Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Thu, 25 Jun 2015 12:09:03 +0100, Mick wrote: I would seek a refund for the MSWindows OS that it comes preinstalled with. (This is a blatant case of software bundling with their products and the refusal to cough up a refund when requested remains incompatible with European Directive 2005/29/EC. Court test cases in France and Belgium have validated this and big boys like Dell are now more cautious when confronted by informed consumers assertively requesting refunds.) The XPS 13 at least is available as a Developer Edition that comes with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS instead of Windows. -- Neil Bothwick Actually, Microsoft is sort of a mixture between the Borg and the Ferengi. pgp9iHSVS2HNb.pgp Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On 25/06/2015 15:06, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Thu, 25 Jun 2015 12:09:03 +0100, Mick wrote: I would seek a refund for the MSWindows OS that it comes preinstalled with. (This is a blatant case of software bundling with their products and the refusal to cough up a refund when requested remains incompatible with European Directive 2005/29/EC. Court test cases in France and Belgium have validated this and big boys like Dell are now more cautious when confronted by informed consumers assertively requesting refunds.) The XPS 13 at least is available as a Developer Edition that comes with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS instead of Windows. If you or the crowd you work for can legitimately qualify as a business customer, you experience a whole different world to the plebs who buy thrugh the consume site. Suddenly all the options you could not have before become available, like swapping out hardware for something different. It's actually not a problem for Dell to do this as so many of their products are highly customized and they use that fancy JIT manufacturing process-thingy. I've never found removing Windows from the order to be a problem; ask, and of course they can accomodate my specific needs. But, sales of 1000+ laptops a year nd a dedicated sales person just for us might have had something to do with that :-) -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Wednesday 24 Jun 2015 19:16:01 Alan McKinnon wrote: On 24/06/2015 19:35, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: On Wed, Jun 24 2015, Alan McKinnon wrote: One more thing I can add: From observation, I can say that Dell has 2 or more grades of kit they sell: 1. Cheap shit. You find these in supermarkets and Walmart. It's just as crappy as all the other cheap shit around with the same bargain basement price. They call this inspiron 2. Good stuff like the Precision and XPS range. You tend not to find these at Walmart, and have to go to a proper dealer for them, or your workplace has a scheme to provide them. These tend to be big or specialized or super-graphics. Latitude is the line for normal business. Yes, that's the ones :-) Minor caveat emptor: I bought an XPS some years ago for an exceptionally high amount of money - close to what I would pay for an AppleMac. More than a month after I placed an order I still had no laptop ... Multiple enquiries with Dell and being bounced between them and their delivery company, revealed that it wasn't just China taking forever to assemble it or ship it, but there was ultimately a problem with their mickey mouse delivery company and a particular driver who 'lost' my XPS. So I asked them to dispatch another preferably with a different delivery company. More than two months after the initial order I was relieved to receive a box with a laptop in it. It was all new and shiny, but its plastic frame was bent upwards in the middle, along with the keyboard, with keys ending up rubbing against the screen and marking it. What I am trying to describe is that the main laptop case had a considerable curve in the middle, while the screen was flat, creating an area of contact between the keyboard and the middle of the monitor surface. In a few months the monitor was scratched, as I used to take it to work on a daily basis and as you would do with a laptop I had to ... close the lid. Given the experience of waiting for more than two months I did not return it at the time. Since then the power supply/battery charger failed because it was under-rated for the large battery option I had chosen. I had to buy a new bigger power supply at a considerable cost from Dell. By now I had spent at least as much as an AppleMac would have costed, but without the brushed aluminium case and buttons. :-( Finally, the plastic left Shift key broke as I was using a vacuum cleaner to remove dust from the keyboard. I can't bring myself to order a new keyboard and bodged some sticky tape fix for now, given that the laptop is 5 years old. The good things about it have been: 1. It works fine without any other hardware failures than described above. 2. The battery still gives me just over 20 minutes on the battery, after a couple of cells died a year or so ago. 3. With a 1st gen i7 CPU it was faster than anything else in my household at the time and it is still pretty respectable on the compiling front. 