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Message #00442
Barebones computer suppliers .....
I've been e-mailing all the 'barebones' UK suppliers listed on http://nakedcomputers.org/category/europe/uk/
and offer my response to pcspecialist below. It would be good to see this initiative spread beyond the UK.
On Wed, 2011-01-19 at 12:07 +0000, Danny Williams - PC Specialist Ltd
wrote:
> The main problem is that drivers, such as touchpad drivers, are hard to come by and customers who use Linux are normally more technically minded and are able to get their laptops working as required. If we listed Ubuntu we would then be required to support this operating system, and if we were to sell this to a customer who has little knowledge of computers or Linux, it would be very difficult to support them.
Thanks for getting back to me on this.
I fully understand this, and am aware that you have a policy of not
supporting Ubuntu. Drivers are an area on which the Ubuntu community
work and will usually be able to provide a solution. Our main problem
is the growing number of disaffected Windows users who have little
technical ability, and are starting to upgrade to Ubuntu.
We have a wiki page at:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuPre-installed for the benefit of
those companies who do supply pre-loaded machines, but I am going to
make available a wiki page at:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/barebones to use in co-operation with
companies such as yourselves. It will only be available to list fully
tested PC's and Laptops. If you feel able to co-operate with us in that
area, we will put in whatever work is necessary. I would personally be
willing to come to your factory and assist with testing. It would be
great if the end result was a range of three PC specs and three Laptop
specs that we could support fully. The choice would be low end, medium
and high end. As a start, my PC spec (which you have there) is already
fully tested and could be offered as a mid-range PC. I'm running a 32
bit install of Lucid 10.04 and a second installation of Natty 11.04
testing 64 bit version.
Laptops are obviously slightly more problematical. You are aware of
touchpad driver problems - these are largely a thing of the past and a
test installation of Maverick 11.10 would probably work straight out of
the box on most machines. The wi-fi card is another thing that can
usually work with an available proprietary driver. And there's no
reason why we at Ubuntu could not offer a customised download on the
downloads page!
Please give this some consideration. Support is easy for us as a
community. All you would be offering is testing or facilities for us to
test for you. Now Ubuntu is making headway into major firms - Great
Ormond Street Hospital and SpecSavers to name but two - we see a rapid
rise in use here in the UK.
With regard to your Linux forum, that was made available at my
suggestion and I am grateful for that. I try to give such support as I
am able, but am well aware that some of your employees who lurk there
have more than a passing knowledge of Linux.
In summary, there's no need for you to list Ubuntu, instead let us list
tried and tested products for you.
Kind regards, Barry.
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Barry Drake is a member of the the Ubuntu Advertising team.
http://ubuntuadverts.org/
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