Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 17:34 -0500, Bill McGonigle wrote: On 2009-01-22 2:24 PM, Jerry Feldman wrote: Subsequently once you have Ubuntu (or other Linux) installed, you could install the proprietary Nvidia or FGLRX drivers so that you can get a good resolution. Excellent point. Somebody could do custom spin in Fedora-land with revisor, Such as this? http://www.mail-archive.com/fedora-announce-l...@redhat.com/msg01470.html or... heck, I can't remember the name of the other project that lets you make recipes for spins and can't find it at the moment, Were you thinking of pungi? (its what the MythDora project uses to build its customized installer isos and live images). but anyway you can make a bootable USB stick. And as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, you can even make a usb stick and add content to it after the fact, using remaining space on the stick as persistent storage overlay. --jarod ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On 01/21/2009 03:33 PM, Lloyd Kvam wrote: On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 12:02 -0500, Lloyd Kvam wrote: On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 10:53 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: The question is, did you avoid paying for it anyway? Vista Home Premium appears to add $30 to the cost. The Vista laptop allows for some lower cost options that are not available in the Ubuntu configurations. Once all the hardware got equalized, the Vista quote was higher by $30. We finally got our laptop on the third try. 1. was the Dell Studio documented in this thread (lcd screen did not support Ubuntu's resolution choices) 2. was purchased at Staples, but, after installing Ubuntu, the screen driver was simply too slow to tolerate. We returned the laptop after running the Windows restore. 3. is a Dell Inspiron. While Dell sells these with Ubuntu, there was a discount code that saved ~$200 as compared to the Ubuntu version with equivalent hardware choices. I did grumble to Dell about being forced to buy Vista. Ubuntu 8.04 worked OK and the upgrade to 8.10 went smoothly. The GUI tools work well enough that my daughter appears to be self-sufficient with the sysadmin tasks. Bluetooth has not yet been tested. I'm not a fan of Dell computers. In general they cause us the most issues in installfests. I've personally had good luck with HP/Compaq as well as Lenovo. I think your problem might be that Ubuntu did not have good support for the installed graphics chip. Generally, before I buy a laptop, I check online to see if there are any Linux issues. -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On 2009-01-21 3:33 PM, Lloyd Kvam wrote: 2. was purchased at Staples, but, after installing Ubuntu, the screen driver was simply too slow to tolerate. We returned the laptop after running the Windows restore. I've seen the Dell sign in the window at Staples, but didn't look at the display - do they have demo units to try? I'm thinking an Ubuntu LiveCD or USB stick could be useful here. -Bill -- Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 b...@bfccomputing.com Cell: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833 Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/ VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On 01/22/2009 12:55 PM, Bill McGonigle wrote: On 2009-01-21 3:33 PM, Lloyd Kvam wrote: 2. was purchased at Staples, but, after installing Ubuntu, the screen driver was simply too slow to tolerate. We returned the laptop after running the Windows restore. I've seen the Dell sign in the window at Staples, but didn't look at the display - do they have demo units to try? I'm thinking an Ubuntu LiveCD or USB stick could be useful here. This might not be a valid test. If the notebook, for instance, has an Nvidia or ATI chipset, the LiveCD driver would most likely be a generic VGA driver. Subsequently once you have Ubuntu (or other Linux) installed, you could install the proprietary Nvidia or FGLRX drivers so that you can get a good resolution. Windows comes with the proprietary drivers installed. Although I am not a fan of Dell's for the most part they put out a decent product, unlike Gateway. What you would need to to with Ubuntu is to install it, and set the software sources to include proprietary drivers and multiverse. These are check boxes. I suspect that once you have added the proper software sources, the appropriate drivers will be installed and you can get good resolution. You are going to run into this problem in most systems today. -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org wrote: Subsequently once you have Ubuntu (or other Linux) installed, you could install the proprietary Nvidia or FGLRX drivers so that you can get a good resolution. Can the proprietary driver packages be copied to a separate USB flash drive, and then installed into the in-RAM live system? Although I am not a fan of Dell's for the most part they put out a decent product ... If you buy a Dell, I *strongly* recommend the Gold Tech Support package, or whatever they're calling it these days. The difference is night and day. With it, I'm a happy Dell customer. Without it, I wouldn't touch their stuff. ... unlike Gateway. At %DAYJOB%, we're a former Gateway customer. They are slowly evaporating. They spun off, and then liquidated, their business division. Their consumer division is now showing signs of stress as well. I don't expect them to live through the current economic mess. You are going to run into this problem in most systems today. Sadly true. Free Software was finally gaining serious traction thanks to Linux, and now it's being challenged by hardware that's closed-off for no good reason at all. :-( -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On 01/22/2009 03:02 PM, Ben Scott wrote: On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org wrote: Subsequently once you have Ubuntu (or other Linux) installed, you could install the proprietary Nvidia or FGLRX drivers so that you can get a good resolution. Can the proprietary driver packages be copied to a separate USB flash drive, and then installed into the in-RAM live system? Although I am not a fan of Dell's for the most part they put out a decent product ... If you buy a Dell, I *strongly* recommend the Gold Tech Support package, or whatever they're calling it these days. The difference is night and day. With it, I'm a happy Dell customer. Without it, I wouldn't touch