I’m stunned, to say the least. I just read an article over at DesktopLinux.com that describes one of Michael Dell’s (as in, Dell Computer’s CEO and founder) personal workstations. It is a Dell Precicion M90 running Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (apparently he’s been keeping up with the betas).

To be precise, Mr. Dell, in addition to running the latest version of Ubuntu, which is still scheduled for final release on April 19, is also running the VMware Workstation 6 Beta, OpenOffice.org 2.2, Automatix2, Firefox 2.0.0.3, and Evolution Groupware 2.10.

He also has four other high-powered systems at home running Windows but the fact that he’s using Automatix2 along with the pre-release version of Feisty (which is due out today) leads me to believe that he’s spent a considerable time using it. Why? Two reasons:

1) Automatix2 doesn’t come with Feisty. He would have had to do some fooling around on the web to find and install it (even if it was only a cursory trip to the Ubuntu forums or the Ubuntu Guide).
2) Feisty hasn’t been “officially” released yet. You’d have to have a real interest and be “into” Ubuntu to even know about Feisty before today (I’m sure the major computer news outlets will be blasting it).

This is very good news indeed. Dell has promised to ship consumer laptops and workstations running Linux some day “soon”. When that happens I’ll definitely start recommending Dell to my friends and coworkers. I’m dying to see how pre-loaded Linux systems from such a big vendor will have on the market (and Microsofties). It will certainly make it harder for people to say, “Linux isn’t ready for the desktop”.