Hewlett-Packard just launched their first ever desktop PC with preloaded Linux in Australia. We have an HP DX2250 low-end business desktop system that is available with differend AMD processors. Possibilities range from the 1.6 GHz AMD Sempron 3000+ to the 2.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-COre 5600+. 2 GB of Ram are already installed and the hard drive can go as high as 250 GB. Depending on choices you can implement different optical storage devices from a normal CD drive to a DVD+/- RW LightScribe in Double Layer or Dual Format drive.

Talking about the Linux installation, we have Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5, the Desktop version with Evolution 2.8 email and groupware client, Gnome 2.16 desktop manager, OpenOffice 2.04 and Firefox 2.0X web browser. Price starts at around $489 US and the package comes with three possible levels of technical support.

HP selling pre-loaded RHEL 5 Desktop versions is another blow to Microsoft that is starting to struggle. Hopefully for them Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will bring in a breath of fresh air.