I was on my way to buy an XPS 410 with Ubuntu, but during the customization process I noticed a few things that made me slam on the brakes.

First, it is June 11th today but the Dell website estimated the shipping date of my system to be July 5th. Huh? Why is there such a long wait just for the system to be shipped, let alone delivered? I don't think it's practical to expect people to wait almost a month for their new PC to be shipped, and then wait an additional 3-5 days for the delivery. I should add that when I first tried to custom build an XPS with Ubuntu on June 1st, the expected shipping date was July 20th! So, the shipping delay has decreased but is still unsatisfactory.

Second, I noticed that the hardware components for the Linux PCs are inferior to what's available for Windows. For example, when you customize a Windows PC your hard drive choices are:

250/320/500 GB SATA
160/250/320 GB DataSafe
500/640/1000 GB RAID 0

However, with Linux your only choice is the SATA option.

With Windows your graphics card choices are:

256 MB GeForce 7300LE
256 MB Radeon X1300
256 MB GeForce 8600 GTS
768 MB GeForce 8800 GTX

However, with Linux your only choice is the 7300LE.

Lastly, with Windows you can choose from the following sound cards:

Integrated 7.1 Channel audio
Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme

If you want an Ubuntu PC, your only choice is the 7.1 Channel. As a gaming enthusiast, I am less than enthused with being forced to accept these multimedia components for sound and video. As a result, I don't think I will buy a Linux PC from Dell until they offer the same range of components and options that they do for XP/Vista. Unless someone else has an alternative or other suggestion?

To give Dell the benefit of the doubt, they only sell what they know they can support.

Conspiracy theory: They are setting it up to fail. (Perhaps with help from Redmond)

Reality? Who knows.

Read some other recent threads on this same issue.

They are not setting it to fail.

They are genuinely trying.

The reasons for those missing parts?

HDDs: The XPS's RAID functions might not have been properly implemented, possibly being more win-raid if that exists, and the "Data safe" is most likely more win crap.

Video cards: Easy. Radeons have crap drivers, and the new nVIDIA cards may not have been thoroughly tested.

Sound cards: The x-fi has no linux drivers. I'm not sure why they won't give you the soundblaster, though.

This is why I have contradicted, or "insulted" (per lack of words) dell's Ubuntu option, i think it's great to offer linux, but they are not making it worthwhile...

Don't you think that Dell then has the responsibility to the consumer to find and provide hardware components that do run on Linux, rather than just giving us one measly choice for sound and video cards?

i donno ... probably linux users are very popular in demanding a one to one return in kinds or dollars ... they are too radical maybe ... they impose fear ...


ok , seriously ...


i think dell in in the right path ... hope that they continue in doing that long enough ...


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There is always system76.com

I know it's not very nice of them to strand linux users like that, but most of the time they do have OEM contracts that ship hundreds of thousands of components and it's very hard for them to order from someone else, just for a small part of the market.

If you don't like it, buy your own and add it in. I'm pretty sure it doesn't void your warranty, and it's mostly cheaper.

I kind of understand that. When they build a system for you they want to know it will work. Since the ubuntu boxes will only make up a very small part of their sells, they won't bother testing dozens of components. They will provide a failsafe choice for now and go from there.
I wouldn't be too hard on them.

+ There is not much you can do with a high end graphics card on a linux box - and if you know how to install windows over it and reinstall grub for dual boot - you're not the target audience.
And soundblaster sucks in so many ways... official driver support (sucks even for windows) - the sound quality will be on par with the sound on board... the only thing that is good is that it's farther away from the processors...
EAX - don't make me laugh.

You're lucky not to have the choice. Go for a semi-pro grade audio card like the m-audio audiophile. I think they're even cheaper.

most people who are that particular about the made and model version and whatever numbering of sound and video cards wont be using linux as their "fail-safe-drop-back-comfort" use of computers anyway ...

so i think ubuntu on dell shouldnt be of much problems ...


[BTW ::] this sort of like "proofing" that linux is actually way more friendly than windows ... almost bordering on like somekind of mac ...


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