OSNews

Dell is earning marketing buzz, but little else.

They're pre-installing Ubuntu. But they're not supporting it. They're not marketing it. They're not even making it easy to find on their website. Even the documentation included with the Ubuntu systems is the same Windows-oriented documentation they include with every system. The linux community is really gaining very little, because Dell is simply not investing anything. They're simply capitalizing on the community for incremental gain. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, there's no such thing as bad publicity after all, but it's not a model I'd would hold for the other hardware vendors to follow.

Lenovo does distribute linux-based systems in China and other parts of Asia and Europe. They have relationships with Red Flag, Red Hat, Novell and I believe TurboLinux. So it's not undoable. But let's set our expectations higher. If manufacturers are going to acknowledge linux in western markets, let's see something more than a patronizing pat on the head. There's potential opportunity, but both the industry and the userbase themselves have to be willing to step up if it's going to work.

To my understanding it's not their problem but Canonical's. MS Windows is supported by Microsoft. And I don't know what kind of a deal Dell has with Canonical.

It is not true that this is not a big deal. Even as a marketing buzz is good to hear that someone ships a PC/Laptop with Linux. For my boss means something.

I just think the SLED would be a better option for Dell, but that's just my opinion.