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Several weeks ago, rumors began swirling about Dell's potential plan to begin offering its customers a choice between Windows or Linux operating system for PCs and notebooks.

The ruckus all started as a result of discussion on Dell’s IdeaStorm suggestion site, where the community outcry for a pre-installed Linux distribution is currently destroying all other topics in terms of popularity and user comments. Both enterprise customers and home consumers continue to express disappointment with Windows Vista, the latest OS offering from Microsoft.

Their customers have been saying they want a Linux option on their Dells, and apparently Dell has listened. Dell has now confirmed its intent to provide Linux-based packages. Matt Domsch, a Linux Software Architect, had this to say on Dell’s blog:

Your feedback on Dell IdeaStorm has been astounding.  Thank you!  We hear your requests for desktops and notebooks with Linux.  We’re crafting product offerings in response, but we’d like a little more direct feedback from you: your preferences, your desires. 

We recognize some people prefer notebooks over desktops, high-end models over value models, your favorite Linux distribution, telephone-based support over community-based support, and so on.  We can’t offer everything (all systems, all distributions, all support options), so we’ve crafted a survey (www.dell.com/linuxsurvey) to let you help us prioritize what we should deliver for you.

According to the survey, there are five particular commercial and community supported Linux distributions that Dell is looking at potentially providing:

·    Novell/SuSE Linux Desktop
·    Red Hat Enterprise Desktop
·    Fedora
·    OpenSUSE
·    Ubuntu

The survey will close on March 23rd, which is a little over a week away, so Linux supporters would be well served to surf on over to the site and cast their votes as quickly as possible.

 As for me, I'm pulling for Ubuntu.