Ubuntu on Dell this Thursday: Good news for Linux

Ever since Dell announced that it would start pre-installing and supporting Ubuntu Linux, the questions have been rolling in. When? Why? On what models? If recent rumors are to be believed, we may now have some of the answers. Linux stalwart Jeremy Garcia recently posted an email on his blog, which he claims is from a Dell employee. According to the email, Dell will unveil its Linux offerings this Thursday, which will consist of pre-installs on three consumer models: the E520 Dimension desktop, the Inspiron 1505 laptop and the XPS 410 media desktop. The email also states that the company expects that the Ubuntu machines will account for "less than 1 percent of our OS mix for the entire year which is ~20,000 systems annually".

In the world of confirmed news, we do have some new information from Dell regarding Linux drivers and the like. First off, the company has confirmed that it will be shipping machines with the default install of Ubuntu, though Dell will support a subset of other OS installations via a mix of open-source and closed-source (when necessitated by the lack of an equivalent open-source version) drivers. The company also plans to launch a wiki page for peripheral compatibility, which will list supported peripherals and any known issues under Ubuntu. Additionally, Dell will work with hardware manufacturers to help add Linux support to non-Dell hardware products. Just about the only bad news is that Dell will not support any "proprietary audio or video codecs," meaning that you'll have to manually install codecs for MPEG, WMA, WMV, DVD, Quicktime, etc. Still, that's a small price to pay, especially considering that most Linux users won't work up a sweat installing a few codecs.

Overall, this seems like it's panning out to be a beneficial relationship for both parties. Dell will now be able to offer its customers more choices and (hopefully) a break from the "Microsoft tax" and Linux will finally have a major PC vendor on its side, pushing other manufacturers for drivers and support. Here's hoping that this symbiosis turns out to be a successful one as well.

For more on the Dell/Ubuntu rumors:
- see this post on Jeremy's Blog

For info straight from Dell:
- check out this post on Direct2Dell