Ubuntu 7.10 arrives Oct. 18, and not long after that Dell will start shipping that version of the Ubuntu Linux desktop on its laptops and desktops.
"We will offer Ubuntu 7.10 preinstalled on our systems soon," said Anne Camden of Dell corporate communications, in an e-mail interview. "For customers who are interested in updating their existing Ubuntu systems, we advise them to visit the Ubuntu 7.10 page on our wiki, which will go live [Oct. 18] after the official launch."
Dell isn't ready yet to give a shipping date. "As with any OS release, Dell needs to take the time to qualify the final code on our systems for optimal interoperability," Camden said.
John Hull, Dell's manager of Linux OS engineering, indicated in a recent Direct2Dell Linux post that the company will be shipping Ubuntu 7.10 soon. "Over the past few months, our focus with Ubuntu 7.10 has revolved primarily around hardware functionality and stability on the systems we plan to support," Hull wrote. "This has involved a great deal of testing, identifying and troubleshooting bugs, and working with the Ubuntu community to get those bugs fixed in the OS.
"In particular, much of our testing has focused on the following areas: graphics (laptop native resolution support, monitor compatibility), wired/wireless networking, suspend/hibernate, laptop webcams, audio, and touchpad mouse scrolling, to name a few. We have also focused on performing OS upgrade testing, to make sure the OS upgrade process is as smooth as possible for Dell customers. As always, our goal is to have Ubuntu 7.10 'just work' when installing it on supported hardware, and I think customers will have a very good experience using the OS on our supported hardware," continued Hull.
Dell has been doing more than just technical work. "The team has also been spending a lot of time talking to customers, reading community and media reviews, sorting through Dell Ideastorm postings, and reviewing the Dell and Ubuntu Linux forums, in order to learn how we can improve our Ubuntu Linux offerings," Hull said. "We have incorporated much of that information into shaping our test plans, bug fixing efforts, and product plans, and we think our customers will be pleased with the progress we have made.
"We'll provide more information soon on those product plans around Ubuntu 7.10, including supported systems, supported hardware features, availability timeframe, and countries. Please stay tuned," concluded Hull.
Dell has also been making direct contributions to Ubuntu 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon. Dell's DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support), a method to make driver updates transparent and easy for Linux desktop users, has been added to Ubuntu 7.10. Matt Domsch, Dell's Linux technology strategist, said in September that "Ubuntu packaging and [the] mkdeb command ?has been accepted into Ubuntu Universe [repository] for Gutsy." Dell is no longer simply selling Ubuntu on its systems; the company is actively working with the community to improve it.
While Dell has yet to release sales numbers on its systems, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth said in an interview that both "Ubuntu and Dell were very happy with Dell's Ubuntu-powered systems sales." In addition, Shuttleworth said, Ubuntu has proved to be "sticky" on Dell systems. By this, he meant that people who buy Dell systems with Ubuntu stick with Ubuntu rather then replace it with Windows or another operating system.
