buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu

[Ben Scott]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:
> Subsequently once you have Ubuntu (or other Linux) installed, you
> could install the proprietary Nvidia or FGLRX drivers so that you can get a
> good resolution.

  Can the proprietary driver packages be copied to a separate USB
flash drive, and then installed into the in-RAM "live" system?

> Although I am not a fan of Dell's for the most part they put out a decent
> product ...

  If you buy a Dell, I *strongly* recommend the "Gold Tech Support"
package, or whatever they're calling it these days.  The difference is
night and day.  With it, I'm a happy Dell customer.  Without it, I
wouldn't touch their stuff.

> ... unlike Gateway.

  At %DAYJOB%, we're a former Gateway customer.  They are slowly
evaporating.  They spun off, and then liquidated, their business
division.  Their consumer division is now showing signs of stress as
well.  I don't expect them to live through the current economic mess.

> You are going to run into this problem in most systems today.

  Sadly true.  Free Software was finally gaining serious traction
thanks to Linux, and now it's being challenged by hardware that's
closed-off for no good reason at all.  :-(

-- Ben