At the Dell stand at LinuxWorld Expo I asked about Dell's opinion and approach to Linux. According to the guy on the stand, about 20% of the machines that Dell sell include Linux, and most of those are pre-installed.

That's an interesting statistic, but it is tempered somewhat by the fact that the figure is limited to servers, it doesn't cover all machines. As it happens, Dell don't sell a desktop (to my knowledge, at least) with Linux on it, pre-installed or otherwise. Workstations - i.e. more powerful desktops that cost more - yes, desktops, no.

However, they do supply PCs with FreeDOS in the box, and nothing installed on the hard drive. I haven't experienced the same problem mentioned by The Register. In fact, clicking on the link in the article I could quite happily find FreeDOS machines. Not the 510n, but a 515n. Given the speed with which machines are replaced today a minor digit change doesn't surprise me.