14 DAY TRIAL // Even though they did not say exactly when, Dell said they'll soon be selling pre-loaded Linux systems to China. Kevin Kettler, Dell CTO mentioned in his keynote speech at this year's LinuxWorld convention that the Linux distribution which would be shipped with the machines will be Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop(SLED) this time, and not Ubuntu as it happened in the US, and recently in Europe too.
However, it seems that these systems will be actually ready to hit the stores sometime later in this year's forth quarter. According to Dell, the machines will ship with Novell's SLED 10 SP1 and a suite of useful software such as OpenOffice 2.2, Firefox 2.0 and Evolution 2.6 e-mail client. Dell also said it intends to offer full support for the hardware as well as for the operating system.
Ketller has also said in his speech a few words about the virtualization and the desktop and mentioned he has used Xen on top of the Ubuntu and Novell's SLED on their laptops in order to bring another proof about how powerful a combination between virtualization and Linux desktop can be.
Justin Steinman, director of marketing for Linux and open platform solutions with Novell, said in an interview for DesktopLinux.com:
""We've said SLED is ready to replace Windows desktop for the general population of business users and the Lenovo and Dell deals show that we've been going down the right path ?"
Novell has recently closed a deal with Lenovo PC manufacturer according to which they will be releasing Novell's Linux based ThinkPad mobile workstation. Called ThinkPad T60p, the device is based on Intel's Centrino Duo technology and runs SUSE's Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 OS. This product is also the first of its kind to bring Lenovo Help Center assistance to the Linux customers, offering support for the Lenovo ThinkVantage Technologies, drivers, basic Linux configuration and hardware issues. Support for the core operating system and other related issues will be provided by Novell.