KWTm's Journal: Buying a Dellbuntu

I'm checking out the journal system on Slashdot. Hmm, it looks like I can enable and disable comments for individual journal entries. That's good.

Anyway, in this post about buying a Linux computer from Dell, I said I would post in my journal about how the purchase was going. Knowing me, I'll probably be too lazy to post much, but I figured that posting this in my journal would let others comment without having to post directly under the main thread.

Here's a copy of what I had posted:

I thought I should hang back and let others do the initial buying, to see how well this works out and whether the hardware crashes and burns. But if everyone did that, then nobody would buy because no one would want to be first. Since I've been looking forward to getting a Linux notebook, I think it should be okay for me to be one of the first "tryer-outers". Also, hopefully this venture of Dell's into Ubuntu will be high-profile enough that if I encounter any problems, I'll scream and shout that I'm going to post about my problems on Slashdot, and then Dell shall suffer the wrath of Slashdot!! and they'd be more willing to fix it.

In addition to the basic notebook at $599, I decided to upgrade the memory from 512MB to 2GB (+$200), since it's probably the most precious commodity around; if I try to upgrade later, say in 2 years, some new memory standard will probably have come out and I won't be able to find the proper chips.

I figured I'd upgrade the hard drive, too, from 80GB to 160GB. I had thought I would upgrade the 2.5" HDD myself, but it comes with a SATA hard drive, and I've only worked with PATA hard drives[1]. Anyway, that's another +$125 for the HDD upgrade.

My third upgrade is for the DVD burner. The original price comes with a CD burner/DVD-ROM drive, but I've always had problems with Linux and DVD burning --my Kubuntu box has the LITE-ON DVD DL burner, and so far I've had to power up our Win2k box to burn DVD's. For +$40, I'm happy to get the DVD DL burner, and I want to see if K3b will let me burn all 8GB+ onto a DL DVD. Would be sweet if I could.

The only thing I don't like is the screen size. I don't care about widescreen[2], and you can't directly compare diagonal screen sizes of 16:9 (widescreen) screens with 4:3 (conventional) sizes, so I converted. The diagonal of a 16:9 screen is 1.22 times as long as a 12:9 (that is, 4:3) screen for the same height, so I divided the 15.4" diagonal length of the widescreen by 1.22 to get 12.6". So I'm really getting a 12.6" screen, except it's wider. That's tiny. The ThinkPad that my work gives me is 15" (4:3 aspect, same screen height as 18.3" widescreen) and I don't think it's big enough. Well, at least the small screen size makes the laptop smaller and portable.

By the way, what the heck is "TrueLife (glossy)"? I have the option to have it or not have it for my screen, at the same price, but it sounds like a load of MarketSpeak.

So, anyway, here's my system, cut&pasted from the Dell page:

Intel® Pentium® dual-core proc T2080(1MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB
Ubuntu Edition version 7.04
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife(TM)(glossy)
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 DIMM
160GB 5400 RPM SATA Hard Drive
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability

53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g

1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
Recycling Kit and Plant a Tree for Me

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
Integrated Audio
Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor

I'll probably sit on this till next week, and then make the purchase.
Any comments? Is this a good deal, or am I being foolish?

I'm experimenting with the Slashdot journal, so maybe I'll post stuff in my journal [slashdot.org] about how the purchase is going, and I think I can set it up so that people can post comments.

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[1] PATA notebook drives: It's not that I'm afraid of SATA drives; it's that I've been standardizing on PATA 2.5" drives because I have a number of 2.5" notebook enclosures that, for $25, turn the internal notebook HDD into an external USB HDD that fits into my shirt pocket.

[2] widescreen: Please don't give me that crap about "But if you're screen's not wide enough, you don't see the whole movie --it will be chopped off at the left and right sides!" Well, then, just shrink the movie! I don't see anyone ever saying, "You need a 4:3 screen, because your TV show will be chopped off at the top and bottom by a 16:9 screen!"

TrueLife

[Ambvai]

TrueLife Glossy gives you a...well- glossy anti-glare screen on your laptop. Personally, I don't like it and would rather go with the standard matte finish as, in my experience, it does NOT play well in environments with direct, un-diffused light. (Say, when you're sitting under bare bulbs.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueLife [wikipedia.org]

A couple of things

[eclectro]

I think that 2 gigs of RAM is overkill. 1 gig should be more than enough for any linux distibution. And I am not sold on a DVD burner for notebooks, as I think they use more battery power than worth for a portable. But I too am going to wait a little bit before jumping in.

I may swipe the hard drive and install a different distro though.

Good On Ya Bloke

[Hucko]

Well done!! I was waiting for this to occur, but my mb died before Dell got to it. Now I find out it is only available in USA. I applaud your bravery and consideration. I eagerly await your experiences.

Tried to order, but error on web page & phone

[KWTm]

So, after 15 minutes of going through
linux.dell.com
-> (click on "selling" as in 'We are now "selling" Ubuntu laptops')
-> http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/al l iances/en/linux?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz [dell.com]
-> Dell and Ubuntu
-> the Inspiron notebook,
and then customising it to the features I want, entering the shipping address and my credit card info, and then getting to the very last page to confirm that that's what I want, Dell says:

"Error - We're sorry, but the page you accessed

Dellbuntu successfully ordered today. Now to wait.

[KWTm]

I went on the Dell web site again. This time I identified myself as a "guest with no account" who wanted to register for an account. (Last time I selected "guest with no account who does NOT want to set up an account and just wants to buy the thing and get out of here".) I don't know if that's what made the difference. Anyway, I successfully specified my credit card number (using one of those disposable CC numbers, of course), and I was able to get my shipping address to be different from my billing add

What's good swap size? How's this partition plan?

[KWTm]

See my other posting about successfully ordering the Dellbuntu. Anyway, it has a 160GB drive that I want to partition this way; it's the way I've been doing it for my various desktops.

In summary, I'm going to install my own Kubuntu on the laptop. It's not quite a "wipe and install" that other Slashdotters have been talking about with their MS Windows laptops, though; since it comes with Ubuntu, I will keep it around for reference and support purposes. Now, if something doesn't work on my own installation