Dell to Expand Linux Factory Installed Options

Dell ^ | March 27 | Dell

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

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.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

This is huge

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Journalist rehash: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6506027.stm

Thanks to Ernest at the beach.

[aft_lizard]

Meh, it seems to me that most Linux users are of the egghead set and never buy prebuilt for home systems, the laptops will do well(depending on whether Dell is offering the flavor of Linux the user wants) but other than that I doubt Linux will see much of an increase in home penetration because of this move.

[xcamel]

more:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1808651/posts

[pikachu]

Believe it when you see them being delivered. Dell has a habit of promising one thing and delivering another.

[Spktyr]

Exactly - this could be a plan to extract more "cobranding" or "marketing" dollars from Microsoft, or to get even lower prices on MS products. Dell did the exact same thing a few years back, when they were all Intel processor powered - they announced they were going to go to AMD processors, Intel panicked and reduced prices for Dell, and Dell reneged on the AMD product. (They've since gone to AMD processors on the low end for some products, like the E521, miserable box that it is.)

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

definately

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

What's wrong with egghead?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Packet Politics ~ "Netheads" take on "Bellheads." Look out, Mrs. Clinton.

I guess an egghead started it.....

[aft_lizard]

Nothing wrong with them, in fact I am proudly an egghead and don't purchase pre-built and I love to get into and build my own, even dabble in overclocking. My point being is that unless the egghead is working for a large corporation with an account with dell he won't buy a prebuilt home pc.

[bigdcaldavis]

I’m pretty sure that Dell will choose one of the “easy-to-use” commercial Linux distros as their choice of OEM Linux. Right now I’m running Xandros 4.0 Home Edition Premium on a 1.4 GHz laptop, and I plan on installing the same on my 2.1 GHz desktop. X4 used to run slow, but I found out on the Xandros forums that there is a bug in the OS that causes it to think that your CPU is running at 10% the actual speed, causing your OS to run at a snail’s pace. (For example, Xandros 4 thought my 1.4 GHz CPU was running at 178 MHz, causing the OS to run slow and lag. But once I followed the easy instructions on the Xandros forums, I rebooted and now it’s running full-speed with no slowdown or lag. The reason I chose X4 Home Premium was I’ve been a loyal user of Xandros since 2004, and X4 comes with Amarok and Digikam out of the box. Plus there’s a lot of great help on the forums and a great Xandros community who build Debian packages of the latest and greatest software. I’ve actually built some packages on Xandros, including a version of the FAAC freeware AAC encoder.