Slashdot Mirror

http://pilot.search.dell.com/c...
http://pilot.search.dell.com/l...

There are these things called links....

http://www.dell.com/us/p/chrom...

http://pilot.search.dell.com/a...

There are these things called links....

http://www.dell.com/us/p/chrom...

http://pilot.search.dell.com/a...

BTW, I only see PCs on Dell's front page. So much for believing a Microsoft apologist.

Let's try an example. Enter "resolution" into google. What does it say?

the degree of sharpness of a computer-generated image as measured by the number of dots per linear inch in a hard-copy printout or the number of pixels across and down on a display screen. Their resolution never failed them, their fervour seemed never slackened.

Google says you are wrong.

Let's see what Microsoft says. Right click your desktop, and choose "Screen Resolution". What does it say? Microsoft says:

Resolution: 2560x1440 (Recommended)

Boy those silly software guys must have got it all wrong. Let's check the hardware guys... How about dell?
http://accessories.us.dell.com...

Under tech spec, that monitor says:

Native Resolution 1920 x 1200

Guess the hardware guys are wrong too. So who uses it the one true "Jane Q. Public" way?

Why don't you educat yourself?

http://www.imore.com/will-apple-ever-bring-back-black-macbook/

When Apple first introduced the MacBook, you could get it in white or black. The black version, of course, cost an extra $200 for the coolness factor. Considering that my MacBook lasted for eight years, it was a worthwhile investment.

When my Black MacBook stopped working, I took it into the Apple Store. Most the Apple employees heard about the Black MacBook (discontinued in 2008) but never saw one in person. They took turns looking at it. Surprisingly, despite being a six-year-old laptop at the time, the Apple Store replaced the keyboard top and battery with identical replacement parts.

Did you stick an Apple logo on a Thinkpad? :-D

You must work at Google. :P

That is great service support indeed. And I can see why you wouldn't let go of this model.

P.S. I wasn't aware of black macbooks (but I have never owned a mac) - and saw an opportunity to sneak in some stinkpad love.

On a side note, check out the new XPS 13. Those near zero bezels look mighty nice.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-1...

Like the Sharp Aquos phone that is near bezel-less.

http://www.sharpusa.com/ForHom...

(Sorry for the OT - got carried away a bit)

I'd recommend an Alienware Alpha

they're about as far from "laptop" as you can get

No they aren't

Mac Pro
Alienware 18

The Tianhe-2 is about as far from a laptop as you can get. The Mac Pro is almost identical to a gaming laptop.

Walk into a store and buy a fully assembled name brand (Dell, HP, etc) PC, complete with warranty and guarantees, without ANY software preinstalled. You can't. Your analogy fails.

Actually you can get a Dell laptop or HP laptop with Ubuntu pre-installed. But the point is virtually nobody wants a PC without Windows pre-installed (unless they're buying a Mac) so even though those companies are free to sell PCs without Windows pre-installed - and some do while some tried and abandoned it due to lack of sales - it is much cheaper for the end user to sell it bundled with Windows than it is to sell it without an operating system and have those 99% of non-Mac PC users then have to buy a retail copy of Windows to install.

> I agree. I've been running a similar set up on a PIII-100 (remember those?) with 96MB RAM and a 200MB disk for almost twenty years.

--Dude, how high is your electric bill? o_O

--If you hook up a kill-a-watt to that beast, you might want to consider replacing that ancient machine with something like a Raspberry Pi / Cubietruck / Atom box - it will likely pay for itself within a year due to the power savings...

TS-836A Plug Power Meter = ~$16 on Amazon

Just to clarify, it's actually a Pentium Pro-200, not a PIII-100.

My electric bill is between me and the electric company. Thanks for your concern, though.

That said, I appreciate the suggestion, but my bill is already bit lower since I got rid of the Dell PowerEdge 6400 I was running for many years. What is more, when it's hot in the summer, my AC unit uses more power than all the other electric devices in my house. If I was really concerned, I'd sweat more. :)

Compared to the AC and the other systems I run, my firewall's power usage is negligible. I guess it's just a matter of perspective, eh?

Or you could buy an ubuntu laptop from dell but your not going to find it in best buy and they don't have a very good selection because most people don't want a linux os or no os laptop they just want it to work.... doesn't mean it's not possible.

http://www.dell.com/us/busines...

Your auditors are full of shit. Out of curiosity, does your organization use anything from Dell?

