[geeks] FYI - Dell to start accepting orders for Ubuntu laptop/desktops

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Joshua Boyd <jdboyd at jdboyd.net>
>Date: 2007/05/25 Fri PM 03:02:55 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] FYI - Dell to start accepting orders for Ubuntu laptop/desktops

<snip>

>I have an Nvidia laptop.  At first I used the then latest Nvidia drivers
>on 6.10.  It had all sorts of things that would cause the machine to
>crash when using nvidia drivers, and a lot of the power saving stuff,
>including sleep and hibernate wouldn't work.
>
>After upgrading to 7.04 and then choosing the restricted drivers
>options, it broke completely.  With a good bit of fiddling and
>consulting forums, I was able to get it functioning with the Ubuntu
>provided restricted drivers.  On the upside, at this point it no longer
>crashes as easily, but on the downside, I still can't use various power
>savings options that I would like to use.  Obviously, I probably don't
>care as much about power management stuff on a desktop, although maybe I
>should. 
>
>In general, my opinion is that unless there is a good reason otherwise,
>it is best to stick with hardware well supported by the OSS drivers.  To
>me that means either newish Intel graphics, or Radeons older than
>X1000. 

I think the purpose of the Dell/Ubuntu offering is that it is a complet, functioning unit, with all power management, display, audio, network, etc. driver issues resolved. Ars Tehnica pegs the price difference between the Vista Home Basic and Ubuntu systems (desktop and laptop) at about $50 for similar hardware. The choices on the Ubuntu systems are more constrained (driver limitation, undoubtedly). What would be nice would be if Dell made their driver collection available for use by folks that already own, say, an Inspiron 1505 laptop...

Lionel