Dell Backpedals On Preloading Linux

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A lot of you got pretty excited last week when we posted news that Dell would be shipping laptops with Linux preinstalled. As it turns out, that is not the case…at least in the foreseeable future. Bummer.

Although Dell is dancing around the idea of reintroducing Linux desktops and notebooks, the computer maker said it won't make a move until one of the competing flavors of Linux emerges as a business favorite. Dell now maintains that it doesn't want to pick one Linux distribution and alienate users with a preference for another.
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Dell has been selling desktops with Linux pre-loaded for a while:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/precn_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&redirect=1

No offense, but Dell never said they were going to pre-load Linux on more systems.
what dell posted said:
We are listening, and as a result, we are working with Novell to certify our corporate client products for Linux, including our OptiPlex desktops, Latitude notebooks and Dell Precision workstations. This is another step towards ensuring that our customers have a good experience with Linux on our systems...

We want users to have the opportunity to help define the market for Linux on desktop and notebook systems. In addition to working with Novell, we are also working with other distributors and evaluating the possibility of additional certifications across our product line.
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Anything you heard differently didn't come from Dell.

Certifying doesn't mean pre-loading, unless English has been suddenly rewritten lately. :p
 
Not to mention that Dell is not going to be able to start offering it right away. It takes time to get many key systems updated and ready for something like that. There are changes that have to be made in sales, marketing, manufacturing, product design, and on and on. They have to go through a process that starts with certifying drivers and other functionality on the hardware first. What they could start doing immediately might be something like going forward all new releases need to be able to offer Linux in some form.

You also have the dilemma of which distro. That is going to take some time to figure out.
 
FalseGod said:
You also have the dilemma of which distro. That is going to take some time to figure out.
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Whatever distro (or distros) they chose; it (or they) will be the wrong one.

Leaving Dell with no choice but to roll their own.
 
Also, there is going to be a huge support nightmare to deal with for this. The more and more I think about it, I think that simply certifying driver and functionality support for systems is the only reasonable thing to do. Then as long as you are running whatever the certified kernel version is in your distro, you can be sure that your computer will do what it was designed to do. Support issues could then be limited to troubleshooting hardware problems and not OS usuability problems.
 
JohnnyH24 said:
Whatever distro (or distros) they chose; it (or they) will be the wrong one.

Leaving Dell with no choice but to roll their own.
Click to expand...


Dellinux... hey, I've seen stranger things happen. Would it really be so bad if they could do it, and they can... and if it turned out to be a good thing, and it could?

Interesting possibilities...
 
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