In response to another topic raised by readers of this story, the word from Dell is basically that Ubuntu 8.04 was chosen so as to provide a very reliable Linux platform for non-technical mainstream users. A fuller explanation from Dell is included in the article "Dell: Most Linux Users Don't Really Need the Latest Version," published in Betanews on May 20, 2009. (http://www.betanews.com/...test-version/1242843704)

In an e-mail to Betanews last night, Dell pointed to one of its US Web sites -- at http://www.dell.com/ubuntu -- as listing Dell systems available with a choice of Ubuntu or Windows. In checking that site this morning, I found the Mini 9n to be the only netbook listed yet. Ray told me last week, though, that the Mini 10 had just added availability for Ubuntu 8.04 in the US.

For areas outside the US, I've found that you need to visit Dell's country-specific sites. I discovered that some of these sites -- for the UK
(http://www1.euro.dell.co...mp;s=bsd&cs=ukbsdt1) and Australia, for example -- have also been marketing another netbook, the Atom-based Latitude 2100, with a choice of Ubuntu 8.10, Vista, or an XP downgrade. The "smart rubberized 10.1-inch netbook" is a little heftier than the Mini 10 -- at 2.91 as opposed to 2.86 lbs. -- and also a bit steeper in price.

But as mentioned in a comment below, Dell told Betanews last night that it's also launching the Mini 10v in the UK with a choice of Ubuntu or Windows XP, and the company plans to add Ubuntu availability for the Mini 10 in the UK. More into to come.

Subsidization is probably the future of the entire industry. Buy x cheap, but stick with us for at least y years.

Has been possible for many years through leasing. You're signing a contract, nevertheless.

If you visit Dell's site you will see plenty of slogans saying 'Dell recommends Windows Vista', but if you want to find what is on offer with Linux you have to search around - you certainly won't be greeted with it.
I will not consider Dell to be promoting Linux until they offer the choice of operating system on all of their computers, not just a few bottom-end-of-the-market ones.

I wouldn't really call 3 clicks "having to search"....

I don't understand why they are going with 8.04. My father-in-law bought a netbook the other day and his requirements was: 1) write document; 2) emails; 3) printing; 4) connect to the internet using 3G.
Ubuntu 8.10 does 3G out of the box. Why not go with that version, cause most people would use the netbook to surf the net and check emails using 3G. Btw I ended up loading 8.10 on his netbook, and he very happy with it...he is just amazed how everything just works out of the box....loaded his printer yesterday, by just plugging in the USB cable to the netbook, and Ubuntu did the rest....that is what I like about a system.

It probably has to do with either the extra effort required to test each new version of Ubuntu (every 6 months) or that they only intend to release LTS versions (the next one being 10.04).

9.10 is suppose to have some significant eye candy changes, so perhaps that one might get consideration.

Because Dell's greatest costs are the support of the systems, not the actual hardware or software.

It is far cheaper to support one solid OS every few years, than a "quicky" every 6 months, even if the newer OS's have better hardware support and software fixes.

I didn't ask Ray why Dell is going with 8.04. It's a very good question, though. I'll check into it.

I am not surprised at all about Dell offering Linux for netbooks, I am the IT Director for my company and have had quite a large number personal requests from our users asking me to remove Windows in favor of Linux (Ubuntu) or their netbooks. Yes Linux is different, but 90% of these people only purchase a netbook for web surfing and email, and love it or hate it, Linux is much faster, more efficient than Windows.

I think the Windows figures for netbooks are overinflated, some people reformat and put Linux on these machines. Case and point, we buy hundreds of laptops every year, all come pre-configured with Vista, yet we re image the machines with XP.

Correction to the article: It's Ubuntu 8.04, not 8.0.4. The version numbers reflect when it was released - the 04th month of 2008.

@sturgess: I have no idea what you're talking about, or who these "bad people" are.

Ubuntu is a high-quality operating system that is developed primarily by Canonical, with contributions from several other large companies, and given away for free as part of a marketing strategy. Canonical figures, correctly, that if people start using Ubuntu at home, they will start using it for business - and businesses tend to buy support contracts for their software which is where Canonical makes money. Canonical also sells its Landscape software that makes it easy for system administrators to work with a large number of Ubuntu machines. And finally, Canonical sells training programs, books, desktop software, customisation services and even caps and t-s***s with the Ubuntu logo on them.

Ubuntu is both high-quality AND cheaper than Windows; it's only cheaper than Windows because the free software is an incentive for businesses to buy those other services for the Ubuntu platform. Maybe you should download the latest version of Ubuntu and give it a try?

"Canonical figures, correctly, that if people start using Ubuntu at home, they will start using it for business - and businesses tend to buy support contracts for their software which is where Canonical makes money."

Actually, I've always heard this the exact opposite. Please use what they are familiar with. If they use an OS @ work, chances are they will want to use the same OS @ home.

Add to that the rather obvious observation that a company uses what is most efficient and cost effective for its line of business and doesn't give a damn what its employees use at home.

That may be true in 1990. Businesses these days have many users connecting from home. Terminal Server Gateway is designed specifically for this useage scenario.

Atom Z is pricier???? wow. i prefer the N b/c the Z has 1GB soldered RAM thats completely not upgradeable whereas the N is part of a more normal chipset and allows for 2GB RAM. i was very impressed with 512MB performance with an N270 but for 20 bux replacing the 1 stick with a 2GB one is a complete no-brainer. can't do that with Z series. can't figure out why the Z is more expensive, it was designed for MIDs, which would be devices in between a netbook and a Blackberry.

