"We will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line," the company said on its IdeaStorm blog. "Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems."

On Wednesday, Dell posted the results of a customer Linux poll on the IdeaStorm blog. According to Dell, more than 70% of survey respondents said they would use a Dell system with a Linux OS for both home and office.

The majority said that existing community support forums would meet their technical support needs for a tested and validated Linux OS.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/2007...pcworld/130232

Cool. Now lets see them really step up to the plate and contribute some dough and/or hardware to these community support forums they are going to count on to keep their customers happy.

I know no one here is going to like what I have to say about this...

But what if this is a setup?

Charge $100 more for a system, provide terrible support, have nothing but problems, paint yourself as an angle and shift the blame to Linux.

Dell is in bed with MS. This could be a different form of another SCO attempt.

I have a more positive view of this. Consider this: In any technology, you can often find many years of behind the scenes work before Joe Six-Pack ever hears about it. Linux is still "behind the scenes" in most regards....(Joe S-P does not really care if it powers most servers and clusters--nor does he track every nuance of the foundation being built for an entry into the "mainstream" desktop market. But that foundation gets stronger by the day---and Dell is surely smart enough to know that.

I'm betting that Dell selling Linux desktops and laptops will be a good thing for all--even M$. Microsoft--lacking real competition--has gotten lazy and sloppy. Competition will one day make them better.

I agree. Look at what happened in the U.S. auto industry. Their quality was getting worse and worse until they realized that they were not the only game in the world. Competition from Europe and Japan was the best thing that ever happened to them.

Check out this BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6506027.stm

Interesting idea, but I'm not buying it. If you buy a system from Dell today that has nothing but problems, do you get pissed off at Microsoft? Well, I'm sure some do, but the majority of people are likely to get pissed at Dell for selling them a pile of garden fertilizer. The same thing will go for Linux.

Even if Dell gets someone a working Linux system, and they do something to bork it, they are going to be screaming at Dell. And if Dell can't provide a reasonable response, they will be the ones with the black eye.

And now for the reading of the tea leaves......

What I'm expecting to hear in the next announcement will be a deal between Dell and Canonical to provide support for Ubuntu on Dells. The Ubuntu forums are already a good place to get support, and since Canonical is rather invested in Ubuntu, it could be a beneficial deal for both sides.

I'd also like to see Dell do something with LQ, because if Linux on Dells takes off, you can expect a lot of the questions/support to land here even if Dell and Canonical do a support deal. If you google for any Linux related problem, you almost always get at least one LQ hit in the top 5 and that is going to drive people here more than other factors.

When I clicked on this, I got a big fat Vi$ta ad that popped up over the news story; it was animated with a bunch of cascading windows. That is so Micro$oft

Joel

Even though I suspect the 70,000+ people that told Dell to offer Linux already use Linux, there's bound to be some (hopefully more and more every year) new Linux users created by Dell's offering. One of the *buntus would be a good choice. It has a very large, active community that would satisfy the old and new Linux user alike.

On the otherhand, Dell is in cahoots with Red Hat and Novell for their Linux servers. I'd be surprised if both companies weren't scheduling their appointment to deliver the "why use Fedora/OpenSuSE for your desktops" to the Dell execs. How will Red Hat and Novell reacte?

Yeah, like a check with Dell in the upper left hand corner for each of the LQ contributing members.

I guess I was discounting Red Hat as a contender for this because they've pretty much aimed themselves exclusively at the server market. Fedora is basically a giant beta project and I don't think Enterprise is desktop worthy.

The reason I'm thinking that Ubuntu wins out over Suse is that if I were calling the shots (yeah, that'll be the day) Ubuntu is the better desktop. Now if Dell is asking a different question, namely "What is a decent desktop distro that minimizes the chance of Multiple Independently targeted Re-entry Chairs heading our way?", then Suse wins. By going with Suse, Dell would certainly take away Microsoft's ability to bitch and moan. If Dell is trying to keep their customers happy, Ubuntu wins, if they are trying to keep Microsoft happy, Suse wins.

You know, that's not a bad idea. Of course Jeremy would probably suffer a nervous breakdown from the sudden and massive increase in contributing members.

I totally agree, but Novell's Linux business is in the server market too. I'm not sure Red Hat couldn't whip together a few engineers to put a nice pretty bow on FC5 or FC6 for their good friends at Dell. Red Hat toed the desktop waters, but they were the only player at the time and didn't have a major PC maker shipping with Linux. I gotta believe Red Hat execs would have to consider returning to the desktop rather than get left behind if the Dell initiative is successful.

That's a good point about Novell, but clearly Dell isn't afraid to offer non-Novell Linux solutions. No matter what, I think it'll be a good thing for us Linux users.

I agree that Ubuntu (or Kubuntu if you believe that KDE is the more "Windows-like" DE) would be the better desktop...especially if they offered it with XGL/Compiz/Beryl. Linux sells itself to tech-saavy, but imagine Joe Sixpack heading to the mall to watch the pretty girls walk by. Joe Sixpack walks past the Dell Direct store on his way to the food court...what was that! Did the desktop just spin around and that window "melt" off the screen!!!? Forget the pretty girls! Dude, I'm gettin' a Dell.

Somehow I think Jeremy would manage. I just hope he remembers whose idea it was when LQ has its IPO.

http://www.linuxworld.com/newsletter...326linux2.html
Not sure if I stumbled on the right thing but:

After doing a simple search of the dell chinese site brings me this:
http://dellstorecn05.sg.dell.com/pub...53819957051594
Apparently, the distro they chose was Red Flag Linux, so if that's a success, then most likely RHEL will be offered in the states.