Dude, you’re getting a Linux-loaded Dell!

After asking users what they wanted to see from Dell in the future — and seeing an overwhelming hue and cry for pre-installed Linux on Dell boxes, the company tells Desktoplinux.com that it will indeed offer computers with Linux preloaded:

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David Lord, a Dell spokesperson, did say, however, that Dell has been listening to its users and that the users want home and office desktops and laptops. Dell’s current offering in this area includes the Inspiron and Latitude laptops and the Dimension and OptiPlex desktops.

The new systems, Lord added, will be true pre-installed Linux systems — and not just a PC with a blank hard drive and a bootable CD or DVD. Software support is likely to come from the community, however, rather than from Dell. Lord added, however, that hardware support on the Dell Linux systems is likely to be the same as it offers on its Windows-powered systems.

According to Lord, Dell will also make buying the new Linux-powered PCs as easy as possible for customers. Specifically how Dell will to do this — making Linux an option in Dell’s standard sales configuration menu, setting up special pages for Dell Linux systems, or some other approach — the company is not yet ready to say.

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Dell hasn’t yet decided (or revealed) which Linux distribution(s) it will offer, but the company already sells servers and workstations with Linux loaded. The company is also committing to open-source drivers whenever possible. And according to DesktopLinux.com, Novell’s SUSE Linux is a heavy favorite to be the No. 1 Dell distro.

Expect HP/Compaq to follow with their own preloaded Linux boxes — and also expect some behind-the-scenes pressure from Microsoft, which tries to ensure that hardware makers load each and every box with Windows (and gives OEMs low-per-box prices as an incentive). Does this mean that MS will start pulling marketing dollars from PC makers? I’ve read that while it’s $150 to $200 to buy a Windows Vista upgrade at retail, a PC maker is only dinged between $25 and $30 (WARNING: all figures are estimates by me and are not to be taken as gospel) per PC, with much of that money coming back in marketing dollars. How MS actually makes money on these deals is a bit harder for me to see (if, in fact, all or any of this is true), but by preserving the market for MS Office, they make it up on the back end, because people pay for that package (even though they could — and the Daily News does — opt for the free Open Office suite instead).

Despite all this Linux talk, my main work box runs XP, and I think very highly of the OS (and the plethora of open-source apps that run on it, by the way), but I’m made less happy by the way MS charges so much for upgrades and ignores all but the most recent hardware in the hopes that you will junk what you’ve got every two years and buy more MS products in the same cycles.

All I’m saying is if Linux goes legit on the desktop (and while I don’t think it is ready, Win 3.1 and 95 weren’t so ready either in their time), Microsoft is going to have to do a lot of spin … not that they’ve never done that before. Linux is definitely not for everybody, but it could be for more bodies if it came preconfigured and if the GUI utilities to manage networking, printing and application installation get better. The Linux command line is there for all to behold, but most normal people rightly want nothing to do with it.

Thin Puppy torture test — Day 3

It’s Day 3 of the Thin Puppy torture test, in which the Thin Puppy — a Maxspeed Maxterm thin client repurposed to run Puppy Linux 2.14 — will run continuously to test the hardware and OS … and also because since the Compact Flash memory died, I booted the machine with a CD drive, then disconnected said drive. So the Thin Puppy is running totally in RAM (I have a 256 MB USB flash drive connected in case I want to save anything big, but there’s no OS or apps on it), and it can’t be rebooted without me cracking the case open and re-plugging the CD drive, or inserting a pre-programmed CF module in the back (the only “disk” this thin client is wired for is the CF, via an IDE adapter that plugs into the motherboard and a floppy power connector.

Again, the Maxspeed Maxterm, which I bought on eBay, is running a Via C3 1 GHz processor with special heatsink that pipes to two auxiliary heatsinks bolted to the metal case; a VT133 chipset, 256 MB of PC133 RAM, all on a Mini-ITX motherboard of undetermined origin (I don’t think Via made it, and it could be PC Chips, but I can’t confirm that either), plus a small, fanless power supply, also in the case, fed by an external 12 V laptop-style adapter, and the previously mentioned CF-to-IDE adapter with access through the back of the case.

