Dell to ship Desktop and notebook PC with Pre Installed Linux

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: February 25, 2007]

Now you don’t have to pay Microsoft tax

Dell customer demanding free Linux version pre-installation on all Dell PCs to cut down cost.

Now Dell announced that - It’s exciting to see the IdeaStorm community’s interest in open source solutions like Linux and OpenOffice. Your feedback has been all about flexibility and we have seen a consistent request to provide platforms that allow people to install their operating system of choice. 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.

As this community knows, there is no single customer preference for a distribution of Linux. In the last week, the IdeaStorm community suggested more than half a dozen distributions. We don't want to pick one distribution and alienate users with a preference for another. 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.

This is great news. I only purchase Dell laptops and rest of my system is build using components (whitebox). My next desktop machine will be dell for sure. However using Linux on corporate desktop is still a big dream because of MS Exchange, custom made support & sales software etc. I hope this will also change in coming days.

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Discussion on This Article:

digen Says: February 25th, 2007 at 6:30 am
That’s certainly good news for people wanting to try a GNU/Linux desktop but opt out or feel frustrated due to hardware not being recognized etc. A excellent step IMHO and all due to the GNU/Linux community.
Neil Greenwood Says: February 27th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Have you noticed that there’s a price difference between the Linux machines and the equivalent Vista machines? In the wrong direction! The Linux machines are more expensive, £53 in the UK shop.

So not such good news after all…