As much as I dislike SuSE, it seems to have traction on enterprise desktops.
Desktops, Linux submitted by jmxz
08/14/07
Looks like
Peugeot is installing 20000 Desktop Linux's with software from Novell.
Peugeot Citroën revs up 20,000 Suse Linux desktops
...
As part of a multiyear contract with Novell, the French company will install Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop on up to 20,000 computers in addition to 2,500 servers, the U.S. software vendor said Tuesday.
The announcement comes on the same day that Microsoft's new Vista operating system and Office 2007 software suite become commercially available for consumers. Charles King, principle analyst with Pund-IT, a technology research firm, referred to the size of the Novell contract with Peugeot Citroën as "significant" and the timing of the announcement as "very interesting."
This immediately inspires 2 ideas:
- Idea 1. Work with Canonical to get their corporation as friendly to large corporate customers as Novell is. I've spent a lot of time with many Linuxes (and desktop unixes since the earliest Suns), and in my opinion Ubuntu's a better desktop product. So I think the main reason Novell wins these things is that they're a large organization good at selling to other large organizations. Dell's also good at that - and I think a close Dell/Canonical partnership would be very favorable compared against Novell/anyone.
- Idea 2. If that doesn't work, I'd grudgingly accept that all those SuSE desktop ideas that I voted against might have some merit.
Dell - please stay focused on the highest-voted ideas, though. Don't distract yourselves with this one until you've addressed the ideas below which have been the top-ranked ideas for at least 6 months without adequate responses..
- 147,808 - dhart - Pre-Installed Linux [and not just on a couple obsolete models in limited geographies]
- 127,719 - dhart - Pre-Installed OpenOffice | alternative to MS Works & MS Office
- 107,313 - robinjfisher - Have Firefox pre-installed as default browser
- 89,183 - ootleman - No Extra Software Option [only a couple models are crapware-free today]
- 78,007 - gergnz - Provide Linux Drivers for all your Hardware
- 73,600 - agreer - No OS Preloaded [and not just on a couple obsolete models]
50
Dell's own Linux OS
Linux, Operating Systems submitted by rehtneug
07/06/07
Dell should develop it's own Linux based OS. Allow the open source community to provide drivers and any other software necessary. Partner with open source groups and provide resources to allow further development of necessary apps, such as OpenOffice.
-500
Make it your own
IdeaStorm, Linux, Software submitted by eevargas
03/02/07
I read this from LJ. . .
" It’s exciting to see the IdeaStorm community’s interest in open source solutions like Linux and OpenOffice. Your feedback has been all about flexibility and we have seen a consistent request to provide platforms that allow people to install their operating system of choice. We are listening, and as a result, we are working with Novell to certify our corporate client products for Linux, including our OptiPlex desktops, Latitude notebooks and Dell Precision workstations. This is another step towards ensuring that our customers have a good experience with Linux on our systems.
As this community knows, there is no single customer preference for a distribution of Linux. In the last week, the IdeaStorm community suggested more than half a dozen distributions. We don't want to pick one distribution and alienate users with a preference for another. We want users to have the opportunity to help define the market for Linux on desktop and notebook systems. In addition to working with Novell, we are also working with other distributors and evaluating the possibility of additional certifications across our product line. We are continuing to investigate your other Linux-related ideas, so please continue to check here for updates."
I think there's no way to make all Linux users happy. Even for me (3 years of only Linux) it is hard to decide with distro to use, because there's is a lot of great Linux distro out there right now. My suggestion is, instead of team-up with Novell, hardly open source's favorite company at the moment, you should make your on distro taking the best features from each one. You only need to hire a good team of Linux developers. Yes! Uncle Bill will be mad with you Mike, but you have to choose the path that DELL will take from know on. Novell has made a great job With Suse, Ubuntu is changing the way of Linux and PCLinuxOS is easy, fast and beautiful. I can't wait to see what DELL can do.
50
Encourage Games Developers To Develop For Linux
Gaming, Linux submitted by aikiwolfie
09/29/07
Linux as an OS makes far better use of hardware resources than Windows does. It's also a far more stable OS. Which means it's an excellent platform for games deployment.