4. The quality of the 1080p monitor is still impressive, but unfortunately scratched a bit in the middle. If I were to order again a laptop from Dell I would try not to order it without a back up machine - a silly statement I know, since PCs often break down when you are least prepared for it! :p I would definitely return it if things as major as a bent case were evident. I would seek a refund for the MSWindows OS that it comes preinstalled with. (This is a blatant case of software bundling with their products and the refusal to cough up a refund when requested remains incompatible with European Directive 2005/29/EC. Court test cases in France and Belgium have validated this and big boys like Dell are now more cautious when confronted by informed consumers assertively requesting refunds.) However, first and foremost I would try to look at options for building a laptop myself. I would not buy a ready made dekstop PC from an OEM, because I can get a better/cheaper selection of components myself, so I would like to explore this for laptops too. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Thu, Jun 25 2015, Mick wrote: On Thursday 25 Jun 2015 16:06:31 Neil Bothwick wrote: On Thu, 25 Jun 2015 10:36:36 -0400, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: The XPS 13 at least is available as a Developer Edition that comes with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS instead of Windows. I dual boot windows and gentoo. The quotes are there since my current machine (3 years old) has never been in windows post-installation. The advantage of having windows available occurs if you need dell maintenance. Which is a rather poor reason for keeping Windows around. The Ubuntu version is not significantly cheaper, but it would make dealing with support that much easier if the machine was supposed to have Linux on it in the first place. When I bought my 16 XPS Ubuntu was definitely not available and when I asked (repeatedly) I was told that if I wanted a Linux OS I would have to buy a cheaper laptop that came with Ubuntu. They were also adamant in their very polite Indian accent that the only OS that came with the laptop I wanted was MSWindows 7 and they would not sell it without an OS. Of course if you are a big corporate customer they will be more accomodating, but in my case they were reading off a script with any option available for me, as long as it was exactly what was shown on the Dell website. :-p Interesting. When I just now logged into dell.com I could find the latitude 7450 with 16GB RAM and 500GB SSD. But ubunto was *not* there and neither was a 1920x1080 non-touch screen. Indeed many fewer options that when I logged in premier.dell.com and went to the same laptop. allan
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Thu, Jun 25 2015, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Thu, 25 Jun 2015 12:09:03 +0100, Mick wrote: I would seek a refund for the MSWindows OS that it comes preinstalled with. (This is a blatant case of software bundling with their products and the refusal to cough up a refund when requested remains incompatible with European Directive 2005/29/EC. Court test cases in France and Belgium have validated this and big boys like Dell are now more cautious when confronted by informed consumers assertively requesting refunds.) The XPS 13 at least is available as a Developer Edition that comes with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS instead of Windows. I dual boot windows and gentoo. The quotes are there since my current machine (3 years old) has never been in windows post-installation. The advantage of having windows available occurs if you need dell maintenance. At least in the past they are much more comfortable with windows. allan PS Also ,I keep thinking I will install and play diablo, a game I played about 5 years ago :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Thu, Jun 25 2015, Alan McKinnon wrote: On 25/06/2015 15:06, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Thu, 25 Jun 2015 12:09:03 +0100, Mick wrote: I would seek a refund for the MSWindows OS that it comes preinstalled with. (This is a blatant case of software bundling with their products and the refusal to cough up a refund when requested remains incompatible with European Directive 2005/29/EC. Court test cases in France and Belgium have validated this and big boys like Dell are now more cautious when confronted by informed consumers assertively requesting refunds.) The XPS 13 at least is available as a Developer Edition that comes with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS instead of Windows. If you or the crowd you work for can legitimately qualify as a business customer, you experience a whole different world to the plebs who buy thrugh the consume site. Very much agreed. I bought consumer dells (inspiron) for my children and the customer service was poor. Even close DNA matching didn't help. allan PS Both now have macs and are fully wired into the apple ecosystem, much to my chagrin.
