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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Vinzenz Vietzke of TUXEDO Computers announced today that the German electronics manufacturer, which is known for selling laptops and desktop computers that ship pre-loaded with Linux, created their own distro.
The news comes just a week after System76 computer reseller announced Pop!_OS as their own GNU/Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and the GNOME desktop environment, and it now looks like TUXEDO Computers follow suit and announce TUXEDO Xubuntu, their own Xubuntu-based distro, which will power all of their computers in the near future.
"We have been working on this project for several months. We have been thinking about the usability of the desktop, have included user feedback in our considerations and made some surveys on desktop usage," says Vinzenz Vietzke. "The result of our research, surveys and countless tests is now that we have chosen Xfce based on Ubuntu."
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:10PM (3 children)
I've bought three computers from System76 over the years. They all came with Ubuntu installed, plus some custom package that provided any drivers System76 needed to install for your hardware. That seemed like a pretty good compromise to me. Even still, I wiped them and installed the distros I wanted.
I can't imagine keeping some extremely niche distro on my machine. I'd almost certainly wipe it upon arrival, and install something I wanted - even FreeBSD.
I don't get this new trend of building new distros for the simple purpose of rebranding, custom graphics/icons/colors etc. Too much work and too many new points of failure introduced, and for too little benefit. For bonus points, all these new distros seem to have stupid names. (System 76's one does, for sure). I wonder if management is just letting geeks have their way in the office. Puttering around with custom distros must be a fun way to get paid while you spend the day at work.
Anyway, if I buy one of these machines, these custom distros can count on having a total longevity of under 60 seconds before they get wiped and replaced with something more interesting of my choice. Don't waste your time, hardware manufacturers. Spend your time more wisely on drivers, installation, customer service, choosing good hardware, and so on.
(Side note: Linux developers: please build better apps and give up trying to reinvent the desktop. The state of Linux desktop software is pitiful, and the desktop is a solved problem).
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:49PM
No thanks.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:42PM
For what it's worth, as someone who kept System76's original setup on a box I don't use for my heavy dev work, it's not terrible: They have a special kernel module for specific hardware they have, and a few other tweaks, but I think this is about more than just re-branding Ubuntu. It gives them the power to say "no" to Canonical, and that's not a bad thing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 05 2017, @11:09PM
Exactly. I wouldn't trust a Linux pre-install any more than a windows pre-install.
I've bought server blades with linux pre-installed. Nuked em out of the box, after scoping out were to download any custom hardware drivers that I couldn't do without. (Mostly backplane controls for power/ups/intrusion crap.)
The only value in the pre-installed linux was that it proved the hardware worked.
Used to be, I had to get them with freedos installed just so the vendors could comply with their microsoft contract to never sell a machine without an operating system.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.