On 04/08/2011 08:08 AM, Robert Krawitz wrote:
> On Fri, 08 Apr 2011 07:48:30 -0400, Jerry Feldman wrote:
>> On 04/08/2011 12:19 AM, David Kramer wrote:
>>> Adding my experience, a lot has to do with which Dell line you get.
>>> Like many companies, there's a big difference between their
>>> light-and-cheap line, their multimedia-gaming line, and their business
>>> line.  I always buy from the business line, and have been very happy
>>> with the construction (and full linux compatibility).  For instance, the
>>> business line has a metal chassis instead of a plastic one, and are more
>>> powerful.  I have a Latitude D820 and my wife has a D830.
>> I agree, except my experience is more with HP. My HP laptop has got to
>> be 7 years old, and I only use it at the installfests to burn DVDs, but
>> I used to bring it to work and BLU meetings. It is an early 64-bit AMD
>> Turion processor. It was also certified for LInux by HP. At the
>> installfests it seems we always had some issues with Dells, but the
>> lower end laptops are very cost reduced  for any brand. I'm not sure if
>> this is still true, but you could get 2 identical  Dell desktops, and
>> look inside and they might have different chips and boards. Again, I'm
>> not sure if this is still true. WRT Installfests, I still tend to favor
>> Lenovo Thinkpads. But my Acer Aspire One netbook booted up with Ubuntu
>> nearly perfectly the first time. After the initial installation, I had
>> to install b43-fwcutter, but in Ubuntu, the installation of b43-fwcutter
>> also gives you an option to download and install the firmware where
>> other distributions do not. (Mint Linux, for instance I had to install
>> b43-fwcutter from the Ubuntu repositories). In other distros you
>> download the appropriate Windows Broadcom driver and use fwcutter to
>> isolate and install the firmware.
> I've always had excellent luck with Dells.  I've had an Inspiron 8000,
> 8200 (actually, a couple of them -- I always buy used and the first
> one had some problems I could never fix), and my current 9400/E1705,
> and I've never had problems running Linux on them.  The only things I
> don't like about the 9400 is that it has a limit of 3.3 GB of RAM and
> will not enable AHCI on its SATA controller.  Otherwise, it's great.
> Finding a WUXGA screen (as opposed to 1920x1080) is getting a bit
> difficult these days.
>
AFAIK, Dell is still the only major manufacturer who does offer linux
preinstalled on consumer laptops and desktops. HP preinstalls enterprise
linux on their servers.

-- 
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


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