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"FFS, what does it take to make someone happy these days?"

Maybe if it were easier to find?
Mini 9 Series Page:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-inspiron-9?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

No mention of MS-free systems.

Dell sells their Mini9 with an option to upgrade to 2GB of RAM. Am I missing something here?

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-inspiron-9?c=us&cs=19&l=en&ref=lthp&s=dhs

The lone Linux netbook?

A Dell Inspiron with 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB of Flash for $350.

"Not sold in stores."

Obviously, someone didn't look at Dell.com before they posted...

Dell Inspirion mini 9 with Ubuntu linux, and all the above specs: $249

The Windows XP version does come with a hard drive double the size for just $50 more, but notice that is after $25 of "instant savings." Make of that what you will.

http://www.dell.ca/ubuntu http://www.dell.com/open

And Dell ? Who uses Dell.

In the Small and Medium Business (SMB) market, they have a 28% share in the USA and 10% worldwide. There are almost a quarter million SMBs in the USA alone.

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/corporate/about_dell/FYIR_08_Slide_9.jpg
http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/smallbus.html

Apparently quite a lot of business use Dell.

What involvement does MS have in the fulfillment of contracts between vendors and customers?

I'll leave all that stuff to the courts... fact is that customers are being assured that they can downgrade to XP and then getting charged for the privilege... that's why they are pissed. If you take off your geek-goggles for a moment and try to read this mess, you'll see why people are confused and mad. I mean, let me get this straight, to get XP I buy Vista Business or do I need Ultimate? Oh, wait, I need Vista Business BONUS or Vista Ultimate BONUS? I mean, jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, this is some marketing gone wrong...

Why don't you compare machines at a price point that people actually buy?

If people don't buy the computers from Apple and Dell I listed then why do they offer them? They offer them because people do buy them. For lower priced computers try this:

iMac 20-inch with 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM
250GB Serial ATA Drive
Total = $1,274.00

XPS (Product) Red with 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 DIMMs
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache(TM)
Total = $1,099

While the Mac is $175 more it has a 2.4 GHz whereas the Dell is only a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo and the RAM is 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM whereas the Dell's RAM is 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM. Both the CPU and RAM are faster on the Mac.

Falcon

Apple's hardware prices have been comparable to Windows PCs for years.

Mac Pro: comes standard with 2 x 1GB sticks of memory - 800MHz, DDR2, ECC. Let's try 2 extra 1GB sticks of memory. Apple price? $500. NewEgg price for 2 x 1GB sticks of Kingston 800MHz DDR ECC memory? $67.

I said Apple hardware prices, Apple buys RAM from others and doesn't make it. And yes, I admit Apple charges more for RAM than what Newegg and others pay for it. I even had someone in an Apple store tell me that if I wanted more ram than standard then I should buy it from someone else. When I said Apple's hardware prices are comparable that's what I meant, unfortunately you have to start with Apple hardware. Take the Mac Pro and get the price. Then configure a Dell, HP, and or IBM, er Levono, to get as close to the same specs and the Apple's price will be comparable.

All of the other examples you give are of hardware made by others not Apple. Now let's compare:

Mac Pro
Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
2GB (2x1GB)
320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB
Total = $2,799.00

Dell Precision T7400
Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
2GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory
320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive
256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290
Total price = $3,738

The only part I'm not sure is comparable is the video card though both cards chosen support 2 monitors. You can however install a different card in the Mac.

Falcon

I was mostly referring to desktop or server hardware, but notebook-wise, it's still a huge rip-off. Here are two alternatives:

It's not 1/4th the price, but it is also not $2799; How about the Voodoo Envy? Or the Dell Studio ($799 CAD)?

If by "thin and cool", you mean "trendy fashion statement that runs OS X", then no, these machines are not for you.. I mean, they might run OS X. But if you meant a machine that has a favourable price per performance ratio, forget the MBP. It's just not worth it.
If you don't mind using a 15.4" LCD instead of 17", the Lenovo T61p is a nice machine (Oh, and it includes firewire!)

No, the market for computers without an OS is most assuredly NOT zero. What's complete bullshit is that the computer is not somehow qualified to have a volume-licensed Windows installed on it. That is what's bullshit.

The new 17inch Macbook Pro's have an 8gb limit.

Dell XPS line of laptops also have an 8gb limit.

It may take a while for that standard to trickle down to the lower end laptops, but the trend at least has started.