their stuff. ... unlike Gateway. At %DAYJOB%, we're a former Gateway customer. They are slowly evaporating. They spun off, and then liquidated, their business division. Their consumer division is now showing signs of stress as well. I don't expect them to live through the current economic mess. You are going to run into this problem in most systems today. Sadly true. Free Software was finally gaining serious traction thanks to Linux, and now it's being challenged by hardware that's closed-off for no good reason at all. :-( WRT: Gateway. We used them in 2 different companies I worked for, and both companies experienced an over 90% flawed on arrival. I opened the box, and found the secondary IDE port was DOA. I know a few people who bought Gateways, and only one of them got a system that worked perfectly out of the box. If you buy Gold Tech Support, what do you get if you buy a laptop with Windows installed and install another OS,, like Fedora or Ubuntu. Many of the proprietary chips are now being opened up, but ATI and Nvidia who do support the Linux and FOSS community, do so with closed-source drivers. Broadcom is the same way. While we now have a generic Broadcom driver, the firmware needs to be obtained. In the Ubuntu Community, Canonical provides these drivers in their restricted data bases, and Fedora uses RPM Fusion, and SuSE uses Pac Man. Additionally, most printers (Epson, HP, and Brother) are well supported by Linux. My last 2 laptops have been HP, and have been abused. The older one served me several years, and used a rubber band to keep the power plug in the jack (it was loose resulting from a few falls). My current one goes to work, home, MIT, Amtrak, New Orleans, and Atlanta. I don't know if the HP warranties have changed, but it used to be that the standard HP warranty was 1 year where the Dell is 90 days. My HP nx6125 had a 3 year warranty. -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On 01/22/2009 03:02 PM, Ben Scott wrote: On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org wrote: Subsequently once you have Ubuntu (or other Linux) installed, you could install the proprietary Nvidia or FGLRX drivers so that you can get a good resolution. Can the proprietary driver packages be copied to a separate USB flash drive, and then installed into the in-RAM live system? The simple answer is yes. What you would need to do is to is to open up the iso, copy in the appropriate drivers or packages, then make a new iso, and either burn a new CD or USB. You could simply grab the appropriate .rpm or .deb files to install by hand. Knoppix has a good tutorial on how to customize, but since you don't know the target system, just copy in the appropriate packages and install them after boot. -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 12:55 -0500, Bill McGonigle wrote: On 2009-01-21 3:33 PM, Lloyd Kvam wrote: 2. was purchased at Staples, but, after installing Ubuntu, the screen driver was simply too slow to tolerate. We returned the laptop after running the Windows restore. I've seen the Dell sign in the window at Staples, but didn't look at the display - do they have demo units to try? I'm thinking an Ubuntu LiveCD or USB stick could be useful here. Yes they do have units you can try. Most systems work OK with Linux and when Steph and I were shopping around, the main issue was the laptops with numeric keypads - the keypads did not work in our quick fiddling. I assume that could be remedied with a bit of work. The HP laptop that was too slow did OK in casual store browsing. However, once Steph started trying to do some real work on the laptop, the screen scrolling was just too slow. I assume that could have been fixed within a few weeks, but she did not want to wait. For me, the main concern would be proving that the wireless chip set worked OK. I'd expect to get the other components operational eventually. (My current laptop has a camera and bluetooth that have never been used. The built-in camera device is not recognized, but I never had any need to use it. I never got around to buying a bluetooth mouse or keyboard which would have forced me to discover if the bluetooth radio works.) -Bill -- Lloyd Kvam Venix Corp DLSLUG/GNHLUG library http://dlslug.org/library.html http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rsshtml/recent/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rss/recent/dlslug ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On 01/22/2009 03:58 PM, Lloyd Kvam wrote: Yes they do have units you can try. Most systems work OK with Linux and when Steph and I were shopping around, the main issue was the laptops with numeric keypads - the keypads did not work in our quick fiddling. I assume that could be remedied with a bit of work. The HP laptop that was too slow did OK in casual store browsing. However, once Steph started trying to do some real work on the laptop, the screen scrolling was just too slow. I assume that could have been fixed within a few weeks, but she did not want to wait. For me, the main concern would be proving that the wireless chip set worked OK. I'd expect to get the other components operational eventually. (My current laptop has a camera and bluetooth that have never been used. The built-in camera device is not recognized, but I never had any need to use it. I never got around to buying a bluetooth mouse or keyboard which would have forced me to discover if the bluetooth radio works.) One thing a LiveCD cannot do well is judge speed. Not only are some components loaded from the CD, speed is limited by the amount of memory available. Most of the lower cost laptops have the minimum amount of memory for the installed OS. GNOME and KDE are very memory intensive. I would probably want a minimum of 1GB to run GNOME or KDE. Additionally, some graphics chips (probably most on low-end laptops) share memory with the host computer. A live cd with lxde might be a better measure if you are going to test it in the store. A number of mail order companies, like eCost, have factory refurbished systems at some decent prices with full factory warranties. -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
in-store Laptop testing (was Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu)