If this device is anything like the dell venue pro with 32GB, it works out to something like 17GB usable when you turn the device on, but by the time windows update runs its going to be less than 10GB free.

Lots of discussion about this on the internet, for example:

http://en.community.dell.com/s...

$10,000 barely gets you ONE modern well-equipped 20 core server system

I get 4x16 core AMD Opteron 6366HE on a Dell PowerEdge m915 for $5,578.70:

http://configure.us.dell.com/d...

So that's a bit less than $10,000 for 100 cores on a standard issue Dell machine. It's not completely crazy to expect you could increase that to 600 cores without too much extra cash laid down.

... that IBM had a '4K' (I abhor this term as much as 'HD') monitor in production from 2001-2005. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ... 3840x2400 in a ~22 inch panel. Good luck finding a "4K" monitor of that resolution (~204 ppi) any time soon.

The Dell UP2414Q comes close – it's a 24" 4K monitor, and therefore has a DPI of over 180.

I bought a Dell Windows 8.1 tablet instead. Mine has the smaller screen, but it's got a real Intel processor, so it runs Real Windows 8.1, and came bundled with Microsoft Office 2013 for a total cost of $250. And it's a small tablet that can run any current Windows binaries. I was never a fan of Internet Explorer in the past, but it just fucking works on any website anywhere currently, with real regular don't-need-to-fuck-around-to-make-it-work Flash.

Firefox or Chrome on Android sucked by comparison. They're second-tier products on Android.

If optical thunderbolt ever catches on you could use it to attach multiple terminals to a computer, such as routing uncompressed low-latency video signals throughout your home. Last I checked, there still is not a good way to do this over gigabit ethernet.

You mean like using a terminal server and some thin clients? Or do you mean using a digital signage system?

These things are all available, and none of them use Thunderbolt, not even in its optical variety.

You can buy a 4K monitor today for $700. And it's not some Korean mystery brand either:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=210-ACHO

One thing that isn't obvious though is that it's a 30Hz monitor. All the 60Hz ones, as far as I can tell, are still in $1000+ territory.

For $2k you could get a 3.2k display laptop.

second hit on google: http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-1...

Of course these days all of this can be done, too, much faster, on off-the-shelf hardware. Just because the hardware doesn't have tag bits doesn't mean your compilers can't implement them. I'm running a bit of safety critical code on a bunch of ARM CPUs and all of the data RAM contents are tagged, pointers are tagged, and there is also software-driven error correction for RAM, execution log, restarts, those sorts of things that were en vogue at one point or another in the "hi-rel mainframe" market.

I have a couple of off-the-shelf servers from Dell that not only have error correcting RAM, but also have a spare memory stick and can cope with the failure of an entire chip on a RAM stick. So what you hail so eagerly is - who'd have thought - a standard feature on off-the-shelf hardware that can be had under $2K.

OK, so what evidence do you have that Dell doesn't mark that as $150 for software and $29 for installation, on their accounting system?

1) There is no evidence that they internally account for software as you say. It's speculation.
2) There IS evidence that they are charging for free software.
3) There IS evidence that they actually give a discount for installing software versus buying it from them separately: You can actually buy Office Home and Business directly from Dell for 219 USD. So they're actually giving a discount when they install it, as they only charge 179 USD in that scenario.

What does the evidence show? Seems clear to me.

Well, my new tablet is a full computer, not a mere media consumption device. But that's because it has an Intel processor and runs a full version of Windows 8.1 on it. It has the 'Microsoft App Store' but it can also run any x86 windows software you choose that will run on Windows 8.

Also, it is significantly cheaper than an Apple Tablet that can only run 'apps' and it's made by Dell, not some Asian brand.

The fact that Microsoft is bundling full Office 2013 H&S on it for a total cost of $299 tells you they are either desperate for sales, or they're planning on penetrating the Tablet market bigtime.

Or how about just buy some replacement speakers and install them? They're $8 on ebay, and most people on Slashdot have the skills to do so. Hell, there's tons of youtube tutorials on how to fix your computer.

If you want to stick it to Dell (because they ARE responsible), then by all means, take them to small claims court. But instead of building a time machine, hiring a lawyer, or getting all angry, mad, and ruining your day (if you're not going to sue)... just pay the $8 and get replacement speakers on ebay, or use external desktop speakers.... and install the BIOS update that prevents the issue in the future.

http://www.dell.com/support/tr...

And by "tried" I mean they came out with pathetic knock-off products, be it of the iPod, the MacBook Air, or the iPad. They were all day-late, dollar-short products.

