Commentary: Will Dell's new Linux desktops start a gray-market trend?

This is the 5th article in the last two days relating to the Dell Linux PC. Dell is not offering this Linux PC as two of the 5 articles point out. This is just a Dell customer who is purchasing a lot of machines and reselling them with a version of Linux (and not even a good version). Dell does not have the backbone to "officially" offer a Linux PC. I hope these other news sources update their articles to reflect Dell's real position on Linux on the desktop because Dell wants no part of it. It wouldn't surprise me if when you buy one of these "resold" machines not only will you be paying the Lindows tax but you probably had to pay the Windows tax as well. After all, they don't approve of Linux and they can't be selling the customer a naked PC now can they?

Dell is selling this guys an OS less system, and they are installing Linspire.

I do like the latest article though saying that the italian store has recieved 200,000 hits in the past 24 hours.

I would be willing to bet if that trend continues if Dell starts installing Linux itself. Dell says it's not profitable enough, if it becomes profitable Dell will have no choice.

But what these companies don't get is that I would like to buy a computer from them. I do not however want to buy an OS from them and I do not want software support. I don't need their software support. Besides, try and get Windows help from Dell. How can that not be profitable? All they have to do is sell me a computer without an OS so I can install my preferred OS, the way I want it installed. It might be Fedora Core 2, it might be Mandrake 10, it might be Slackware 10, it might be Gentoo, it might be Debian, etc. I do not want *indows. I don't want to pay the *indows tax and contrary to popular belief it's not because I am a cheapskate.

I want to be able to purchase any PC in your line with no OS and I'll be happy. How can that not be profitable and pain free? It's because Microsoft won't let them sell a computer that way. They think that any computer sold without an operating system will end up with a warez copy of Windows. Didn't they even get some sort of law passed? Well boo hoo. I don't want a stinking copy of Windows. I wouldn't install it if you paid me. Oh well, I'll just continue to build my own machines, even if I have to pay more than what I could get a prebuilt machine for with Windows installed.

Actually, if you re-read the original articles, Dell does the install and the machine ships directly from the Dell plant in Ireland to the customer. Questar is a Dell re-seller, and they develop the image that is loaded on to the hard-drive. Questar worked in partnership with Linspire to provide the Italian and English versions of the OS and Software shipping on the machine

It does ship directly from the Dell factory on behalf of their partner Questar, loaded with software from Questar's partner linspire.