I have run and supported linux on Dell for a number of years, including laptops. I mostly ran on Lattitude laptops. The linux on laptop site takes care of the Dell. I did have to download drives for the video, that provided the biggest problem and some of the battery saving features. I also ran VMware for M$ under linux.
I run a Dimension 4550 for my desktop. At my last place of work we ran RH 6.2-8.0 and Precision upto eight CPU blades from Dell. Stay away from the cheapest Dells( those without a full size APG slot), there are just to many video problems (did not used to be like this, but lately(the last year or so)..).
-kdt
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 11:44:27PM -0500, Faheem Mitha wrote:
I've taken a look at Dell's Precision line of workstations, but it looks
less than ideal. For one things the descriptions are less than specific
about what hardware is included. I was hoping to somehow actually be able
to do a significant amount of customization without breaking the bank.
I oversee a lab of 16 Dell Precision 360s running Red Hat Linux 9. Here is some info (also customizable via the 360/n MiniTower option on Dell's webpage).
Pentium4 2.4 GHz (HT-enabled) 512 MB DDR400 SDRAM ECC 36 GB U320 10k rpm SCSI HD LSI (mptfusion) U320 SCSI adapter, non-raid (no ext connector) Dell 1901fp Nvidia Quadro4 NVS 280 dual DVI/VGA on-board Intel8x0 sound chipset Intel e1000 on-board LAN 16X DVD-ROM 3.5" floppy diskette drive PS/2 keyboard (entry-level) no modem Dell USB 2-button optical scroll mouse (Logitech) no zip drive, USB memory key, or zip disk packs ...
Since Intel donated these machines as part of an educational grant, they initially had Windows XP installed. We hijacked that right off the bat, replacing them with Red Hat 9. Very smooth install.
[One of the workstations is "mine"; I installed Debian Woody after creating a custom kernel and dumping that onto a diskette as part of the 2-diskette rescue/root set. The kernel config is largely stolen from RH9's, but I threw out initrd and compiled in ("y") mptfusion, i2o, ext3 and scsi support. Since I'm the sole user, I dist-upgraded to Sid, and I use GNOME 2.5.5 with Gtk+-2.3.4, Glib-2.3.3, and Pango-1.3.3.]
They're kept up to date via yum (thanks, Kevin!), and they all run 2.6.3-rc1-bk2 kernels (I just copy the necessary files over the net). The only tainted kernel modules they use are Nvidia's binary-only 1.0-5336 drivers.
HTH.
-- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
