Linux

• Select Systems Now Available with Ubuntu 8.04

  Fri. Jul. 18, 2008
  by Daniel Judd, Product Group Strategist

  After months of testing and development we are ready to release Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) on select Dell consumer systems. For consumers in the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, United Kingdom and many Latin American countries (like Mexico and Colombia) Ubuntu 8.04 will be offered on the XPS M1330N and Inspiron 1525N notebooks and the Inspiron 530N  Click on any of the country links above or go to www.dell.com/ubuntu to place your order. :)

  In early August, we will also add the XPS M1530n and Studio 15n to the line-up. This is just in time for LinuxWorld where we will participate in a number of the conference sessions. That will be your chance to hear directly about what’s been accomplished over the last year and where we see it going in 2009.

  In her post, Anne Camden mentions some of the new features the Ubuntu 8.04 brings. Beyond that, we took steps to make our Linux images more accessible to a global audience by including the ability to select your language during the first boot process. While this does not mean we’re shipping in every country (yet) it’s a step in the right direction. Stay tuned for a technical details post from John Hull will provide a good overview of the work we did on the new release. Similar post from him on Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10 releases have proved to be pretty popular with the Linux community.
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• DKMS maintainership passing to Mario Limonciello

  Wed. Jun. 25, 2008
  by Matt Domsch, Linux Technology Strategist

  It is with great pleasure, and a sigh of relief, that I am announcing that Mario Limonciello has agreed to become the new maintainer for DKMS.
  
  Mario is well known in the Ubuntu community, both as an active contributor to the Mythbuntu project, and as a "Master of the Universe" (MOTU).  He has greatly improved DKMS's support for Debian/Ubuntu systems, and in DKMSifying the lirc and fglrc-installer packages, has made DKMS use widespread in Ubuntu.

  Mario started working for Dell in early 2008 and has been instrumental in developing Ubuntu as sold on Dell desktop and notebook systems.

  Please welcome Mario as the new maintainer of DKMS.
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• Dell at Red Hat Summit and FUDCon

  Tue. Jun. 17, 2008
  by Matt Domsch, Linux Technology Strategist

  This week, Dell will be out "in force" at the Red Hat Summit in Boston.  If you're attending the show, be sure to stop by the Dell booth in the expo area, where we'll have one of our new PowerEdge M1000e modular blade enclosures on hand, as well as a Precision M6300 mobile workstation (coincidentally sold with Red Hat Enterprise Linux installed).  We'll be giving away green swag bags, so come take a look at what we've got.

  Thursday will be a busy day.  During lunch, we will be offering a "Lunch-n-Learn" session, where you can talk to Dell engineers like myself, and ask us anything you like about Dell & Linux.  At 4pm, Robert Hentosh and Peter Lillian present Get IT Faster, Run IT Better, Grow IT Smarter, focusing on Dell's High Performance Compute Cluster and High Availability solutions built with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.  Also at 4pm, I'll be presenting Getting the Bits Out: Fedora Mirror Manager in the Open Source Software track.  Of course, this would have to conflict with Fedora user and Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst who is speaking in the FUDCon area at the same time.  Such is my luck.

  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I'll be involved in the Fedora User and Developer Conference.  With over 150 people lined up (and you're welcome to come even if you haven't pre-registered), it should be the largest US-based FUDCon ever.  There will be a lot of work hammering out ideas and features for Fedora 10 and beyond, but it's always a good time.  There may even be some last-minute campaigning by the good candidates for the Fedora Project Board (be sure to vote!).  Just beware the ninjas!

  I hope to see you there.
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• Fedora 9 released, Thank You Mirrors!

  Fri. May. 16, 2008
  by Matt Domsch, Linux Technology Strategist

  Just a quick shout out to all of the great Fedora public mirrors worldwide.  Tuesday's release of Fedora 9 was the smoothest yet from a Fedora Infrastructure POV - no switch meltdowns, no datacenters knocked offline, and few gripes about slow downloads from the forums I've read.
  

  In the first two days, over 107,000 users downloaded CD or DVD images from our mirror system, more than double that of the 48,000 BitTorrent downloaders.  Our mirrors served those bits at a combined 67 Gigabits/sec.  Of those who downloaded Fedora 9, more than  44,000 have already installed in these two days, evidenced by their systems checking for updates.  So we know it's being put to good use.

  Thanks to all our  great volunteer mirror admins, and their sponsoring Universities and companies, for making this release a success.  Your contribution to Fedora, and Free and Open Source Software, is appreciated by users around the globe.

  If you are interested in hosting a public or private Fedora mirror, please see http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/Mirroring for how to get started.
  

  Edit: Jef reminded me that we have great maps you'll want to see.

  First, all our public mirrors worldwide.  If you don't see one near you, please help us add one!

  
  

  Next, Fedora 9 adoption this week:

   
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• MirrorManager at Red Hat Summit

  Fri. Apr. 18, 2008
  by Matt Domsch, Linux Technology Strategist

  I'll be presenting Fedora's MirrorManager project at the Red Hat Summit in Boston.  The Summit runs June 18-20, my presentation is on Thursday afternoon at 4pm.  If you're attending FUDCon (the Fedora User and Developer Conference) that's running parallel to the Summit, you'll be able to get in for free to the Open Source track presentations in the Summit, including mine.  Dell is sponsoring the Summit, so you'll hear more from us here on the blog as it approaches.
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• Linux Discussion with Computerworld

  Wed. Apr. 16, 2008
  by John Hull, Manager of Linux OS Engineering

  Several of us here at Dell sat down last week with Todd Weiss from Computerworld to discuss our Ubuntu Linux program. Todd's article from that discussion can be found here.
  
