buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu

Lloyd Kvam lkvam at venix.com
Wed Jan 21 15:33:29 EST 2009


On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 12:02 -0500, Lloyd Kvam wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 10:53 -0500, Ben Scott wrote:
> > The question is, did you avoid paying for it anyway?
> > 
> Vista Home Premium appears to add $30 to the cost.  
> 
> The Vista laptop allows for some lower cost options that are not
> available in the Ubuntu configurations.  Once all the hardware got
> equalized, the Vista quote was higher by $30.
> 

We finally got our laptop on the third try.  
     1. was the Dell Studio documented in this thread (lcd screen did
        not support Ubuntu's resolution choices)
     2. was purchased at Staples, but, after installing Ubuntu, the
        screen driver was simply too slow to tolerate.  We returned the
        laptop after running the Windows restore.
     3. is a Dell Inspiron.  While Dell sells these with Ubuntu, there
        was a discount code that saved ~$200 as compared to the Ubuntu
        version with equivalent hardware choices.  I did grumble to Dell
        about being forced to buy Vista.  Ubuntu 8.04 worked OK and the
        upgrade to 8.10 went smoothly.  The GUI tools work well enough
        that my daughter appears to be self-sufficient with the sysadmin
        tasks.  Bluetooth has not yet been tested.


-- 
Lloyd Kvam
Venix Corp.
1 Court Street, Suite 378
Lebanon, NH 03766-1358

voice:  603-653-8139
fax:    320-210-3409



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