E4200 - £1200-£1800

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/4x_latit_e4200?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd

E4300 - £900-£1300

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/4x_latit_e4300?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd

E4200 - £1200-£1800

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/4x_latit_e4200?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd

E4300 - £900-£1300

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/4x_latit_e4300?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd

Well, a couple hundred dollars isn't much of a difference....

Ha.

you can look at the asthetics of the iMac vs a Dell...and for that extra bit of change, you get an all-in-one stylish bit of machinery (no clunky box with wires running to/from screen)

Do you even know which Dell the GP was talking about? I think many potential buyers will prefer the looks of the Dell XPS One to the iMac. The XPS One ain't no boring beige box and there are no wires running to/from the screen. In fact, the XPS One has fewer wires than the iMac by default (because of the default wireless keyboard/mouse)

and a bit more software included (iLife

iLife costs $80 to (optionally) upgrade every year.

with photo, movie, garageband..etc for example).

Windows Live Photo Gallery (iPhoto), Live Movie Maker (iMovie), and Visual Web Developer Express (iWeb) are free downloads with free updates for Windows XP, Vista, and 7. Windows DVD Maker (iDVD) is a part of Vista and 7 (with free updates). I cannot think of a decent, free Windows equivalent of Garage Band, but that's the only part of iLife that's worth anything (for some users).

I'd guess if you threw that into consideration, they would be pretty much the same.

If you consider the XPS One's wireless mouse/keyboard (add $50 on the iMac), integrated HDTV tuner with DVR capabilities, integrated 8-in-1 media card reader, better graphics, and even Blu-ray option, then the iMac seems way overpriced.

I'm not making excuses for Linux. Fact is is marketing, which Linus distros do little of, has a big impact of what people buy. If advertizing, part of marketing, didn't have an impact then businesses would not spend a lot on it. And yes, businesses do spend a lot on marketing. pharmaceutical companies [pdf warning] spend more on marketing than on research.

Ubuntu is not as a good as a desktop operating system as Windows Vista. It's just not.

Ubuntu may not be good to you but it is to plenty of other users. And there are plenty who do not like Vista, if people liked it then OEMs would not offer a downgrade path from Vista to XP. It also offers competition, and without competition things hardly improve.

Falcon

Perhaps something like this?"

We're not in the 90's anymore. Macs are no longer defined by the outrageous price discrepancies of PowerPC and [insert ridiculous proprietary bus here].

In that case, how much of what your paying for is simply stylish form factor or casing? Consider that Apple Cinema Displays use the same LCD's/components as some of the Dells and they are at a terrific markup. Let's look at the Mac Mini for instance.

It costs about $599 for quite a low end model, 80 gb hdd, GMA 950-- etc, etc. ...

Now, at fist, I was going to compare this to a similar Dell, but Dell simply doesn't offer anything at that low of technical specs. The best I can do is this Inspiron Mini-Form Factor:

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspndt_530s?c=us&cs=19&l=en&ref=dthp&s=dhs

The one with the monitor meets or beats the Mac Mini in every single category-- I mean, hideously so. 500 GB hdd (and a faster one, to boot), 2.66 GHZ Core2Duo, GMA 3100, 3 GB of RAM, etc. It even includes a 64 bit edition Windows Vista Home Premium, which I consider to be the feature equivalent Vista to Mac OS X, since Apple doesn't make enterprise-class software.

All this weighs in WITH a monitor (and a monitor that is basically an Apple cinema display in different casing) for the price of a Mac Mini. With a monitor included, the difference between these two boxes goes far beyond 10%-- the Dell is undeniably more powerful and still beats the Apple. This machine needs to be compared with the $799 Mac Mini to be fair-- which is still inferior. Plus the cost of that monitor, let's be kind and charge the dell price of about $150-- the Mac Mini comes it at $950 vs. the $599 Dell.

So the mark-up is actually more like 40% on similar hardware. This is the first PC I looked for-- so it would be safe to say that I could get a comparable PC for about half the price of a mac.

And let's not kid ourselves here- the Mac is just a PC, and the lower end ones are quite low quality PC's. Do I really want to pay $350 for the right to have an Apple product if I am looking for a strong lower middle end PC?

I absolutely love my S-PVA Dell 2408WFP. A touch expensive for a 24", but they go on sale often. I got it for $599 CDN.. I've since seen it for $549 CDN, very reasonable considering after you see one, you will never want to look at TN display again.

