The public spoke and said, “We want a Linux desktop,” and Dell listened.
On Feb. 23, the company announced that, as a result of “the communitys interest in open-source solutions like Linux and OpenOffice… we are working with Novell to certify our corporate client products for Linux…”
This will include “our OptiPlex desktops, Latitude notebooks and Dell Precision workstations. This is another step towards ensuring that our customers have a good experience with Linux on our systems,” the company continued.
Thus, we can soon expect to see Novells SLED 10 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) as an option on Dells business desktop lines.
This is no real surprise, since Novell and Dell have been slowly working together on Linux desktop projects.
For example, the two have been working together on device drivers.
On the consumer side, Dell reported, “We dont want to pick one distribution and alienate users with a preference for another.
“We want users to have the opportunity to help define the market for Linux on desktop and notebook systems. In addition to working with Novell, we are also working with other distributors and evaluating the possibility of additional certifications across our product line.”