[clug-talk] News & Views: Save Vista By Open SOurcing It

[Tek Budda]

> Though I'm not a RH fan, I think Dell is making a move in the right direction. 
> The problem with using RH is it won't scale well to home users. Someone's 
> going to jump up and down screaming Fedora, but Fedora is not RH :) and it's 
> not supported.
> 
> Come to think of it, there aren't many distros who offer official support for 
> a home user. Linspire is the only one I can think of.
> 
> I read an article saying that most people only learn new computer skills out 
> of necessity -- and being put in front of a RH box at work would qualify. So 
> perhaps it's a good angle of attack.
> 
> Let's hope they use KDE :P
> 

I did check out that dell address and it states their desktop, 
workstation & laptop policies for linux support, which is good.

And I know what you mean about RH vs. Fedora.  And yeah... as far as 
desktop distros, there isn't much out there that offer support. 
Linspire is one... but I think Xandros might be another one.. but I am 
not sure.  I wonder if K/Ubuntu do?  I know they offer support for 
businesses but for the average person.. hmmm.  The only one I could 
possibly think of that might be a candidate from the majoor distros 
would be Suse...or Mandriva.

I think you are right too about using KDE.  If they want to pull from 
from the Mac/MS crowd they need something simple and straightforward, 
and very eye candyish.  Gnoe has its place, but I think the "äverage (if 
there is one)" user may find it frustrating.

I know this will open up a can... but I really truly do believe that the 
open source community needs to come together.. swallow some pride and 
decide on some standards ...maybe not for everything... but at the very 
least for the "core" elements...for where things are placed.  Yes...it 
"may" open up greater potential for attacks on systems, but one of teh 
strengthes of Linux is its security.