Quote Originally Posted by j.drake
Oh, I read it, I just wasn't convinced by it. Didn't mean to insult you, though.

Also, as you pointed out - "We've deliberately ordered them without DVD drives " - they are so mainstream and ubiquitous that you have to take special pains to NOT have one. You made my point for me. Even Celeron computers are being sold with DVD players as standard equipment.

Although it may be true that you had no need for them at the time, the time will come when that won't be the case. I'm not trying to second-guess the wisdom of that decision, but clearly there may be consequences associated with it - among them that you may have to buy replacement drives for them or replace them when an important application like Knoppix goes to DVD.

History shows that software inevitably grows over time, and the distribution media along with it. It's going to happen - it's just an issue of when. . . . . All I'm saying is that the time is now (at least for the option).
Actually, I think I was a tad mistaken in my point of implying that we said "No, don't include DVD drives." They were an option (not the default), and we chose not to take it. I just went into the Dell sys. configurator, and here's the media drive selector:
No Optical Device [ Subtract $26.10 ]
48X CD-ROM
48X/32X/48X CD-RW [ Add $27.00 ]
16X DVD with Software Decode [ Add $18.00 ]
48X DVD-CDRW Combo Drive [ Add $72.00 ]
48X32 CDRW/DVD Combo,with Roxio Easy CD CreatorŽ and DVD decode [ Add $72.00 ]
8X DVD+RW/+R, Roxio plus Decode [ Add $144.00 ]
48X CD-ROM AND 48X/32X/48X CD-RW [ Add $44.10 ]
48X CD and DVD-CDRW Combo,with Roxio Easy CD CreatorŽ and DVD decode [ Add $90.00 ]
48X CD and 48X32 CDRW/DVD Combo,with Roxio Easy CD CreatorŽ/DVD decode [ Add $90.00 ]
16xDVD AND 48X/32X/48X CDRW,with Roxio Easy CD CreatorŽ and DVD decode [ Add $62.10 ]
8X DVD+RW/+R and 48X CD-ROM with Roxio Easy CD CreatorŽ and DVD decode [ Add $153.00 ]
8X DVD+RW/+R and 16X DVD with Roxio Easy CD CreatorŽ and DVD decode [ Add $171.00 ]
So tell me, when I'm buying 100 new computers, am I really going to spend $1800 more on something I DON'T NEED?

I can buy 2 more computers that I could really use, or close to one server. Forgive me for what might come across as rude, but I really see DVD drives as a 'home user' thing, and the concept of 'all computers have them,' as a gamer/kiddie attitude. Most computers do not need DVD drives - and in a corporate (or academic, but managed with a corporate style) environment, there is simply no need for it. Tell me why an administrative assistant needs to watch movies on her computer? I don't see any useful DVD-ROMs out there today - and to this note I freely admit...I'm a geek who programs for fun, and admins and/or does tech support for work - I'm probably not your average user, and don't care about frilly things.

I just queried my inventory - among approximately 700 computers, we have a grand total of 24 DVD-ROM drives. Of those, 4 were from systems we didn't spec out (and the fool who put that order together insisted on it, despite having no clue about computers), 16 were Apples, so you pretty much have no choice, and the other 4 were miscellaneous, with at least 2 of them glitches in ordering. This boils down to 1.24% of our machines being able to run this fancy DVD distro (properly calculated as 'PCs with DVDs'/'Total computers, not including Apple''). I have at my disposal a sizable population of computers on which I can use Knoppix (for troubleshooting, demonstration, general use [it's so good to have a Linux desktop on hand], or misc. use) - care to tell me why the version I use on these machines shouldn't be the best, most current version? I don't particularly like being excluded like that, and Knoppix is a live CD distro for *everyone*.

P.S. I'm sorry I brought this post back up/took so long - I've been really busy the last couple of days...