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Debian Linux to get full HP backingDebian Linux to get full HP backing Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to begin supporting the Debian distribution of Linux by the end of the year for customers worldwide, claiming that it is the first major vendor to provide full-fledged commercial support for the operating system. The company also staked its claim to the leadership of the Linux server market. HP said it has sold 1.5 million Linux servers worth US$6.2 billion in the past eight years, over 50 percent more than its nearest competitor. Debian is a popular version of Linux that, unlike Red Hat or SUSE by Novell Inc., is not backed or supported by a for-profit vendor. That has hindered its adoption by enterprises. HP will support Debian on its ProLiant and BladeSystem servers, complementing support it provides worldwide for Red Hat or SUSE Linux, as well as Miracle, Red Flag and Haan among Asian customers. According to Geoffrey Wade, worldwide Linux marketing manager at HP, the company's engineers have contributed to the Debian open-source project for a decade. HP has also been supporting Debian for customers in specific niches, such as telecommunications and high-performance technical computing, during the past three years. Monday's announcement is an extension of that support. "With Dell or IBM, when you need support for Debian, you'll find yourself getting pointed to a discussion group or a white paper," said Wade. "HP will take real calls from real customers." Debian users will still get product updates and patches through the Debian Web site, not through HP. HP has also not determined when it will ship servers preinstalled with Debian. Eighteen percent of the servers HP sold last year were for Linux, Wade said. HP also announced a Debian thin client and said it is adding remote monitoring and diagnostic tools to HP Linux servers that will help solve customer problems. In 2005, HP said, it took more than 48,000 customer calls and solved more than 99.5 percent of the problems using its 6,500 trained support providers, Wade said. "In other words, we only escalated 180 calls to Red Hat or Novell all year," he said. HP is not likely to add support to other distributions of Linux in the near term, Wade said. http://www.itworldcanada.com/a/Daily-News/a5911734-11b6-448b-b8dd-2ff3c994a5f3.html Bookmark/Search this post with: 
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Re: Debian Linux to get full HP backing
In some ways this is old news. Bruce Perens' role at HP put Debian on HP's radar in a big way years ago.
This announcement is not only about HP's official support, but IMHO signifies two things in particular:
(1) Red Hat is dead on the desktop -- it's been replaced by Debian and Debian spin-offs. Fedora is still out there, but the wind has long since vanished from Fedora's sails.
(2) Kubuntu/Ubuntu is now the de facto standard for the "easy to use/install free desktop for newbies and clueless users" crowd. That combined with -- another Debian spin-off -- Linspire's reseller channel presence reinforces Debian and also point #1.
(1) Red Hat is dead on the
(1) Red Hat is dead on the desktop -- it's been replaced by Debian and Debian spin-offs. Fedora is still out there, but the wind has long since vanished from Fedora's sails.
I dare say - good riddance! This type of 'corporate Linux' (I deliberately do not call it GNU) is really an abberation IMHO. Debian is the real thing.
(2) Kubuntu/Ubuntu is now the de facto standard for the "easy to use/install free desktop for newbies and clueless users" crowd. That combined with -- another Debian spin-off -- Linspire's reseller channel presence reinforces Debian and also point #1.
for the life of me I do not understand why (K)Ubunutu is so popular. I have tested the last two versions of (K)Ubuntu and I have found it pathetically slow, and poorly stacked with applications (on the good side it was pretty and had some nice documentation if I rememner well). Frankly, as Debian spin-off go I much rather use Knoppix or, even more so, what I see as the Rolls-Royce of Debian derivatives: Kanotix.
Linspire is even more bewildering to me. Why would anyone what to use that?! Such semi-free distros (another one is Mepis) really do not help Debian. Kanotix or Knoppix are free (as in freedom and as in beer) and so is, of course, the real thing: Debian itself.
Why go to corporate versions?
Motto: chown -R linux:GNU world
Distros: Debian, Kanotix, Frenzy, Damn Small Linux
Corporate Linux is good because...
The people involved do put in a lot of extra work to ensure that more devices run - this ranges from installing the non-free NVidia and ATI drivers to installing WinDos drivers and the ndiswrapper. If you own a network device which will only (currently) run with ndiswrapper, you can install it as you please. If you are redistributing the driver without the actual device, you will need permission from the manufacturer (unless they explicitly state that their drivers may be freely redistributed by third parties). A lot of work goes into making it prettier (I think out-of-box KDE looks good enough) and (ugh) making it pretend to be more like WinDos, just to keep ordinary people from freaking out.
When it comes to Big Iron you may also want to go for corporate Linux so that you don't have to maintain a small army of geeks to keep your system running. In the case of Big Iron, nothing changes - give the flick to Solaris/AIX/IRIX and any of a dozen Unixes on Japanese supercomputers and the associated support costs, and pay RedRat for support instead. But for some people like myself, I know what I'm doing and wouldn't pay a cent for my home-bound OS. I'm so cheap I wouldn't even ask work to pay $50 for the OS and various tools that I'm putting into an embedded machine. (But I do still contribute about $50 a year to Debian - I'm such a sucker.)
Wow, just great! Just how is
Wow, just great! Just how is it that I can't get linux properly working on my laptop? With winmodem and other stuff, and WinXP recommended and Vista capable logos I do not actually see any benefit. Will they eventually release a set of their excellent notebook software tools for Linux distros as well?