[sf-lug] new computer

[Asheesh Laroia]

On Tue, 13 Nov 2007, Kristian Erik Hermansen wrote:

> On Nov 12, 2007 8:39 PM, Alex Kleider <a_kleider at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I'm seriously considering building myself a "hefty" linux box.
>> I'd appreciate any comments anyone might have as to possibility of
>> incompatibilities with Linux (i.e. any unsupported hardware) or
>> regarding anything else.
>> Here's what I'm looking at:
>
> If you don't really need "hefty", just get a Dell on the cheap:
> http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&kc=6V440&l=en&oc=DDCWDAL&s=dhs

If you follow this link, you will:

* Smile at the idea that a big American company will sell you a computer 
with Ubuntu pre-installed
* be sure to get components that work with Linux
* get a warranty on the whole machine in addition to on its components 
(useful if something breaks and you don't know which part broke but you do 
want it fixed right away)

Dell laptops with Ubuntu have an Intel-brand video chip, which have 
excellent (I think, in fact, The Very Best) support in the Free Desktop 
world.  It seems these Ubuntu desktops have NVIDIA chips for the graphics, 
but they'll be supported well enough even though they have proprietary 
drivers.

You'll probably want to upgrade the Ubuntu they installed (they ship 7.04 
but 7.10 is current), but you can do that easily and quickly with the 
built-in upgrade helper (which you should do before installing much 
software on the machine, in my opinion).

Rick's discussion of the Nvidia parts that "may or may not work", 
depending on freshness, seem to mean that if you have fresh software 
(hopefully like Ubuntu 7.10) the parts will work fine.

-- Asheesh.

--
Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it.