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 Channel Futures

Best Practices


Dumping Windows for Ubuntu Linux

  • Written by The VAR Guy 1
  • May 29, 2007
The VAR Guy continues to use an Apple MacBook Pro at work. But he just opened his wallet to purchase an Ubuntu Linux PC from Dell for his home. Why? Glad you asked. Here's his reasoning.

First, The VAR Guy's home PC (a Sony system running Windows XP) was running out of steam. Combating spyware and viruses with dozens of patches and bug fixes has become an endless, exhausting battle. The VAR Guy considered three clear options:

  1. Buy a Windows Vista PC

  2. Buy a Mac

  3. Buy a Dell with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed

The VAR Guy continues to use an Apple MacBook Pro at work. But he just opened his wallet to purchase an Ubuntu Linux PC from Dell for his home. Why? Glad you asked. Here’s his reasoning.

First, The VAR Guy’s home PC (a Sony system running Windows XP) was running out of steam. Combating spyware and viruses with dozens of patches and bug fixes has become an endless, exhausting battle. The VAR Guy considered three clear options:

  1. Buy a Windows Vista PC
  2. Buy a Mac
  3. Buy a Dell with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed

The first option seemed pointless. Sure, Microsoft has sold 40 million Vista licenses, but The VAR Guy has heard lots of complaints about the new Windows. Poor hardware support. Limited application support. Frankly, he thinks Microsoft missed the mark with Vista. Of course, The VAR Guy could have purchased a PC with Windows XP pre-installed, but that would mean dealing with the same old security and spyware issues. No thanks.

The second option, buying a Mac, was very tempting. But a fully-loaded iMac would have cost more than $2,000–and The VAR Guy wasn’t looking to spend quite that much. Apple’s more affordable option — the Mac mini — isn’t upgradable after you purchase it. Ultimately, The VAR Guy plans to buy a few used iMacs for his kids–maybe in time for the holidays.

But for this particular purchase, The VAR Guy went with a Dell PC with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled. Sure, the systems start at under $600, but that’s not entirely the point. The goal was to buy a nicely equipped system free of Windows bugs for a price comfortably below that of a Mac. For $1,400 (US), Dell will sell you an Ubuntu PC that includes 2GB of RAM, a 256Mb video card, 320GB hard drive, 22-inch LCD, and a whole bunch of other bells and whistles. The VAR Guy couldn’t walk away from that offer.

Of course, The VAR Guy is taking a bit of a chance. He loves Apple’s reliability and design. Apparently, Ubuntu Linux is intuitive. And hopefully, Dell will deliver a reliable system. It’s scheduled to ship to The VAR Guy on June 12. Stay tuned.

Tags: Agents Cloud Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Best Practices

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12 comments

  1. Avatar Tatumus May 30, 2007 @ 10:00 am
    Reply

    Good choice. I recently dumped Microsoft for Ubuntu 7.04 as well and couldn’t be happier that I did. My only complaint is that my printer (Compaq A3000) isn’t supported under Linux, but I can buy a new printer cheaper than I can buy Vista, and it should last longer than Vista as well. So I still have XP running on another drive for print purposes for the time being, but when I get a new printer, I’ll kiss that forever goodbye as well. Where given a choice, I refuse to ever use Microsoft again due to their practice of putting out a crappy system for the sake of making a buck without any benefits to gain. I’ve seen more complaints (by far) against Vista than I’ve seen accolades for it. Hope you enjoy your new Linux system.

  2. Avatar Geo May 30, 2007 @ 9:32 pm
    Reply

    So, I have to say im impressed with Ubuntu on many fronts: intuitive, clean and stable. However, when I have issues they seem extremely painful. Like simple sharing of a external USB harddrive using samba. You can get things to work eventually, but you really got to dig around the web. Im not complaining, i mean look at what you get for the price, pretty sweet. You just got to expect to spending alot more time in some areas.

  3. Avatar Antony Jones May 31, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
    Reply

    Well, i’ve been using Ubuntu for two years now (on Dell laptops, and homebuild pcs) – and I have to say that after my initial reluctance to ditch Windows entirely, I have proudly not booted Windows in two years. No joke.

    Of course, it helped that i’ve loved Linux since starting with it at age 14, (i’m 25 now… eek) but I never felt it was ready even for me, until Ubuntu came along.

    Ubuntu is polished, very very fast, non-flabby, and like you say, intuitive. Sure there are often initial hiccups (make sure any new hardware you buy is made by a decent manufacturer not scared to document their product), but a quick google search quickly solves any issues I have had.

    Its a long shot from the slackware days where i’d spend forever configuring and eventually reinstall, the only times I drop to the console now is when I think it’d be faster than point and click.

