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Couldn't/Shouldn't Dell look into other Linux server packages? After all, that is the nature of the free market. If Dell drags Red Hat and, say, Turbolinux, or god forbid... SCO... into the fray, that would make the bottom line for companies looking to switch to Linux even more appealing.

See http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2004/10/p r04072.html and http://www.dell.com/novell/

"I haven't seen a CE device for less than $300"

You need to open your eyes, then.

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productde tails.aspx/axim_x30_low?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s= dhs

Three clicks from the Dell homepage. It's $200, has a 312MHz CPU, 32MB of flash and 32MB of memory.

If Dell can make a *profit* on a $200 system, Microsoft could definately create a $200 system that would break even. All they need to do is call up their buddies at HTC and ask for a cheap gaming system.

Dell has a pretty healthy selection of Linux options these days and of course there's always Penguin Computing

Where do you buy your Linux servers?

So how do I get BIOS to recognize my USB key as a boot device? Would this BIOS update get my computer to recognize it? Or do I need to put in a CD with a bootloader?

I guess you could, but for a about $50 more you could get this from Dell. Or better yet older pocket PCs sell pretty cheap on ebay. Or if a pocket PC isn't your thing the Palm Zire is a good price too. I agree though that the DS wouldn be the only one with two screens, but I'm not sure that would be worth it.

Mac laptops are less expensive than PCs.

Stating price for a mac desktop: $1499

Starting price for a PC desktop: $499

Starting price for a mac laptop: $999

Starting price for a PC laptop: $839

Mac laptops are less expensive than PCs.

Stating price for a mac desktop: $1499

Starting price for a PC desktop: $499

Starting price for a mac laptop: $999

Starting price for a PC laptop: $839

Inside a few Dell PowerEdge servers. Of course Dell gets first dibs since they're the only major manufacturer who is Intel-only...


Intel® Celeron® processor, 325J, 2.53GHz, 256KB Cache, 533MHz FSB
Intel® Pentium®4 processor, 520, 2.8GHz, 1MB Cache, 800MHz FSB [add $99]
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor, 3.4GHz,1MB Cache,800MHz FSB, EM64T [add $249]
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor, 3.6GHz,1MB Cache,800MHz FSB, EM64T [add $349]

So you're saying the cost of the software is bundled in? Please stop forcing me to buy software I don't want. That reminds me of a story my friends tells about a college roommate he had. The guy ran across a bargain on produce at a local stand, and brought back to the apartment 3 bags filled with it. He got a great price, but none of the guys in the apartment really ate any vegetables. It all rotted. Good deal, though.

I'd like a iBook deal that costs less and doesn't include iDVD or iMovie. If the cost is bundled in, and I'm not going to use it, it's not a good deal for me.

Quick comparison:

Lowest price preconfigured iBook I can find at the Apple Store:

1.2GHz PowerPC G4

512K L2 cache @1.2GHz

12-inch TFT Displays

1024x768 resolution

256MB DDR266 SDRAM

30GB Ultra ATA drive

Combo Drive

ATI Mobility Radeon 9200

32MB DDR video memory

AirPort Extreme built-in

Cost: $999

Dell Inspiron for same price, from Dell's site:

Intel® Celeron® M Processor 340(1.50GHz/400MHz FSB)

15.4-inch TFT display

1280x800 resolution

512MB DDR SDRAM (333MHz)

60GB Ultra ATA drive

24X CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive

NVIDIA® GeForceTM FX Go5200 (ATI Mobility Turbo is an option)

32 MB DDR video memory

Intel® ProWireless 2200 (802.11b/g) mini PCI wireless card

Cost: $999

So, for the same price, the Dell gives you a bigger display, with higher resolution, twice the memory, twice the HD space... but the iBook isn't expensive because I get iMovie and Garage Band?!?

What I do care about, in my situation, is relative different. I have a new laptop with a vga out hooked up to a CRT monitor, and I extended the desktop to the CRT. (Makes for nice debugging/coding on one screen while reading docs/running app on the other.)

The problem is the difference between the two. My LCD is so much sharper than the CRT; not that the CRT is bad... it's actually still in great condition given its age. But the way the eyes focus on LCDs vs CRTs is different, and to look back and forth between the two gets tiring very quickly.

Add to that, my 20" CRT is something like 60+ pounds and causing my cheapo-glue-and-sawdust desk to bow a little... I finally decided to give the CRT to my younger brother and get myself a nice 20" LCD (the recently announced Dell UltraSharp 2005FPW), so hopefully the stress looking back and forth between the two monitors will be minimized.