Replace it with an Ubuntu machine. Here's some dell machines with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
Or maybe a smaller company that's been doing it longer:
http://system76.com/
Or maybe you don't really need to replace it. Maybe just put Ubuntu on it. It will probably be good for quite awhile longer.

Don't forget Dell.

I disagree. Of course our application/hardware requirements haven't allowed us to progress with a vista deployment at all. Right now I type away with an intel core 2 cpu, 3 gigs of ram and an nvidia geforce FX 5200. My windows experience index is a 2.0. I'm at SP1 and I installed terracopy a couple of weeks ago when a dvd burn was estimated to take 16 hours.

My take is that Vista was not intended to run on 99% of the PCs already out there, so yeah poor marketing was a culprit (that they were sued over) as they were selling this crap to the 99% of users that don't know where a CPU is on PCs the OEMs were told to list as vista capable.

As far as I'm concerned my system running Vista has introduced nothing but incompatibilities that I don't need, it's not faster, and while it doesn't crash it is still buggy. I have noticed that I don't ever run in to that thumb drive removal problem that I had with XP (where there's no apps accessing the drive, but it won't release).

I agree software compatibility is a huge problem, but so is hardware compatibility and I just have not seen the benefits you speak of. I've heard of some nice deployment features that are available, but deployment is still a ways off due to hardware and software incompatibilities.

You can compare Vista vs XP in a lab somewhere just like we can compare XP vs Ubuntu, but the practicality of implementing the thing makes it a dog.

Sure I'll surrender the point that Vista is technically superior to XP without even investigating - it damn well ought to be. But if it doesn't support hardware that was delivered with XP it is not any kind of an upgrade, if it doesn't support software that people need for day to day functions then it is not a viable business solution.

Dell's comparison chart
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/sitelets/solutions/software/business/xp_smb?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&~tab=2

I showed this to a friend this weekend. The result was he asked if he needed any of this. I said not really, he said "I'll have to learn a new interface though?" "Yup." "Let's go with XP." And no, I did not spread my hatred at all, I simply gave him the info required to make the decision on his own. I didn't have to mention file copy in vista.

The price point for a computer is now $299. Dell is actively promoting a $299 Linux netbook. The top ad in Google for "netbook" today leads to a Dell Linux machine. HP's low-end entry is currently at $329, but that's list price; look for discounts. HP is even selling a $299 mini-tower desktop to businesses. The entry-level Asus Eee PC can be purchased for under $250 now. Netbooks are going to be in bubble-packs in drugstores soon.

Microsoft has to deal with that. They have to fit into the "China price" structure. On a netbook, Microsoft can get maybe $10 for their software component. And that's Windows XP; Windows 7 will have to be cheaper to get onto netbooks.

I'm going to call bullshit although I'm not a huge Dell fan. I got an email today for a 15" laptop for $479. The specs suck but there you have it, no non-netbook company from any other manufacturer I know of is at this price. The lowest of the low in price and components but that's all anyone can afford to buy these days.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspnnb_1525?c=us&cs=19&l=en&ref=lthp&s=dhs

Dell provides firmware repositories for popular Linux and tools to flash BIOSes, BMC firmware, HDD (!) firmwares, HBA firmware and such. Just take a look at http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Repository/firmware.

Face it ... without Jobs, apple is just an overpriced PC with proprietary software AND hardware.

2009 is calling. Mac prices have been comparable to Windows PC prices for years.

MacBook Pro "17

• 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
• 320GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
• MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution Glossy Widescreen Display (1920x1080)

Total: $3,099.00

Dell XPS M1730 Laptop

• Intel® Core(TM) 2 Duo Extreme X9000(2.8GHz/800Mhz FSB/6M L2 Cache)
• 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
• 320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
• 17 inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WUXGA (1920x1080)

Total: $2,868

While the MacBook Pro is about $230 more than the Dell it's CPU is faster, 2.93GHz versus 2.8GHz as is the RAM, 1066MHz versus 667Mhz. And while not everyone wants or needs it the Mac comes with the iLife suite whereas the Dell comes with Microsoft Works and Adobe Photoshop Elements + Adobe Premiere Elements. There might be a lower priced Dell, however there are several different lines of Dell laptops whereas there are only 3 lines of Apple laptops. What's a person supposed to do, compare the different Dell lines?

Falcon

Here. Disable NoScript for dell.com. Look at the column on the left side.

All it takes is two clicks - "choose" and "add to cart"...