Dell should help the open source community make Linux more attractive to games developers. The XPS 700 works really well with Ubuntu so there's no hardware limitation to making the latest and greatest games available on Linux.
NOTE: I don't have a PhysX card so I don't know how that would work.
240
More Options on Linux Machines
Linux, Sales Strategies submitted by rukie
06/23/07
Dell has finally offered us Ubuntu machines, unfortunately, there are only a few, and each one has only a few options. It would be great if the linux machines had a similar amount of options as the windows machines do. Currently there is only one video card option on the 410N. More options would make people more likely to buy your linux based products because they'd have a choice in the computer they might want, because a 128mb built in 128mb shared video card may not be enough for some people, or may be too much for others!
More options.
Perhaps 2 motherboard options
2-3 video card options
builtin or independent sound card options
You already offer plenty of monitors, memory, and processors, but those are easy to provide options on. We want more customizations!
Thank you dell for listening to us and supporting Linux!
200
Dell remove all Browsers from any OS you offer.
Operating Systems, Software submitted by jorge
06/20/07
Dell no one wants bloatware as can be seen by the plethora of Ideas and votes against bloatware. One which has been left off the list previously is Browsers! Remove all browsers from any OS you offer, its removal also prevents any additional add-on from working so kills two with one un-install. While you're at it get rid of that pesky calculator! Its eating up my disk space.
Start Jul 2nd:  provided by florida web site design
-450
Reduced price for Linux PCs
Linux, Sales Strategies, Desktops and Laptops submitted by ms602
03/30/07
First off, I want to thank Michael Dell for returning to the head of the company, and doing what he does best - listening to customers. There has been much talk recently, and even press attention, about Dell committing to preinstall Linux. So my ideas are as follows...
1) Offer preinstalled Linux on machines - this isn't a new idea. As previously noted, it would be great if Dell would support, say, the top 5 Linux distributions, configured out of the box with drivers that support the hardware. Word is that Dell has already decided to do this. RH, Suse, and Ubuntu, would be nice at least.
2) Offer a reduced price for Linux machines - Many have noted that Linux reduces the cost of a machine, but haven't requested that the price of the machine fall in line with the cost differential. The whole point of buying a Linux machine is to lower the price. If Dell were to include a license of Windows Home Basic edition, but install only Linux, it defeats one of the purposes of Linux. Microsoft should not be enriched upon every machine sale, regardless of Windows inclusion. There's just something totally wrong with that agreement... The difference in the incremental cost of adding a license of Windows should be the same incremental difference in price. Dell should not play Microsoft's game of licensing copies of Windows on all machines. If MS wants to charge more for not licensing all machines, go ahead and do it anyway, so that the market can naturally make a choice between Windows and Linux. Linux critics complain that Linux hasn't caught on because it isn't demanded. Lower the price, and you'll see the demand. If the price is the same, even a Linux user has an economic incentive to buy the machine with a Windows license, because she is getting the benefit of a copy of Windows at no cost above the Linux PC. One last suggestion, if a Linux PC buyer changes her mind about Linux after the sale, and wishes to use Windows, provide an easy way for her to buy a copy from Dell and easily install it as if it were done by Dell itself.
230
Vista : YES, but not pre-installed ! Why : XP for games
Operating Systems submitted by user541
07/17/07
My idea is NOT about choosing an OS :
The idea is to let the customer choose between a pre-installed operating system or a CD joined to the computer.
Why ? The first reason everybody could imagine is :
easilly create paritions in order to install Windows XP AND Windows Vista, mainly because games work better on XP... but also for others reasons : some programs are not working under Vista (Palm assistant, specific software, ...), XP is faster (in fact vista need more ressources...), ...
In fact, I'm going to buy an XPS M1330 :), delivered with Windows Vista (in France, Europe).
Once I receive the computer, I will have to :
-defrag the NTFS parition that consume all the space (else the next step will fail)
-resize the ntfs parition, wich is a DANGEROUS manipulation (could lose some data...)
