Linux - Direct2Dell

In February when Dell launched IdeaStorm as forum for customers to contribute ideas for product offerings, we received overwhelming feedback that customers wanted Linux on desktops and notebooks.

As part of an overall effort to update our Linux program, today we are announcing a partnership with Canonical to offer Ubuntu on select consumer desktop and notebook products.

Update: These systems will be available in the coming weeks to customers in the United States. Update #2: 5-15: This blog post was erroneously unpublished last night. Apologies for any inconvenience this has caused.

This represents another step in the overall enhancement of our Linux program:

• Since 1999, Dell PowerEdge servers have been available with Red Hat Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and since 2005 with Novell/SuSE Linux Enterprise Server.
• Dell Precision workstations have shipped for years with the option of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• OptiPlex desktops and Latitude notebooks are certified to run Novell SLED 10
• Dell updated its policy on driver support of new Linux desktop and notebook products to use open source drivers in kernel.org where possible

We recently launched a Linux community board as another way to help our customers to get help they need to augment things we've been doing like supporting Linux mailing lists.

You can also find the IdeaStrom update in Ideas in Action section.

In this video, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth talks about why he started Ubuntu, Linux adoption rate trends, how previous barriers to Linux adoption for mainstream users are improving, and more.

Your feedback on Dell IdeaStorm has been astounding.  Thank you!  We hear your requests for desktops and notebooks with Linux.  We’re crafting product offerings in response, but we’d like a little more direct feedback from you: your preferences, your desires.  We recognize some people prefer notebooks over desktops, high-end models over value models, your favorite Linux distribution, telephone-based support over community-based support, and so on.  We can’t offer everything (all systems, all distributions, all support options), so we’ve crafted a survey (www.dell.com/linuxsurvey) to let you help us prioritize what we should deliver for you.

Taking a few minutes to complete this survey will help us define our forthcoming Linux-based system offerings. We will close the survey on Friday, March 23. From there, we’ll take some time to analyze your feedback and work to provide the platforms and options you choose.

Thanks in advance for your participation. More details soon.

Update:  We're overwhelmed by your responses, and we know the survey server is overloaded too.  We're working on it, and the survey will remain open until March 23, so you'll have plenty of time to make your vote count.

It’s finally here. Later today, Dell will offer U.S customers three different systems with Ubuntu 7.04 installed: the XPS 410n and Dimension E520n desktops and the Inspiron E1505n notebook. These systems are now available at www.dell.com/open today. Starting price for the E520n desktop and the E1505n notebook is $599; the XPS 410n starts at $899 $849. Note from Lionel:  My apologies, but I had included an incorrect starting price for the XPS 410n. It will be $849.

Hardware support will come from Dell. Beyond that, users can turn to the Linux section of the Dell Community Forum for help and also get the latest updates from our Linux team at www.dell.com/linux http://linux.dell.com. Users also have fee-based options for operating system support through Canonical, including 30-day Get Started, One-year Basic and One-year Standard.

As John said in his post earlier this week, initially we will offer a subset of the component options we support on the three systems. We will continue to work with vendors to improve the stability of the associated Linux drivers moving forward. That’s part of our longer-term goal to increase the number of drivers that work at the kernel level—something Direct2Dell readers made very clear. We’ll get there, it just takes time.

Update 5-25: Beyond this first step of offering three platforms with Ubuntu pre-installed, another goal we have is to introduce Linux to a wider audience. If you're new to Linux or would like to understand more about open source, check out this StudioDell video: Linux 101: What's all the Fuss?

Dell is doing this because of your clear feedback in IdeaStorm. User dhart submitted this idea on February 16—the first day we launched IdeaStorm and it quickly became the #1 idea. Since then, about 30,000 community members weighed in to support it, and over 100,000 of you completed the Linux survey to tell us more.

In this vlog, I had the pleasure to interview John Hull and key members of his team that helped us get to this point today. In addition to John, you'll hear from Roger Noriega and Rezwanul Kabir, who were the desktop and notebook leads, respectively. You'll also hear perspective from Hatim Amro about work he did to get systems with Ubuntu through Dell's manufacturing process.

To the worldwide Linux community, I wanted to thank you for all your support. Linux-related posts are the three most viewed posts since we launched the blog back in July 2006. The Linux survey post and the Ubuntu 7.04 post are also the top two most commented blog entries as well—both received well over 500 comments. That makes it hard to keep up with comment moderation, but it's a problem I love to have.

Thanks for giving us a chance to show what Dell 2.0 is about. While this is a milestone that a lot of us will remember, it’s just the beginning—plenty more to come.

Before we announce the availability of Ubuntu 7.04 on select Dell client systems, I'd like to give an overview of what customers can expect from our initial Ubuntu offering.

Availabile Software and Hardware

• The default software from the Ubuntu media will be installed on the system, including kernel and applications.
• The peripheral options offered with Ubuntu will be a subset of what is offered with other operating systems. We're offering the hardware options on each system that have the most mature and stable Linux driver support. These hardware options have been thoroughly tested by the Linux team here at Dell.
• We configure/install open source drivers for hardware, when possible.
• We use partial open-source or closed source ("restricted" in Ubuntu terms) drivers where there is no equivalent open-source driver. This includes Intel wireless cards and Conexant modems.
• We will have a wiki page on our linux.dell.com website that gives technical details of the supported systems, information on the device drivers used for system peripherals, details of our Ubuntu factory-installation, and information on the problems we found during our testing, with their fixes/workarounds.
• We recommend Linux users buy Dell printers that have PostScript engines in them. The previous hyperlink lists those printers. You can also check in the Tech Specs tab for each printer on Dell.com show if it has PostScript or not.

Software and Hardware Not Offered

• For hardware options not offered with this release, we are working with the vendors of those devices to improve the maturity and stability of their associated Linux drivers. While this may not happen overnight, we do expect to have a broader range of hardware support with Linux over time.
• At this time, we are not including any support for proprietary audio or video codecs that are not already distributed with Ubuntu 7.04. These include MPEG 1/2/3/4, WMA, WMV, DVD, Quicktime, etc. We are evaluating options for providing this support in the future.

Since we've began offering Ubuntu on some consumer systems, two clear areas of feedback from the IdeaStorm community and Direct2Dell readers have been: offer Ubuntu on more hardware, and offer it worldwide.This Ubuntu-related post is still the third most commented post in Direct2Dell's history-many  of the 654 comments are asking for it in more countries.

Now Ubuntu 7.10 is making it's way to our XPS 1330 laptop and Dell will begin offering Ubuntu in Spain.

Starting today, customers in Germany, United Kingdom, France and now Spain can purchaseUbuntu Linux 7.10 with built-in DVD playback on the XPS 1330n (in addition to the previously-released Inspiron 530n desktop system.  For U.S. customers, you'll have to hold on a week or so.

Update, January 30: As of last night, the XPS M1330 with Ubuntu is now available for customers in the United States at www.dell.com/ubuntu.

Update, February 18: Today we started offering the NVIDIA 8400M GS graphics card as an option for Ubuntu customers.

Ubuntu 7.10 runs great on the XPS M1330. It has more power, more style.  Take a look at the Dell UK Ubuntu website for more details.

Thank you to the Linux community for the support. Your purchases and your commitment is the driving force behind this expansion, and is the key to more in the future.