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• Why I like conferences

  Wed. Apr. 09, 2008
  by Matt Domsch, Linux Technology Strategist

  I like conferences.  Done right, they're exhausting, as you spend every waking minute talking with people, making new friends, and making new connections.  For example, at last night's Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit reception, I was chatting with Chris Wright, a noted Linux kernel developer.  Tim Gardner stepped over to join us, and I made introductions.  "Chris, Tim.  Tim, Chris."  Then, to add context, I mention,  "Chris maintains the stable kernel series.  Tim is a kernel maintainer for Ubuntu."  Lights go on in both their eyes.

  Chris: does Ubuntu carry a bunch of patches, bug fixes really, that might make sense for the stable kernel?
  Tim: we do cherry-pick fixes out of mainline, yes, but we keep them separate so we know what we pulled and why.
  Chris: it should make your life easier if you sent them to me - got them out of your hair.
  Tim: I think you're right.  I can think of a dozen patches that fit that bill.  Let me find them and send them to you.

  And just like that, a new connection, which will benefit Ubuntu immediately, and will improve the stable kernel series by pointing out several more bug fixes that are appropriate, thereby helping everyone who uses the stable series.  Goodness all around, and all due to a "chance" meeting.  I'm sure there will be hundreds of stories like this resulting from the summit this week.
  
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• Dell at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit

  Tue. Apr. 08, 2008
  by John Hull, Manager of Linux OS Engineering

  The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit runs April 8-10 this week here in Austin, and a number of people from Dell will be attending to discuss the current status and future direction of Linux. On Tuesday, Matt Domsch will be participating in a panel discussion titled "State of Linux Roundtable – Kernel Hackers", while I will be participating in a discussion on titled "We're Shipping Linux on PCs -- Now What?". Others from Dell will also be participating in other sessions throughout the week. If you happen to be attending the event as well, please come up and chat with us.
  
  Matt and I will be blogging more about the events this week to give our take on the summit.The full schedule for the summit can be found here.
  
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• [BETA] OMSA 5.4 in the Dell hardware repository

  Mon. Mar. 31, 2008
  by Michael E. Brown—Linux Eng. OSS Advocate

  Dell OpenManage Server Assistant (OMSA) 5.4 was publicly released last week. We now have OMSA 5.4 available for testing in the Dell hardware repository at http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware. OMSA 5.4 is not yet the default install, you will need to follow the steps below in order to install or upgrade to it (This is in addition to the regular repository setup). If we have a few success reports, we will change this to be the default repository after a week.

  What is in the Dell hardware repository:

  • Dell OpenManage Server Assistant 5.4
  • Linux drivers and updates for Dell platforms, such as PERC adapters, network controllers, and other hardware bits.
  • Utilities such as Dell-updated "ipmitool", Rac administration utilities, and others.
    

  To install OMSA 5.4, bootstrap the repository as normal (see http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Repository/hardware), then change the config as follows:

  YUM:

  In both /etc/yum.repos.d/dell-hw-indep-repository.repo and /etc/yum.repos.d/dell-hw-specific-repository.repo, find the string "repo_config=$repo_config", and change it to read, "repo_config=OMSA_5.4".

  UP2DATE:

  same as yum, except you need to change the string in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources in two places, rather than in the yum repository files.

  RUG/ZYPPER/SUSE 10:

  No idea. Anybody who knows how to do this should let me know. :) See above for the general outline.

  Note that the repository is still community-support only. If you have problems with the repository, please email linux-poweredge@dell.com, do not post problem reports to the blog, thanks. :)
  
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• Update: Linux on Dell's "Business Client" Systems

  Mon. Mar. 31, 2008
  by John Hull, Manager of Linux OS Engineering

  Since many of the Linux blog posts over the past nine months have focused on Ubuntu Linux on consumer systems, I'd like to give a quick update on some of the work we've been doing for "business client" systems, such as our Precision Workstation, OptiPlex, Latitude, and Vostro product lines:
  
  

  • In the late fall, Dell launched three new Precision Workstation desktop systems: the T3400, T5400, and T7400. From day one, these systems could be purchased with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL 5) x86_64 pre-installed, and are also certified with RHEL 4.

  • Beginning in November of 2007, for the first time at Dell, we began selling Linux pre-installed on Precision Mobile Workstation systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 can be purchased factory-installed on the Precision M4300 and M6300 Mobile Workstations. This has been a popular request from our Precision Workstation customers, so we're happy to now offer Linux across that line of systems.

  • We are continuing to certify OptiPlex, Latitude, and Vostro systems with Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED 10). Recently certified systems include the OptiPlex 755 and 330; the Latitude D430, D530, D630, and D830; and the Vostro 410 and 1200. The latest SLED-certified Dell systems can always be found at www.novell.com/dell.
    

   
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