Dell to Sell PC’ss with Ubuntu Preinstalled

The latest cool news out of the tech sector is Dell has reached an agreement with Canonical, the distributors of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, to provide desktop and laptop PC’s with Ubuntu preinstalled.

Depending on the cost and what the hardware availability is, I may rethink that urge to purchase an Apple MacBook Pro for my next laptop. Ubuntu is a great distro as is, and I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews about their latest release, version 7.04 (aka Feisty Fawn). However, given all the hardware will work (I can’t imagine they’d sell crippled systems), it would also make it easier for current Linux users to purchase the same machines because they know they’ll be able to get all the hardware working with their own distribution of choice, like Fedora for example.

Dell did have an abortive attempt at selling machines with Linux preinstalled several years ago, but Linux has come a long way since then and has become much more accessible to the average user. If memory serves, the original machines were targeted at business and enterprise users, not home users, which made the offering even less appealing. Now they’re running a distro that has solutions for all kinds of users, plus they’re offering support options directly from Canonical. I think that’s a smart move and may help a lot.

The only downside I can see is gaming. Game support and availability for Linux is still weak, and that’s going to keep the teenagers hot for a cheap gaming machine out of the running. Granted most gamers will want a beefier machine than will probably be available anyway, but it’s going to mean frustration for parents out for a cheap machine who then have to deal with kids bitching they can’t play their favorite games with their friends. It’s hard to say whether it will impact sales or not, but I can see it being a headache down the road.

Of course, the flip side of that is people start buying these up and pestering game manufacturers to start developing games for or porting games to Linux. It could be a win-win all around.

Only time will tell.