Problem as I see it, if the use of Linux ever gets into double figures the bad people will start to take an interest. Then where will those poor souls be who went with the cheap option over the quality option ? No good crying to Bill when your bank account has been emptied, too late to switch your OS when all your money has been filched. Do Linux folk have bank accounts ? Are they allowed to have bank accounts ? Anyone know ?

@sturgess

"Free" - as in "freedom". Not "cheap". "Free".
That means a thousand eyes can spot the security loopholes and fix them. Linux has a security model which doesn't play nicely if you're a worm or a virus. Do you think there's much good comes of "crying to Bill" if you buy the proprietary system - will they pay you back money stolen from your account due to shoddy security in their operating system ? I very much doubt it.

The "quality" option is the one developed, re-engineered over the years, openly and honestly by computer scientists who just want the stuff to work for them. Not the one engineered behind closed doors to make the Marketing department happy.

If you think Linux is a poorer quality option, you don't know enough about computers to have a valid opinion.

Reading over the EULA that comes with Windows, there's no use "crying to Bill" for Windows users either. It explicitly holds Microsoft harmless for any damages caused directly or indirectly by their product.

Linux is more secure, but this is hardly because of obscurity. The bulk of publicly-accessable webservers in use today are running Apache on Linux. Those are targets with public IP addresses and an always-on connection--prime targets for worms--yet they are the least commonly infected, with percentages well below those of IIS servers.

Linux is more secure because of three primary things--a clear division between users and administrators (whereas Windows is built with the assumption that the user will be the administrator), it lacks hooks in kernelspace that Microsoft built in to give its additional products a performance edge over those of competitors (which make Windows as a whole vulnerable to a user's actions, even if the user doesn't have admin privileges), and finally because of code transparency--because code is published rather than hidden, it is publicly scrutinized and patched BEFORE it is released into production.

So I'm sorry, Sturgess...I actually feel sorry for people that pay top dollar for a more vulnerable OS, especially when it's guaranteed that it will ultimately fail and have to be replaced by a more costly "new" version later on. Add the fact that you actually have to purchase antivirus and spyware removers--to buy software to keep using the software you already bought--and you've added insult to injury. You can get free antivirus software both free or from commercial sources (like Kasperski) for Linux, but truth be told it's not needed.

So if you're, as you say, crying to Bill because your bank account has been emptied, I doubt he'll care--he has his cash out of the deal, and a nasty clause in the EULA that holds him harmless for the rest. He also won't care if you're infected (without a credit card number), if you can't use the documents you wrote because they made their formats incompatible with previous versions, or if Windows shuts down because it thinks it's a pirated copy (even though you installed it yourself and have the receipts, license, and box).

Get the facts: Read the EULA.

----Quote---
That means a thousand eyes can spot the security loopholes and fix them
----

I know that this is common Linux or Open Source hype, but it is NOT A SECURITY MODEL.

Additionally, all it takes is one 'brilliant' programmer that is smarter than the author of the code and find enough flaws to exploit the hell out of it.

Open Source is not a security model any more than Closed Source is a security model 'because it keeps people from seeing possible exploit/entry points' - get it?

I won't even flag my own abilities, but I have a couple of techs I work with that can literally grab a few pages of open source code and go, "Wow, whoever wrote this really messed up, and here is a nice exploit to use on this piece of code."

Obscurity and intent are two things that are helping OSS security these days, as boting a few Linux users or a few servers is far less effective than a potential 100 million Windows users.

And if you really think OSS is 'super secure' go look up the vulnerability reports by any credible company that does security for a living, they show more holes in most *nix distribution by a factor of 100 to 1 compared to Windows.

And if you don't trust the 'security' companies, do a Google on the government and university SERVERS hacked in the last year alone. 80% of them were running OpenBSD of all things, and it was quite alarming when even Berkley's own university servers running BSD were hacked in the last year.

The whole 'myth' of security and fanboi mentality of OSes is quite freaky. If you are running a computer and use the Internet, you are equally as safe as the person next to you, no matter what OS they are using. PERIOD. (Heck, I could set outside your house and leach RF signals from your system and get all your data and passwords in a few minutes unless you have lead shielded rooms, and I don’t care what OS or encryption you are using, as I could even pull your video signals between your computer and monitor. Get it yet?)

Quote:
"Up to now, Dell has released the Windows XP flavors before the Ubuntu Linux editions. Going forward, though, Dell will ship all future netbooks on the same OS, Ray divulged, in a meeting with Betanews at the event."

Huh? Which same OS? Did you mean "Dell will release both Windows and Ubuntu versions of all future netbooks simultaneously..."? Is that right? If so, good news! :-) Let's hope they follow suit with their other product lines and in other countries. In the UK, their Ubuntu line-up currently consists of exactly zero products.

Sturgess,

go reformat your hd, you have a worm on your Lista machine! Obviously you don't have a clue on what you just said, is much easier to criticize something that it's completely out of your lead.
most of top 500 supercomputers run on Linux, which is where your bank accounts are saved on.

Have a nice day.

That's right! Ray did say that Dell will release both Windows and Ubuntu versions of future netbooks simultaneously. I'll try to find out whether this policy will apply to all countries.

Whether for Windows or Ubuntu, the availability of netbooks and other PC hardware still varies by country. "For the UK question specifically, we launch Ubuntu and Windows simultaneously on the Mini 10v, and plan to launch it on the Mini 10 in the near future," according to an e-mail from Dell, received by Betanews last night. More on Dell's netbook plans and strategy to follow.