Sean £140 for a new 64bit laptop plus perhaps the £20 Vista refund is a serious temptation. Might be worth letting us know how it all turns out on this particular machine so as to add to the Linux (Ubuntu) knowledge tree.
Cheers Mark --- On Tue, 24/3/09, Sean Gibbins <[email protected]> wrote: From: Sean Gibbins <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Dorset] Microsoft Vista Refund To: [email protected], "Dorset Linux User Group" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, 24 March, 2009, 3:45 PM Mark Elkins wrote: > Sean > > Even though a staff discount is available is this Acer laptop the best you > can buy to run Ubuntu? It might actually be a better to buy a Dell (or other > make if you can get it) with Ubuntu pre-installed. > > The reason for this advice has been covered on the Dorset LUG before - > basically that it can be very time consuming and close on impossible to get > everything working - due to the complex components used in laptops as > opposed to desktop pcs. For example internal wireless cards on laptops are a > particular problem. > > Mark Elkins > Chair and Treasurer > OSSG > Hi Mark, That was a staff discount on top of a £100 price drop, which combined came to approximately £140, plus Tesco Clubcard points (don't laugh - six of us have traveled to Europe several times for free with those!) and the convenience of being able to pick up a box and walk away with it. You were bang on regarding the wifi, but I have been doing battle with laptop wifi cards for several years now and relish the challenge! Seriously, I made some enquiries about the laptop prior to Ellie handing over cash to ensure that there were no insurmountable issues, and having performed the Ubuntu 64-bit installation last night I can happily report that everything she currently uses is working, although I haven't tried suspend and hibernate yet, and there is mention of a built-in Web cam that I have yet to physically locate, let alone configure. There may be other exotic aspects lurking, but we will tackle those if, as and when. So, to summarise, at this early point in its life it seems to be a decent bit of kit for the price. Sean -- The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows. Frank Zappa -- Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ irc://irc.blitzed.org:6667/dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-04-01 20:00
