14 DAY TRIAL // Dell Inc. has recently started gaining some popularity as a company very fond of the Linux operating systems. The story started with Dell's nice initiative of answering the users who demanded some Linux-based products on IdeaStorm forum. At that time, Dell announced the four Ubuntu-based systems which addressed the open source fans.
Soon after that, Dell was to add two other systems to this catchy offer and then announced they're trying to develop a strategy for distributing them outside the United Stated too. After such offer, it seems that the customers got very excited with Dell's Linux-based products as they've been asking for more. Even Mark Shuttleworth was saying in one of his keynotes at the first UbuntuLive conference, which took place in Portland, Oregon, that Dell should continue what they've started and release even more computers based on Linux.
However, according to Dell, this task is not as easy as it seems. According to some sources, it seems that Dell confronts some technical problems when it comes to putting a Linux distro on a notebook or desktop, more exactly the lack of proper Linux drivers for the hardware Dell places inside a computer. Amit Bhutani with Dell said at the UbuntuLive conference that Dell has several "areas of investigation" when it comes to Linux and he pointed to the Nvidia 2D and 3D drivers which, according to him, are quite a "challenge in platform enablement".
However, if we are to think about some ATI Linux drivers, these ones are quite far from materializing. Dell claims that they would need a much better support for them in many areas such the audio/video codecs, ATI video cards, printers, wireless networking, TV tuners and remotes, LCD TVs or 3D effects. But we all know Dell's wish is not something to be accomplished overnight, as Dell's officials themselves admitted.