Blogging Ottinger (tim)My Dell Ubuntu Desktop Machine
I have talked a bit about the Dell/Ubuntu thing in the past. We finally decided to put up or shut up.
When my wife started talking about stepping away from the work world, we decided she’d need a computer. She didn’t want to put up with me fighting to get the network and video and sound all working, and complaining about X problems and printer nightmares. We decided to go with a preinstalled Dell machine. We didn’t get the complete kit. We already had printers and keyboards and mice and monitors we could use. I should get rid of some of the junk.
I set the box up, booted, and it came to life as a happy Ubuntu box. I did the upgrade (using upgrade manager) and added apps using synaptic, and we’ve yet to have our first real problem. I do need to look up the vitals on our old glass-screen monitor so I can get it set up optimally, but the machine works great. I have no problems with it. This has been a really smooth setup.
All I can say is that Dell and Ubuntu made this work quite well. I’m so far very happy with the purchase.
I love ubuntu and overall, I have had very good experiences, however, I have a lenovo laptop with a broadcom card and no matter what I do I always have problems with the wireless on it.
Good to hear people having success with Dell and Ubuntu though, I’m thinking of looking into a dell ubuntu box for my next computer.
Comment by Mike Grouchy — 2007-November-5 @ 03:26
Sorry to hear about the lenovo thing. I’ve been running a Thinkpad T42p for a few years on Ubuntu, and while I did have an upgrade that didn’t treat me well (maybe it was dapper->efty?) it has been very reliable and pleasant. Moreso than my last Windows box, anyway.
My previous laptop was a dell, and that one caused me a lot of grief. I still have it, and it still has troubles from time to time. My son plays games on it and surfs the web. It has a dead battery and no working wireless.
It seems to me that when the vendors (dell, ibm, gateway, etc) are more involved, they’ll be loading more machines with only compatible parts. Maybe we’ll start getting mobile video cards that aren’t a pain and a half, and better wireless.
tim
Comment by Tim — 2007-November-5 @ 05:34