??? Yeah, right:) Can you explain your logic to me????

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.a spx/desktops?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&amp ;/

vs.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore.woa/72104/wo/ke7qnsOEPJJN38gG9kM1yHG8Fs7 /0.0.11.1.0.6.21.1.2.1.2.0.0.1.0/

btw. Windows and LCD monitor are included with Dell

...show me one place a "normal" person can buy a Linux machine like Dell, Gateway, or HP.

HP
Dell

OK.

Link 1a goes to some Medium and Large business page. I don't immediately see any machines readily available for someone like my mother, father, brother or sister would click on and buy.

Link 1b is malformed, but fixing it to point to http://linux.dell.com/desktops.shtml and I see where there is some mention of Linux on Dell "workstations". Which is not a normal end user PC (read much more expensive than a Mac). The same page says that Dell does not support Linux on regular PCs or laptops, and they have handy links to some "self service" stuff like mailinglists.

Link 2 also does not point to a PC that an end user can buy.

Try again.

Ok.

1. Dell and Dell

2. HP

And if you want "shops" that sell Linux systems: Try here

Obviously a quick google will find even more!

The problem is that people think a "pc" is "windows". They simply don't know any better. Sure, the thing becomes trashed by spyware and viruses within hours and thats when the go and see "the guy who knows about computers". By then of course, they have already spent their money and may or may not take Microsoft Windows back to the shop as "not fit for purpose". They can't see that the TCO for a Microsoft Windows system is a lot higher than the alternatives.

The benchmark referenced in this article gives Intel a big break by not comparing the Athlon 64 in native 64 bit mode ... 64 bit support makes a big difference in an increasing number of applications.

Another important fact - a socket 939 based motherboard purchased today should accept a dual core Athlon 64 in about a year.

An LGA 775 based motherboard purchased today will accept a 64-bit Pentium 4 in Q1 2005 and might accept a dual-core Pentium 4 in about a year (Q3 2005). I say "might" because the first dual-core Pentium 4 CPUs will be Prescott-based with 800MHz FSB, which today's chipsets support. However, Anandtech's roadmap says dual-core P4s will be made for next generation's LGA 775 chipsets (Glennwood and Lakeport). But note that Dothan was supposed to work with the next generation Centrino chipset (which is delayed), but works fine with the older Centrino chipset.

Also, the pessimist in me thinks Intel might have set an unrealistic Q3 2005 release date just to counter AMD's dual-core announcements. On the other hand, Opteron and Athlon 64 had long delays before they were finally released. If I was a betting man, I'd bet on AMD being first with dual-core for the desktop.

I'm not trying to sound like an Intel fanboi. I'm just trying to be "fair and balanced" (I hate Fox News).

Don't mention Celeron. I don't know why Intel keep on releasing it ... In today's market I just don't understand the need to have a low-end Celeron line.

They give low-budget a new low.

What's even worse are the laptop Celerons, which perform like 486 chips relabeled.

I'm not saying that Intel hasn't released some stinkers under their "Celeron" label. The Pentium 4-based Celerons sucked when they only had 128K of L2 cache, but now they have 256K and the Prescott core. Recent notebook Celerons had the same core as those sucky desktop Celerons, but now they use the highly-praised Pentium M core.

Two years ago, desktop and notebook Celerons did suck. But now, Dell offers a Celeron D desktop with PCI-Express (915G chipset) for $568. HP/Compaq sells a $599 notebook with a Dothan-based Celeron M. I think that's pretty good performance and technology for those prices.

Here's some logic: RAID-5 needs to write across all disks to update parity on writes, which slows them no matter how much fancy hardware you've got to improve them. RAID-5 also needs to rebuild data from parity after a drive failure, meaning your high volume server is going to crawl until you can replace and rebuild.

RAID-10/01 gives you a mirrored stripe; mirrors improve read performance by letting you balance reads across drives either to increase STR or TPS, stripes improve read performance again and also give you a boost in writes.

RAID-10/01 is generally faster (mainly on writes and rebuilds), and can sustain more drive failures than RAID-5 (which is more important to me than saving a few bucks on hardware given that these are typically on important high volume systems).

And here's a nice big document from a fairly trustworthy source to back me up. Nice try though.

Dell does ship systems running Red Hat Linux, they used to list a lot of the systems on their business-oriented site/sections with an OS option of Red Hat Linux, but this seems to have decayed, so you may need to call them to get one.

The Precision-n series workstations ship with Red Hat® Enterprise Linux WS

Dell and Red Hat have even 'joined forces'

--

Dell does ship systems running Red Hat Linux, they used to list a lot of the systems on their business-oriented site/sections with an OS option of Red Hat Linux, but this seems to have decayed, so you may need to call them to get one.

