[Redcloak]

As a Linux user, pre-installing a particular distro isn't my idea of support anyway. All I really care about is that they provide Linux drivers for the hardware. (And as far as I can tell, Dell already does this.)

I'd much rather be left to choose the distro myself. (Once you've had Slack, you can never go back!) Hardware support is the traditional bugaboo during an installation. If they could help to relieve that headache, then there would be a lot of happy penguin campers out there.

(By the by, my workplace is a all-Dell shop. We use their WinXP boxes and a lot of older Win2k boxes. We're very happy with Dell.)

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Excellent points - the more I think about it the more I wonder if this is not so much a product/engineering question as much as it is a marketing/advertising one. A national advertising campaign by Dell promoting Linux would be a real shot across MS's bow and could conceivably accelerate the momentum towards linux which is already occurring.

On the other hand if Dell relegates their linux products to page 53 of their catalogs and if you ask for linux on the phone you are met with a "Huh?" then this is not going to make much of a difference if they "support" linux.

[rzeznikj at stout]

(Once you've had Slack, you can never go back!)

I agree--and thus my personal preference is toward Slack. Then again, I have my 12 yr old brother using my computer, so I kinda have to keep my Suse system in place.