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org wrote: On 01/22/2009 03:02 PM, Ben Scott wrote: Can the proprietary driver packages be copied to a separate USB flash drive, and then installed into the in-RAM live system? The simple answer is yes. What you would need to do is to is to open up the iso, copy in the appropriate drivers or packages, then make a new iso, and either burn a new CD or USB. You could simply grab the appropriate .rpm or .deb files to install by hand. Knoppix has a good tutorial on how to customize, but since you don't know the target system, just copy in the appropriate packages and install them after boot. Has any one played with the Make a USB Startup Disk tool in Ubuntu 8.10? I think it just showed up when I upgraded from 8.04 but maybe I installed it a while ago and forgot. Find it Under System Administration Create a USB startup disk. It looks pretty sweet. Could be just the thing for speedier testing and installing propritary drivers. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:27 PM, Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org wrote: If you buy a Dell, I *strongly* recommend the Gold Tech Support package ... If you buy Gold Tech Support, what do you get if you buy a laptop with Windows installed and install another OS,, like Fedora or Ubuntu. I've never had anything less than excellent results from Dell GTS. I've switched versions of Windows, and while they've remarked that the system shipped with something different, were still perfectly willing to help. I believe their phone menus prompt you for the OS you're running; if not, they can transfer. Back when Dell's Ubuntu support consisted of a gift certificate for Canonical, it might have been difficult, but I think their support is better integrated now. While it wouldn't surprise me to hear you're still talking to a Canonical employee, I think you can go through Dell's phone system to get there (but don't quote me on that). Outside of the regular support avenues, Dell also offers a Linux wiki and some mailing lists, and quite a few top-level engineers hang out there. Often you're talking to the guy who actually wrote the drivers. There's an officially supported RPM/YUM repository for the Dell management tools, and an unsupported repo with various firmware and other utilities. If you're running a Linux distro Dell doesn't support/train on, that may limit how much they can do for you. However, I've generally found Dell's Linux people to be quite willing to help. For example, while Dell doesn't officially support Debian, there is an unsupported Dell APT repository with all their firmware and management tools as .deb packages. So you can just add that repo and do apt-get install smbios-utils or whatever. Or so I'm told; I haven't tried it. ... Dell [warranty] is 90 days. I think it depends on the product line (Latitude vs Inspiron, for example). But their standard support is worthless in any event. Thick accents, heavily scripted, unwilling and unable to help. That's why I recommend the Gold support. With Dell, customer service is basically an option. You can pay for it and get it, or not, your decision. WRT: Gateway. We used them in 2 different companies I worked for ... I could tell endless horror stories. New systems shipped missing parts. Dust-covered, used parts shipped as new. Field service guys arriving without parts or any clue of what to do or even that they're working for Gateway. Unrecognized model/part numbers, and thus no way to get drivers. Component changes in models that they didn't know about, and thus getting the wrong drivers. Cats and dogs living together. Mass hysteria. You get the picture. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Lloyd Kvam pyt...@venix.com wrote: The HP laptop that was too slow did OK in casual store browsing. However, once Steph started trying to do some real work on the laptop, the screen scrolling was just too slow. That's almost certainly due to video drivers. Most likely, it was running the generic SVGA drivers, as Jerry said. They lack practically all hardware acceleration, so even simple scrolling means tons of data transfer between main memory and the frame buffer. If device-specific proprietary drivers are available, it will make a huge difference in performance. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org wrote: Can the proprietary driver packages be copied to a separate USB flash drive, and then installed into the in-RAM live system? The simple answer is yes. What you would need to do is to is to open up the iso, copy in the appropriate drivers or packages, then make a new iso ... No way to just put the needed packages on separate media, and then have the regular disc load them? I'm thinking the ideal scenario would be: 1. Obtain the standard Ubuntu/Fedora/whatever live disc (download and burn, free sample, whatever) 2. Download any additional driver package(s) you need 3. Copy the driver package(s) to a separate USB flash drive 4. Stick flash drive in PC, then boot from CD 5. CD detects additional stuff on the flash drive, and offers to use it Slightly less ideal, but still very good, would be step 5 requiring the operator to manually point the system at the flash drive, either at the boot prompt, and/or in the GUI. For example, I know with Red Hat's standard installer, you can feed it a driver diskette (or USB flash, etc.), which will add to the stock capabilities without needing to rebuild the whole kit. (I dunno if that works with their live system, though.) -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On 2009-01-22 2:24 PM, Jerry Feldman wrote: Subsequently once you have Ubuntu (or other Linux) installed, you could install the proprietary Nvidia or FGLRX drivers so that you can get a good resolution. Excellent point. Somebody could do custom spin in Fedora-land with revisor, or... heck, I can't remember the name of the other project that lets you make recipes for spins and can't find it at the moment, but anyway you can make a bootable USB stick. And if somebody were to write a script to detect exercise the most common parts on a machine, there could be some utility there. -Bill -- Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 b...