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Thu, Jun 25 2015, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Thu, 25 Jun 2015 10:36:36 -0400, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: The XPS 13 at least is available as a Developer Edition that comes with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS instead of Windows. I dual boot windows and gentoo. The quotes are there since my current machine (3 years old) has never been in windows post-installation. The advantage of having windows available occurs if you need dell maintenance. Which is a rather poor reason for keeping Windows around. The Ubuntu version is not significantly cheaper, but it would make dealing with support that much easier if the machine was supposed to have Linux on it in the first place. The cost (after purchase) is a few 10s of GB of disk. Dell's remote hw diagnostics work well when you boot windows. My wife's machine is dell windows-only and she did make use of dell maintenance. That said, in order to confirm linux support for the various hardware pieces, I did temporarily select ubuntu. The result was that Wi-Gig wireless and LCD screen are not supported so I changed to the non Wi-Gig versions. allan
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Thursday 25 Jun 2015 16:06:31 Neil Bothwick wrote: On Thu, 25 Jun 2015 10:36:36 -0400, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: The XPS 13 at least is available as a Developer Edition that comes with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS instead of Windows. I dual boot windows and gentoo. The quotes are there since my current machine (3 years old) has never been in windows post-installation. The advantage of having windows available occurs if you need dell maintenance. Which is a rather poor reason for keeping Windows around. The Ubuntu version is not significantly cheaper, but it would make dealing with support that much easier if the machine was supposed to have Linux on it in the first place. When I bought my 16 XPS Ubuntu was definitely not available and when I asked (repeatedly) I was told that if I wanted a Linux OS I would have to buy a cheaper laptop that came with Ubuntu. They were also adamant in their very polite Indian accent that the only OS that came with the laptop I wanted was MSWindows 7 and they would not sell it without an OS. Of course if you are a big corporate customer they will be more accomodating, but in my case they were reading off a script with any option available for me, as long as it was exactly what was shown on the Dell website. :-p If I could source the same components at the time and assemble the laptop myself, I would pay slightly less, but definitely get a straight case that shuts without damaging the monitor screen. For the same money I would probably get a better quality case that isn't and doesn't feel as plastic as this one. However, when I looked I didn't find any build-your-own laptop options in the market at the time. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On 23/06/2015 18:53, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: On Sun, Jun 21 2015, Alan McKinnon wrote: On 21/06/2015 21:16, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: I am seriously thinking of updating my dell 6430s laptop purchased 3 years ago. NYU has an arrangement with dell so that is the only maker I am considering. This machine will be essentially gentoo only (I configure my computers to dual boot some version of windows for ease in dealing with dell support). [...] So on the whole, my experience with higher-end Dell is that hardware is pretty much well-supported across the boards with very few gotchas. The only two exceptions would be wifi cards (cheap to fix) and maybe GPU co-processor (if you are unlucky to get an unsupported cutting edge one and need to wait a bit for Linux support to catch up). I've had similar experiences but very much appreciate the confirmation and your comments. One more thing I can add: From observation, I can say that Dell has 2 or more grades of kit they sell: 1. Cheap shit. You find these in supermarkets and Walmart. It's just as crappy as all the other cheap shit around with the same bargain basement price. 2. Good stuff like the Precision and XPS range. You tend not to find these at Walmart, and have to go to a proper dealer for them, or your workplace has a scheme to provide them. You want category #2. But seeing as you are looking at the i7-5600U and similar, I think you are already in that bracket. Just wanted to clarify that :-) -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On 24/06/2015 19:35, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: On Wed, Jun 24 2015, Alan McKinnon wrote: One more thing I can add: From observation, I can say that Dell has 2 or more grades of kit they sell: 1. Cheap shit. You find these in supermarkets and Walmart. It's just as crappy as all the other cheap shit around with the same bargain basement price. They call this inspiron 2. Good stuff like the Precision and XPS range. You tend not to find these at Walmart, and have to go to a proper dealer for them, or your workplace has a scheme to provide them. These tend to be big or specialized or super-graphics. Latitude is the line for normal business. Yes, that's the ones :-) -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Wed, Jun 24 2015, Alan McKinnon wrote: One more thing I can add: From observation, I can say that Dell has 2 or more grades of kit they sell: 1. Cheap shit. You find these in supermarkets and Walmart. It's just as crappy as all the other cheap shit around with the same bargain basement price. They call this inspiron 2. Good stuff like the Precision and XPS range. You tend not to find these at Walmart, and have to go to a proper dealer for them, or your workplace has a scheme to provide them. These tend to be big or specialized or super-graphics. Latitude is the line for normal business. allan
