Too good to be true

A few minutes later and the Internet is slow again on some of the sites I want to use (listed previously). This is not good, and when the Internet is not functioning well like this, it is really annoying. Maybe I should just go to bed, it is 3:15 after all.

Update on Internet Problems

40 minutes later and now it all seems back to normal. Wonder what caused the problem. Maybe just some maintenance work by the ISP.

Internet Problems

I was able to use the Internet a while ago perfectly well, but now, all of a sudden, things are going slow on some websites, although others, including this blogger site, are functionig normally.

At first I suspected I had lost my broadband connection, but a quick check of my router's status revealed that the connection was still active. I was having problems accessing anything on Flickr.com, despite being able to load several pages from there one minute, the next minute nothing was working on that site. Also ebay.co.uk is now slow and Google Picasa claims it has an internal server error.

Maybe someone pulled a plug out somewhere at my ISP (Freedom2Surf), or maybe a terrorist attack on the Internet has brought certain sites down. We have had lots of flooding in the UK in the past weeks, maybe that has something to do with, such as a main relay station on the Internet being flooded with water and thus unable to operate, or a power station is not working that powers an important Internet company. The BBC News site is functioning but no news on there of any Internet problems. I turned on the TV and Sky News mostly has news about the flooding, nothing about an Internet problem. I also check the System Status page of Freedom2Surf and it does not list any problems.

The only other thing I can think of is the problem is being deliberately caused by my ISP. I requested my MAC number last week and signed up with a different ISP called NewNet. They had good reviews, on sites such as www.thinkbroadband.com and DSL Zone UK, and as the owners of F2S, Pipex, are selling us out to Tiscali, I decided it was time to choose a new ISP for my broadband of my own choice, not one imposed on my by Pipex. Tiscali have been consistently rated as one of the WORST ISPs in the UK, and there is no way I want to be with them. So maybe F2S are deliberately reducing my access to my favourite websites as a punishment for leaving them. I have also had random times of no connection at all to the Internet through broadband with F2S, not recently, but in the past it has occured too often. Resorting to dialup instead of using broadband is extremely painful and expensive.

By Friday I shall be with NewNet and surfing the Net again without problems, in theory.

Switching to Linux or staying with Windows

An article at Desktoplinux.com (http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3542601509.html), "Why people really don't switch to Linux", got me thinking about the subject, and here is my response:

I dabbled with Linux around 1999, and it just was not ready then to be a mass market product. At the present time, it is getting much closer. I do now use linux as my main OS, replacing Windows XP which had basically gone wrong too many times so I gave up using it on this PC.

I think that most people are not as adventurous as myself and other linux users, so they stick with what they know, purely out of laziness or just wanting familiarity. I know that when changing to Linux, it was nice for me to use Xandros due to its user friendliness for ex-Windows users (such as a File manager that resembles Windows Explorer, which is much easier to use than using the normal Konqueror as a file manager), and CrossOver which allows me to run some Windows programs like Dreamweaver and Photoshop.

I had already been using Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice in Windows, so it was easy to carry on using these programs. But most people still think that the sun shines out of Bill Gates's backside and would rather hand over their money to Microsoft or else use pirated versions of MS software, simply because they perceive that to be the only choice, or at least the default choice for most computer users. Most users want compatibility with other users, hence even OpenOffice has to offer an option to save in MS formats.

A lot of negative reaction to Vista since its launch may well help to steer people away from the MS world, to a small extent, but when people go to buy a new PC, especially if it is their first PC, they will no doubt have a choice of any OS they want so long as it is called Vista. Most vendors just do not sell PCs with Linux, thus most users will buy a PC with a free OS already installed (i.e. they did not have to pay extra to get Vista so they will regard it as free software that came with the PC).

It is kind of like buying a Freeview box, DVD recorder, VCR or hifi — for most people they just want to get it home, plug it in and switch it on, and hope that it works okay. No one would seriously consider replacing the OS on a Freeview box (unless they were really seriously into hacking Freeview boxes), thus most people would not even realise that they could install a different OS on a PC, they just regard it as being an integral part of the PC the same as the hardware that comes with it. Most PC users are not tech-savvy and would most likely not even realise that they could add extra hardware to the PC or change bits, they just buy what they want and if it does not work they would demand a refund or repair.

Mass consumerism is predominant now in the PC world, so most consumers just will not care which OS they use. It would be great if they could all see the benefits of Linux, but no one is teaching them that, or they just do not have time to listen, they just want a PC that allows them to surf the Internet and send email, and maybe write a letter and print it out, or store photos on the hard disk.

