After 70% of the people who wrote into its newfangled IdeaStorm suggestion box said they would use a Dell with Linux, Dell said Wednesday that it will start offering Linux pre-installed on select desktops and notebooks.

It hasn't said yet what machines or what Linux distribution or distributions. It promises an answer in the "coming weeks."

It added, however, that people posted comments on its Direct2Dell blog indicating that they were less concerned about a specific distribution than about support at the kernel level and getting open non-proprietary drivers. Dell, which is evidently responding to purists, says it's working on that too.

Dell says it'll use drivers already in the mainline kernel.org kernels for as many components as possible. "In these cases, the drivers will be included in your distribution of choice. This includes storage, wired networking, power management, USB, and more."

However it recommends that Linux users buy its Postscript-based printers.

In cases where there are only purely proprietary components like 3-D drivers and software-based modems Dell is proposing to supply the closed source versions, pointing out that it "can't substitute hardware-based modems in our notebooks without redesigning and significantly increasing the price of the system." It says if it's important to have a hardware-based modem, you can add one into your PC Card or ExpressCard slot.

It figures most drivers are in good shape now, but there's longer-term work that has to be done, promising that the "work that we're doing now at the driver level will pave the way for more Linux offerings in the future."