Dell announced the availability of Ubuntu 7.10 on their consumer Linux desktops and laptops in the US as well as out-of-the-box DVD playback today through their Direct2Dell blog. Although Ubuntu 7.10 has been available since October, Dell was still testing the new release until now. In addition to just putting the existing Ubuntu 7.10 code on their computers, Dell has made a few improvements to make the out-of-the-box experience better. New Dell computers will ship with Flash Player pre-installed and, more importantly, new dell computers will also be able to play DVDs out-of-the-box with LinDVD. Ubuntu 7.10 will also be available on some models in other countries this week.

It is good to see that Dell is not just installing the default Ubuntu distribution, but they are showing significant commitment to open-source software by adding features to improve the user experience, even if they are relatively small changes. Hopefully, the Dell and Ubuntu people will continue to work together and get all of the commercial media codecs installed so that Mossberg and other technology reviewers can’t complain about media playback anymore.

Related posts:

1. Would An Ubuntu PC From Canonical Make Sense? Just a few days ago, the news appeared that there...
2. Eee PC, gPC, and Dell in Terms of Spreading Linux This year Asus, Everex, and Dell have all introduced Linux-powered...
3. A Review of Ubuntu on the Dell XPS M1530 As I have written about before, I recently purchased an...
4. Dell will sell PCs with SLED pre-installed in China Novell, the company behind SUSE Linux, has announced that Dell...
5. Why Buy Dell Over System 76 Or ZaReason Those of us in the market today for a Linux...