[Nykc]

I am buying a new Lappy here in the near future. (income tax return) and was shopping around at Best Buy, Online, and Dell. Regardless of which route I go, I am going to have a Linux Distro on it.

Dell has one prebuilt with Linux Dell.com and for $754.00 I can have one ready to go out the box.

The dilemna is Best Buy has some Gateways they are trying to off for around $499.00 with Vista (gag, *cough, choke) and I could always Upgrade to Linux? My concern is performance issue. Say I want to go hang out at a coffee shop or something I don't want to suffer performance issues or anything with the wireless card. Another concern is if I buy one of these lappys with Vista and upgrade - some of the hardware is probably proprietary.

Any advice? Im thinking the Dell is the best bet unless someone else knows of a good place to score a Linux ready lappy.

** Im going to pass on the Asus eee PC for now

[ferrari12508]

Well with the Dell laptops, if anything goes wrong with it, they have very good warranties compared to bestbuy. Also bestbuy cant really sell you as good of laptops as dell can. Dell buys there parts and gets the laptop put together and than it comes to you. With bestbuy, lets say you want one of those HPs, well it first has to get made by HP, then sold to bestbuy, then sold to you. That would make the price of the HP higher than the Dell because more people need to be paid in the process.

Dells you can also customize. I really wouldn't want a $500 laptop from bestbuy because it woud probably be so slow that you would smash it up. I don't know your price range, but IMO i would say wait until you have the oppurtunity to get like a $1250+ laptop so it has some speed to it.

If it were me, i would wait until could up the processor and up the memory, just 2GBs becayse than I would never have to worry about it. If you are willing to get it right now, than that is fine also. You might also want to up the Wireless card if you can, but If you go with one og those N cards, be careful because as far as im aware, not many places that have free wifi or even paid wifi use N yet, its still mostly 802.11b/g. So make sure you get a wifi card supporting b/g.

[no2pencil]

nykc, on 5 Feb, 2008 - 07:18 AM, said:

I am buying a new Lappy here in the near future. (income tax return) and was shopping around at Best Buy, Online, and Dell. Regardless of which route I go, I am going to have a Linux Distro on it.

2 things
1.) Computer equipment at Best Buy is inexpensive for a reason.
2.) Do your research. Don't buy a Vista laptop that has Vista only hardware. Make sure that the laptop will take a Linux install, & still work with all of it's components.

Generally, Linux will work best with older hardware, because someone else has gone that route or there is more information regarding hardware compatibility.

[Nykc]

no2pencil, on 5 Feb, 2008 - 11:31 AM, said:

2 things
1.) Computer equipment at Best Buy is inexpensive for a reason.
2.) Do your research. Don't buy a Vista laptop that has Vista only hardware. Make sure that the laptop will take a Linux install, & still work with all of it's components.

Generally, Linux will work best with older hardware, because someone else has gone that route or there is more information regarding hardware compatibility.

That's exactly why I am skeptical of buying anything with Vista on it. Finding XP anymore is a hassle and I wan't Linux anyways. So far from what I can see going with the Dell will be the best bet since it is built to run linux. I am assuming it is already optimal.

I just wish I could find other options with Linux. I mean my current lappy has older hardware runs like a champ since I am not using it wirelessly at the time. The battery on that thing is so fried I get a 5 min window if I am lucky. I could always buy a new battery, but hey for less than $800.00 why not get a laptop with newer parts and optimized for Linux.

I could always look to older laptops for sale, but then I am running the risk of the weak battery again which is my whole purpose of buying a newer laptop - that and I can give the old one to my son so he can start his career off the right way.