The Precision-n series workstations ship with Red Hat® Enterprise Linux WS

Dell and Red Hat have even 'joined forces'

--

I use an audiotron and a Dell Powervault 725 N.

The Audiotron is a nice piece. Easy to use, and will work with anything that can serve up SMB shares. It does not play OGG though.

-ted

$599 for the 2001fp right now at Dell (through tomorrow.)
Enjoy, I think I'm gonna get one too.

Actually....yes
http://catalog.us.dell.com/CS1/cs1page2.aspx?br=6& c=us&cs=04&fm=11015&kc=6W463&l=en&s=bs d

Dell has got some cool kernel projects going on anyway:
http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml

"Dell(TM) Dimension(TM) n series desktops offer affordable, everyday small business computing power. Extra economical because they come without a Microsoft® operating system; a copy of FreeDOS(TM) open-source operating system is included in the box, ready to install."

3GHz HT 800MHz FSB Pentium 4 model here http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx ?cs=04&oc=dim30n2&m_1=WLN308B&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&kc=6 W463

Hasn't stopped Dell working with the oddball German software company SAP. Find it here.

Don't worry about the text, they merely point here: http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx /corp/pressoffice/en/2004/2004_10_27_rrwa_000

Which is mirrored here: http://mirrordot.org/stories/c6067beb11e039d913a6d cb073ee1d71/index.html

How about IPMI?

The marketing blurb goes something like this:

[IPMI] will allow for remote monitoring, management and recovery capabilities, regardless of the status or health of the server. New features such as enhanced security using leading authentication and encryption mechanisms in combination with remote console viewing will help reduce operational risk by securing remote operations. Moreover, with IPMI being implemented at the silicon level, it deals with monitoring basic server parts such as power supplies, fans, voltage and temperature irrespective of the type or health of the CPU or operating system.

Supermicro have a sub $60 daughter card (for their motherboards only) that seems to offer console access over LAN using 'out of band' bandwidth, whatever that is. There are other vendors offering 'IPMI-enabled' mobos as well.

Has anyone used one of these? I'm considering getting a few cards for the SuperMicros I colocate. And wonder how the seial console access works over a WAN, getting it setup, securing it, etc. And what support, server-side, there is for IPMI based monitoring.

--
Hosting VPS servers with SSH console access

I don't know where you are getting your prices from (maybe 1996) but Dell will sell a perfectly cabable machine for less than $500, with a 15" flat panel monitor!. Ala carte, a 15" flat panel will cost one $200 by itself. Personally, I still build my own, but when someone asks for help choosing a PC, I just point them at Dell.

Dell is offering a 1GB Mini Cruzer for $50.96 after MIR. This should be plenty of storage for your needs. With 1GB at USB 2.0 speeds you can do more than use this as a toy. Link http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.a spx?sku=A0290872&c=us&l=en&cs=19&category_id=2999& page=external

four versions of the 1150. The low end one kind of matches what the guy in the parent thread said (I don't know what kind of 1100 your girlfriend has):
-No S Video
-No Radeon 9200 (i.e. integrated shit video)
-No combo drive for the $999 one
-No firewire
-No PCMCIA

FYI, wireless was debuted by Apple in an *iBook*. That's right, the first machine shipped by Apple to have AirPort was an iBook so no it's not a recent change. I am yet to see more than an hour and a half hours of life from any PC non-Centrino laptop (the bricks with two batteries not counted). Your girlfriend has one hell of a laptop there for $999.

I am not getting into a battle of who can find the best deal at the Dell web site but you must have worked really hard to find and paraphrase the worst deal you could possible find there as a comparision.

They have an 1150 (that you referenced) with a CDR/DVD combo (as you referenced) and a P4 2.8 and a 1 year warranty for $799 with free shipping.
** I am not trying to compare this laptop to the Apple in any way, just that your attempted comparision was not very good.

First off, by using educational Apple prices vs. standard Dell retail, you're comparing, well, Apples and oranges

Secondly, from everything I've read, you in no way need to get the best Intel chip available to compare with Apple in terms of speed. Everything I've read says that you need Apple's top processor/memory packages to make OSX zippy.

Plus, I have no idea what you're looking at, but Dell's chapest PC is $469 with monitor, while Apple's seems to be $799 with that ridiculous monitor built in, plus with half as much RAM.

They're not even in the same ballpark!

