Dell to finally ship PCs with Linux

Martin Brinkmann
May 1, 2007
Updated • Jun 27, 2013
Hardware
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5

First Dell PCs with AMD chips and now Dell PCs with Linux preinstalled. It seems that Dell finally managed to see that giving its customers a choice is the way to go in this matter. Linux has some advantages over PCs that ship with Windows Vista or Microsoft Windows XP.

The first and most prominent one is of course the price tag. Dell can reduce the cost of devices as the company does not have to pay licensing costs to put a Windows operating system on its PCs.

According to DesktopLinux Dell will offer Ubuntu Linux on a Dell e-series "Essential" Dimension desktop, an XPS desktop, and an e-series Inspiron laptop.

There has not been an official announcement so far on the Ubuntu or Dell homepage but this is surely going to follow in the upcoming days. This is a great step in the right direction for the Linux community to bring Linux more in the focus of the mainstream media.

Dell on the other hand will receive lots of publicity as well which can surely drive more traffic and sales to their website. It remains to be seen how many users will actually purchase Linux instead of Windows when they order a new Dell system. One advantage of buying a complete PC with Linux is that all components should work flawlessly with the operating system so that you do not have to worry about incompatibilities.

The majority of users will probably not recognize big differences between Ubuntu and Windows but they surely will be more secure with Linux. This is of course only helpful if you do not intend to play games because you will surely be disappointed. Don't tell me that new users should use Wine to play them. I think Dell will only supply those notebooks and computers with Linux that are non-gaming PCs. Do you think that this is a good strategic move by Dell and also good for Ubuntu Linux?

Update: Please note that the promotional website is no longer available. Dell is still offering Linux for some of its devices, but the majority of devices the company ships are all only offered with the Windows operating system.

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Comments

  1. Pbarron said on November 7, 2007 at 9:33 pm
    Reply

    I tried using Red Hat back in the day but never got the hang of it. I will probably give Ubuntu a try though. I see more companies moving toward open source in the future to avoid the Microsoft tax. The laptop I have now runs XP though and I’m pretty comfortable with it.

  2. JJ said on May 1, 2007 at 6:37 pm
    Reply

    I hope the laptop prices will drop, because now we dont need to pay royalties to m$ for their useless license.

  3. Luke said on May 1, 2007 at 5:59 pm
    Reply

    Nice! I would love to be able to buy an Ubuntu machine from Dell.

    @peter lee = nice troll. ;) You don’t have to like it, but we do.

  4. peter lee said on May 1, 2007 at 4:17 pm
    Reply

    it’s going to be hard with Linux, i don’t really like
    it.

  5. Faust-C said on May 1, 2007 at 1:49 pm
    Reply

    Well at least Linux is finnally making some headway into the mainstream. Only problem is that most users won’t know what Linux really is nor will they actually care. Anyways great !

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