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
Sent from my iPhone On Jun 21, 2015, at 3:16 PM, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: I am seriously thinking of updating my dell 6430s laptop purchased 3 years ago. NYU has an arrangement with dell so that is the only maker I am considering. This machine will be essentially gentoo only (I configure my computers to dual boot some version of windows for ease in dealing with dell support). The hardest decision is size vs performance, but I know you can't help with that. I have pretty much decided on the dell 7450. My questions concern three options: Graphics, Wireless, Screen. But would appreciate any other advice you have. I will definitely get * 16GB ram (2 x 8GB) * 512GB solid state disk * most powerful CPU compatible with the options chosen 1. Graphics. I can afford a high-end graphics co-processor, but prefer the software/administrative simplicity of intel graphics. I do not play high speed games or otherwise run graphics intensive applications. Am I correct in believing that Linux (the kernel) supports (the dell option) Intel Core i7-5600U Processor, UMA graphics, Smart Card directly with no extra gentoo package needed? 2. Wireless. My current home router/wireless-access-point (linksys WRT54G) supports 10/100 wired and 802.11bg wireless. I have no problems with this device or our home network, but I could upgrade to a 1-gigabit version if deemed important. Currently I must install net-wireless/broadcom-sta. This has caused no problems to date, but a wireless chip supported directly by linux would be preferable. I would appreciate help choosing among the following dell options (the prices are about the same). a. Intel Tri Band Wireless-AC 17265 802.11AC Wi-Fi + Wi-Gig + BT 4.0 LE Wireless Card b. Dell Wireless 1707 802.11n Single Band Wi-Fi + BT 4.0LE Wireless Card c. Dell Wireless 1560 (802.11ac 2x2, WiFi BT) d. Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 802.11AC Wi-Fi + BT 4.0 LE Wireless Card (2X2) 3. Screen I am only considering 1920x1080 (best available) with a camera. a. Touch is available for $160. Are touch screens supported on gentoo/gnome? b. Some screens (including touch) are WiGig capable. This requires option 2a above (Tri Band Wireless-AC). Is WiGig valuable and is it easy to administer? Thanks in advance, allan Regarding the touch screens/tablets, Gentoo has drivers for them. I've been using Gentoo on my tablet PC for years now. However there's no swipe capability. I've read someone who did it but that was just one person and couldn't figure out how he did it. I think they used KDE's Plasma.
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Sun, Jun 21 2015, Alan McKinnon wrote: On 21/06/2015 21:16, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: I am seriously thinking of updating my dell 6430s laptop purchased 3 years ago. NYU has an arrangement with dell so that is the only maker I am considering. This machine will be essentially gentoo only (I configure my computers to dual boot some version of windows for ease in dealing with dell support). The hardest decision is size vs performance, but I know you can't help with that. I have pretty much decided on the dell 7450. My questions concern three options: Graphics, Wireless, Screen. But would appreciate any other advice you have. I've used nothing bur Dell laptops for 10 years (currently on #5), and I've yet to run into any hardware support issues. Same here (but 20+ years). However, some friends and my children did have problems. I believe the difference is NYU buys many dells, whereas the friends/children were individual purchasers. I will definitely get * 16GB ram (2 x 8GB) * 512GB solid state disk * most powerful CPU compatible with the options chosen 1. Graphics. I can afford a high-end graphics co-processor, but prefer the software/administrative simplicity of intel graphics. Am I correct in believing that Linux (the kernel) supports (the dell option) Intel Core i7-5600U Processor, UMA graphics, Smart Card directly with no extra gentoo package needed? All intel cards I've ever seen are supported. Good. I will get the Core i7-5600U 2. Wireless. I would appreciate help choosing among the following dell options (the prices are about the same). a. Intel Tri Band Wireless-AC 17265 802.11AC Wi-Fi + Wi-Gig + BT 4.0 LE Wireless Card b. Dell Wireless 1707 802.11n Single Band Wi-Fi + BT 4.0LE Wireless Card c. Dell Wireless 1560 (802.11ac 2x2, WiFi BT) d. Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 802.11AC Wi-Fi + BT 4.0 LE Wireless Card (2X2) Intel wifi cards OTH, seem to Just Work. I recommend you go with an intel card, or swap it out later (they are fairly cheap). OK. I guess I will choose a. over d. above for the (stupid/naive) reason that tri band is better than dual band. 3. Screen I am only considering 1920x1080 (best available) with a camera. a. Are touch screens supported on gentoo/gnome? No idea, never used one. b. Is WiGig valuable and is it easy to administer? Never heard of it :-) OK. I will (shudder) ask dell which 1920x1080 w/ camera screen to get. So on the whole, my experience with higher-end Dell is that hardware is pretty much well-supported across the boards with very few gotchas. The only two exceptions would be wifi cards (cheap to fix) and maybe GPU co-processor (if you are unlucky to get an unsupported cutting edge one and need to wait a bit for Linux support to catch up). I've had similar experiences but very much appreciate the confirmation and your comments. allan
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Tue, Jun 23 2015, Christopher Jones wrote: Sent from my iPhone Regarding the touch screens/tablets, Gentoo has drivers for them. I've been using Gentoo on my tablet PC for years now. However there's no swipe capability. I've read someone who did it but that was just one person and couldn't figure out how he did it. I think they used KDE's Plasma. Thanks. I use gnome and would make little use of the touch screen capability if it were available. As a result I decided against it for this purchase since it appears the admin overhead would exceed the very modest use I would make of it. Hopefully in 3 years, when I buy my next laptop it will be well supported and just works in gnome. thanks again, allan
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On 06/23/2015 10:50 AM, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: On Tue, Jun 23 2015, Christopher Jones wrote: Sent from my iPhone Regarding the touch screens/tablets, Gentoo has drivers for them. I've been using Gentoo on my tablet PC for years now. However there's no swipe capability. I've read someone who did it but that was just one person and couldn't figure out how he did it. I think they used KDE's Plasma. Thanks. I use gnome and would make little use of the touch screen capability if it were available. As a result I decided against it for this purchase since it appears the admin overhead would exceed the very modest use I would make of it. Hopefully in 3 years, when I buy my next laptop it will be well supported and just works in gnome. thanks again, allan I discovered another mark against touchscreens - I tried to repair a friend's laptop with a touch screen (not a Dell) and found that the supply chain for parts for repair is slim to none. They do break and in a couple years you may not be able to find a digitizer (or if you do you can't get it separate from the laptop screen assembly - camera, screen, digitizer). And if you are really unlucky you'll find that the connectors are different from the non-touch to the touch models so swapping in a plain screen won't work. Dan
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On Tue, Jun 23 2015, Daniel Frey wrote: On 06/23/2015 10:50 AM, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: On Tue, Jun 23 2015, Christopher Jones wrote: Sent from my iPhone Regarding the touch screens/tablets, Gentoo has drivers for them. I've been using Gentoo on my tablet PC for years now. However there's no swipe capability. I've read someone who did it but that was just one person and couldn't figure out how he did it. I think they used KDE's Plasma. Thanks. I use gnome and would make little use of the touch screen capability if it were available. As a result I decided against it for this purchase since it appears the admin overhead would exceed the very modest use I would make of it. Hopefully in 3 years, when I buy my next laptop it will be well supported and just works in gnome. thanks again, allan I discovered another mark against touchscreens - I tried to repair a friend's laptop with a touch screen (not a Dell) and found that the supply chain for parts for repair is slim to none. They do break and in a couple years you may not be able to find a digitizer (or if you do you can't get it separate from the laptop screen assembly - camera, screen, digitizer). And if you are really unlucky you'll find that the connectors are different from the non-touch to the touch models so swapping in a plain screen won't work. Dan Thanks. I will wait until next cycle for a touchscreen. allan
Re: [gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