And any time they did come up with something interesting and novel, it was smothered by suffocating Dell bureaucracy.

And by "tried" I mean they came out with pathetic knock-off products, be it of the iPod, the MacBook Air, or the iPad. They were all day-late, dollar-short products.

And any time they did come up with something interesting and novel, it was smothered by suffocating Dell bureaucracy.

You could always buy a 24" at the same resolution from Dell, available right now. Of course, you're going to be forking over $1300 if you want it today. Or you can pony up a whopping $3500 and get their 32" (who are they kidding with that price point from 2012?). The Dell 28" UltraHD available January 23rd will be $700. Considerably more expensive than the Seiki model, but in the size you like and at least the price point is within shouting distance.

Or a high quality IPS monitor for $1.3k.

Wrong.

Ladies and gentlemen, my I present to you, The Dell XPS 18 The 18" tablet!

BIOS updates won't come from an OS distributor, but from the laptop manufacturer.

There are multiple ways of installing them, depending on your OS. Linux can use the distribution's software update system, but that is rare. Dell did this for the first 2 years after I bought a 1420n from them with Linux installed. There haven't been any updates since 2009. There are instructions from Dell here.

For the most part, you have to download a windows .exe from the manufacturer's website, boot off of a windows rescue disk or usb image and execute the .exe to install. Check your manufacturer's web site, or use Google to find out if you can update from Linux.

Without digging in too deep, last I checked, some "business class" desktops from Dell, HP, Lenovo could be equipped with LPT and serial ports. With laptops, you can usually configure a business class laptop with docking station to get legacy ports. Eg from Dell:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=eep&cs=6099&sku=331-6304
"E-Port Plus, dock adds dual digital display and legacy port support, USB 3.0"

And for anyone not in the know, USB parallel adapters are no good for anything but a printer. They do nothing for bidirectional communication used for machines like CNC.

although I'll wait a bit for the price to drop before getting one with 3200x1800 pixels.

Lenovo convertibles with 13.3" 3200 x 1800 panels are already below $1k. What I will actually do with that resolution I don't know; I'm scheduled to start going farsighted soon so I'll probably just run everything except movies at 1600 x 900 in blissful ignorance.

Vertical lines are still very key to some people. Long before 1920x1080 became "HD" after a few years of severe regression in vertical resolution, there *were* 1600x1200 screens.

Yep. And there were 1920x1200 displays as well, giving 16:10. Actually, I'm writing this on a 9½ year old laptop with 1920x1200 pixels on its built-in 17" screen (it's a Sony Vaio VGN-A117S). It runs fine with Xubuntu, and if its replacement lasts as long, it will be a bargain. I had planned on upgrading to something with more pixels, but some years ago all the laptops - other than a few linux-hostile Macs - went to fewer pixels. Luckily, that looks like changing again, although I'll wait a bit for the price to drop before getting one with 3200x1800 pixels. Even 16:9 is acceptable with enough vertical pixels, avoiding the shortscreen consequences of full HD.

Incidentally, we still have a 20" 1600x1200 display on one of the desktops. It was bought in the last century and has been used daily, often for several hours; it's in perfect working order and a real joy to use. The other desktop has a pair of full HD screens. Turning one sideways gives a narrow screen for viewing A4 pages, while in regular orientation, they're an annoyance even for editing photos. They're going to get replaced by something more useful...

It's available in Canada too, at $1289.99 to start....

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-9333/pd?oc=cax13u1238&model_id=xps-13-9333

For those who don't want to click the link (or if the link is geo-locked)....
Core i5 4200U (2.6GHz)
13.3" 1920x1080 touchscreen display
8GB DDR3 memory (1600MHz)
128GB SSD
Intel HD 4400 graphics
Ubuntu 12.04
Weight: 3.04lbs
Warranty: 1 year Next Business Day onsite support (after remote diagnosis, also 1 year). You can extend that to 3 years, and you can also buy up to 3 years of accidental damage coverage.

That's not a low end laptop. You are getting your money's worth, and it's in the same price range as Windows-based laptops with similar spec.

If you really want a cheap laptop with Linux on it, buy a chromebook. You can unlock them and replace the Chrome OS with a standard Linux distro if you want.

I guess those schlubs at Google are not credible developers by your definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu

GooBuntu != Ubuntu
If Google believed Ubuntu was "fine", they wouldnt need to "optimize" it and create a new distro in the process....

Also, Dell monitors and workstations are the bread and butter of large software companies. Their high end workstations are absolutely fantastic.

