Practical Technology

Hardware companies don’t tend to have their own Linux distributions. IBM uses Linux everywhere, but they don’t have their own Linux. Dell will be happy to sell you notebooks and netbooks with Ubuntu or a workstation or server with RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). But, no major OEM (original equipment manufacturer) has had a house-brand [...]

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Many people use Linux every day in their homes and offices and never realize it. That’s because they’re using NAS (network attached storage) devices, like the D-Link DNS-323, and almost these drives run Linux and Samba. Now, HP has partnered with Likewise to bring plug-and-play Linux file servers to mid-size and enterprise businesses These HP [...]

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After Dell broke the ice for pre-installing Linux on desktops and netbooks in 2007, the other major OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) reluctantly tried it out, and, in some cases, like Lenovo, backed right back out of the Linux desktop market again. As 2010 dawns though, Lenovo and HP are both back in the pre-installed desktop [...]

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HP has a love/hate relationship with Linux. The company supports several Linux distributions-Red Hat; Novell/SUSE; and community Linux Debian–on its servers, but finding it takes some digging. Still, that’s nothing compared to finding HP’s desktop Linux support. For example, several new HP laptops and netbooks come with Splashtop instant-on Linux, but you have to dig [...]

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Except for Dell, the major PC vendors are reluctant to admit they actually sell and support Linux. For instance, HP, supports Linux quite well on its servers, but is very reluctant about supporting it on its desktops. Or, it seems they have trouble even admitting that they’re now shipping DeviceVM’s instant-on Splashtop Linux on their [...]

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