-install Windows XP
-install a soft in order to re-add windows vista to the boot loader -_-
[-install ubuntu, but that is another story ^^]
Hell! What a lot of hazardous manipulations....
What i hope is :
-buy a dell computer with an empty HDD and windows vista on DVD
-create my partitions before everything else
-install windows XP with my own a legal copy
-install windows Vista (create the bootloader with everything)
[-install a linux distribution]
That's it !
Moreover :
I'm not well inform about the hidden recovery partition, but I estimate that a 4go partition is almost 5% of a 80Go HDD, that's really too big !
I buy the HDD and i want all the space for ME.
Please let me choose between an empty hard drive and a pre-installed OS with a recovery partition!!
Thanks
90
Fix/Remove the new backdoor(s) from Vista SP1 before shipping it.
Operating Systems submitted by jmxz
12/17/07
Vista SP1 apparently has yet another new NSA backdoor; in addition to speculation of similar in XP and various other spyware features built in to Vista.
It seems that when Microsoft speaks of Vista "Security" - they're really talking about the RIAA / MPAA / Copyright laywers, and governments being secure from computer users (by giving both technical hooks as well as legalese in the EULA to let such groups go after users) rather than protecting the computer users themselves.
I imagine Dell would lose international sales if they were suspected of shipping software with government sponsored back doors; and US corporate spyware - so at least for your international sales, my Idea is that Dell should fix and/or remove these suspected backdoors before shipping.
130
Add Mandriva to the list
Linux submitted by lostinspace
02/21/07
I have just gone through the process of trying several different linux distros as the main OS on a new OS-free PC I bought (not from Dell, obviously). I went through the latest Fedora to OpenSuse to Ubuntu, and finally tried Mandriva One, as well as Mandriva Free. Both the Mandriva versions were the least problematic and most flexible of the bunch, so You should add Mandriva to your list. PLEASE. PLEASE, PLEASE.
The others are okay, but the fits and finishes on Mandriva are the best I've seen. One simple example involves fonts. As a graphic artist, webmaster and editor, that has been the worst of part of trying out Linux. But in Mandriva, installing a font is a breeze, primarily because it automatically links the fonts with the big apps that will use them. With other distros I've tried, you're pretty much on your own. You can install a nice font in Suse, and then God help you trying to figure out how to use it in something like Openoffice.
That said, you should also talk to Warren Woodford, who does Mepis. It was the first I used, and is second best behind Mandriva, in my opinion.
1210
Upgrade your LinuxFoundation membership from silver to platinum like IBM, HP, Fujitsu, etc
Dell submitted by vfun
04/19/07
Most of your serious competitors (IBM, HP, Fujitsu,Hitachi) are Platinum Members of the Linux Foundation. Some of your lesser competitors are Gold Members (Sun).
Dell is on the list, but way down in the "Silver Members" category with smaller companies and companies I've never heard of like Celunite, Inc; BakBone, montavista, Spike Source and Progeny.
Surely Dell would rather be seen among the likes of IBM and HP. Upgrading your membership there is a way to help do that.
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Members< Note that earlier I was offended that a Microsoft sycophant (like Dell seemed to be) was even on the list, fearing that you were undermining the organization rather than helping it. I only recommend this if you're more serious about Linux this time than you were in 2000 (http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/66001)
110
Did "Microsoft kill Dell Linux" as the media reported in 2002
Advertising and Marketing, Linux submitted by jmxz
04/17/07
The "idea" in this one is for Dell to explain both the history and the present lack of action.
Back in 1999-2002, during a previous time when Dell teased it's customers with Linux, the media reported that Microsoft may have been responsible for killing Dell
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/19/microsoft_killed_dell_linux_states/ "Published Tuesday 19th March 2002 10:35 GMT.
Microsoft ‘killed Dell Linux’
...
Joachim Kempin ...then in charge of Microsoft's OEM business...raises the possibility of threatening Dell and other PC builders which promote Linux.