Dell monitors, for cheap business use? I agree, they hold no data, easy to replace.
Dell workstations, on a domain with roaming profiles and data stored on a HP server? I'd be satisfied with that.

If you don't consider this ( http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=cap3610w7p0078ps&model_id=precision-t3610-workstation&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04 ) suitable for use by a "credible" developer, I have to say I am curious what you think is!

Have you ever looked inside a Dell system, as a engineer?
Buy a £60 motherboard on the net, then, look inside your dell system. The £60 motherboard you just brought is going to be more reliable.
The majority of Dell motherboards still do not use Solid Capacitors. Also, they use the minimal amount of components for the board to function.
And dont even get me started on their power supplies ;)

I'll never forget the Dell rack server we used for Redhat Linux. We decided to try Dell due to it costing less than the HP equivalent.
Biggest mistake we ever made. The Dell server failed twice in one day (PSU related)
It was replaced by a HP equivalent the next day.

I used to work in a PC repair shop prior. 90% of all systems needing hardware repairs (PSU/Motherboards) were Dells. On most occasions, always outside their 1 year warranty by a few months.
From experience, trust me, stay away from Dell. Its just not worth the risk.

It's the same price as the Windows 8 version. (That's listed at $1299, but scroll down for the "$50 off coupon".) This is progress for Dell; most of their previous Linux offerings cost more than the comparable Windows machine.

| a Dell desktop with Office Pro costs around $800

Curious, for this model, is the price with or without monitor, keyboard, etc...?

http://www.dell.com/

If you're spending the kind of $$$ to get high-end GPUs, you're also spending the $$$ for 30" monitors with 2560 x 1600 resolution or more.

Dell has a mind-blowing 31.5" monitor coming out that has a resolution of 3840 x 2160.

Apple 27" iMac ($1799)

Apple has a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M with 1GB video memory GPU, slightly better CPU....

Dell 27" All-in-One ($1599)

  Dell has as multitouch display, Intel HD graphics, probably plastic, certainly "thicker."

All other specs are about the same.... I'd say the prices are within a reasonable range.

Yes, let's compare the just announced apple refreshed product to stuff you randomly dug up on Dell.

Here's the thing about apple, the value proposition is actually pretty good assuming you only care about the specs in the base-line product AND you only do the price comparison the day after its released.

Whereas every other manufacturers products either steadily get cheaper over time, or steadily get spec bumps over time while the price stays constant -- Apple's specs and price stay exactly the same until the product is refreshed.

So come back 12 months from now, and the apple product will still be $1800, the RAM, SSD will be the same size, the graphics will be 1-2 generations old, and pretty much everything you can buy somewhere else will be better.

the most comparable thing i can find at dell.com is this...

Mmmm... sure... or why not this...

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9530/pd?oc=smx15w8p002&model_id=xps-15-9530

Its $150 more instead of $600 less

So... what do you get for $150 bucks more?

i7 instead of i5
double the ram (16GB instead of 8GB)
1TB HD + 32GB mSata SSD -- vs 512MB SSD -- interesting trade off
nvidia 750M with 2GB ram vs intel integrated
3200 x 1800 QHD+ display vs 2560x1600
15" vs 13"

Well.. the dell blows the apple away now overall for paltry $150 differential, but 15" to 13" right? Lets bump up the mac to 15" so its apples to well... apples :)

that gets us i7 -- parity
16GB ram -- parity
1TB+32GB ssd vs 512GB ssd -- same trade off as before
nvidia 750M w 2GB ram -- parity
3200x1800 vs 2880x1800 -- slight edge on the dell

price? $1950 vs ... $2600... $650 difference... ouch... even if you prefer the apple hard drive scenario, its not worth a $650 premium over the dell solution; retail cost on a DIY upgrade would be less. And that's just spending 5 minutes on the website. I expect I can do better and get exactly want, in volume for the company with a phone call to my dell rep. Can I do that with apple? Nope. Apple rep? Lol... is that even a thing?

Apple laptops are not magic

but they are unix, and unlike linux, everything just works out of the box. for some of us, it's worth paying more to not have to dink around for hours on the weekend to hopefully get things running smoothly.

macs are overpriced, but not as much as some folks say. consider this MBP,
http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbook-pro

it's $1800 with no upgrades.

the most comparable thing i can find at dell.com is this,
http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-12-9q33/pd?oc=dncwi16b&model_id=xps-12-9q33

it's $600 less, but it has 1/2 the memory, worse graphics, a slightly smaller display and lesser res, and a 128GB SSD vs. a next-gen 512GB SSD. also, it runs windows, not a unix-based OS.

how about toshiba?
http://www.toshiba.com/us/computers/laptops/kira/kirabook13/KIRAbook13-i5-touch

$300 less, but has last-gen graphics, last-gen core processor, and a last-gen SSD that's 1/2 the size. it does have a touchscreen where the MPB does not.