@bfccomputing.com Cell: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833 Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/ VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 17:20 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org wrote: Can the proprietary driver packages be copied to a separate USB flash drive, and then installed into the in-RAM live system? The simple answer is yes. What you would need to do is to is to open up the iso, copy in the appropriate drivers or packages, then make a new iso ... No way to just put the needed packages on separate media, and then have the regular disc load them? I'm thinking the ideal scenario would be: 1. Obtain the standard Ubuntu/Fedora/whatever live disc (download and burn, free sample, whatever) 2. Download any additional driver package(s) you need 3. Copy the driver package(s) to a separate USB flash drive 4. Stick flash drive in PC, then boot from CD 5. CD detects additional stuff on the flash drive, and offers to use it Slightly less ideal, but still very good, would be step 5 requiring the operator to manually point the system at the flash drive, either at the boot prompt, and/or in the GUI. For example, I know with Red Hat's standard installer, you can feed it a driver diskette (or USB flash, etc.), which will add to the stock capabilities without needing to rebuild the whole kit. (I dunno if that works with their live system, though.) So far as I know, no, it doesn't work with the live system. However, the live images also have the ability to overlay additional space on a writable media (i.e. a usb flash stick) as writable, and you can update and/or install any additional rpms/files/etc. The only limitation is that you can't install a new kernel and expect to be able to boot it. But 3rd-party drivers and/or firmware, definitely. So yeah, you could, for example, have a usb stick that you've added nvidia binary video drivers and broadcom 802.11n wifi to. --jarod ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 12:02 -0500, Lloyd Kvam wrote: On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 10:53 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: The question is, did you avoid paying for it anyway? Vista Home Premium appears to add $30 to the cost. The Vista laptop allows for some lower cost options that are not available in the Ubuntu configurations. Once all the hardware got equalized, the Vista quote was higher by $30. We finally got our laptop on the third try. 1. was the Dell Studio documented in this thread (lcd screen did not support Ubuntu's resolution choices) 2. was purchased at Staples, but, after installing Ubuntu, the screen driver was simply too slow to tolerate. We returned the laptop after running the Windows restore. 3. is a Dell Inspiron. While Dell sells these with Ubuntu, there was a discount code that saved ~$200 as compared to the Ubuntu version with equivalent hardware choices. I did grumble to Dell about being forced to buy Vista. Ubuntu 8.04 worked OK and the upgrade to 8.10 went smoothly. The GUI tools work well enough that my daughter appears to be self-sufficient with the sysadmin tasks. Bluetooth has not yet been tested. -- Lloyd Kvam Venix Corp. 1 Court Street, Suite 378 Lebanon, NH 03766-1358 voice: 603-653-8139 fax:320-210-3409 ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Tue, 2008-12-02 at 08:35 -0500, Lloyd Kvam wrote: On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 17:02 -0500, Jarod Wilson wrote: Don't suppose you would be willing to see how a fedora 10 live cd behaves before you do?... There was no opportunity to try Fedora 10. I suppose there is a pretty good chance that Fedora 10 would be able to correctly deduce the proper settings. As a developer, I like Fedora and the integration of new packages into a surprisingly reliable distribution. However, the laptop is my daughter's and she is enthusiastic about being better able to manage herself with Ubuntu. She's been running Fedora, and has been frustrated at the need to call on me for help with configuration issues. Even if Fedora 10 worked, she wanted to go with Ubuntu. Sorry, I wasn't clear. I didn't mean it like dude, you should use Fedora, I meant would you be willing to see if this bug can be reproduced with Fedora, and if so, I'll make the upstream X release maintainer, Adam Jackson, who works here at Red Hat in the same building as me, aware of the issue, and he can probably get it fixed pretty quickly. Fixes for which Ubuntu could then inherit as well. --jarod ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Tue, 2008-12-02 at 14:48 -0500, Jarod Wilson wrote: Sorry, I wasn't clear. I didn't mean it like dude, you should use Fedora, I was the one who was not clear. I understood that it was simply a debugging suggestion. I meant would you be willing to see if this bug can be reproduced with Fedora, and if so, I'll make the upstream X release maintainer, Adam Jackson, who works here at Red Hat in the same building as me, aware of the issue, and he can probably get it fixed pretty quickly. I just ran out of time to play with the laptop. My daughter was not enthusiastic about wasting more time on a laptop that would be returned anyway. Fixes for which Ubuntu could then inherit as well. Exactly. If that were my laptop, I'd have kept it around the extra few days to troubleshoot. I feel sort of privileged to have so many developers and knowledgeable folks available through this list. I'm sure I would have greatly expanded my X knowledge from applying your suggestions. --jarod -- Lloyd Kvam Venix Corp DLSLUG/GNHLUG library http://dlslug.org/library.html http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rsshtml/recent/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rss/recent/dlslug ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Thu, 2008-11-13 at 20:24 -0500, Nikkiana H. wrote: I bought both the Studio 15 and the Mini recently and am pretty happy with them. Well the Dell Studio 15 arrived yesterday. When I tried to boot it, the splash screens and text boot messages worked fine. However, when it came time to draw the desktop, the screen changed to a bright background with colored pinstripes running vertically. The bundled diagnostics (from the boot menu) pass and an external monitor shows a normal Ubuntu desktop. I tried the Dell on-line chat support and was given a number for Ubuntu support. This turned out to be Canonical. The person I spoke to said he had heard that Dell switched LCD screens on the Studio 15 production line without properly testing the new screens. Ubuntu is not working with those new LCD screens. He gave me the Dell Ubuntu support phone number. When I called, they said they have no fix. I can replace my laptop as defective, but they do not expect the replacement to work any better. My guess (as a software guy) as to what is going on: Ubuntu is only detecting 4:3 resolutions from the video controller and the LCD screen only supports 