After months of speculations from the Open Source community, Hewlett-Packard will soon be selling RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) Desktop 5 on its HP dx2250 PC. For now the deal is available only on Australian shores. HP joins Lenovo and Dell as major PC OEMs that are now offering pre-loaded desktop Linux?at least to some of its customers.The AMD-powered dx2250 PC is a low-end business PC and comes in any variety of the processor line ranging from the 1.60 GHz AMD Sempron 3000+ processor to the 2.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 5600+ processor. The dx2250 can hold up to 2GB of RAM and a 250 GB hard drive. It comes with a variety of optical drive options, ranging from ordinary CDs to a DVD+/-RW LightScribe, Double Layer/Dual Format drive.

At this time, it is not clear exactly what options HP will be offering with the RHEL-based system. Previously, HP had offered this desktop computer with a choice of Vista Business, XP, and FreeDOS. In the latter case, this was almost always replaced by users with a Linux distribution.

HP is a long time Linux supporter for both on the desktop and the server and yet they had never offered a pre-loaded desktop Linux. There have, however, been many rumors in recent months that HP was on the verge of announcing a business Linux desktop with SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) 10 SP 1, Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn), or RHEL Desktop 5, or its delayed desktop Linux brother, Red Hat Global Desktop.

In a statement, Rob Kingston group manager of HP Australia’s Personal Systems Group said, “HP is pleased to be working with Red Hat to bring a powerful new Linux desktop solution to SMBs in Australia, Local businesses are constantly demanding enhancements to the price-performance delivered by their desktop PC. By working with Red Hat, HP now delivers the business-class technology of the HP dx2250 combined with an open and low-cost operating system to support the commercial objectives of small and medium businesses.”