Dell to Preload Linux on PCs starting in late May

Hey everyone,

It was just  announced yesterday that Dell will be offering Linux pre-installed on their machines beginning late-May of this year. Here's a link to the article http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8661763902.html  The Linux flavor that it is assumed they will offer is Ubuntu, and though I personally have never tried Linux, I have always intended to. I feel like making a linux partition on my computer now after reading this.

My main topic for discussion is, how do you feel that this decision for the top PC-retailer to start offering Linux will affect the PC game industry? Will more games start to be Linux-compatible? 

I completely love Dell right now

It's just fantastic they will provide Linux on their pc's; I personally think a version of Debian would be best (e.g. the enlightment skin wich is very user-friendly)

Linux/Unix is the main base of alot of servers, so I don't think it will disappear.

However, since there is no one flavour of linux, until a build comes along that will challenge windows in its functionailty and driver support I don't think the situation will change much from what it is now.

While I'm happy to see that Dell is offering a unix-like OS, I'm a bit disappointed they're going to go with Ubuntu (if its the sole choice). Well, to be more clear, I wish they would've gone with a BSD, like PC-BSD (in my sig). That's the easiest OS for someone to adopt coming from Windows, and unlike Linux, BSD isn't really fractured at all (which would give rise to some OS competition).

Still, if they had to choose a Linux, I wish they would've went with openSuse. Ubuntu isn't terrible, but I feel it's pretty outclassed.

Bringing it back to gaming, its impact will depend considerbly if people buy them. If they do, I think you'll see a shift in small-games to have native linux support. But I don't anticipate fully-featured titles to become more common until another OS has 15% of the market. 

Hey everyone,

It was just  announced yesterday that Dell will be offering Linux pre-installed on their machines beginning late-May of this year. Here's a link to the article http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8661763902.html  The Linux flavor that it is assumed they will offer is Ubuntu, and though I personally have never tried Linux, I have always intended to. I feel like making a linux partition on my computer now after reading this.

My main topic for discussion is, how do you feel that this decision for the top PC-retailer to start offering Linux will affect the PC game industry? Will more games start to be Linux-compatible? 

jackalv666

No one will buy a Dell with linux for home casual use. Only servers and developers will be interested in this.