Dell Inspiron mini 12 Laptop

The cheapest of the 3 versions, comes with Ubuntu preinstalled.

According to the story she somehow accidentally ordered the laptop with Ubuntu. I am not sure how she managed that because I have to *search* Dell's site to find their Linux offerings, but I digress and that is irrelevant anyway.

The Inspiron mini 9 and mini 12 - both of the "cheap" versions come with Ubuntu, the more expensive ones to the right come with XP...

If you don't know what your looking at when it comes to the "specs", I could see this happening relatively easily...

According to the story she somehow accidentally ordered the laptop with Ubuntu. I am not sure how she managed that because I have to *search* Dell's site to find their Linux offerings, but I digress and that is irrelevant anyway.

The Inspiron mini 9 and mini 12 - both of the "cheap" versions come with Ubuntu, the more expensive ones to the right come with XP...

If you don't know what your looking at when it comes to the "specs", I could see this happening relatively easily...

According to the story she somehow accidentally ordered the laptop with Ubuntu. I am not sure how she managed that because I have to *search* Dell's site to find their Linux offerings, but I digress and that is irrelevant anyway.

1) Go to http://www.dell.com/
2) Choose "Laptops" under the "For Home" menu
3) Choose "Less than $700" under "Price" on the left hand side.
4) Click on the first result, "Inspiron Mini 9n"
5) Order the cheapest laptop
6) Ignore the second line of the specs, "Ubuntu Linux version 8.04.1"

If someone just wanted the cheapest laptop, they could easily order it on accident.

But I agree with you that she's at fault for not trying to use it.

Why does Dell not support modems and offer a built in modem that just works with Ubuntu? (I am assuming by your post you work for them) A lot of people (millions, a not insignificant number) still use dialup and/or dialup is all they can get. It isn't an option on their website, specifically the 530n desktop model on sale now. This is a long solved non problem given the correct modem, and at Dell's scale and so forth, should be something cheap like a 20 buck internal card modem option. Yes I know some aftermarket modem can be made to work, but when you offer a slew of options, it seems to be a glaring omission. People who order a bundle like that will most likely want to get online when the package arrives, you are sending the customer out to some *mart to shop, it becomes an annoyance factor, bad customer experience.

Without access to the Internet, how are you supposed to buy a computer from http://www.dell.com/ ?

Not really, because indie gaming is possible on Linux, and Linux doesn't only run on PCs.

A lot of devices sold to home users that run Linux have no display beyond a couple LEDs, such as a router. Set-top devices that run Linux tend to be Tivoized, meaning they run only binaries that have been digitally signed by the adversary, making them not much different from a major video game console and definitely incompatible with GPLv3 apps and LGPLv3 libraries. The rest are either PCs (such as ASUS Eee PC or Dell's N series) or phones (such as T-Mobile G1), as I already mentioned. What kinds of devices were you thinking of?

The NES, Sega Genesis, Neo Geo, N64, and probably other consoles I can't remember have required memory upgrades to play certain games. The Dreamcast, PS2, Original XBOX, XBOX 360, and PS3 have OS updates and game patches. I can't think of any console that offered a processor upgrade off the top of my head (the Jaguar maybe?).

Sega Genesis had the Sega CD, which contained a processor faster than the one in the Genesis. It also had the 32X, which was about half as powerful as the Saturn. But all "memory upgrades" for the North American and European NES (that is, everything but the Japan-only Famicom Disk System) have been limited to memory chips inside the Game Pak, the same sorts of memory chips used for saved games in Sega Genesis and Super NES carts. And what kinds of user-installable OS updates are you talking about for Dreamcast or PlayStation 2?

PC gaming used to be dominated by point and click adventure games and flight sims. These genres didn't transition to the consoles, they faded in popularity.

As far as I know, point-and-click adventures did transition to the DS and Wii. See Hotel Dusk, the Ace Attorney series and Zack and Wiki . Even Myst got ported to DS.

It's not going to happen unless people stop using PCs or manufacturers refuse to make gaming hardware for PCs.

Both Microsoft and Logitech make game controllers, but it's hard to buy one with a PC. I just went to HP.com's gaming accessories page and saw only keyboards, mouse, and speakers, not the gamepads that would be useful for two or three people sitting in front of a TV playing an arcade-style game on an HTPC. Dell has them though.

it's been in the hardware business for a while and expanded its presence with Android.

can someone clarify? i know Google has their search appliance, but as far as i know, it's just a cheap dell server, of a line intended to be used by other parties for rebranding: link. there's even a case study on google on that page. the google search appliance is google software running on dell hardware. android is software, running on htc hardware.

i think the real question is, whose hardware (cisco,/linksys, smc, hp procurve, foundry, f5, etc) will this google routing software run on? (or am i missing something?)