One thing that Puppy Linux offers is a running tally of how much free memory you have for data. I’m currently at 45.2 MB. The computing session began on March 26, with 49.5 MB and has fluctuated all the while. Much of that is taken up in cache for the SeaMonkey browser; emptying the cache restores some of the memory. But as long as things stay at an acceptable level and nothing else crashes the system, the Thin Puppy should keep going.

The system only achieved its current stability when I swapped in the 256 MB RAM stick — it would buckle on Flash animation elements of Web pages with 128 MB of RAM because Puppy only had about 5 MB of free RAM for data (it’s not ALL the free RAM, just that set aside for data — caches, added programs, downloads NOT made to the USB flash drive and such).

I used the Dillo browser for most of the day. It’s much lighter and faster than SeaMonkey, which itself isn’t that slow. But Dillo loads instantly and displays pages almost as fast. The way it achieves that speed is, in some part, because it doesn’t use CSS style sheets, Java, or any of that other stuff that makes most browsers work hard. For general Web browsing in which you don’t have to fill out forms and do other complex things (or need Flash), it’s a great app to have on hand. And while SeaMonkey is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS, Dillo is a Linux-only application, as far as I can tell.

Slax wears the pants

I was reading Sal Cangleso’s excellent article on his Mini-ITX project, in which he builds small computers that run off of Compact Flash memory (just like the Thin Puppy!), and he mentioned that while he liked Puppy Linux, another small distribution, called Slax, was better. So I went over there and am intrigued — I downloaded a few ISOs to burn later and try.

It’s a small Linux, all right, and the main version is based on KDE, with the wonderful KOffice (smart quotes!!!) also on board. There is also a “Kill Bill” version that includes Wine preloaded to run Windows apps (now you know which Bill we’re talking about), and a small version to fit on a 128M USB drive (now if I could only figure out how to make a USB flash drive bootable ….).

While there are a lot of people using Slax, as the forum attests, it is primarily the work of one man, Tomas Matejicek of the Czech Republic. And if you didn’t get the reference, Slax is indeed based on that most noble of Linux distributions, Slackware.

For those already knee-deep in Linux, there are many specialized Slax modules available (1,857 to be exact), with options including the Xfce, fwvm, IceWM and Fluxbox window managers. How’s that for freedom of choice?

Whether you’re interested in Slax or not, you are interested in cool, homebuilt computers, aren’t you? Thought so. There are three parts to Sal’s Mini-ITX series, and all three are well worth studying before you embark on your own Mini-ITX (or any PC) project.

More from Sal:

Mini-ITX Part 1
Mini-ITX Part 3
The Core 2 Duo Mini-ITX Box

Zen Walk in the Thin Puppy

Before I pulled the CD-R drive, I did boot the Thin Puppy with Zen Walk 4.2, another of the Linux distributions that are supposed to run well on lower-spec computers. I did it before I boosted the memory from 128 MB to 256 MB, so it all looked pretty good until I loaded up Firefox, at which point the CPU went crazy and killed X. Then, when I tried to shut down, it wouldn’t do it all the way. Maybe things will be different with 256 MB. It made a helluva difference for Puppy Linux.

By the way, Zen Walk is based on Slackware, and it ran, while Xubuntu, based on Debian would not boot.

