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On 22/04/10 11:34, NW wrote:
I have kept away from laptops until recently when I was given one. Now that I am somewhat used to it I can see that it could be useful to look for a more powerful one to replace my rather aged desktop. And it would save a lot of room in the spare bedroom which doubles as my study. Brownie points are always welcome!!
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I am not interested in gaming at all. I suspect also that some laptops work better with Linux than others. Is that the case? Anyway, any recommendations would be gratefully received, Neil Winchurst
Okay, well before any shouts, yes I know this machine I'm going to recommend is running Windows 7... however I do know it runs Ubuntu fine. My step-father recently bought one and I installed Ubuntu 9.10 for him...
http://tinyurl.com/28vkmdxIt's an Acer Extensa 5635Z notebook, it has a 15.6" widescreen LED backlit screen with a resolution of something like 1366x768. It has 2GB Ram and a 250GB hard drive. The CPU is a Pentium Dual Core T4300 which is 2.1GHz with 1MB Cache. No I know as well some people bad mouth the Pentium Dual Core and Celeron Dual Core CPUs, but this little machine was NEARLY as quick as my Core 2 Duo @ 2GHz.
It has Intel onboard graphics which work out of the box (even with Compiz). It's not really going to be a serious performer for 3D games but for internet, e-mail and office type stuff I'm sure it would be fine.
I gather it is possible to get a refund on Windows from Acer. I believe their repair centre is in Plympton and you have to send the machine to them so they can confirm the drive is wiped and so they can remove the Windows license sticker (god knows why as Windows activates from a standard Acer key and authenticates against a signature in the BIOS).
There is a thread on the Fedora forums here: http://tinyurl.com/acerwindowsrefund
I gather the guy who posted about it on the Fedora forums got something like a £20 refund (but had to pay something like £48 delivery costs there and back). It might be a case that you could take it to the repair centre and have them do the work there and then (depends if you feel £20 is worth your while, or if you want to show that you want to be counted as wanting a Windows refund). Personally I didn't bother with my Acer (I did for a while dual boot Ubuntu and Vista, but now my notebook is solely running Ubuntu).
Other than this machine, I'm not sure if Dell are still doing machines with Ubuntu pre-installed (other than netbooks anyway). There are some other options too such as Novatech (who sell laptops without an OS) and Linux Emporium (although I believe they are a tad expensive).
Hope this helps anyway. Rob -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html