On 21/06/2015 21:16, gottl...@nyu.edu wrote: I am seriously thinking of updating my dell 6430s laptop purchased 3 years ago. NYU has an arrangement with dell so that is the only maker I am considering. This machine will be essentially gentoo only (I configure my computers to dual boot some version of windows for ease in dealing with dell support). The hardest decision is size vs performance, but I know you can't help with that. I have pretty much decided on the dell 7450. My questions concern three options: Graphics, Wireless, Screen. But would appreciate any other advice you have. I've used nothing bur Dell laptops for 10 years (currently on #5), and I've yet to run into any hardware support issues. I will definitely get * 16GB ram (2 x 8GB) * 512GB solid state disk * most powerful CPU compatible with the options chosen 1. Graphics. I can afford a high-end graphics co-processor, but prefer the software/administrative simplicity of intel graphics. I do not play high speed games or otherwise run graphics intensive applications. Am I correct in believing that Linux (the kernel) supports (the dell option) Intel Core i7-5600U Processor, UMA graphics, Smart Card directly with no extra gentoo package needed? All intel cards I've ever seen are supported. My current machine has an AMD co-card, the one before a Nvidia co-card. Both times I just used the Intel hardware, it does eveything I need 2. Wireless. My current home router/wireless-access-point (linksys WRT54G) supports 10/100 wired and 802.11bg wireless. I have no problems with this device or our home network, but I could upgrade to a 1-gigabit version if deemed important. Currently I must install net-wireless/broadcom-sta. This has caused no problems to date, but a wireless chip supported directly by linux would be preferable. Hmm, broadcom. Lots of effort, IMNSHO not worth the effort. I would appreciate help choosing among the following dell options (the prices are about the same). a. Intel Tri Band Wireless-AC 17265 802.11AC Wi-Fi + Wi-Gig + BT 4.0 LE Wireless Card b. Dell Wireless 1707 802.11n Single Band Wi-Fi + BT 4.0LE Wireless Card c. Dell Wireless 1560 (802.11ac 2x2, WiFi BT) d. Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 802.11AC Wi-Fi + BT 4.0 LE Wireless Card (2X2) Dell branded wireless is pot luck what it might actually be under the covers. My current one (class n) is actually a broadcom and needs broadcom-sta (which I can't get to work). Intel wifi cards OTH, seem to Just Work. I recommend you go with an intel card, or swap it out later (they are fairly cheap) 3. Screen I am only considering 1920x1080 (best available) with a camera. a. Touch is available for $160. Are touch screens supported on gentoo/gnome? No idea, never used one. I have a tablet and a phone for Touch, and if I *really* want to swipe, I guess there's always that latest Windows b. Some screens (including touch) are WiGig capable. This requires option 2a above (Tri Band Wireless-AC). Is WiGig valuable and is it easy to administer? Never heard of it :-) So on the whole, my experience with higher-end Dell is that hardware is pretty much well-supported across the boards with very few gotchas. The only two exceptions would be wifi cards (cheap to fix) and maybe GPU co-processor (if you are unlucky to get an unsupported cutting edge one and need to wait a bit for Linux support to catch up). -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
[gentoo-user] purchasing a dell laptop
I am seriously thinking of updating my dell 6430s laptop purchased 3 years ago. NYU has an arrangement with dell so that is the only maker I am considering. This machine will be essentially gentoo only (I configure my computers to dual boot some version of windows for ease in dealing with dell support). The hardest decision is size vs performance, but I know you can't help with that. I have pretty much decided on the dell 7450. My questions concern three options: Graphics, Wireless, Screen. But would appreciate any other advice you have. I will definitely get * 16GB ram (2 x 8GB) * 512GB solid state disk * most powerful CPU compatible with the options chosen 1. Graphics. I can afford a high-end graphics co-processor, but prefer the software/administrative simplicity of intel graphics. I do not play high speed games or otherwise run graphics intensive applications. Am I correct in believing that Linux (the kernel) supports (the dell option) Intel Core i7-5600U Processor, UMA graphics, Smart Card directly with no extra gentoo package needed? 2. Wireless. My current home router/wireless-access-point (linksys WRT54G) supports 10/100 wired and 802.11bg wireless. I have no problems with this device or our home network, but I could upgrade to a 1-gigabit version if deemed important. Currently I must install net-wireless/broadcom-sta. This has caused no problems to date, but a wireless chip supported directly by linux would be preferable. I would appreciate help choosing among the following dell options (the prices are about the same). a. Intel Tri Band Wireless-AC 17265 802.11AC Wi-Fi + Wi-Gig + BT 4.0 LE Wireless Card b. Dell Wireless 1707 802.11n Single Band Wi-Fi + BT 4.0LE Wireless Card c. Dell Wireless 1560 (802.11ac 2x2, WiFi BT) d. Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 802.11AC Wi-Fi + BT 4.0 LE Wireless Card (2X2) 3. Screen I am only considering 1920x1080 (best available) with a camera. a. Touch is available for $160. Are touch screens supported on gentoo/gnome? b. Some screens (including touch) are WiGig capable. This requires option 2a above (Tri Band Wireless-AC). Is WiGig valuable and is it easy to administer? Thanks in advance, allan
