A Billionaire, and he's too cheap to buy Windows.

albundy says: If most games were to be supported on linux tomorrow, I'd switch in a heartbeat...actually thats all thats holding me back. we are all unfortunately handcuffed to ms's directx api, now with double the cuffs thanks to dx10 and vista!

DrCR says: Actually an offical MS DX10 port and application layer to *nix would be a great way for them to get some money out of *nixers....

Wine, (the application layer that allows you to run Windows apps on Linux, etc), is currently working on improving DirectX support. They have some DirectX 9 features now, with more being worked on. There have also been a discussion of starting a DirectX 10 framework.

At the moment, you can run some DirectX games reasonably well.

Here's what I and my cousin can run on our Linux boxes...

* Act of War: Direct Action (graphical issues with some units and invisible mouse cursor problem when playing).
* Jedi Knight: Jedi OutCast
* Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
* Half Life 1 and 2
* CounterStrike: Source
* ALL Command & Conquer RTS games. Including the demo of “C&C3: Tiberium Wars”
* Battlefield 1942 (Sound is crap, disable sound)
* Battlefield 2142
* Call of Duty
* Call of Duty 2 (Multiplayer works, single does not.)
* Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (works, but graphical issues)
* Doom 3 (There’s also native Linux version)
* Quake IV (There’s also native Linux version)
* Unreal, Unreal II, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2003, and Unreal Tournament 2004.
* Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate, and Dawn of War (including expanision discs)
* Warhammer: Mark of Chaos
* Warcraft II, III, and World of Warcraft.
* Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds
* Need for Speed 4 High Stakes (The only NFS that actually worked well for me).

Unable to get working at this time:
* FEAR
* Star Wars: Republic Commando
* Ghost Recon

Here's how ver 0.9.33 compares to WinXP
http://wiki.winehq.org/BenchMark-0.9.33

The current release is Wine 0.9.35

As Wine progresses on, you'll see more and more DirectX features get supported and improved.

Bare in mind, these folks are NOT blindly taking MS's code, otherwise MS will come down on them like a ton of bricks! (Ok, a ton of lawyers!). They have to rewrite their own code. And as a result, sometimes, apps don't appear to behave right.

Another issue, is those online games using anti-cheat solutions. Some solutions will automatically band or reject you because you aren't using a Windows box, and they detect something else.

Anyway, this bit about Dell's boss just reinforces the notion that Dell is probably gonna be using Ubuntu. (assuming Canonical, the company responsible for support, has enough resources to handle such a contract).

I prefer that Dell just sell systems without an OS, but have a community page that has info (guides) on how to properly set up an OS to best work on a Dell system.

I use Arch Linux (not a simple solution for beginner) and I've managed to get all the power saving features working on my ThinkPad and cousin's Dell notebook.

I've set it up such that the CPU always goes to lowest speed until needed.

I made it so that "Suspend to RAM" is backed up by "Suspend to Disk".

ie: So if you enter "Suspend to RAM", and you accidently pull the power plug or remove the battery, you can resume from "Suspend to Disk" automatically.

I gained about 17 minutes extra of battery life compared to using Windows.

Actually, Microsoft DOES run Linux.

Check their "Open Source Lab". This is where they have set up A LOT of rackmount systems for the sole purpose of studying Linux, BSDs, even Solaris, and tracking what is going on with distros. (They want to keep and eye on their foes).

Why is this news? Who cares!

Good to hear. I think that for us hardware enthusiasts, to go all-Linux (as opposed to dual-booting) makes more sense for laptops than it does for desktops, since most of us wouldn't be gaming on the former anyway. I wouldn't want to waste GPU power idling on the Linux desktop all the time. See, even a greater proportion of notebooks have integrated graphics--lowly Intel G at that--than do average towers. Better yet, I think Linux is perfect for the UMPC/MID that needs a serious cost reduction (and that doesn't need high-spec hardware or require the functionality that would facilitate).

Interesting that he also use Skype and yet, despite requests it wasnt included in the poll about IM clients used by TR members...

oh well, now Bill Gates must admit he too uses *nix on any of his computers.
And we will see if temperature in hell fall well-below 0° C.

I bet Dell released this info just to bitch-slap M$ and Billy-boy. Just because he can. :)

With XP (OEM) being slidelined at the end of the year I can see this being quite a smart business move. Still, do you think he 'really' uses it?