Dell Shows Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Some Love

As Canonical prepares to launch Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) in April 2010, there are signs  Dell will show considerable love to the Long Term Support (LTS) release. Here are some preliminary details about Dell’s look at Ubuntu 10.04.

According to Dell’s Direct2Dell web site:

That event, scheduled for November 16 – 20, is a “forum where the Ubuntu Linux Community Developers and System Integrators (like Dell) come together to discuss and hash out the feature roadmap for the next release of Ubuntu Linux.”

No doubt, Dell’s U.S. team took a few lumps in mid-2009 because the company briefly stopped shipping desktop PCs with Ubuntu — due to Dell’s own internal hardware transition schedules. But there are multiple signs of progress between Dell and Canonical:

Next up, Dell is closely studying Ubuntu 10.04, an LTS release that Canonical will support for three years on the desktop and five years on the server.

So far, Dell has shown little interest in Ubuntu servers and has focused mainly on Ubuntu notebooks and netbooks. But I’ll be curious to get an update from Dell following the Ubuntu Developers Summit.

No doubt, some skeptics continue to criticize Dell for failing to offer Ubuntu in a range of countries. Also, some critics complain about Dell failing to pre-load the latest Ubuntu releases.

But where others see setbacks, I see tremendous potential. Dell took a chance on Canonical in mid-2007 with its first Ubuntu preloads. Anecdotal evidence suggests Dell is focusing more and more of its time on Ubuntu — including focusing quite a bit on this week’s Ubuntu Developer’s Summit in Dallas.

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