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290

Dual Boot, Have the Choice of Ubuntu and Windows

290 points posted to Linux, Operating Systems - Multiboot by daniel117 08/17/07

Why settle for only Windows without Ubuntu and vice versa? Dell should have dual boot on Windows and Ubuntu. Compromising is sometimes good and in this case, its great!

davmcn
08/17/07		 they are gonna charge you like 500$ For both...or even more depending on the Os Selection!
jmxz
08/17/07		 Dual boot is useful even when multiple instances of a single OS is installed.
When upgrading, you can upgrade one instance first; test it; and if it has problems fall back to the other partition. Or, if you have kids, you can have one partition booted for them to play; keeping your work partition relatively safe from them installing various viruses, etc.
davmcn
08/17/07		 i guess...
limulus
08/18/07		 As per this article:

Asked whether Dell should be offering dual-boot Windows/Ubuntu Linux systems, Shuttleworth said it was an interesting idea but not something he imagined would happen anytime soon as it would probably conflict with existing contractual obligations. "As soon as you try to fit two people into one chair so to speak, you run into contractual issues, and those issues are not from our side. But I'm not at all averse to the idea. I don't mind if someone wants to run Windows next to Ubuntu," he said.

IOW, Microsoft won't allow it.

However, one seriously wonders if preloading Wubi (http://wubi-installer.org/) is a way around that... in fact, I might submit that as an idea...
jmxz
08/18/07		 @limulus:

Dell's an important enough customer of Microsoft's that if Dell insists they can negotiate such a contract. I'd say Dell has a lot of negotiating power right now -- looking at the Vista launch so far seems Vista needs Dell more than Dell needs Vista.
limulus
08/18/07		 jmxz: LOL!

And what leverage does Dell *actually* have? Sure they're a major OEM, but Dell is almost totally reliant on Microsoft right now (I'm going to guess that the Ubuntu computers are ~1% of sales; even if Dell threatened to switch ALL their computers back to XP unless MS agreed, that would only work until Jan. 2008, which is when MS cuts off XP licenses to the big OEMs) and Dell's competitors aren't showing the same level of interest in preloading Linux. If MS says:

'sure, but it will cost you a lot more for your OEM licenses' or...
'sure, but you have to drop XP right now and only sell Vista' or...
'sure, if you only preload Linux distros we approve of, like SUSE, Xandros or Linspire, and drop Ubuntu'

or even all three, would Dell actually go for it? I think not.
jmxz
08/18/07		 While it's true that Microsoft doing something extreme like cutting off Dell would hurt Dell --- Microsoft couldn't afford the hit to their own stock price. Microsoft needs Dell to help Vista not fall too short of their quarterly expectations - so they won't do anything so drastic as to piss off Dell.
dell_admin10
09/17/07		 Thoughts on a merge with http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/62463/Dual_boot_OS ?
jmxz
09/17/07		 @dell_admin1:

They're very similar - but not quite the same - the big difference being that this guy's specifically asking for Ubuntu and Windows; while the other idea merely used XP as an example.

Note that if Dell started offering a Vista/Ubuntu dual-boot system, they could mark this one completed, but not the other one (which would be partially implemented at best, because it asked for XP).

On the other hand, if Dell offered a Ubuntu/Red-Hat dual-boot system, they could mark the other one as partially implemented (his example asked for XP - but his request seemed to be very general in nature), but not this one (which asks for Windows).

Arguably, perhaps the other post merged with the generic "Dual Boot" ideas that would be useful in other ways too. For example, people asking to dual-boot Vista and XP. Or people wanting 2 instances of XP - one for the kids, and one for the parents (so if the kids install viruses that don't affect the parents).

But rather than merging, I'd say it'd make more people happy if
1a. Dell offer a Ubuntu + Vista dual-boot system.
1b. Then Dell can mark *THIS* idea "Completed" but NOT the other one - which asked for XP.
2a. Dell then offer a broad range of choices of dual-boot options - including Ubuntu+XP.
2c. Then Dell mark the other one completed too.

'course it's your site, so you can do what you prefer. I'm not sure what merging these ideas would accomplish, tho. I'd rather see the number of open ideas go down by seeing them implemented rather than merged away.
dell_admin10
09/17/07		 @ jmxz Thanks for the input. There were several dupes reported on dual boot ideas, so we decided to look into the category for additional ideas that were related.

I agree that there are several specific asks for dual boot that should be preserved. One 'dual boot' idea is too broad. But, combining ideas with similar goals (XP and Vista, Linux and Windows, virtual machine, etc.) could provide more strength in numbers.

Our goal with the merging is to help the community, not to get an idea status to be *IMPLEMENTED* instead of *PARTIALLY IMPLEMENTED* Thanks again for the response. We will wait and see if daniel117 wants to weigh in before merging.
jmxz
09/17/07		 Cool. Then I hope we'll be able to change our votes after the merge. I can imagine someone being interested in "Linux + Vista" but not "Linux + XP" -- or vice versa. Or perhaps the idea you're merging them into should be edited to reflect both.
jmxz
09/17/07		 In fact,

I could imagine a user wanting Ubuntu+Vista.
I could imagine a user wanting Ubuntu+WinXP.
I could imagine a user wanting all three of those.

But it's hard for me to imagine a user who wants Ubuntu+XP being satisfied with Ubuntu+Vista or vice versa.

Isn't this almost like merging all the XP requests into requests for Vista?
zanlok
Jan 30		 XP is still faster to this day. And has better driver support from all more manufacturers. And runs games faster.
daniel117
Mar 12		 @dell_admin10

I've not been at IdeaStorm for a while, so, how do you merge?
jackie_c
Mar 13		 @daniel117: If you wanted to merge, you would confirm this is ok and then a moderator would merge it for you.
jmxz
Mar 13		 If you do merge, would you merge it into a "dual boot with Vista" or a "dual boot with XP" idea? If I recall some people were voting up "dual boot with Vista" and down "dual boot with XP" ideas; and other people voting the opposite ways.

Seems to me the dual boot Ideas should be re-grouped into "Vista + XP" "Ubuntu + Vista" "Ubuntu + XP" and "all combinations"; and then the appropriate merges could be done without distorting the votes as much.
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