Thin Puppy’s fan

I thought that it was the power drain from the CD-R drive that made the Thin Puppy’s fan turn on, but it turns out that the fan’s sudden spin to life had nothing to do with the added drive. I confirmed this by pulling the drive out from the Thin Puppy, which was lying on its side to accomodate the short cables. Once I removed the CD-R, the fan stayed on. When I stood the Thin Puppy upright, the fan went off. Put back on its side again, the fan starts up. Strange. Is there a short in the wiring that somehow resolves itself when the thing is turned at a 90-degree angle? I can’t worry about it too much because the Thin Puppy (Maxspeed Maxterm thin client) never gets all that hot. The VT133 portion of the chipset gets the hottest, but the Via C3 1 GHz CPU never gets that hot — and it’s got a heatsink that’s piped and connected to the metal case for maximum heat transfer, so there’s really nothing to worry about.

I’m disappointed that I couldn’t boot any Debian-derived CDs with the CD-R drive hooked up, but I’m happy that Puppy Linux is comfortable with 256 MB of RAM. I pulled the CD-R drive while the thin client was running, so now it’ll stay running as long as it doesn’t crash … or I get a new CF card and reboot it … or ????

Puppy likes memory

I finally got around to stuffing the Thin Puppy (Maxspeed Maxterm thin client) with 256 MB of PC133 RAM, and now I can even load dailynews.com, with all its various Flash animation components, WITHOUT killing the Thin Puppy. With the new memory, there’s about 48 MB of RAM left over for Puppy Linux 2.14 to play with. I’d love to see how Damn Small Linux works with this setup, but it — and all other Debian-based Linuxes I have on CD — won’t even boot. Something about a disk error. Well, whatever’s in error there is not with Puppy, which is running fine right now.

I suspect that if I loaded those other Debians on a hard drive (or even Compact Flash), I’d be able to boot them on the Thin Puppy, but now with Puppy Linux itself booting and actually working, I couldn’t be happier (for the minute, at least).

Hardware note: Now that the CD-R drive is hooked up, the fan runs continuously on the Thin Puppy, whereas it never ran at all before. Therefore it must be responding to the increased load on the power supply (this is a pretty small DC supply to run actual physical drives, as opposed to a measly CF card).

So I can say now, with some certainty, that Puppy Linux is a bit uncomfortable with 128 MB RAM, but comfortable enough with 256 MB (the maximum the Thin Puppy can address, by the way). Since boosting an old PC to 156 MB is a fairly cheap proposition (you ARE buying your memory on the used market, aren’t you?), then Puppy is a very viable system with which to rescue said PCs for productive use.

Memory addendum: In Puppy Linux, downloading to the “My Documents” file stores your data in memory until you exit Puppy, but downloading to an extermal drive — in this case a USB flash drive — does NOT ding your RAM, so it is possible to work with big files in Puppy and not bring your system to its knees. Goooood dog.

The $20 computer

When was the last time you bought a computer for $20 and had it on the Internet five minutes later?

It just happened to me. I got this HP T5300 thin client — works like a PC, except it has no disk drives — for $20 on eBay from a health-care business. These things often sell for a couple hundred dollars but usually go used for $50 or so. This one is based on the Windows CE embedded operating system (others are Linux based), with a 533 MHz processor, 32 MB of flash memory and 64 MB of RAM. It’s enough to run Explorer (no Macromedia Flash player, though), and it’s enough to post to this blog via Movable Type.

And this thin client is about half the size of the Thin Puppy. Unfortunately, it only uses a USB keyboard and mouse, and I’ve got PS/2 versions, so I’m sharing the peripherals from the Dell at the moment.

Even so, this thing was blissfully easy to configure for the Internet (I logged on as the administrator and went into the settings). Since it’s Windows-based, there’s no Linux learning curve, but I’d love to run it off of Linux just the same. That might only be possible by pulling the flash memory module and starting/booting from scratch. But strictly as a Web terminal, this thing is working great.

Thin Puppy back in the game

Ever since its Compact Flash chip died, the Thin Puppy has been out of commission, but I managed to pull one of the two CD drives from This Old PC and meld it with the Thin Puppy (Maxspeed Maxterm thin client).

