Make it work with a vanilla image

May 7, 2012

Posted By:  patsoe

20 Votes

Status: Acknowledged

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First of all, thanks for doing this - good Linux-support is very high on my list of required features, and has been a reason for buying Dell in the past.

You write "The image will come with the necessary drivers to support the HW" and I have to ask: isn't it possible instead to update the machine's firmware, so that it is sufficiently standards-compliant to work with a vanilla Ubuntu image?

If the machine requires a custom image, that leads me to worry that it will need customisation for every new version of the distro in the future, and that reinstalls might be a hassle every time. It also suggests that it might prove a hassle to install other distros, which lack your customisations.

Dell appears to have a fairly good track record of building laptops that "just work" with Ubuntu: at least quite a few are listed at http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/  - so please make this another one!

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  • May 8, 2012     Comment Link

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    Posted By: patsoe

    @HerrKaputt: "At best, include a CD with some Ubuntu drivers which need to be installed" - To be honest, I'd feel that's somewhat watering down the idea... if Project Sputnik runs 6 months, that could be enough time to get any changes merged upstream, before the 12.10 release.
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  • May 8, 2012     Comment Link

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    Posted By: HerrKaputt

    This is so true. Linux users want to install the distribution they want, when they want, with their choice of packages etc. It's fine that Dell is starting with Ubuntu only (you have to start somewhere), but it should be the standard Ubuntu image and not some Dell-specific image.

    At best, include a CD with some Ubuntu drivers which need to be installed to make specific devices work (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc, which tend to be somewhat problematic in Linux).
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  • May 8, 2012     Comment Link

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    Posted By: ijk

    100%. Dell should focus on pushing changes upsteam so linux *just works*.