"I'm thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux. ... they should do a delicate dance," Kempin wrote to Ballmer, in what is sure to be a memorable addition to the phrases ("knife the baby", "cut off the air supply") with which Microsoft enriched the English language in the first trial.
...
Earlier memos described that it was "untenable" that a key Microsoft partner was promoting Linux. Kuney revealed that Dell disbanded its Linux business unit in early 2001. Dell quietly pulled Linux from its desktop PCs in the summer of 2001, IDG's Ashlee Vance discovered subsequently, six months after we heard Michael Dell declare his love of Linux on the desktop the previous winter." Microsoft used to bully IBM in a similar way: http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/10/cut_a_deal_or_you/"From about 20 July, IBM found it was completely cut off from access to Windows 95 code, and could not continue with development of models incorporating Windows 95 Though IBM didn't take well to being bullied and worked to make Linux a viable alternative in case they were threatened again. It makes you wonder if Microsoft did it to Dell again this time. Back in February Dell said " It’s exciting to see the IdeaStorm community’s interest in open source solutions like Linux and OpenOffice. " By March there was a lot of talk but little action save for talk of certifications on a few business machines (latitudes). In April - a deafening silence. All the while, though, Dell's been selling Linux Inspirons in China ( http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/65270 ) - so it's not technical problems holding them back. Even if the sell the exact same china model here it would be a big step forward - I don't doubt the community could quickly post ways to set the language preferences to English. Something's holding Dell back - what could it be? So it's a two part IdeaStorm idea: - Dell, tell us what happened last time - did Microsoft kill Dell Linux in 2001?
- Dell, tell us what happened this time - did Microsoft kill Dell Linux again in 2007?
190
Improved (and actually functional) anit-virus packages
Software submitted by yourmaster
06/25/07
Instead of the commercial "trial" (e.g., it's out-of-date and it's not free, and will expire in a year or less anyway) software currently pre-installed on Dell Windows computers, consider instead AVG, ClamWin, or Avast! anti-virus - all of which are free for end-users, and all of which score higher than Symantec products (for example) in independent anti-virus testing.
210
Build a Dell Linux Distribution
Linux, New Product Ideas, Desktops and Laptops submitted by jemfisher
02/20/07
With the wave of support for the Linux kernel to power desktop PC's, I think its time for a company with the quality build that Dell has to provide users with PC's that work for them. The adoption of Linux to power Dell PC's would give Dell a greater freedom to move forward with innovation. With the adoption of a Linux kernel Dell would be able to sell PC to meet users' demands. Businesses demand different machines than home users, students demand different machines again, machines targeted at younger users, etc.
2300
can dell become as a new "apple" with linux
Linux submitted by davidene
05/10/07
it will be interesting an accord of dell with novel redhat or ubuntu to develope a linux OS only for dell pc... I like very much idea of dell to implement linux on its devices, but it is a little difficult to use linux for novice users... overall to install new software... it is not easy to find the right software for your specific distribution... it will be a good idea also that dell give this software on its site...or as i told to produce a linux for dell pc that uses an apart installation packet as rpm or exe or... i don't know...it will semplificates the consumers life...
always new and user friendly software is power
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
-220
Professional Apps and Popular Games..for Linux??
Gaming, Linux, Software submitted by kdubber
05/01/07
Until a Linux distro will support such popular apps as PhotoShop or AutoCAD and others that are necessary for some of us to make a living Linux is stuck in the also ran category.. this is unfortunate.
Dell could lead the way by working with AutoDesk, Adobe and others to provide this application availability in Linux. NO these apps would not be free.. but if the price to buy a Linux version was in line with the Windows version? Not immensely higher like some Mac application of WinSoftware.. then a REAL alternative is showing up on the scene..
If this same distro was to support most games that are hugely popular.. WHOLESALE migration would start to take place.. IMHO anyway.. what do you think?
I think a DellLinux distro makes sense.. or some other named distro supported by a consortium of non-Windows hardware and software suppliers.. do they all like being tied to Windows for their success?
Kent
850
 track my votes
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