I wanted to take a real example of systems that Canonical works with OEMs to pre-install and try to explain what does it all mean! So I would like to introduce to you DELL’s Latitude 2120.
The Latitude 2120 is a rubberized netbook that was recently announced at CES. Canonical had been working with DELL to ensure that it would be enabled with Ubuntu 10.10 from launch.
We are listing the Latitude 2120 in our website as “Certified (Pre-install Only)”. This basically means that you can either buy it with Ubuntu 10.10 in the shops (in some regions) or that you can install the 2120 specific ISO provided by DELL, via their support center.
But why not install Ubuntu 10.10 from the Ubuntu.com website? Simply because it won’t work. The Latitude 2120 was released to market on January 2011 while Ubuntu 10.10 was released during October 2010 (hence the name!).
Not all the work done, to support the brand-new hardware packed into this netbook, has had a chance to make it into the Ubuntu mainline. We may need to wait until Ubuntu 11.04 is released for the DELL Latitude 2120 to be fully supported by “stock” Ubuntu. To make sure this happens, we will be testing in advance this and other enabled systems in our certification lab.
Victor Tuson Palau 
Can you give me a definite list of the current available Dell pre-installs in the US Dell store. This particular laptop is not listed as an Ubuntu pre-install in the US store. And the Dell US store only lists one desktop that I can find that has Ubuntu as a pre-install option.
-jef
Sorry Jef, but you will need to ask DELL directly
http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/make/Dell
On Jef’s question – the Dell site and the Ubuntu site seem to be trying to make purchasing a Dell with Ubuntu pre-installed as challenging as possible. Here’s what I mean by that. If you click on the links to Dell US (http://www.dell.com/ubuntu) from the Ubuntu site (http://www.ubuntu.com/dell) you get a Dell page saying “No configurations are valid for the chosen filters.” And if you do a search on Dell’s site for Ubuntu, you get one result, the “Dell Inspiron Mini (1012) Netbook.” But, I found this link posted in a forum: http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/latitude-specialty-laptops
And that actually takes you to some laptops pre-installed with Ubuntu, although the version installed is different in different views – in some places it says 9, other places say 10.
The same is true of Lenovo, and other brands. I’ve been reading every forum, searching all over for weeks, and I’ve only just now discovered that Lenovo does sell laptops without Windows pre-installed, but you’d never know it from searching on their site, again I only found the link because someone posted it in a forum (http://shop.lenovo.com/us/thinkpad-laptops-with-dos.shtml).
The listings of machines that are Ubuntu certified is just as unhelpful since most of them say “pre-installed” only, and yet when you go to that manufacturers web site, it seems Ubuntu is never a pre-installed option. It’s only now, from this post that I’m getting the impression that these manufacturers might have ISOs you can download for their machines. So, thanks for including that bit of info here!
I would love to see the Ubuntu site that lists certifications have a link to the manufacturers page for that model and to the ISO required to run Ubuntu on the model. It’s one thing to have a listing of certifications, it’s something altogether different to figure out how in the world one is supposed to actually get the machine with Ubuntu on it or get the “pre-installed” version of Ubuntu that it is certified to work with.
There also seems to be a strange discrepancy between what’s “certified” and what people are actually using and what machines are currently being sold by the manufacturers. I don’t think any of this needs to change, but for the average user interested in buying a computer with Ubuntu on it – it certainly makes the process confusing enough that I understand why they just go to Apple or Dell and buy OS X or Windows machines.