It's official: Dell and Ubuntu get cozy

Dell and Canonical have made it official -- the PC-making behemoth will install the No. 1 desktop distro, Ubuntu, on select models. The full interview on video with Mr. Ubuntu, Mark Shuttleworth, is on the Direct2Dell site, which recently asked users what they wanted in their next Dell (most said Linux, and most of those said Ubuntu). But if you don't want to watch the video and would rather read it, go to Ed Burnette's ZDNet blog.

Here's one question and answer:

How did this relationship between Canonical and Dell come about?

I think both organizations have been eyeballing each other for some time. Ubuntu has grown very rapidly as a desktop platform, and many of our users are running Ubuntu on Dell computers. On the Dell side, I think folks have noticed they were hearing about Ubuntu more and more. Michael Dell picked up on the trend of adoption. So, over the last couple years we've slowly been engaging. With the results of the Dell IdeaStorm there was sufficient critical mass for the idea, effectively, to take another step and turn some of those discussions into a project. The team has been working fast and furiously on that for the last couple months.