Was doing some window shopping for inexpensive laptops and found some of the best deals at Best Buy, Office Depot, and also at Wal Mart. Actually, the best overall price was the Everex Laptop that, in fact, runs Linux. It was the first time I saw a Linux-ready system in the commercial retail sector. Its specs are a bit slim…15.4" screen, 1.5 ghz processer, only 512 ram, 60 GB hard drive, ethernet lan, wireless, etc.
Here’s the kicker: a price tag at only $379.00!
A few questions? First, anyone know anything about Everex? Second, does it make more sense to spend another $200.00 for an HP or Toshiba laptop and just go ahead and do a clean install of 10.3 or 11.0 on it? Third, and finally, are there any other name brands out there that sell pre-installed Linux? If so, who?
Back in the days of computers based on Intel 286 and 386 chips, Everex was one of the quality OEMs. There were lots of companies you could buy an Intel PC from back then. Many of them (e.g. Austin, Northgate, etc.) disappeared and a few (Dell and Gateway) came to dominate.
Thats really 2 questions rolled into one. $200 is a big difference for a competitive laptop market. If it were me, I would surf harder to see if indeed it was not possible to narrow that figure.
As for doing a clean install of 10.3 or 11.0 … it really depends on what you are comfortable with. IMHO a Linux user should research for Linux compatibility prior to purchasing a laptop. I believe such research is the main way to “counter balance” the manufacturers not providing OEM Linux installed laptops.
When my wife purchased our family laptop around 4 years ago, the very first thing she did was horrify me by reformatting the hard drive, wiping out German WinXP, and she then installed Thai WinXP. … of course, that brought up major warantee concerns in my mind :eek:(to which she just shrugged). :rolleyes: The upside of it was, having wiped out the original OS on the laptop, she had no qualms about my installing openSUSE in a dual boot.
This is dynamic, and changing all the time. Asus are known for doing this. Dell started this recently (with a VERY small hard to find selection). … The best thing to do is surf on this, to get up to date information.
