Linux

Christopher Tozzi's blog from Thursday reminded me of the announcement that I never made: Linux driver support is now available to Dell-branded wireless cards. We started working closely with Broadcom early this year on providing this support, as our customers have been asking for a Linux driver for our cards for a while now. As a result of this effort, Broadcom released an updated Linux wireless driver that supports cards based on the Broadcom 4311, 4312, 4321, and 4322 chipsets, which include the Dell 1490, 1395, 1397, 1505, and 1510 Wireless cards. This driver is included in the Ubuntu 8.10 release, and should be added to Ubuntu 8.04. It is currently only partially open-source, similar to ATI or NVIDIA video drivers, so keep this in mind when deciding if you want to use it. For those who want to try it out immediately, the driver can be downloaded from here.

We're currently offering the Dell 1397 card with the Studio 15 system with Ubuntu 8.04, and  the 1395 card is supported on our new Inspiron Mini 9. Please give us feedback on how well this driver works for you on any of our Dell wireless cards on our Linux Desktop mailing list.

Today we're rolling out two new laptops and desktops that are designed to meet the specific needs of small businesses, government and educational facilities operating on a limited budget in the worlds top emerging markets. Take a look at either Steve Felice's post or Kara Krautter's post on the Small Business blog for a bit more context on that front.

Note: Click on any of the images in these post to see larger versions of them. You can also see these photos and more by viewing this photo set at the main Dell Flickr page.

One thing of interest to a lot of our readers is that we will offer Ubuntu Linux as an option on all four of these machines worldwide. Regular readers of Direct2Dell know that we already support Ubuntu on select systems several countries.

These new Vostro systems will be introduced in more than 20 countries over the coming months—including Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. They will be available primarily through authorized channel partners worldwide and also directly from Dell. Pricing for the products will vary by configuration, region and country. Additional Vostro products designed for emerging markets and high-growth economies will be introduced in the coming months.

Update: I apologize to Direct2Dell readers. I made some mistakes in some of the following tech details. In those cases below. I used strikethroughs with updated text to correct them. Again, my apologies for the errors.

Today, we're offering two pre-configured laptops--the Vostro A840 and A860, and two pre-configured desktops—the Vostro A100 and A180. Both the affordable notebooks feature a sturdy compact design. The A840 weighs in at 5 lbs 4.48 lbs while the A80 weighs just about 5.7 lbs 5.42 lbs. 

Both offer features like The A860 features an HD screen with an anti-glare coating and Intel Celeron or Core 2 Duo processors. Both offer all kind of connectivity features including wireless, Ethernet and modem capability. Bluetooth is an option as well. The 15.6" Vostro A860 notebook will eventually be available globally, including the United States.

On the desktop side, both the Vostro A100 and the A180 are meant to tackle everyday business needs. The entry-level Vostro A100 comes standard with Intel's Atom processor. The A180 supports Celeron and Core 2 Duo Pentium dua-core processors. Like the laptops, both of these systems tha Vostro A180 can be ordered with Ubuntu or Windows Vista Home Basic as well. The A100 will be offered with Ubuntu and supports up to 80GB hard drives and a 16x DVD drive. Both systems The A180 supports up to 160GB hard drives, and either DVD or DVD+/-RW optical drives.

If you're interested to learn more about these products, take a look at this vlog with Kirk Schell from Dell Commercial Products Team. Besides giving an overview of these systems, he provides some insight into why products like these play an important role in reaching these rapidly-expanding economies.

Today is the day. For customers in the United States who interested in compelling notebooks with 15.4” Hi-def widescreen displays the Dell XPS M1530n and Studio 15n notebooks are now available with Ubuntu 8.04 factory installed. US customers can check out these systems and more at www.dell.com/ubuntu (or click on the Ubuntu image below).

Thanks again to the Linux community for the continued support (and purchase) of Dell systems with Linux pre-installed. Your interest and direct feedback enables better solutions on a broader array of platforms. Hope to see you at LinuxWorld!

As many of you know, the 2008 LinuxWorld Conference and Expo is taking place this week in San Franciscso. Several of us at Dell will be attending to take part in the "Desktop Linux" track. I'll be part of a panel discussion titled "OEM Desktop Panel Discussion - We’re shipping Linux on PCs: Now What?" on Wednesday morning at 11:30, while Daniel Judd and Cole Crawford are hosting a session titled "The Client Linux Desktop: A Dell Case Study", on Thursday morning at 10:15. If you're attending the conference, please stop by and chat with us; we'd love to meet you and get your feedback.

I'd like to follow up our Ubuntu 8.04 post with a quick update on the technical details for what we have added with this release. We have continued to build and improve upon on what we did for our Ubuntu 7.10 offering, and here are some of the highlights:

• We have added Fluendo GStreamer codecs for mp3, wma, and wmv playback. This will allow you to play media of those types in your favorite media player on the system. These codecs are in addition to the LinDVD DVD player application that we're continuing to offer as a standard part of every Ubuntu 8.04 system.
• Biometric fingerprint readers are now supported on the XPS laptops. We have all of the necessary software installed and ready to use; you just have to easily configure the software to recognize your fingerprint.
• ATI Graphics options are available on the Inspiron 530n, and will also be available on the Studio 15n. We're using the close-source fglrx driver to give full OpenGL support
• HDMI audio output is now supported with NVIDIA and ATI graphics cards, so you'll now be able to output both audio and video to your home A/V equipment. As many of you know for HDMI, the audio output is directed out what is essentially an HDMI video port, so the graphics drivers need to know how to interact with the audio controller. We worked with both NVIDIA and ATI to get their graphics drivers to work with the HDMI ports on our systems, and we find HDMI to work well with both. Unfortunately, HDMI audio does not yet work with Intel graphics cards.

I'll add more in a few weeks once we start selling The XPS 1530n and Studio 15n with Ubuntu 8.04.