Dell's latest launch has really taken off. Unfortunately for Dell's crumbling profitability, it's a website called IdeaStorm, not a new PC. IdeaStorm is designed to get ideas and feedback from Dell users, and the mechanism is much the same as Digg: people make suggestions and everybody votes for the ones they like best.

The problem for Dell is that by far the most popular suggestion is one that Dell will find hard to implement. It means selling consumers PCs with Linux pre-installed. The company's founder, Michael Dell, really wants to do it, and he didn't become a multibillionaire by ignoring great marketing opportunities. He tried the idea around the turn of the century, when Linux hype was at its highest, and Dell still sells Linux on corporate servers and high-end workstations. But there are huge problems in offering Linux on mass-market PCs.

The most obvious is deciding which version of Linux to offer. There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one - or the same one with a different desktop, or whatever. It costs Dell a small fortune to offer an operating system (it involves thousands of driver compatibility, peripheral testing, certification, staff training, administration, advertising and support issues) so the lack of a standard is a real killer. The less obvious problem is the very high cost of Linux support, especially when selling cheap PCs to naïve users who don't RTFM (read the friendly manual) and wouldn't understand a Linux manual if they tried. And there's so much of it! Saying "Linux is just a kernel, so that's all we support" isn't going to work, but where in the great sprawling heap of GNU/Linux code do you draw the line?

Buying support from a third party such as LinuxCare - which Dell did last time - isn't satisfactory either, unless you can get users to pay extra. And there's the rub. Pay? Sadly, most people think they should be able to buy a Dell PC running Linux for less than the cost of a Dell PC running Windows. In fact, they usually cost more. This is partly because Linux has high overheads on minuscule sales, and partly because of the fees that PC sellers collect for bundling ISP connections, free antivirus and multimedia software, browser toolbars and so on. The great collection of crapware that comes with a home user's Windows PC probably knocks at least £20 off the price, maybe much more.

Cost savings also come directly from Microsoft and Intel in the form of discounts and cooperative advertising support for the use of logos, and so on. These schemes don't exist for Linux. But will the tens of thousands of Linux supporters "Digging" the idea on IdeaStorm ever turn into paying customers? I can't speak for Dell on this, but I suspect very few will. Worse, those few are mostly the sort of buyer no-one really wants.

Look at how Dell works. You see a headline for a fantastic deal for only £299 or whatever, go to the Dell site and end up buying something for twice the price. It only takes a minor upgrade here and there, a bigger hard drive and a bit of software. Then you treat yourself to a camera, add three years of support and it's done. All the profit is in the up-sell.

What Dell really needs are more high-end gamers who buy top-spec PCs in fancy cases for £2,500 or more, not low-end Linux users looking to save £25 on Windows. Here's an idea: Michael Dell started in a college dorm and built a $60bn (£31bn) company from nothing. Why don't the people asking Dell for Linux PCs start their own companies and do likewise? If there's a market, it should be really easy. And unlike Mike, you won't even have to beat IBM.