[ale] Dell laptop - recommendations?

[BruceG]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Hubbs" <hbbs at comcast.net>
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org>
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 3:16 PM
Subject: Re: [ale] Dell laptop - recommendations?


> > I figure for something to give my sister - something in the P3,
500-650Mhz,
> > 256Mg RAM range would suffice. It will be mainly for writing proposals,
so a
> > newer P4 would be a bit much. Also like that they are sold with no OS,
so I'm
> > not paying for something I wouldn't use.
>
> I'm not quite clear on this - who offers laptops with no OS?  I'm likely
> to FINALLY be in the market for myself pretty soon.
>
> I'm also interested to know - aside from HP, who else's laptops have a
> scrolling area next to the touchpad?
>
> - Jeff
>
Jeff - it wasn't a new laptop. It was a laptop off lease from Dell Financial
Serices.Dell Financial Services sells used laptops coming off lease on
E-Bay. Mine was maybe 2 years old - so it's out of warrantee. BUT - it
worked like a charm. I tried Mandrake 9.1, Knoppix 3.3 installed to
harddisk, and SuSE 8.2 Personal on it. SuSE was the simplest to get
everything working. I'm sure RH would work fine as well, I just hadn't
burned any RH CD's at that time (no my work laptop is dual-boot RH9.0 and
WinXP).

If you don't mind a used laptop - Dell Financial is a great deal. My sister
took it into a computer shop (she's Linux-Phobic) and the owner said he sold
them for $650. I got mine for $405.

The bad part of the story is the comp shop owner wiped SuSE 8.2 off and
installed a non-licensed version of Windows and a non-licensed version of
MSOffice. Needless to say, I will not be helping with PD in any way shape or
form. If he was local (she lives about a 12 hour drive away) I'd file a
complaint with the BSA.