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Dell To Offer Ubuntu Laptops Again
An anonymous reader writes "TechCrunch reports that Dell will be officially re-entering the Linux laptop market. Beginning this fall, it will sell a 'developer edition' of one of its Ultrabooks that comes pre-loaded with Ubuntu 12.04. Dell first started offering computers with Linux installed in 2007, but they dropped the products in 2010. This spring, a skunkworks effort called Project Sputnik was announced, and now, after the completion of a short beta test, the Ubuntu laptops have been given a green light for commercial sale. Canonical has been working alongside Dell to help make this happen."
Dell is the fourth largest PC vendor in sales numbers in the last quarter so a few people are buying their stuff still.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Even now, there are some notebooks available on their website, and you can probably get even more options when you ask them on the phone.
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i should note, for on-topic's sake, that the dell laptop i'm writing this on -is- running ubuntu 12.04, but I put it on there, not them.
from the Project Sputnik FAQ:
You and everyone else, apparently.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It most definitely did happen, but not in all geographies. Asus ships Ubuntu on a number of machines (including those EEEPc models), both online and in retail. Sorry that it is not available in your location - Canonical are working on expanding the reach of Ubuntu with Asus, Dell, and other OEMs.
-- A Canonical employee
I'll be honest, I haven't given a Dell laptop a serious look in years, but I handled tons of them through the late 2000's and the build quality was so poor that I really don't even look at their equipment anymore when picking a laptop for myself or someone else. I don't know if they've changed recently, but I haven't heard anyone make that claim. It doesn't matter to me what OS ships with the hardware if the hardware itself is flimsy. A laptop that won't bend, crack or break at the hinges within a few weeks is worth a $50 premium, IMO. /.)
I actually feel that Asus and Toshiba build much nicer laptops at about the same price point, but I'm sure someone will disagree (after all, this is
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Curtis_(actor)
Did you ever actually look for the Linux laptops on Dell's web site? I did, and it wasn't like they plastered them on the home page. It's not like it was even a choice when you were configuring your system. You had to go to a special sub-site with few or no links from other pages. You really had to know where it was to get to it.
Trust me, people weren't buying Linux machines by accident.
When I bought mine you had to go looking for the Ubuntu machines page; when you got there it explained very clearly, in non-technical language, that if you don't know what we're talking about you don't want one: go over here to buy a Windows machine. They thought that out ahead of time and were very clear about it.