Now THIS is advocacy!

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Tim Writer <tim-s/rLXaiAEBtBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>

| lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org (Lennart Sorensen) writes:

| > I guess I simply don't believe that people who would even consider doing
| > anything other than what everybody else does would even consider buying
| > a dell (unless company policy dictated to them by someone that ought to
| > know better tells them they must buy dell).
| 
| I bought a Dell Inspiron notebook a couple of years ago. At the time, it
| was a good deal and most of the hardware worked well with Linux. Other
| brands either didn't work as well with Linux or were significantly more
| expensive.

I second that.  We bought an Inspiron 6000 (Centrino) notebook for my
daughter a year and a half ago.  Much more linux-friendly than my HP
Pavilion zv5000z notebook (AMD 64).  That's because I learned that
Intel notebook chips are the best for Linux: open drivers for most of
the bits.

She has never once booted WindowsXP on it.  So she's never had to
click through that horrible license.

| I wouldn't consider a Dell desktop or server. Having said that, I will say
| that at some point most people get tired of hand-picking hardware for
| Linux. I know I got tired of it a long time ago. Unfortunately, in my
| experience, none of the (big) brand names do a decent job of ensuring their
| hardware works well with Linux.

Hear hear!

I did buy three Dell desktops last year.  They were cheap off-lease
small form factor machines.  Since they are based on Intel chipsets,
they have decent Linux support.  How cheap? $-10.00 each -- yes
negative, but I had to pay $50 shipping, for a total of $20.

I've generally picked AMD CPUs for the last many years.  But they tend
to come with more Linux problems (i.e. ATI (AMD), nVidia, or VIA
chipsets).

This kind of crap sends many wise folks to Macs.

If Dell sold consumer desktops and notebooks that came with Linux, I
might buy them.  I would probably not use their choice of Linux, but
it would mean that they had managed to get Linux to support
everything.
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