Inexpensive Linux Laptop

[Shawn K. O'Shea]

> If you were looking for an new (not refurbished) inexpensive Linux laptop,
> that would be used primarily to run Firefox, OpenOffice and a DVD player,
> where would you get it?

Dell offers an Inspiron, currently starting at 599$ that ships with
Ubuntu preinstalled (http://www.dell.com/open).  There also seem to be
some Linux laptop/desktop vendors out there. I read somewhere some
good reviews of System 76, who sell an entire lineup of Ubuntu laptops
starting at 650$ (http://www.system76.com/). I'm actually not an
Ubunutu user (well I've tinkered. I'm really a CentOS and Fedora
user), but Ubuntu seems really popular in the laptop space. I was
recently browsing through their list of supported laptops. They
maintain some officially supported/tested systems and have a pretty
good list of user reports. (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam)

This is also a pretty good site of user reports for checking
compatibility on a given model: http://www.linux-laptop.net/

-Shawn