    Love it. I’ll never, ever use Windows again.

  4. Avatar Brandon Zylstra June 2, 2007 @ 1:55 pm
    Reply

    Sorry, but this was a bad choice.

    Since your main consideration was cost, you could have gotten a great Mac system for less than you paid for this Dell. You seem to want to buy the latest hardware with the highest numbers, but that’s generally not necessary. All the speed, memory, and disk in the world isn’t much good if the computer can’t run anything you want to run.

    Considering that Dell is getting sued for their bad customer support, watch out. Apple, on the other hand, is mentioned as an example of ideal customer support in books like Seth Godin’s Purple Cow.

    Sure, Ubuntu might be a decent distribution, and in many respects it is far superior to Windows, but in other respects it is not. Every Linux distro that I’ve tried still has a LONG way to go on usability, and in some case is worse than Windows. (I remember reading recently Sun’s CEO mentioning Red Hat not having a universally available clipboard for a long time: this is pathetic. The 1984 Macs had this feature, and a clipboard is pretty nearly useless if it is not universal across all applications. That’s just one example of many.)

    So you passed on an OS you know to be phenomenal, and blew a bunch of money on something you merely hope will be okay, on hardware that you merely hope will half-decent, from a company that you ought to run away from screaming. BAD move. Cancel the order befor it’s too late, and go to apple.com like you should have in the first place.

  5. Avatar Linux Man June 12, 2007 @ 9:11 pm
    Reply

    var guy: Did you get the system yet? how is it?

  6. Avatar German Ubuntu User July 24, 2007 @ 9:39 pm
    Reply

    Congratulations! After trying Linux for several years now (starting with suse, even bought suse.., trying to hardcore-understand Linux by setting up a selfcompiled LFS aka ‘linuxfromscratch’) I finaly replaced my Windows (@home on a thinkpad and on a custom-pc, @work on my workstation) with ubuntu and (nearly) everything works fine! no more spyware, no more tilting explorers, no blue-screens – but instead a vital community, helping each other!

  7. Avatar Rey Angeles July 25, 2007 @ 11:03 am
    Reply

    Good move Var Guy, I also switched from MS OS after buying Vista Home Premium and seeing what a joke it was. I now run Ubuntu and everything works on my Dell XPS 200. I wonder why the Mac zelot above is not happy! Well people using Ubuntu are, is just clearly a better OS with lots of great software to use. I would recommend everyone to try it at least as a dual boot. Then if you are ready to dump Windows use it you won’t regret it because it just works.

  8. Avatar Simon July 27, 2007 @ 8:54 am
    Reply

    Man, I love Linux, it seriously is as good as people say… even better. I was a Windows sysadmin before trying out linux for a server about 5 years ago. Now everything is Linux and all is good. It has enabled me to develop my skills in areas that were not available before, and with Ubuntu their really is a great community, far better than the Man and you brick wall relationship that I had with Microsoft. I have switched many friends and family over to it now as it was a pain in the ass helping them clean out their junked up systems and they all love it too. Even my friend with a Mac is dual booting.

  9. Avatar lancest November 17, 2007 @ 9:55 am
    Reply

    Started with Ubuntu 2 years ago and never looked back. Ease of use,compatibility and security abound. Ubuntu is a true internet workstation with incredibly easy software package management that MS amp; Apple simply don’t have. Over and out from an appliance like Ubuntu box!

  10. Avatar Jeff Dickey November 19, 2007 @ 2:51 pm
    Reply

    For all your Samba configuration hassles, you might try SWAT – Samba Web Admin Toolkit, docs at http://samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/SWAT.html and download using “sudo aptitude install swat” and then browsing http://localhost:931. It (mostly, usually) Just Works – second only to Mac OS X for ease of management in my experience.

  11. Avatar TechIQ raquo; Archive raquo; Dell Preps for Next Linux Deskt January 6, 2008 @ 3:01 am
    Reply

    […] So, what does that mean to Ubuntu resellers and customers? Quite a lot. Ubuntu moved from niche status into the spotlight when Michael Dell himself began running the operating system. And when Dell announced selected PCs with Ubuntu preloaded a few months ago, even The VAR Guy decided to open his wallet for one of the systems. […]

  12. Avatar TechIQ raquo; Archive raquo; TechIQ#8217;s Founder: Leaping January 6, 2008 @ 3:05 am
    Reply

    […] when it came to his lamentations about Windows XP and Vista. Why was he so ecstatic about dumping Windows for Mac and/or Ubuntu Linux? But then my own 3-year-old Dell desktop crashed at home this weekend #8212; and my outlook […]

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