Sorry for repasting an earlier post in this thread, but I figure this might help you out a bit.

https://techdirect.dell.com/Portal/DTDLogin.aspx [dell.com]

You'll need to certify for each product range, and recertify once a year. Easily done through an online course. But when that is done, you are the de facto service technician, and can order parts as you see fit. You, or at least the organization you work for, might even get reimbursed for time spent.

We are enrolled and using it at my place of work. It works well enough.

You can still order traditional support and technicians according to your support plan if you can't spare the time.

If I remember correctly, you can order 4 or 6 parts per unit at a time.

https://techdirect.dell.com/Portal/DTDLogin.aspx

You'll need to certify for each product range, and recertify once a year. Easily done through an online course. But when that is done, you are the de facto service technician, and can order parts as you see fit. You, or at least the organization you work for, might even get reimbursed for time spent.

We are enrolled and using it at my place of work. It works well enough.

You can still order traditional support and technicians according to your support plan if you can't spare the time.

I was recently in the market for something very similar, so I can at least tell you why I didn't buy a Surface.

First, the specs were too inflexible. I wanted a machine that can handle some serious coding, and for me that means running Eclipse, on Linux, inside a VM. For that to work well, I need to be able to give the VM 4 gigs on its own, so the host needed 8. The Surface tops out at 4.

Similarly with hard drive space, I want to be able to keep a couple of VMs around, install several large games, and take music and movies on trips. Now, the Surface has an SD slot, but the internal drive tops out at 128GB, and Windows takes something insane like 50GB for itself. So while music and movies could go on a card, that increases the price and adds hassle.

Also the CPU and Graphics chip are both last-generation. Not only does this mean lower performance, but also worse battery life.

The second big point was the keyboard. The basic keyboard is goddamn unusable for touch typing, and even the pro keyboard is terrible. The travel and response of the keys is not good, the layout has several weird choices in it (just look at the arrow keys), and the touchpad is small. I was looking at this as a serious laptop replacement, and having a janky keyboard just wasn't going to fly.

At the same time, the keyboard is just loosely clipped onto the body. So you can't actually hold the thing on your lap AND use the keyboard well. You HAVE to put it on a table or something, and you can't adjust the angle of the screen so god help you if there's any glare, or your chair is the wrong height.

What I ended up getting was this and I'm very happy with it. 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, newer generation chips so better battery and performance. The keyboard is much nicer in every way, and since the screen has a real hinge it's a laptop that actually works on your lap. The only tradeoff is it's slightly thicker in tablet mode, but since at least half my time will be spent using the keyboard it's well worth it.

Honestly I was sad that the Surface wasn't better. It seems like Microsoft has an incentive to sell better hardware for cheap to grab some market share, but there were just too many compromises on specs and design for it to be attractive.

This exists. Dell XPS 18. http://www.dell.com/us/eep/p/xps-18-1810/pd

If you're going to be using the device primarily with a keyboard, why bother with a tablet at all?

So you can pay $479 for a "tablet" thats only usable with a keyboard making it basically a very poor laptop, or you can pay $350 for a laptop:

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15-3521/pd

Since we're going to be dragged totally off topic...

You know why you hate TMRepo, which BTW you should be fucking ASHAMED of comparing a JOKE SITE to Stromfront you douchebag

Back to the childish insults I see. I compared it because that's what it comes down to. They pigeonhole everyone that disagrees with them into a stereotype and attack that with all the same fervor. It's a joke site to them, because they sit back, stereotype people, and mock them because of it, all the while believing themselves to be superior.

Because like all good jokes its FUNNY BECAUSE ITS TRUE.

Stereotypes have some kernel of truth to them, doesn't make them good or justification for entire sites where people basically pat each other on the back because they disagree with people who hold other opinions.

I can answer ALL of your arguments with the top 20 TMRepos, you know why?

Answer? Or just provide a pathetic contradiction?

Its the SAME FUCKING EXCUSES the FOSSies have been using for a fricking decade, that's why!

Excuses? Or the same answers to the same questions?