Dell to offer Linux on its new PCs

From the Desktop Linux website (edited): (28 March 2007)

Dell will be releasing select desktop and notebook systems with pre-installed Linux as an option in the coming weeks.

We do not know at this time which Linux distributions it will be supporting, or what Dell desktop and laptop machines will have pre-installed Linux as an option.

David Lord, a Dell spokesperson, did say, however, that Dell has been listening to its users and that the users want home and office desktops and laptops. Dell's current offering in this area includes the Inspiron and Latitude laptops and the Dimension and OptiPlex desktops.

The new systems, Lord added, will be true pre-installed Linux systems -- and not just a PC with a blank hard drive and a bootable CD or DVD. Software support is likely to come from the community, however, rather than from Dell. Lord added, however, that hardware support on the Dell Linux systems is likely to be the same as it offers on its Windows-powered systems.

According to Lord, Dell will also make buying the new Linux-powered PCs as easy as possible for customers.

In a note on its Ideas in Action Website, the company stated, "Dell has heard you and we will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line. Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems. We will provide an update in the coming weeks that includes detailed information on which systems we will offer, our testing and certification efforts, and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available. The countdown begins today."

However, at his blog, Matt Domsch, Dell's Linux software architect, did go into more detail on how Dell will be approaching the problem of Linux device drivers. First, given a choice in the matter, Dell will support free software drivers over proprietary drivers every time.

Domsch wrote, "For device types where a choice exists between a component with a non-Free driver and one with Free driver availability, in our Linux offering we'll opt to bundle the component with the Free driver."

"It's been our standard operating procedure for the last 8 years on PowerEdge servers, which today have no closed-source drivers necessary, [to insist on open-source drivers]," said Domsch.

"For new Linux desktops and notebooks, we'll use drivers already in the mainline kernel.org kernels for as many components as possible. In these cases, the drivers will be included in your distribution of choice. This includes storage, wired networking, power management, USB, and more."

For cases such as 3-D drivers for video cards, where the best possible drivers are proprietary, Domsch said, "while we continue to encourage the development (by all parties) towards open source drivers, we will provide the closed-source drivers for people who wish to use them."

For cases such as WinModems, for which there are neither open source nor proprietary drivers available, Dell will be encouraging users to substitute a hardware-based modem. "However, we can't substitute hardware-based modems in our notebooks without redesigning and significantly increasing the price of the system. If it's important to you to have a hardware-based modem, you would add one into your PC Card or ExpressCard slot."

While the Texas-based computer company was unwilling to go on record as to which distributions it will support, comments from Dell officials indicated that it is likely to offer support for multiple distributions.

Recently, Dell asked users which distribution they'd like to see out of a selection of Novell/SUSE, Red Hat, Fedora, openSUSE, and Ubuntu. The results of that survey are still not known.

It does seem likely, based on comments from Dell insiders, that Novell SLED 10 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) will be one of the supported distributions. Dell is already known to have been working with Novell to certify SLED on its business desktop line, including OptiPlex desktops, Latitude notebooks, and Dell Precision workstations.

Novell executives, at the company's recent annual BrainShare show in Salt Lake City, said that they were working on getting Dell and Hewlett-Packard to commit to Linux desktops. In an interview last week, before the Dell news broke, Roger Levy, Novell vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions, said, "We're talking pre-load with everybody. Customers are now beginning to see that we have creditable alternatives on the desktop to Windows, and they, in turn, are talking to the vendors about these options. We expect the desktop Linux business to jell in 2007."

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My Comment:

This is great news for computer users and especially for the Linux community. For a major PC manufacturer to acknowledge that PC users want choice is fantastic news, and finally we may see an end to the monopoly of Microsoft Windows being shipped with every new PC. Dell have listened to customers and PC users and the message is clear to them: give us Linux as we do not all want to use Windows.

Until now I have resisted buying a new PC, preferring instead to build my own or buy second-hand and reconfigure. Although recently I bought a small Compaq Ipaq PC which someone had pre-loaded with Zenwalk Linux instead of its original Windows OS. It works great and only cost me £40, although so far I have really only used it for web surfing when my main PC is busy doing something else, such as burning another Linux distro CD or DVD.

Previously Dell had sold PCs pre-installed with Linux, but stopped doing so in 2001 due to low demand, according to CNN. And Dell have continued to offer Linux on servers. But now that Linux has matured and become a viable alternative to Windows, it is good to see that Dell are going to offer what users now want.

If Dell go ahead with Linux on their desktops and notebooks, maybe my next new PC will be a Dell.