http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/12/19/38924.aspx
Now that we have shared that Ubuntu 7.10
is available for sale on select Dell systems, I'd like to take the
opportunity to give an update on what customers can expect with this
offering. Most of the Ubuntu 7.04 technical details are still valid for
this release, but there are a number of changes that I'd like to point
out:
- On every system purchased pre-installed with Ubuntu 7.10, we are
now providing Corel's LinDVD DVD playback software by default. This
application will allow customers to *legally* play encrypted DVD movies
on their desktop or laptop. Note that this is a closed-source,
proprietary application, and is not included on the Ubuntu 7.10 OS
media.
- Compiz Fusion
desktop effects are enabled by default on all systems sold with Ubuntu
7.10. We chose to only turn on the effects that Ubuntu 7.10 enables by
default, but customers can easily configure additional effects. Here's a YouTube clip that shows off some of the effects. And if you're interested, the Compiz Fusion wiki maintains a list of available plug-ins.
- Based on customer feedback, as well as to enable desktop effects,
we are now installing and enabling the NVIDIA 3-D OpenGL driver by
default on systems purchased with NVIDIA video cards.
- We are now placing a DVD restore ISO image
on the user's desktop. By burning this ISO to a disc and then booting
to it, customers can restore their operating system to the exact state
in which they received it. This now gives customers a second option to
restore their OS, in addition to the reinstallation partition already
located on the hard drive.
- The Adobe Flash player is installed by default (so you can
watch Direct2Dell vlogs in their native state, plus a whole lot more).
- We have added support for several new hardware peripherals. These include the following:
- Integrated laptop webcams w/ digital microphone
- NVIDIA video cards on laptops, including suspend/hibernate support
- Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 on the Inspiron 530
- Support for the Dell 1720 and 1720dn printers
- Dell's DKMS utility can now be installed from the Ubuntu Universe repository
- Based on customer feedback, we now have an apt repository available for updating BIOSes from Ubuntu
Several key items have not changed:
- We continue to work with our hardware vendors to push Linux support
for the devices we sell upstream. We have made good progress in this
area, and our customers should really start to see a payoff from those
efforts over the next year.
- As always, we want whatever Linux distribution you use (be it Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, etc.) to "just work" on all of our hardware.
- Our wiki page on our linux.dell.com
website continues to give technical details of the supported systems,
information on the device drivers used for system peripherals, details
of our Ubuntu factory-installation, and information on the problems we
found during our testing, with their fixes/workarounds. Please
bookmark it and refer to it first for any problems or questions.
I did see some Direct2Dell comments from people like jmxz, Mark W. Tomlinson, usr and Lem asking about how to upgrade their Dell systems with Linux to Ubuntu 7.10. Easiest way is through the Update Manager in 7.04. Here's a walkthrough from Canonical on the process. Thanks for supporting the cause!
In this vlog, Lionel talks to two of the engineers on my team, Amit
Bhutani and Jose De la Rosa, about what we've been doing to get systems
ready for this, a demo of Gusty Gibbon's new features, and more.
Update:
Several people have been asking about the reinstallation DVD ISO's
mentioned in the post. We have made these available for download on the
wiki.
These ISO's duplicate a factory-installed Ubuntu 7.10 image from Dell
for those systems listed. They have not been tested on any systems
other than those listed, so they may or may not work well on other
systems. Note that these ISO images
DO NOT CONTAIN LinDVD,
as LinDVD is a non-free application that is included in the cost of a
system purchased with our Ubuntu 7.10 factory-installation. We'll make
information available on how this application can be purchased after
the holidays.
