[ale] macbook and linux

[James Taylor]

I just ordered  a Dell desktop from Costco.

It has an AMD Athlon 64x2 4000+ processor, IGB RAM, 250GB drive and a 19" LCD monitor for $699. Unfortunately it comes with Blister Home Premium, which will immediately be purged, but it was the hardware I care about.  No one preloads or offers the distribution I use and I would reinstall even if it came preloaded, so the the total package cost is my biggest consideration.

That's the problem with the concept of prepackaged linux systems.  If I buy one, it would imply I'm supporting xyz distribution when I will actually be using abc distribution.  I just want the hardware to support the software I want to use, not something packaged generically for no one's needs in particular.

-jt


James Taylor
The East Cobb Group, Inc.
678-697-9420
james.taylor at eastcobbgroup.com
http://www.eastcobbgroup.com















>>> On Sat, Nov 24, 2007 at  3:10 PM, in message <47488527.8080905 at polibyte.com>,
Brian Pitts <brian at polibyte.com> wrote: 
> James Taylor wrote:
>> The specs are not to great compared to what I can pick up for sale at 
> similar or better prices from Costco, Office Depot or even Microcenter.  You 
> don't pay the microsoft "tax", but you pay more for less performance.  It 
> might feel good, but it doesn't make sense economically.
> 
> Sure, you can find good deals anywhere at various times, but I don't 
> believe Dell is outside the normal price range. Searching Office Depot's 
> website for example, their cheapest laptop with a Core 2 CPU is the Vaio 
> VGN-NR160E at $799. If I upgrade the 1420N to match, it costs $839.
> 
>> It's hard to take Dell seriously about this when they offer the low end of 
> each of their lines for not great prices on their non-ms boxes.
> 
> Just a nitpick, but if I had to pick any Dell laptop to call their 
> lowend it would be the 1521, not the 1420. The 1420, 1520, and 1720 
> Inspirons are close to being the same laptop with only a difference in 
> screen size. If you don't think that Dell's Ubuntu laptops are priced 
> competitively with their own Windows laptops, you should complain at 
> IdeaStorm. [1] People have done so before and gotten results.
> 
> I hope I'm not coming off as a fanboy. I'm just pleasantly surprised at 
> how happy I've been with my own Dell experience and thought I would share.
> 
> -Brian
> 
> [1] http://www.dellideastorm.com/
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