16:9 (or 16:10) resolutions. I fiddled the xorg.conf with no success using an external monitor. I could only get 4:3 resolutions to show on the external monitor. Attempts to force 1280x800 which is the documented resolution for the LCD resulted in a 640x480 screen on the external monitor. None of these had any impact on the built-in LCD screen. I'm returning the laptop to Dell and will buy something else. -- Lloyd Kvam Venix Corp DLSLUG/GNHLUG library http://dlslug.org/library.html http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rsshtml/recent/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rss/recent/dlslug ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Nov 26, 2008, at 4:30 PM, Lloyd Kvam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 2008-11-13 at 20:24 -0500, Nikkiana H. wrote: I bought both the Studio 15 and the Mini recently and am pretty happy with them. Well the Dell Studio 15 arrived yesterday. When I tried to boot it, the splash screens and text boot messages worked fine. However, when it came time to draw the desktop, the screen changed to a bright background with colored pinstripes running vertically. The bundled diagnostics (from the boot menu) pass and an external monitor shows a normal Ubuntu desktop. I tried the Dell on-line chat support and was given a number for Ubuntu support. This turned out to be Canonical. The person I spoke to said he had heard that Dell switched LCD screens on the Studio 15 production line without properly testing the new screens. Ubuntu is not working with those new LCD screens. He gave me the Dell Ubuntu support phone number. When I called, they said they have no fix. I can replace my laptop as defective, but they do not expect the replacement to work any better. My guess (as a software guy) as to what is going on: Ubuntu is only detecting 4:3 resolutions from the video controller and the LCD screen only supports 16:9 (or 16:10) resolutions. I fiddled the xorg.conf with no success using an external monitor. I could only get 4:3 resolutions to show on the external monitor. Attempts to force 1280x800 which is the documented resolution for the LCD resulted in a 640x480 screen on the external monitor. None of these had any impact on the built-in LCD screen. I'm returning the laptop to Dell and will buy something else. Don't suppose you would be willing to see how a fedora 10 live cd behaves before you do?... --jarod ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
About 2 mo ago I needed to upgrade my wife's laptop computer. I saw an Acer for just under $400 at Best Buy that looked interesting. I'm not an Acer fan, but at that price for a 15.5 LCD laptop with an Intel dual core 2GHz T3200, 2GB DDR2, 160GB HD, DVD DL burner and wlan I thought it was worth a try. I was assured that if I installed any operating system other than Vista, the warranty would be void. I let it go through the the Vista install just to make sure it worked, then partitioned the HD and installed Ubuntu 8.04. It's worked without a glitch so far and she loves it. At some point I'll delete Vista, probably after the warranty runs out. Mike Miller On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 16:30 -0500, Lloyd Kvam wrote: On Thu, 2008-11-13 at 20:24 -0500, Nikkiana H. wrote: I bought both the Studio 15 and the Mini recently and am pretty happy with them. Well the Dell Studio 15 arrived yesterday. When I tried to boot it, the splash screens and text boot messages worked fine. However, when it came time to draw the desktop, the screen changed to a bright background with colored pinstripes running vertically. The bundled diagnostics (from the boot menu) pass and an external monitor shows a normal Ubuntu desktop. I tried the Dell on-line chat support and was given a number for Ubuntu support. This turned out to be Canonical. The person I spoke to said he had heard that Dell switched LCD screens on the Studio 15 production line without properly testing the new screens. Ubuntu is not working with those new LCD screens. He gave me the Dell Ubuntu support phone number. When I called, they said they have no fix. I can replace my laptop as defective, but they do not expect the replacement to work any better. My guess (as a software guy) as to what is going on: Ubuntu is only detecting 4:3 resolutions from the video controller and the LCD screen only supports 16:9 (or 16:10) resolutions. I fiddled the xorg.conf with no success using an external monitor. I could only get 4:3 resolutions to show on the external monitor. Attempts to force 1280x800 which is the documented resolution for the LCD resulted in a 640x480 screen on the external monitor. None of these had any impact on the built-in LCD screen. I'm returning the laptop to Dell and will buy something else. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
michael miller wrote: About 2 mo ago I needed to upgrade my wife's laptop computer. I saw an Acer for just under $400 at Best Buy that looked interesting. I'm not an Acer fan, but at that price for a 15.5 LCD laptop with an Intel dual core 2GHz T3200, 2GB DDR2, 160GB HD, DVD DL burner and wlan I thought it was worth a try. I was assured that if I installed any operating system other than Vista, the warranty would be void. I let it go through the the Vista install just to make sure it worked, then partitioned the HD and installed Ubuntu 8.04. It's worked without a glitch so far and she loves it. At some point I'll delete Vista, probably after the warranty runs out. Mike Miller On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 16:30 -0500, Lloyd Kvam wrote: On Thu, 2008-11-13 at 20:24 -0500, Nikkiana H. wrote: I bought both the Studio 15 and the Mini recently and am pretty happy with them. Well the Dell Studio 15 arrived yesterday. When I tried to boot it, the splash screens and text boot messages worked fine. However, when it came time to draw the desktop, the screen changed to a bright background with colored pinstripes running vertically. The bundled diagnostics (from the boot menu) pass and an external monitor shows a normal Ubuntu desktop. I tried the Dell on-line chat support and was given a number for Ubuntu support. This turned out to be Canonical. The person I spoke to said he had heard that Dell switched LCD screens on the Studio 15 production line without properly testing the new screens. Ubuntu is not working with those new LCD screens. He gave me the Dell Ubuntu support phone number. When I called, they said they have no fix. I can replace my laptop as defective, but they do not expect the replacement to work any better. My guess (as a software guy) as to what is going on: Ubuntu is only detecting 4:3 resolutions from the video controller and the LCD screen only supports 16:9 (or 16:10) resolutions. I fiddled the xorg.conf with no success using an external monitor. I could only get 4:3 resolutions to show on the external monitor. Attempts to force 1280x800 which is the documented resolution for the LCD resulted in a 640x480 screen on the external monitor. None of these had any impact on the built-in LCD screen. I'm returning the laptop to Dell and will buy something else. