktop or anywhere else are greatly exaggerated. There are still huge roll-outs taking place and every major and many minor OEMs are only too glad to ship GNU/Linux PCs if anyone wants them and many do. They usually ship no-OS so that folks can install what they want, too, and Many certify their hardware to work with Linux.

Once or twice a year a mosquito gets through and bites me. That’s no woe. That’s a mosquito bite. So are imaginary hardware issues with Linux.

see Linus Torvalds' Obscene Rant Highlights Linux’s Hardware Woes.

Recently Nvidia was scolded by Linus for withholding source code for their video drivers but the chickens really come home to roost when it hits the bottom line. A large Chinese project went to AMD over the same issue. The Chinese wanted Nvidia’s hardware to work with MIPS CPU…

“One of the leading Chinese companies were looking for GPUs to power their pilot school PC project. These PCs were running Linux on their own MIPS CPU. The company approached Nvidia to supply GeForce/Quardro  GPUs for their project. Unfortunately, the GeForce/Quardro drivers are available only for x86 based architectures. It’s not available for MIPS or even ARM. Nvidia’s officials told Chinese that it would cost them millions of dollars to port the code-base.

Chinese did not want to spend this much money on just porting the code-base. Since Nvidia never releases the source code of their drivers, the Chinese went to AMD which has open source drivers”

Needless to say, if Nvidia had opened their source code, the world would have ported their drivers to ARM and MIPS for no cost to Nvidia… When ARM invades the “PC” space, what will Nvidia do? Cede the field to AMD/ATI?

see Muktware – Nvidia Loses a Large GPU Order Due To Closed Source Drivers.