Dell's plans to sell consumer Linux PCs could hit a snag after the company admitted that the machines will not run popular video formats and might not work with cheaper printers.

The desktop and laptop computers will use the Ubuntu Linux operating system and will only support components that have already been set up to work with Ubuntu.

John Hull, Dell's manager of Linux OS technologies, said on the company's Direct2Dell blog: "At this time, we are not including any support for proprietary audio or video codecs that are not already distributed with Ubuntu 7.04. 

"These include MPEG 1/2/3/4, WMA, WMV, DVD, QuickTime etc. We are evaluating options for providing this support in the future."

Hull also recommended that Linux users buy a Dell printer that includes a PostScript engine to ensure that it works with Ubuntu.

Dell's decision to sell PCs and laptops running Linux came from customer suggestions posted on its IdeaStorm website.

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