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ One of the interesting things about Acer is that they sell most of the same models in the US with Windows but with Linux for other countries. I'm typing this on an Aspire 5100 that I bought a couple of years ago. I run Ubuntu 8.04 as my primary OS but switch back to Vista on another partition whenever I need something that is Windows specific. Installing Ubuntu on this machine was pretty easy and except for a few burps when upgrading it's been quite reliable. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
Jerry Feldman wrote: When replying, please reply only to the list, not directly to the original senders. When replying, please reply to the senders and the list - it keeps the discussion flowing among those who employ mail filtering. Those who don't like this behavior can easily deal with it via procmail, with a single TO_ match. Those who wish this behavior in the opposite case would have to build a tracking database to follow threads which isn't readily done. Purportedly there is a MUA that has mailing list group functionality built-in, which is really nice, but we don't mandate the use of any particular MUA here and know there are many who cannot switch. -Bill ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
Greg Rundlett wrote: On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 12:02 PM, Lloyd Kvam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 10:53 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: The question is, did you avoid paying for it anyway? Vista Home Premium appears to add $30 to the cost. I've noticed many vendors offering a Windows XP "downgrade" for an additional fee. I just ordered a Lenovo notebook, and they do that. I don't know what to say about paying not to get something other than it sounds like a mafia racket. /me shakes head. If I were going to actually run Windows, then I'd probably pay extra for the XP option Microsoft's licensing for Vista Business allows you to downgrade it to Windows XP. In fact, it is the only way to officially buy Windows XP on most computers. You can't buy XP from Microsoft (they sell you a Vista Business license instead) or from most (all?) retail channels. So, you have to pay a premium to upgrade to Vista Business, so you can downgrade to Windows XP. I recently bought some Windows XP laptops which came with Vista Business stickers. Presumably all this downgrading counts as a Vista sale to Microsoft, even though it is not being used as Vista. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On 11/14/2008 11:03 PM, Greg Rundlett wrote: I've noticed many vendors offering a Windows XP downgrade for an additional fee. I just ordered a Lenovo notebook, and they do that. I don't know what to say about paying not to get something other than it sounds like a mafia racket. /me shakes head. If I were going to actually run Windows, then I'd probably pay extra for the XP option I think the issues are that the vendors buy a bulk license, and the process of producing a Windows machine is highly automated. In the case of Linux or no OS, it is more of an out-of-process operation. The number of Linux laptops produced is very small compared to Windows, and Linux may not be compatible with some hardware options. HP and Compaq did at one time sell Linux laptops and desktops, but they stopped because of the cost. -- Jerry Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
I guess I'll throw my two cents in... While a non-standard unit (no OS, etc) is out of process, I would imagine that Microsoft's OEM licensing Agreement forces the OEM to sell a percentage of units with the latest Microsoft bloatware, and I'd imagine that percentage or term to be somewhere around 95% or so. Whatever market share Microsoft wishes (or thinks) it should retain/obtain. It seems Microsoft's business practices regarding the privilege to sell Microsoft products are similar to Wal-Mart's. Bully suppliers to play by your rules, or tell them to get off the field. There's a reason that the industry hasn't moved to OSS, and it's not because of any other reason then Microsoft. If OEM's were a free to sell what they want, to who they want, I believe that within a few years you would see OSS loaded desktops in the mainstream, right next to Microsoft desktops. Furthermore, I believe that without Microsoft's market share (is it really market share if it's forced?) they would have to step up and produce real, marketable products that were compatible with other OS's and packages. Ditto for security. Waiting two weeks for patches to resolve a 0day exploit? Fun. What are they worried about? Microsoft products are head and shoulders above any software written by a bunch of communist-hippie-hobbyists. :] Maybe I'm way off base here. It is before noon. ~hkb On Sat, 2008-11-15 at 09:21 -0500, Jerry Feldman wrote: On 11/14/2008 11:03 PM, Greg Rundlett wrote: I've noticed many vendors offering a Windows XP downgrade for an additional fee. I just ordered a Lenovo notebook, and they do that. I don't know what to say about paying not to get something other than it sounds like a mafia racket. /me shakes head. If I were going to actually run Windows, then I'd probably pay extra for the XP option I think the issues are that the vendors buy a bulk license, and the process of producing a Windows machine is highly automated. In the case of Linux or no OS, it is more of an out-of-process operation. The number of Linux laptops produced is very small compared to Windows, and Linux may not be compatible with some hardware options. HP and Compaq did at one time sell Linux laptops and desktops, but they stopped because of the cost. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
