electrocomputerwarehouse

[Eric Battersby]

On Thu, 26 May 2011, Lennart Sorensen wrote:

> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 02:52:30PM -0400, Dave Cramer wrote:
> > Any comments good or bad .I'm looking for a refurb laptop. They have a
> > dell d620 for 250 ...
>
> Dell laptops are in general very awful.

Please clarify; in what way?
For running Linux, or hardware-wise?
Interfacing to newer hardware?
I have no experience with the Dell Dxxx laptop series.

4 years ago I bought a Dell C640 with 256MB RAM for $300
because I was familiar with the model (since it was used in
many large corporations) and I had extra compatible
peripherals lying around. Specs: P4, 2Ghz speed, 1GiB max RAM
(advertised), but 2GiB max RAM (actual).
It didn't have WiFi, or USB2.  It came with a lame non-Dell
battery (I should have checked).

The Dell removable DVD reader cannot read CDs burned past
650MB, so some Live-CDs didn't work.
The PCMCIA USB2 card I got had issues with newer SATA drives.
Getting a SATA to IDE adaptor might have helped
if it would fit into an external case.
Don't expect the latest Fedora to work well.

Otherwise, running CentOS, I am generally satisfied with it.

--
Eric.
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