Technical Details Regarding Dell and Ubuntu

Dell has posted important information on their blog regarding what you can and cannot expect to happen with their pre-installed Ubuntu. Not surprisingly, not much will be altered, it will simply be a fresh install of Ubuntu.

For hardware options not offered with this release, we are working with the vendors of those devices to improve the maturity and stability of their associated Linux drivers. While this may not happen overnight, we do expect to have a broader range of hardware support with Linux over time.

At this time, we are not including any support for proprietary audio or video codecs that are not already distributed with Ubuntu 7.04. These include MPEG 1/2/3/4, WMA, WMV, DVD, Quicktime, etc. We are evaluating options for providing

If it takes Dell to push the better driver movement, then so be it. This is a good thing. However, I am not sure how complete Linux noobies are going to enjoy a fresh Ubuntu system that does not even support DVD or music playback. This of course is standard of Ubuntu installations, but it’s going to be a chore for those who are trying out Ubuntu simply because they “heard it was great.”

The way things are going, the only consumers who will buy the Ubuntu systems are those who could easily install it themselves.

Source: Direct2Dell