Also, I thought Dell were starting to offer no-OS machines? Maybe that's just on their servers.
Technically, Dell's license with MS doesn't allow Dell to offer no-OS machines. Brilliantly, in markets where this matters Dell will sell you a machine with FreeDOS installed.
Dell don't sell no-OS machines to the retail trade. They are simply on too low margins to deal with the inevitable support calls. They are happy to see this high-cost business go elsewhere.
Hopefully the day will come when Dell will see profit rather than cost in offering a Linux distribution as a operating system choice across their retail desktop range. To Dell's credit, they have at least put their toe in the Linux desktop market, even if they then found sales too disappointing to continue.
Yeah this is their server models. Its actually the default option - they come with no OS unless otherwise stated.
But no hope for the laptops/desktops going this way.
Not quite right. Dell will ship FreeDOS desktops and laptops in their sales programmes aimed at corporates and schools. If fact, they'll go further and install any image you supply.
Under these programmes tech support is available for Windows images on all platforms and Red Hat Linux images on most platforms. Images for other OSs or other platforms will be installed but are not supported (that's right, there's no tech support for FreeDOS).
What this means for you and me is that Dell tests Red Hat Linux on some of its desktop models. If you can work out whcih these are then you can but a Dell machine knowing that at least one Linux distribution will run on it and that the fixes for making RHL run on the machine are documented on the Dell website. Those fixes usually appear promptly in RHL releases and in the program source code.
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