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Ubuntu 9.04 Now Available on Dell Computers

Get in with the Studio XPS 13, Inspiron 15 or the Inspiron 537

Oct 15, 2009 08:03 GMT  ·  By
"Designed for Ubuntu" sticker
   "Designed for Ubuntu" sticker

Until now, Dell has been shipping Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) with its Linux computers and, frankly, this operating system is more than a year and a half old. Well, thanks to the Dell fanboys and girls who submitted requests to the IdeaStorm project, the computer manufacturer decided to honor its customers' requests and now you can get your Dell computer with a custom version of Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope).

If you plan to buy one of Dell's Studio XPS 13, Inspiron 15 or Inspiron 537 machines you will receive a copy of Ubuntu 9.04 preinstalled and ready for use. Unfortunately, the Mini 10 and 10v netbooks will not benefit from this upgrade, so they will be only available with Ubuntu 8.04 or, for the Mini 10v, with the special Ubuntu-based Moblin OS that was announced during the Intel Developer Forum.

Don't think that Dell just installed an off the shelf copy of Ubuntu 9.04 on its computers; its version has quite a few OEM enhancements added to it. This is what you will get:

· Cyberlink PowerDVD replaces LinDVD as the default DVD player. Also, the Fluendo MP3, WMA and WMV codecs are included and they will work with almost all media players. · A custom recovery method is provided should you decide to restore the operating system to the state it was when it was shipped. This function is accessible either from the GRUB menu or a DVD/USB key. · The creation of the recovery disks is possible directly from the installed OS, with the aid of the new Recovery Media Creator. This new utility is able to make recovery DVDs or USB drives, or just provide you with the ISO file. If you cannot use it, the recovery disk images are also available on Dell's support website. · GRUB 2 is now used, instead of the old GRUB legacy bootloader. Since Dell has been testing this rewrite of GRUB for quite a while, it is pretty confident that the solution is ready for general use and it will not cause any problems. · Wireless devices can still pose problems for Linux because of the lackluster driver availability. To mitigate this, Ubuntu 9.04 natively supports all currently shipping Intel and Dell wireless cards.

Review image
Ubuntu 9.04 OEM Recovery - image courtesy of Dell
The downside of this customized Ubuntu 9.04 offering is that it isn't available for native 64-bit platforms. Dell is studying the possibility of providing one, but the main drawback it is facing is the lack of a stable Adobe Flash browser plug-in. Although a beta version and several other alternatives exist, the level of functionality and stability that they provide isn't high enough for inclusion into a marketed product. However, Dell is working with Adobe to provide a viable solution for supporting Adobe Flash on 64-bit systems.