Could a common installer be the answer for desktop Linux?

There's no mistaking that buying desktop hardware for use with Linux is more difficult than buying Windows PCs. Even if you manage to avoid the "Microsoft tax" and buy a system without Windows preinstalled, you still have the additional hurdle of getting your Linux of choice onto it.

As I discussed last week, Dell is reluctant to back any particular desktop Linux distribution. Instead, Windows-free PCs ship from Dell preinstalled with a version of DOS. They might as well come with blank hard drives; your first step to getting up and running with a Linux desktop will be wiping the disk and installing the OS manually.

Michael Dell says he might be more likely to back Linux on the desktop if the various distributions would concentrate on achieving a more standardized common core, but that seems unlikely. Even if you could convince the Debian, Red Hat, or Suse camps to reverse technical decisions made years ago in favor of a new standard, current efforts such as the LSB (Linux Standard Base) really only cover a fraction of the technical support problems that a hardware vendor would be expected to deal with. They make life easier, but not by much.

Last week I suggested another option: Forget about it. As long as there remains a wide variety of choices in the desktop Linux market -- and choice is a good thing; we want choice -- major hardware manufacturers will be hesitant to get on board. So don't expect a Linux PC to come with the kind of one-stop service contract that you can expect from a Windows desktop. Learn to live with the fact that, to a certain extent, desktop Linux is going to be a self-service job.

But suppose it didn't have to be quite that hard? Suppose the various vendors could all meet in the middle to lend you a hand?

Instead of standardizing each and every Linux distribution on a common core, developers from various distributions could come together to standardize a new, single distribution -- but not some kind of uber-Linux to end all Linuxes. On the contrary, the sole purpose of this lean, stripped-down distro would be to get a fresh machine up and running with the Linux of your choice. It could come preinstalled on factory hard drives instead of DOS or, alternatively, it would be small enough to fit on a Live CD or even a USB keychain drive.

Most every Linux distribution has some means whereby you can install the OS over the network. So, rather than using CDs, let's make this the standard method of installation. When you boot this distribution I'm imagining, it would configure your network connection and give you a menu of Linux distributions to choose from, with screenshots and descriptions of each, and then automatically pull down your pick.

For enterprise users, this same distribution could include code to locate a Linux installation server on the local network (using the open Bonjour protocol, perhaps). Plug in a brand new machine, connect the network, switch on the power, and installation of your preferred desktop Linux distribution would begin automatically.