Woops. I meant to send this to more than just Josh.
Follow up: I went with the ZaReason "Strata 6770", pimped out with the slower (2.2GHz versus 2.5GHz) core i7, 8GB RAM, a 750GB 7200RPM disk, and Tux logo and on the key between FN and left Alt (nominally the "Windows" key). I did wind up replacing the OS they installed for me: at order time I hadn't realized that Mint 12 LMDE was 32 bit only. I stuck on Mint DE XFCE. While I haven't tried the built in bluetooth or either of the video outputs yet, everything else just works without any special coersion. (I.e.; I can play DVD movies on this drive (the old Acer's drive was not to be persuaded unless I booted into Windows, the webcam works, etc.) I did have a few episodes of getting past the "system will halt" message to a "Power Down" message, but then not powering down, requiring me to use the button, but this has "cleared up". I would rather have the all the USB connectors on the left: the USB 2.0 connectors, where I want to plug in my wireless mouse dongle, are on the right, putting the dongle where I want the realestate for my mouse. Lefties may disagree. The USB 3.0 connector is on my left, so I can use that when I just have a mouse to plug in, but I also have a wireless headset with a similar dongle, so sometimes mouse side space is constrained. (The external audio connections are also on the right, so that doesn't fully help in replacing the wireless headset.) More so if I want to plug an external drive or video capture device into USB 3.0. I can likely switch to a bluetooth mouse, and find the bluetooth headset that I don't use, and I have a USB 3.0 hub on order, so it isn't going to cramp too much, but worth knowing for the righties out there. Similarly, all external connectors, with the exception of the AC adaptor connector, and except for the SD/MMC connector (which is on the front), are toward the user end of the sides that they are on (as opposed to the monitor hinge end), exacerbating the place for my mouse and for my coffee problem as compared to if they were toward the back. It will be interesting to see how the WiFi works in a place with lots of other WiFi interfaces. My Acer's became useless at PyCON 2010 as the halls filled up and everyone booted their laptops. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it. It's fun to see those 8 CPUs in System Monitor (4 core with hyperthreading). Bill _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