Bruce Perens was well-known in the open source community as the project leader of Debian and for founding the Open Source Initiative (and creating the Open Source Definition) long before his 2-year stint at HP.

and i don't recall Perens or any other open source leader ever claiming that Linux was a 'sure thing.' though pretty much every major system vendor (HP, Lenovo, IBM, Dell, Apple, etc.) today has a Linux division or is involved with FOSS in some way--a situation which Perens has played no small part in creating.

Dell still sells certain models that come with XP (at no extra charge) and Ubuntu (free). Hint: browse around in the Business/Office section.

Of course - "Instead of paying $150 extra to get XP, I think I'll pay $1000 extra to get a Mac. Brillant!"

Seriously, noone does that. Stop saying it. So long as Apple insists on opening new apertures in you if you wish to buy their systems, people wont buy them.

Here's an example:
this is a high end PC from Dell, and here is an inferior spec'd PC from Apple.

I still want it to be able to spec a full Linux desktop with all the hardware supported fully. Why is this still so hard for them when the commmunity has 99% of all the issues sorted already?

And you can'd do that at www.dell.com/ubuntu why?

Last I checked Dell Ubuntu machines had everything work... and as far as custom-built... my last desktop upgrade using a Gigabyte motherboard went smooth as butter. Everything recognized in Ubuntu 8.10 without an issue.

In all seriousness, I thought the "Linux on the desktop" model was dead several years ago. I can see how Enderle's point applies to Apple, but it seems an enormous stretch to predict that consumers will generally examine the desktop market as it exists today and opt for Linux over Vista, XP, or OS X. I realize Linux has gained ground in the netbook market and done well when debuted on systems that used customized distros. What's the larger picture?

In all seriousness, Linux on the desktop spanks any version of Windows silly.

The new version of the KDE desktop, KDE 4.1.3 or later, has worked out its initial teething troubles and now represent the only GPU-accelerated desktop for Linux, and as such is easily the fastest desktop available today, bar none. Because they use software rendering, not even "lightweight" Linux desktops such as LXDE or Fluxbox are as fast. KDE4 runs all of the compiz-style bling (including the desktop cube and 4 desktops), it is scriptable, it runs KDE3 or GTK applications easily and pretty well integrated, and it has innovative new desktop facets such as strigi, nepomuk et al, and it can run Google widgets, OSX widgets or Plasmoids at the same time (KDE 4.2+).

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081202-hands-on-kde-4-2-beta-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_4#KDE_4.2

If you desperately need to run the odd legacy Windows application, you can very likely run it under Wine with more compatibility than Vista offers, and faster than Vista can. If it fails to run under Wine, then you can still run a version of Windows virtually using your choice of two free and open-source Virtual Machine Managers:

VirtualBox OSE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualbox

Kernel-based Virtual Machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine
http://www.howtoforge.com/virtualization-with-kvm-on-ubuntu-8.10

Wine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)#64-bit_applications

Significantly, just this last year or so some larger OEMs have begun to offer desktop Linux pre-installed:

http://linux.dell.com/desktops.shtml
http://blogs.computerworld.com/with_hp_in_all_oems_now_ship_desktop_linux
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212400561&subSection=News
http://www.workswithu.com/2008/12/12/system76-launches-biometric-ubuntu-linux-laptops/

Finally, desktop Linux has (according to some measurements anyway) finally started to gain a measurable adoption rate, just 1.5% behind that of Mac OSX:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Vendors such as Canonical are actually finally putting some effort into promoting Linux as a usable, practical desktop OS:
http://www.workswithu.com/

No-one told Linux that it was "dead on the desktop". Linux is dominant in every other area of computing, from supercomputers to clusters to servers to infrastructure machines (such as routers) to embedded devices in general (such as cellphones),

Dell Inspiron 530N http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

1) a clear profitability from Linux netbooks

Dell is ready with this interesting product, of course only with Ubuntu and XP (no Vista):
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-inspiron-9?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

>>2) there is a ton of volunteer army of Linux geeks willing to help the average citizens

No... there must be an army of geeks able to design GUIs for average citizens.

