Buying a laptop with no OS (to install Linux on).
in [UK Linux]
|
From: Tony van der Hoff on 30 Mar 2010 07:52 On 30/03/10 12:15, Andy Davison wrote: > On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:20:15 -0500, anahata wrote: > >> They all seem to have Ubuntu installed. > > Suse 11 is an option though. > > BTW there is a company called PC Specialist which I haven't used but a > friend has and was happy with where you choose the spec of the computer. > All seem to come with Windows as standard but this can be changed to no > OS with a drop-down box > <http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/> > But apparently no price reduction for specifying no OS. I thought that was the objective!
From: Andy Davison on 30 Mar 2010 12:49 On Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:52:42 +0100, Tony van der Hoff wrote: > But apparently no price reduction for specifying no OS. I thought that > was the objective! There is. If you look at the system summary javascript box on the right of the screen it goes down by £79 inc vat -- Andy Davison andy [ at ] oiyou [ dot ] ukfsn [ dot ] org
From: Simon Brooke on 31 Mar 2010 11:23 On Sat, 27 Mar 2010 18:34:59 -0400, Davey wrote: > On 27 Mar 2010 13:27:45 GMT, Simon Brooke wrote: > >> Seriously, why not buy a Dell (or other) with Linux pre-installed? It >> may not be the distro you want (Dell are still shipping Ubuntu Hardy >> Heron) but it does at least signal the market that people want Linux - >> and you also know that all the hardware on your laptop is supported. > > Well, Hardy Heron being the last LTS, just, I can't blame them. You can > easily put a later version on yourself if you wish. Maybe they will > change to the next LTS when it's fully debugged and available (and > debugged again?). Kudos to them for offering it at all. Yes, that's what I've done. But the point I was making is that by buying it with HH on, not only did I know the drivers would work but I also gave Dell a datapoint that said, 'hey, another of our customers want Linux'. If you're going to replace the operating system on a new laptop with some variant of Linux anyway (and I am), you might as well buy it with Linux pre-installed because then when the accountants at the manufacturers run the numbers they may see it makes sense to only use hardware which has supported Linux drivers. If you buy with 'free' Windows 7 installed, then they don't get that message and the next laptop model they produce may have (even more) unsupported hardware. -- ;; Semper in faecibus sumus, sole profundam variat
From: Musaul Karim on 31 Mar 2010 12:30 I regularly use Ubuntu Linux on a HP dv2899ea. I've used it since ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy). I've upgraded to 9.10 (Karmic) and I'm now running 10.04 (Lucid) beta. It has a nVidia 8400M GS graphics chip. In 8.04 it did lock up a couple of times when you have window transparency etc on using compiz. It's worked fine since then. In 10.04 beta, the webcam stopped working (it used to work in 8.04 and 9.10). I'm guessing that should be fixed by the time the final release of 10.04 is actually out. I also have a desktop with an AMD/ATI 5950 card, which also works. So both AMD/ATI and nVidia seem to be fine in linux right now. The only thing I haven't tested in my laptop is the 56k modem. I've never needed to use it. Everything else (exept the webcam now) works fine. I use a 1920x1200 external display with my laptop via HDMI, which works perfectly. But it seems you can't run 3 displays on it simultaneously i.e. laptop screen, HDMI and VGA. Dunno if that's a linux issue or just a limitation of the graphics chip. It detects all 3, but makes you pick two. That answers part of your question, but I can't help you with finding a retailer selling linux loaded laptops, or blank laptops. Even Dell only seem to be doing this with netbooks nowadays.
From: Daniel James on 2 Apr 2010 14:22
In article <81h7naFb06U1(a)mid.individual.net>, Simon Brooke wrote: > .. the point I was making is that by buying it with HH on, not > only did I know the drivers would work ... It ain't necessarily so ... I've just bought an Acer Aspire One 751h netbook (on special offer until 20th April at Maplin, of all places) which comes with the infamous "intel" GMA500 chipset. Driver support for that is present to some extent in Hardy (and IIRC Intrepid and Jaunty) but not in Karmic (so what did I try to install? Yeah, Karmic ... THEN I got to read about all the problems online). Fortunately a lot of people have applied themselves to the problems of getting the GMA500 to behave -- you don't get peer help like that in the closed-source world -- and I do now have my shiny new netbook running Karmic at the native 1366x768 resolution without too much pain. Incidentally, I'll be asking Acer whether they'd like to donate the cost of my unused XP Home licence to my beer fund. It'll be interesting to hear what they say ... If the thing had come with XP Pro I'd probably have kept it and dual- booted, but I have NO use for the cut-down toy version. 'Simplified' file sharing is too difficult for me! Cheers, Daniel. |