Despite years of success Dell has fallen on hard times. The company who practically reinvented the way people buy computers has been under-performing and investors are worried. The company has been losing market share and no longer has the edge it once had over competitors like HP and Gateway. There has been much talk about Dell taking steps to make up lost ground by selling computers that use Linux for their operating system. This is something many people are interested in but unfortunately not something that will turn around the company. As a Linux user (on a few but not all of my systems) I know how great it would be for Dell to offer preinstalled Linux computers. Because many Linux distributions have no licensing fees associated with them the cost of the computer could potentially be cheaper and because Linux is extremely stable, generally has modest processing requirements, and has an incredible online support community, Dell users (even though new to Linux) stand to gain much. At least in theory... In practice things could be very different. Potential customers could be very confused (and angry) when they realize that their system is not compatible with Windows, the only operating system they have probably ever used. Also people might be taken aback when they see Dell is seemingly charging a premium for Windows machine. This is of course supposing that Dell could actually lower the price of a Linux system because of it lack of a Windows license. This is possible, over time, but there is a very good chance that the increased support staff and training associated with each additional Linux distribution offered will increase the cost of systems up to or past the price of their Windows counterparts. Right now Dell has their n Series, computers available with no operating system installed. Not a bad idea, because it avoids licensing fees and gets around the OS support issue, but this is not a permanent solution to the Linux question and leaves support and compatibility issues up to the end user. What it comes down to is a similar issue that got Dell into this mess in the first place. As the price of the average computer system they sell drops, Dell is less able to profit from that sale. One reason is due to shipping- as prices slip the percentage of the total purchase that shipping takes up rises. This means that Dell's lack of retail outlets, once a strength is now a major weakness. The same goes for the operating system because as the price of the total computer drops the software becomes relatively more expensive. A side point to this is that the company already operates on slim margins (and with tough price competition) so the inability to profit from the operating system will also hurt. If this was all not enough, the addition of Linux could be even more of a problem because it would present an option besides Vista, something that many people once saw as being a major boon to computer manufacturers because of all the systems that would have to be upgraded to run it. So while offering desktop Linux preinstalled on a system would definitely win the support of the tech-savvy and computer enthusiasts it is not a solution to Dell's woes. It is a great way to draw attention away from other problems and it is something that has to be considered in the future, but now is not the time as it is something that would only affect a small percentage of consumers and not enough of Dell's core small and medium business buyers.