Me too. TiVo-S2 w/ HMO TiVo with http://javahmo.sourceforge.net/ JavaHMO plays MP3s beautifully through my THX receiver over my WiFi connection. It doesn't work for TiVos that are from the satelite guys tho. Sorry. I have a Series2. Originally I setup http://freshmeat.net/projects/mod_mp3/ mod_mp3 under Apache for many years - which worked nice for computers, but it didn't support Apache2. After switching to Apache2, I searched until finding http://freshmeat.net/projects/musicindex/ MusicIndex which is still working perfectly. Highly recommended. Most recently, I've gotten a http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.a spx?sku=DJSTD15&c=us&l=en&cs=04&category_id=2999&p age=external Dell Jukebox (15GB) for $129. This addresses music access when I'm not at home since my current consulting gig is at a draconian baby bell that blocks all media file streaming. Yes, I would have preferred an iPod or iRiver solution, but they are over 2x the cost. The Dell is ok after you get passed the crappy Win32 tools - it doesn't just appear like a USB storage device, you must use their software to copy files over making it almost worthless for all sorts of other uses. Since I converted all my CDs over the last few years, this wasn't a complete showstopper though it still sucks. An Open Source solution recompilable and modifiable by me would have been much nicer IFF a USB storage device couldn't work.

My laptop is used more as a portable workstation. PDA's are for battery powered portability!

I mean, really, I don't have "a system and method" for doing what is described, but the browser sure does. Hell, I'm not even sure what "remote user input" means. Sounds like they're trying to apply it to something as simple as loading a new page when you click a link (e.g., note the change in "pricing data" when I offer up: Select your system: PC or Mac ). Thank goodness for their freedom to innovate, or they never could have patented the web!

has a variety of nice bags. They aren't too pricey either.

But you won't understand the concept of quality. Not until you grow up. There's no getting through to some people.

http://support.dell.com/support/batteryrecall/inde x.aspx/en/main?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

$699 2.4ghz

$598.00 1.6ghz amd

Have fun waiting with your MACinTRASH. Now I'm off to play Doom on my dual Xeon 3.6Ghz. ;)

Yeah, one thing about USA and capitalism, it's sooo hard for the price of things to drop in 10 years.

Escuse me as I head home to watch some TV on my 27" HDTV, mess around on my 3 GHz home computer, maybe do some christmas shopping on the cable modem... I've been thinking of a 5 MegaPixel digital camera, or maybe an XBox, or maybe an MP3 Player, or maybe one of any number of things that were inconceivable 10 years ago yet commonly affordable today...

Yes this is about them here at the Dell website

Ah, I had assumed that dell had added the changes to the URL, not the session. Try this
Push the stats all the way up.

Why?

You can get a 2.4GHz machine for $350 Dell

Who cares if it runs on 1997 hardware? I want it to run well on todays hardware.

Tell me about it.
My department just purchased a lab full of new computers - P4 2.8GHZ, 1GB RAM... the highlight being these new Dell 20.1" FP2001 LCDs...

Analog RGB, Digital DVI-D TMDS, S-Video, Composite Video... not to mention the ability to rotate to portrait view... sadly, they didn't even install the drivers to enable rotating. why get a monitor like that when you dont all its features?

but i agree with a lot of /.ers, my own machine is a 3.0C with except 7200RPM drives and 512MB RAM. performance difference is very noticable.

You mean this url?

I think that you should get the NEC LCD1980SX monitor since you are going for a multi-screen setup. These screens have a very thin bezel (about 2/3 the width of a US Dime) making it appropriate for a two or three screen setup. They do max out at 1280 x 1024 so maybe you won't want to use them, but I've been very happy at that resolution. And they seem to be selling on NewEgg for $739.

I think the ultra-thin bezel makes is worth the extra $$$ versus the Dell 2001FP of course I am not comparing apples to apples, since the Dell is a 20 inch and I showed you a 19 inch screen.

In all fairness, you are right that most 20 inch LCDs are $1,000+, but with two 19 inch LCD screens you get a generous 2,560 x 1,024.

Ultimately, it comes down to how much money you got in your wallet (doesn't it always!)

Get this one. It's awesome and $720.

Chris

That is almost half of the price you said and a VERY awesome monitor. I work at a healthcare facility and several of our physicians have this monitor and it is awesome. Great response time as well. Very crisp.

Let me second that. With a 25% off coupon plus pre-Christmas sale, I spent like $700 on mine a year ago, and it's the best computer purchase I've ever made. 20.1", 1600x1200, DVI, VGA, S-video, composite, and Picture-in-Picture. Oh, plus it rotates, so you can do the portrait thing - which seems cool but I never use it.

Man, I should get a commission on these things. :)