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Dell boasts of selling “tens of millions of dollars’ worth” of Ubuntu laptops – but don’t go expecting other distros any time soon.
Dell sells a bigly amount of Linux laptops, Mir looks to hit v1.0 in 2017, Librecore is launched and Wine 2.0 ushers in a new age of releases.
In a recent video interview with Bryan Lunduke (which can be watched at https://youtu. be/9EQfu4Glfhs), Barton George, senior principal engineer, Office of the CTO at Dell, outlined the company’s commitment to selling laptops with Linux preinstalled. However, much like Henry Ford’s jokey colour options for the Model T, it appears that for the foreseeable future, you can choose any distro you like – as long as it’s Ubuntu.
Dell’s enthusiasm for machines with Linux pre-loaded makes sense, with George’s assertion that “from an initial investment of $40,000 it has returned, over the four years, tens of millions [of dollars]”, though he wouldn’t be drawn on exact sales numbers.
The interview coincides with the launch of the Dell Precision 3520, a mobile workstation aimed at developers that can come with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS ready installed. It features a 15-inch display, and as with other Dell laptops, comes in a range of hardware configurations. At CES 2017 in Las Vegas, Dell unveiled the Precision 5720, too, a powerful all-in-one PC that can also come with Ubuntu preinstalled.
George also hinted at more Linux laptops, including the 5520, a “precision workstation”, which is available to buy now, as well as “two big ones coming up… if you thought the 5520 was big and beefy… we’ve got the 7720 and 7520, and those are really über-powerful”.
This will join the already-impressive list of Dell workstations that can be bought online with Ubuntu preinstalled, such as the Precision 15 3000 series. But what if you’re not a fan of Ubuntu? While Dell does sell servers certified for a range of distros, including SUSE and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you’ll only find Canonical’s offering on Dell’s desktops. According to George, “We have no plans in the foreseeable future to ship other distros on our hardware… To try and spread our [small team] across more distros would do more harm than it would good.” If you want another distro on your Dell machine, you can still choose to have it shipped without an OS, though George was hopeful that Dell would continue to push fixes and drivers to make sure other distros were supported. At least Dell is now offering Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, which is supported until 2021.
We talked to Barton George ourselves in LXF220, and he promised us that, “[Dell’s] overall goal is to continue to provide a first-class Linuxbased developer laptop.” When asked by Lunduke why Dell continues to offer Linux laptops when its competitors, such as Asus and Acer, have stopped after brief dalliances, George remarked that, “We’ve been doing it for a long time, so it’s not just that we started with Project Sputnik,” which we discuss in LXF220. George continues ,“The difference with Sputnik is taking Linux and putting it on a highend laptop, which is something that was a new position to folks here.” We’ve always been big supporters of Dell’s decision to put Linux on its powerful workstation laptops, rather than relegate it to its cheaper, and less powerful, machines, like so many of its competitors, and it’s good to see that decision pay off with such impressive sales. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to walk into a high street shop and buy a Linux-toting Dell machine any time soon, but to see the wide range of Ubuntupowered devices sold by Dell, head over to its website at www.dell.co.uk and choose Ubuntu as the OS. Perhaps the best news is that by choosing Ubuntu on applicable laptops, it cuts the price by around £110, because you’re no longer buying a Windows 10 licence as well. A pretty nice trade-off if you ask us.
“Choosing Ubuntu on a laptop cuts the price by around £110, as you’re not buying Windows 10.”