Dell backs Ubuntu Linux

[Nerfherder]

HP did this a while ago, they had a solution with a single Ubuntu PC that had 4 screens, 4 mice and 4 keyboards. So 4 pc's for the price of 1.... very good for rural schools etc.

I think they abandoned it though

 

[Loopin]

Don't Dell laptops also have ATI graphics cards (all the ones I've bought have had the option between ATI or onboard)?

ATI drivers on linux are simply awful. To the point that backing ATI and Ubuntu would be a contradiction.

 

[ponder]

Sucks that Dell stopped selling through their website though. Does anyone know why's that?

I mean on the South African portal, that is.

The local resellers biatch and moaned. Anyway, this is what someone from Dell told me.

 

[ic]

Yes, and OpenOffice is not making things any better. It is a real shame that Applixware faded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applixware_Words). In 1998 I did an informal comparison between StarOffice (OpenOffice's predecessor, for those who remember it), Applixware and some other package (Abiword pre-release?). As you would expect, StarOffice was a dog, running just as slowly as MS Office did under Windows back then.

But Applixware ran like a dream. Remember, this was back on a '486. Unlike MS Office and StarOffice, Applixware would load up instantly. It had about 20% the memory footprint of StarOffice, and the UI was just soooo much better and more responsive. Unfortunately, Applixware was commercial, so StarOffice became OpenOffice and now rules the open source office suite space. It really is Betamax vs.VHS all over again. Sigh. (Cue special effects, and insert dream sequence of alternate history in which OpenOffice died the painful death it deserves)

<cough>Who needs *Office* when one can use LaTeX...</cough>

ATI drivers on linux are simply awful. To the point that backing ATI and Ubuntu would be a contradiction.

I concur, ATI sucks.