where to buy a new system.

[Bill McGonigle]

On Nov 28, 2005, at 23:28, Scott C. Mellott wrote:

> We buy a lot of Dell systems pre-configured with RH Enterprise 4.0.

Yeah, and we're glad the dell-linux list is there to get things 
working... :)

>  Most are in the workstation class (Precision 670 & 380)

Good to know - I'm specifically asking about the desktop-class.  Linux 
is an impossible sell into the SMB space if it requires high-end 
workstations.

> but Dell and HP both offer systems fully functional under Linux.

The Dells are luck-of-the draw.  The new Optiplexes (at least the 
models I've touched), for instance, need the SATA controller set to 
PATA emulation to get linux 2.6 working (which suffers on performance). 
  Another one had a realtime-clock controller that was out of spec and 
wasn't supported until someone did a patch in 2.6.14.  I'm sure Dell 
knows this - or if they don't they're either unwilling to test or 
approve of the situation.

The HP's are good out of the box but they're slow to non-existent on 
updates for their binary drivers on older hardware.  I have a DL-xxx 
server with a binary HP RAID controller that will be stuck on 2.4 
forever, or until I rip out that RAID controller.

-Bill
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