I suppose ... if I'd wanted to phone them up, and if I'd been willing to spend the time arguing, I could probably have got my preloaded Ubuntu system.
Instead, I thought "sod it" and order an Acer instead.
I do wonder if Dell are aware of they shenanigans going on at their UK subsidiary sometimes. Operating system evangelism is all very well, but this is costing them sales, you know?
That's pretty much how I remember Dell. All I wanted was a decent PC but with KDE and not Windows. Ubuntu wasn't available at all for 'business' machines (i.e. not pink laptops), and if I wanted RedHat I could phone them up and ask for a quote (i.e. no special offers). No thanks, I'll go for a company with linux PCs on their front page.
They must know how to preinstall different OS easily, since every Dell PC has a big long list of Windows options.