I guess I'll throw my two cents in... while we're throwing pennies around, I think a lot of time when you buy a computer with Windows, you're actually getting the Windows OS and a bunch of other software that you'd rather not have (crapware). These are programs that have some means of generating revenue for their makers and the software makers pay the PC manufacturer to have them pre-installed. These programs are usually Windows-only, so you end up not getting them with Linux. Peter ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
While I don't know what the contract terms are, a while back Dell was prevented from selling consumer PCs with other than Windows. I also believe that applied to Compaq. Before the merger, both Compaq and HP had a contract that allowed them to sell business systems with Linux because both were big Unix vendors. I do know that Dell was able to get around their contract terms by selling business systems with no OS. But, considering the scale whether a license issue, or a production issue, it is more difficult for them to produce non-windows systems. An analogy is Burger King and McDonald's. Burger King's system builds a basic burger, and then assembles a certain percentage of standards, such as Whopper, Whopper Junior. They are able to quickly assemble specials. McDonalds builds all burgers as standards, and it used to be difficult for them to build a burger to order. On 11/15/2008 10:18 AM, H. Kurth Bemis wrote: I guess I'll throw my two cents in... While a non-standard unit (no OS, etc) is out of process, I would imagine that Microsoft's OEM licensing Agreement forces the OEM to sell a percentage of units with the latest Microsoft bloatware, and I'd imagine that percentage or term to be somewhere around 95% or so. Whatever market share Microsoft wishes (or thinks) it should retain/obtain. It seems Microsoft's business practices regarding the privilege to sell Microsoft products are similar to Wal-Mart's. Bully suppliers to play by your rules, or tell them to get off the field. There's a reason that the industry hasn't moved to OSS, and it's not because of any other reason then Microsoft. If OEM's were a free to sell what they want, to who they want, I believe that within a few years you would see OSS loaded desktops in the mainstream, right next to Microsoft desktops. Furthermore, I believe that without Microsoft's market share (is it really market share if it's forced?) they would have to step up and produce real, marketable products that were compatible with other OS's and packages. Ditto for security. Waiting two weeks for patches to resolve a 0day exploit? Fun. What are they worried about? Microsoft products are head and shoulders above any software written by a bunch of communist-hippie-hobbyists. :] Maybe I'm way off base here. It is before noon. -- Jerry Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
When replying, please reply only to the list, not directly to the original senders. -- Jerry Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On 11/15/2008 12:47 PM, Peter Dobratz wrote: while we're throwing pennies around, I think a lot of time when you buy a computer with Windows, you're actually getting the Windows OS and a bunch of other software that you'd rather not have (crapware). These are programs that have some means of generating revenue for their makers and the software makers pay the PC manufacturer to have them pre-installed. These programs are usually Windows-only, so you end up not getting them with Linux. While I don't judge them as crapware, many are useful pieces of software with expiration dates. All of a sudden you try to edit a document and find your software license expired and you have no choice but to buy the licensed version. (Most people don't know about FOSS). -- Jerry Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
Lloyd Kvam wrote: My daughter's laptop has a failing disk drive. I've backed up her data. The laptop is old enough that we want to replace it. I'm looking for suggestions as to where I can get a reasonable laptop with Ubuntu or simply bare. I can handle the Ubuntu installation. I have heard good things about http://www.system76.com/ -- Ted Roche Ted Roche Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Thu, 2008-11-13 at 20:24 -0500, Nikkiana H. wrote: Actually, Dell does sell them on the web, you just have to go to the right second on the website to find it. (In the Laptops Mini dropdown nav, it's under Open Source PCs). If you try to go through the selector thing on the main page, the only thing that shows up with Ubuntu is the Mini. But to directly link to their Ubuntu section: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=uscs=19l=ens=dhs Thanks. I bought both the Studio 15 and the Mini recently and am pretty happy with them. -- nikkiana http://www.knitgeeklife.com ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ -- Lloyd Kvam Venix Corp DLSLUG/GNHLUG library http://dlslug.org/library.html http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rsshtml/recent/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rss/recent/dlslug ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 08:04 -0500, Ted Roche wrote: Lloyd Kvam wrote: My daughter's laptop has a failing disk drive. I've backed up her data. The laptop is old enough that we want to replace it. I'm looking for suggestions as to where I can get a reasonable laptop with Ubuntu or simply bare. I can handle the Ubuntu installation. I have heard good things about http://www.system76.com/ Thank you all for the advice and help. The Dell site navigation only shows the mini when you pick laptops/ubuntu. I did not see the possibility of picking open source first towards the bottom of the screen. I've ordered a Dell Studio 15. It's her primary computer, so the mini, mobility choices are not good options. The non-mini Walmart choices were all Celerons. She does enough Math work and I've always felt that the Celerons were not worth the performance sacrifice. System76 looked good, but was somewhat pricier. I'm quite willing to go with an unknown brand name, but I know my daughter prefers to stay closer to the main stream. At least we managed to avoid buying an unwanted Windows license. -- Lloyd Kvam Venix Corp DLSLUG/GNHLUG library http://dlslug.org/library.html http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rsshtml/recent/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rss/recent/dlslug ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Lloyd Kvam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At least we managed to avoid buying an unwanted Windows license. The question is, did you avoid paying for it anyway? I've noticed in the past that many PCs being sold without a Windows license cost the same as the ones with. I've wondered if that's Dell pocketing the difference, or whether Microsoft is still getting all (or some) of the money, just not giving us the license. They've been nailed in court for doing so before, so this isn't baseless speculation. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