It’s a TDK CD-R drive, 2002 vintage. I pulled the IDE cable from the CF adapter and powered the drive with the previously unused hard-drive power cable (from the fanless power supply in the thin client).

Since I was having so much trouble with memory while running Puppy from the CF card (the box has 128 MB), I thought I would try Damn Small Linux instead, but that CD wouldn’t boot.

So I tried Puppy 2.13, and it booted fine. Except that I have a whopping 4.6 MB of memory left after booting. That’s in contrast to about 50 MB when running from the CF drive. (Yes, the Thin Puppy has no HD storage, not even the 1 GB CF — everything is done in memory).

Predictibly, the SeaMonkey browser was painfully slow, bringing the system to its knees. So I went to the much-lighter Dillo browser — something I should’ve done before the CF chip was killed.

Dillo doesn’t to half the complex things that “modern” browser do. There’s no CSS or Java, for instance, but the result is a blazing-fast Web experience that barely taxes the CPU or scarce memory in the Thin Puppy.

And yes, I am posting now on Dillo.

I am disturbed, however, by Damn Small Linux’s refusal to run on the Thin Puppy from CD. I’ll have to try DSL-n, the original DSL’s larger cousin, which is built on a new version of the Linux kernel.

The little DSL was running great on This Old PC over the weekend, although I didn’t get a chance to connect to the Internet, and that’s seemingly where all the real problems come in to play.

Damn Small Linux on This Old PC

I recently borrowed an oldish LCD monitor for This Old PC, since its old Gateway monitor is at the office, hooked up to the now-brainless Thin Puppy, and a try of Puppy with the new monitor didn’t produce quite the crisp resolution I’m seeking with such a “high-end” screen.

So I popped in Damn Small Linux 3.2, and I was pleasantly surprised to have an EXTREMELY crisp resolution on the LCD, with sound (from the troublesome ISA sound card that Puppy can’t find) present on booting. Now the big beef I’ve had with Damn Small Linux (DSL for short, not to be confused with the DSL that the other 99.999 percent of the population knows) is its inability to find the onboard Ethernet in the newish Dell at the Daily News. But it sure found the cheap ($1.99) Airlink 10/100 Ethernet card I got from Fry’s some time ago.

In case you don’t know, This Old PC is, indeed about nine years old, with a Pentium II MMX 333 MHz processor, 262 MB RAM (yes, it’s not a round number — I have three different kinds of RAM in there, and something’s fishy). DSL runs great on it. And since the screen looks so good, it’s a computing environment I could really get used to. … If only the printer and Wi-Fi were working. I’m not above getting another Wi-Fi adapter, especially one that works through USB so I could use it on multiple machines.

I had DHCP networking running, but since I don’t have any wired Internet in The Back Room, all I could do was configure my router.

DSL, like Puppy, couldn’t find my wireless card — but since Windows 2000 has “lost” it recently, I won’t hold that against it for now.

I tried, again, the screwy printer-configuration program that comes with DSL, and again I had no luck. The “test” page just shoots out every page in the printer, and when I try to print something normal, I get nothing. So at the moment, Puppy and DSL are neck and neck. DSL looks better on screen, but Puppy can actually print. I’ll have to hit the DSL forums and see some solutions for printing and wireless.

And I’m not above getting a different, cheap Wi-Fi adapter, preferably one that runs through USB so I could swap it into the many test computers I have going at the moment.

Note: DSL-n, the bigger version of DSL with different apps and a newer Linux kernel does work with the newish Dell, so at least I’ve got that covered.

Microsoft sees Linux as a threat — and they have a strategy

I heard about this Microsoft presentation on how to steer people away from Linux and back to Windows. The link first appeared on Lxer.com, but when word got out, MS took it down.

Luckily the Blog of Helios and others managed to keep a copy so we can all see what Microsoft is up to.

And Mr. Helios also points out that even as MS aims to crush Linux, Ballmer and Co. are still making money off of it with their Novell partnership and the SUSE product.