I noted in April that there was a lot of buzz about Michael Dell admitting he was running Ubuntu Linux on one of his personal laptops. I speculated that it meant a new operating system for some Dell offerings. Told ya so.
Responding to user pressure, Dell Inc. confirmed it will preinstall the Ubuntu distribution of the Linux operating system on some of its computers.
Dell made the announcement Tuesday with Canonical Ltd., the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu.
Speculation had been rife for some time that Dell would embrace Ubuntu, after Dell reached out to the vendor's customers via the computer maker's IdeaStorm Web site. Users made it clear on that site that they wanted Dell to offer more support for Linux and promote the open-source operating system as an alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows on its home and office notebooks and desktop computers.
Ramping up the rumor mill was Michael Dell's own public penchant for the Linux distribution. The Dell chairman and CEO uses the latest version of Ubuntu, release 7.04, also known as "Feisty Fawn," at home on his Dell Precision M90 laptop, according to his executive biography on the Dell Web site.
"This ends the speculation," said Jane Silber, director of operations at Canonical. "We wanted to move quickly and give a response to the reports."
"The relationship with Canonical came about as part of our ongoing evaluation of distributions that customers asked for in our Linux survey," Dell spokesman Jeremy Bolen wrote in an e-mail request for comment. "Ubuntu was the most requested [distribution] by a wide margin."
I've noted that Dells appear to run Ubuntu flawlessly. This is a good move for Dell and for Canonical. I don't think Microsoft will be very happy about it, though. Ubuntu just may be the OS that breaks Linux out and popularizes it to the general public. Heck, my son has asked me to zero his older computer and turn it into a Ubuntu box. So I'll be able to tell you if HPs are as good at running Linux as the Dells are.
