Dell about to sell Ubuntu PCs in China

[Dry Lips]

Canonical and Dell are teaming up to sell computers with Ubuntu preinstalled at stores in China. The program, which could help improve the mainstream visibility of the Linux-based operating system, will span 220 retail locations.

read more:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/n...s-in-china.ars

[kaldor]

While I think this is a great, I have a feeling a lot of people will just install a pirated Windows XP.

[cgroza]

While I think this is a great, I have a feeling a lot of people will just install a pirated Windows XP.

I wonder how long they can stay on that old dinosaur...

[F.G.]

That's really interesting.

While piracy is widespread in china I can't help thinking that if that was the intention, the people buying these laptops would either just buy a laptop with pirated XP preinstalled (which i have no doubt is commonplace) or without an OS and not bother with Ubuntu.

[Mikeb85]

Hopefully they'll be successful. I think half the battle for Linux is getting people to use it, most people are afraid to install an OS on their own computer, never mind a different one than they bought it with. If people can use Ubuntu in the store, and know that it will work when they take it home, that's 95% of the battle right there...

[sffvba[e0rt]

Good news.


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[kaldor]

Also, what about the large number of websites in China that were designed specifically for IE6 without following any sort of standards? I'd assume modern browsers would have a lot of trouble in some situations.

[F.G.]

I spent about six months in china a few years ago, working in a variety of capacities one of which included researching chinese website for the redesign of my employers website. I pretty much exclusively used firefox without many problems. I've heard about the IE thing, but i never found it an issue.

[krapp]

[vasa1]

Hopefully they'll be successful. I think half the battle for Linux is getting people to use it, most people are afraid to install an OS on their own computer, never mind a different one than they bought it with. If people can use Ubuntu in the store, and know that it will work when they take it home, that's 95% of the battle right there...

I would hope so too. It makes a big difference having a store of a big brand selling computers running Ubuntu. Not to exaggerate but I haven't physically met a single person using Linux. It would be wonderfully reassuring for newbies to know that there's some physical place one could go to to get help. (Note: this is not to downplay the role of this forum by any means!)

Re. some of the other comments.
Vendors near where I stay have moved onto pirated Win 7 (pre-SP1) but do load pirated Win XP if the buyer insists.