When you buy a laptop that comes pre-installed with Windoze, buy the version with the cheapest hard drive they offer. Then buy another large hard drive, preferably two identical large hard drives, from another trusted vendor. Then install Linux from scratch on both of those. Why?
You may need that Windoze hard drive for warranty service. You may also need it to upgrade the BIOS. Manufacturers typically charge more per GB for hard drives than Newegg or Fry's, so you can save money buying it yourself. And if you ever want to sell the laptop, you will probably find more buyers (sadly) if the machine is running Windoze. Lastly, if you ever want to do bit copy image backup, it is somewhat helpful if the backup target is identical to the backup source. You are less likely to find a hard drive to the drives the manufacturer buys. So, buy two hard drives! Hard drives are so damned inexpensive these days, having spares is cheap insurance. Yes, it is nice to make a copy of Windoze go away by installing Linux over the top of it, but Redmond has an inexhaustable supply, and they will count your machine as a Windoze machine no matter what you do after they've sold it. If you want to make Windoze really go away, help spread Linux. The above does not apply to laptops preinstalled with Linux, of course. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom [email protected] Voice (503)-520-1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon" Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
