Dell community is puching hard to have the choice between Window and Linux when setting up a new PC.

more here via Digg

Dell offer Linux already, but it's not across the board   http://www.dell.com/linux

and they'll refuse to sell it to business users

(i'll try and find that link...) 

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40472

That's because they try and sell you a RedHat preinstall ... I reckon it would have something to do with a) choice of system and b) redistribution agreement

Just got my laptop from dell and installed Ubuntu, and I can say that driver support definitely isn't an issue in the debate.

I'd just buy whatever is cheapest, with great hardware, and install Linux myself. Wasn't there something about the Linux laptops costing the same? even though they didn't have Vista on them?

I heard that they were cheaper, but that the difference might be explainable by small differences in hardware, although that was itself possibly because Linux wouldn't need as powerful hardware (e.g. graphics chipset) to do the same thing.

There was also one where the hardware was identical but the Linux version was cheaper by about the cost of a Windows license, it sounds as though they're doing it fairly