I'd really like to know what happened to Ubuntu being supported by Dell a while ago. http://www.dell.com/ubuntu only lists one machine that you can buy with Ubuntu pre-installed.
If this had kept up, and more suppliers had joined the bandwagon, it would have been exactly the major support you are talking about. Why did things move backwards?
I think this problem was one of perception. I think too many salespeople were pushing Netbooks as "cheaper smaller computers that can do anything a desktop can except gaming", which to most people translated to "cheap and small windows install that can do simple games". But then they took it home and turned it on and saw something that wasn't windows and they got scared.
If this had kept up, and more suppliers had joined the bandwagon, it would have been exactly the major support you are talking about. Why did things move backwards?