I’ve been constantly refreshing the the Canadian Dell site and this morning I was pleasantly surprised that the Mini 9 is now available. Awesome! One thing odd I noticed though, no Ubuntu option. WTF?
Just for fun I decided to call up the 1-800 number. On hold for a short while I got connected to and agent over in India (surprise, surprise) I tell him, “I’m on the Canadian website, and I noticed there’s no option for Ubuntu for the Mini 9, can I order the Mini 9 with Ubuntu instead of Windows XP?” After repeating myself and speaking slowly he informed me that I had been connected to the wrong department and forwards my call to another agent.
On hold for a bit longer I get connected to another agent. I ask the same question. He puts me on hold for a while and then comes back with this, “Currently the Mini 9 is not available with Ubuntu” and when I asked him if there were any plans to offer it with Ubuntu pre-installed he said that “this is a brand new launch, no information is available regarding that configuration”. Ok no problem, thanks.
He didn’t seem to want to let me off the line. Smelling a potential sale he gave me his agent code/number to put in when/if I decided to go ahead and purchase it online. This way he would be my “personal contact” and would be available for post purchase support. Um, yeah right. How about just telling me the truth? You get a commission, duh!
So I’m a little disappointed. U.S. customers have the option but Canadian are getting no Ubuntu love. Guess I’ll wait and see if there are any changes in the upcoming days.
Canadian site
U.S. site
It’s the same for us Australians – no Ubuntu option. One of the reps Stuart Buxton even said that “we’re not seeing customer demand (in Australia) for Linux at this time.”
Perhaps that’s what the focus groups say but for me and two of my colleagues the bundling of Ubuntu would have been enough to buy the mini over other netbooks such as the eeepc 901. What’s the big deal dell – it wouldn’t have cost you anything to bundle it.
I love Ubuntu but when I bought an AXIOO PICO, I failed to install it with Ubuntu 8.04.
Well then, I certainly won’t be buying a Dell netbook!
No ubuntu choice is strange by Dell, but I guess it will be available for non US customers soon.. Because Ubuntu suits the Dell mini really good
http://www.dell-mini.com