With the release of 7.10, many have been wondering if Dell will ship 7.10. Well, the answer to that question has been answered, according to a DesktopLinux story. Anne Camden of Dell corporate communications said:
We will offer Ubuntu 7.10 preinstalled on our systems soon
John Hull, who was recently interviewed by Lxer, has said most of the work has focused on hardware support, something he elaborated on in a Direct2Dell blog post.
Dell has done work directly in Ubuntu, by having Dell’s Dynamic Kernel Module Support or DKMS, which allows easy updating of drivers, packaged and added to Universe (see this Direct2Dell blog post for more information).
Mark Shuttleworth has also stated that Ubuntu and Dell were very happy with Dell’s Ubuntu-powered systems sales although Dell has yet to release any sales numbers. He also stated that those buying Ubuntu Dells were mostly keeping Ubuntu on those systems, a fact that will cheer many Ubuntu fans’ hearts and put paid to the rumours that Linux machines often end up with pirated copies of Windows on them.