>>3) there is a great consumer "Killer App" only available to Linux

For me, the "lack" of a really "Killer consumer App" is enough: antivirus!

>> 4) Google come out with a gNetbook.

sorry, I didn't got this.

Nowadays I can buy a 1000 gigabyte disk drive for around $250

Its much better prices than that. For example, for a 1000 gigabyte disk, e.g. Seagate ST31000340AS 1TB Barracuda Sata 7200 Rpm 32MB Cache 8.5MS Hard Drive

Amazon $109.99
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000UC3CN0/ref=nosim/

Dell $128.99
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A1307909&cs=19&c=us&l=en&dgc=SS&cid=30322&lid=680413

But if you'd said five years then you would have been right.

You're right, I was off. You can actually run Leopard on a 7 year old Mac.

Big deal, I can also play your stupid game. You can actually run Vista on a 9-year-old PC.

• Windows Vista minimum supported system requirements
  Home Basic / Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
  • 800 MHz processor and 512 MB of system memory
  • 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
  • Support for Super VGA graphics
  • CD-ROM drive

Nobody wants to run Leopard (slowly with lots of eye candy disabled) on a 7-year-old PowerMac G4 that's slower than a 4-year-old Mac mini. Nobody wants to run Vista on a 9-year-old Dell Workstion when a current $279 Dell kicks its ass.

But if you'd said five years then you would have been right.

You're right, I was off. You can actually run Leopard on a 7 year old Mac.

Big deal, I can also play your stupid game. You can actually run Vista on a 9-year-old PC.

• Windows Vista minimum supported system requirements
  Home Basic / Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
  • 800 MHz processor and 512 MB of system memory
  • 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
  • Support for Super VGA graphics
  • CD-ROM drive

Nobody wants to run Leopard (slowly with lots of eye candy disabled) on a 7-year-old PowerMac G4 that's slower than a 4-year-old Mac mini. Nobody wants to run Vista on a 9-year-old Dell Workstion when a current $279 Dell kicks its ass.

I forget the name of it off the top of my head. It worked for me because it was designed for the equipment I purchased- even though it was a modern version. It was either Veritos or Backup Exec which I believe both have something to do with symantec now or CommVault Galaxy. I use a combination of the three across 4 or 5 different sites with robotic tape drives. I'm actually thinking the CommVault was it because I hate symantec with a passion and probably wouldn't have such a high opinion of them. I think the tape robots are Exabyte models with mammoth LTO and DLT drives.

Perhaps if you list you device types, someone might recognize it and shout about some experience they had. Also, if you don't have anything overly complicated for your backup needs, backup assist seems to be working well at a site with one Tape drive working with about 3 file servers, a mail server that I use a script to toss the mail store and configuration files onto one of the file servers with, and a SQL store that I dump at the end of the night in the same way (script to a file server). Of course if your using scripts to move things to file servers, make sure you have it documented so you remember where to find the crap in 4 years down the road when something happens or you upgrade or something.

The Backup assist uses MS backup as it's core so it probably isn't the best for complex scenarios. but on the other hand, if your doing a bare metal recovery, it's a cake to reindex the tapes and restore from a clean install without having to find a database dump and reload it. but, it's MS backup on steroids and has it's own limitations like requiring windows.

No, it typically won't. You'll either need to recompile the custom driver (if it was provided in source form), recompile the source code wrapper (if it was provided as a binary blob with a wrapper), locate and install an updated driver for the new kernel revision (if it is only provided as a binary blob), or just not upgrade your kernel.

The vendor should probably be using DKMS; although what you describe will be happening behind the scenes, the user/admin shouldn't have to do it manually.

As someone else mentioned, use the Outstanding Issues link and you should get service (at least return emails) soon.

https://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dellcare/outstanding_issues_care?c=us&l=en&s=gen

https://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dellcare/outstanding_issues_care?c=us&cs=&l=en&s=gen or this Irene Stewart Dell Inc. Executive Support Representative DHS Executive Support Staff (512) 724-9524 (800) 624-9897 Ext. 7249524 Irene_Stewart@dell.com

Yes imagine the outcry because Dell IS ALREADY doing this and has been. Look here. This is primarily for Blu-ray but also applies to regular DVDs. Look at the row title Display. Specifically at the warning. Hmm. That looks mighty similar to what the MacBook is doing which is restricting the passage of protected content across insecure video links. Again, with DVI and HDCP-enabled equipment, there is no problem. VGA, there is a problem.