How do you think TMRepo came to be? a guy got tired of hearing the same old FOSSie bullshit and decided to just start listing them and tada! TMRepo.

So one guy decided that he didn't like a handful of people and decided to stereotype everyone that he could pigeon hole under that banner. Sadly, more people joined him because they have the same sad lack of maturity.

And now we get your spew of links. I'll ignore the one from TechnoStormfront, since it isn't relevant outside that site.

As for your second, Project Sputnik is still alive and well. Of course, the OEMs mostly focus at the enterprise level because the Windows monopoly on the desktop persists. It's one of the downside of a monoculture: one vendor gets all of the attention and the rest languish. Your third link I answered many, many months ago, specifically that the unit discussed in the article was never supported by Ubuntu because it used the old GMA500 chipset, one that even Intel did a shit job supporting.

ESR and CUPS

So for your argument to be relevant we have to assume it's 2004 all over again and that absolutely nothing has changed. Yet right after ESR posted his article things started changing. But the most important thing about his article is that it is constructive criticism and not antagonistic name calling and venom spitting.

X.org

So we're going to blame Linux, as a whole, for the failings of what is generally regarded as a decrepit graphics stack with replacements on their way? I mean, don't go thinking that people are blind to this, if they were then things like Wayland wouldn't be getting done (and before you bitch about them taking a long time, consider how long X11 and the X.org codebase have been around. Would you prefer it done shitty and fast, or take a little while and get done right? Unfortunately, I suspect that for you it's wrong no matter what and the Linux world can never do anything right.)

I mean for the love of God fricking God Windows 8, the most hated windows since MSBob, got more users by its second month than Linux has in its entire history, what more proof do you fucking need that your current bullshit direction ain't working?

Considering that Windows 8 was guaranteed to get that many, this is a non-sequitur. Again, the advantage of a monopoly where the OEMs will, in accordance with your licensing agreements, switch fully over to the new platform the moment it is released.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result

S

i noticed alienware has the choice of ubuntu -- alienware is owned by dell and is their 'gaming' model line http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-x51-r2/pd.aspx

Could you link to those announcements please?

There are lots of Canonical announcements about machines coming preloaded with Unbuntu. Not many shipments.

• "Canonical Partners with ASUS for Ubuntu Linux" (2011) "This is part of a new engagement and it's great to be working with such an innovative player," Chris Kenyon, vice president OEM Services at Canonical told InternetNews.com. "To put this in perspective we are now working directly with Asus, Lenovo, Dell and Acer on enabling systems."
• "Dell to offer Ubuntu on a select assortment of budget computers" (2007) "Dell announced plans today to offer Ubuntu Linux 7.04 preinstalled on "select consumer products." Dell has at various times offered some overpriced Linux options, but never a "budget" one. Dell currently offers a Ubuntu laptop for developers. It costs $1549 and will ship Real Soon Now. The same machine is available now with Windows for $999.
• "Ubuntu To Ship on 5% of All PCs Sold Next Year" (2012) Yeah, right.

There are other tablet and phone Ubuntu announcements, which you can find with Google. Someone is taking "pre-orders" for a Ubuntu tablet for delivery in late 2013.

Despite all their press releases, Canonical seems unable to get any manufacturer to ship a preloaded Ubuntu machine in volume.

Could you link to those announcements please?

There are lots of Canonical announcements about machines coming preloaded with Unbuntu. Not many shipments.

• "Canonical Partners with ASUS for Ubuntu Linux" (2011) "This is part of a new engagement and it's great to be working with such an innovative player," Chris Kenyon, vice president OEM Services at Canonical told InternetNews.com. "To put this in perspective we are now working directly with Asus, Lenovo, Dell and Acer on enabling systems."
• "Dell to offer Ubuntu on a select assortment of budget computers" (2007) "Dell announced plans today to offer Ubuntu Linux 7.04 preinstalled on "select consumer products." Dell has at various times offered some overpriced Linux options, but never a "budget" one. Dell currently offers a Ubuntu laptop for developers. It costs $1549 and will ship Real Soon Now. The same machine is available now with Windows for $999.
• "Ubuntu To Ship on 5% of All PCs Sold Next Year" (2012) Yeah, right.

There are other tablet and phone Ubuntu announcements, which you can find with Google. Someone is taking "pre-orders" for a Ubuntu tablet for delivery in late 2013.

Despite all their press releases, Canonical seems unable to get any manufacturer to ship a preloaded Ubuntu machine in volume.