Re: Linux on Dell

I'm sure most of you that are interested in such things have already heard the big news - Dell's going to start shipping its mainstream systems with the option to have a Linux distro pre-installed (most likely Ubuntu, from the latest set of rumours flying about).

Personally, I'm in favour of this - one of the biggest sellers of OEM systems is going to be offering the average dumb user an open source OS, and they're going to be making it as simple and friendly as possible.

The implied competition here could be huge, and the incentive for OS coders to tidy up any bugs, and get new features polished and shipped will of course be massive. Anyone with a GCSE in Business Studies will be able to tell you that increased competition leads to better quality products for lower prices - and I'm all in favour of anything that drives the techie world forwards.

I found a very well-written (though, conversely, very poor written) talkback post on ZDNet, posted yesterday, which brings up the whole issue of basic users and peripheral software.

The responses to it are pretty hilarious too, this flame and the response made me giggle, and this post and this one were pretty good too.

There's also one final caveat that I think could well ring true, and pretty much outlines the top three reasons why Dell's latest venture is unlikely to pay off - games, networking and cost.