RE: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
http://marc.merlins.org/linux/refundday/ The original Windows Refund Day, February 15, 1999. I'm not sure if I made it into one of those photos - that might be the back of my head at the upper left of the photo of Eric Raymond. -Michael Pelletier. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ben Scott Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 10:54 AM To: Greater NH Linux User Group Subject: Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Lloyd Kvam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At least we managed to avoid buying an unwanted Windows license. The question is, did you avoid paying for it anyway? I've noticed in the past that many PCs being sold without a Windows license cost the same as the ones with. I've wondered if that's Dell pocketing the difference, or whether Microsoft is still getting all (or some) of the money, just not giving us the license. They've been nailed in court for doing so before, so this isn't baseless speculation. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 10:53 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Lloyd Kvam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At least we managed to avoid buying an unwanted Windows license. The question is, did you avoid paying for it anyway? I've noticed in the past that many PCs being sold without a Windows license cost the same as the ones with. I've wondered if that's Dell pocketing the difference, or whether Microsoft is still getting all (or some) of the money, just not giving us the license. In the past, I determined that Dell's Ubuntu systems were slightly less than the Windows equivalent. I did not check this time before placing the purchase. I'll poke around and report back. They've been nailed in court for doing so before, so this isn't baseless speculation. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ -- Lloyd Kvam Venix Corp DLSLUG/GNHLUG library http://dlslug.org/library.html http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rsshtml/recent/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rss/recent/dlslug ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 10:53 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: The question is, did you avoid paying for it anyway? Vista Home Premium appears to add $30 to the cost. The Vista laptop allows for some lower cost options that are not available in the Ubuntu configurations. Once all the hardware got equalized, the Vista quote was higher by $30. -- Lloyd Kvam Venix Corp DLSLUG/GNHLUG library http://dlslug.org/library.html http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rsshtml/recent/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rss/recent/dlslug ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 12:02 PM, Lloyd Kvam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 10:53 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: The question is, did you avoid paying for it anyway? Vista Home Premium appears to add $30 to the cost. I've noticed many vendors offering a Windows XP downgrade for an additional fee. I just ordered a Lenovo notebook, and they do that. I don't know what to say about paying not to get something other than it sounds like a mafia racket. /me shakes head. If I were going to actually run Windows, then I'd probably pay extra for the XP option -- visit http://freephile.com today skype/aim/irc/twitter freephile home office 978-225-8302 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
My daughter's laptop has a failing disk drive. I've backed up her data. The laptop is old enough that we want to replace it. I'm looking for suggestions as to where I can get a reasonable laptop with Ubuntu or simply bare. I can handle the Ubuntu installation. Dell no longer offers Ubuntu on their standard laptops through the web site menus. It appears to be possible over the phone, but I can not get the details worked out. (They keep insisting I need MS Office or I won't be able to do any word processing.) -- Lloyd Kvam Venix Corp DLSLUG/GNHLUG library http://dlslug.org/library.html http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rsshtml/recent/dlslug http://www.librarything.com/rss/recent/dlslug ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
Actually, Dell does sell them on the web, you just have to go to the right second on the website to find it. (In the Laptops Mini dropdown nav, it's under Open Source PCs). If you try to go through the selector thing on the main page, the only thing that shows up with Ubuntu is the Mini. But to directly link to their Ubuntu section: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=uscs=19l=ens=dhs I bought both the Studio 15 and the Mini recently and am pretty happy with them. -- nikkiana http://www.knitgeeklife.com ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
Walmart still sells laptops with Linux preloaded on-line: http://www.walmart.com/browse/Computers/Laptop-Computers/All-Laptop-Computers/_/N-3xtzZaq9c?catNavId=69ic=48_0path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A4070ref=125875.183815+50.500592 mark ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
My daughter's laptop has a failing disk drive. I've backed up her data. The laptop is old enough that we want to replace it. I'm looking for suggestions as to where I can get a reasonable laptop with Ubuntu or simply bare. I can handle the Ubuntu installation. Dell no longer offers Ubuntu on their standard laptops through the web site menus. It appears to be possible over the phone, but I can not get the details worked out. (They keep insisting I need MS Office or I won't be able to do any word processing.) Peter had an Asus 10 at DLSLUG last week. I'm selling my n810 to get one. Ubuntu has a purpose-built flavor for it. $450 @Newegg a couple weeks back (plus realistic memory, no doubt). -Bill ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
