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Well for one thing, IBM provides support through it's Global Services division since 1999.

Global Services deal with IBM

Then there's this cherry 7 year deal they inked back in 1999 for IBM to manufacture Dell's equipment.

IBM to Manufacture for Dell

Well for one thing, IBM provides support through it's Global Services division since 1999.

Global Services deal with IBM

Then there's this cherry 7 year deal they inked back in 1999 for IBM to manufacture Dell's equipment.

IBM to Manufacture for Dell

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx /power/en/ps1q02_long?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=b iz

That's a link to Dell documentation discussing the in's and out's of RAID configuration and reliability. Any chance you've got a link that shows where a mirrored RAID 5 configuration is referred to as RAID 10. I'm always curious to find that sort of information first hand. Gooling for Dell RAID 10 configuration, doesn't come up with anything in the first 5-10 links like what you describe being named RAID 10. They do discuss RAID 50, which is a stripe of RAID 5 configurations. I'm still having a hard time, grasping the waste of disks involved in "RAID 5+1". It's just silly. However, I suppose it sells a lot more hardware, which is what they do.

Kirby

I'll agree that setting it up is a nightmare. I'm currently helping test two 4TB arrays for use on a Linux box (16 SATA drives presented as a single SCSI device). Benchmarks under linux are slower than under windows. It's a mess figuring out why. Meanwhile, vendors (who I will not name ship crappy software, and take months to act on bug reports.

As for transitioning servers, I've been there too. And yes, copying a terabyte of disk in single is a very long process. It'd have taken several days, which is of course unacceptable. This is where the magic of rsync comes in handy. Copy the data over several days in advance, sync it just before the scheduled downtime, and you'll have a fairly short downtime.

Also missing is Dell's music player. My wife bought me one; it holds 20gb, the battery seems to last forever and the sound is great. Best of all, it's priced at only $250 for the 20gb model. Odd that pcmag didn't include the Dell in this lineup since they already reviewed it last year.

Something like Dell Dimension XPS? You get 3.2GHz PIV (with 800MHz FSB), 2GB RAM, 120GB SATA HDD, Gigabit Ethernet, SB Audigy 2 sound (with Firewire), ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (which thrashes NV FX 5200) AND 17" TFT -- all for 50$ less than quoted Mac.

Now, let's add XP Professional instead of Home, Microsoft Digital Media Edition Plus! Pack (not even close to Apple's offer, but for the sake of comparision), 8x DVD+RW drive, 56K modem and we come to $2039.

But let's not even try to add all this options to Mac -- 2GB RAM alone costs $825! Plus 350$ for Radeon 9800 Pro and 699$ for 17" Studio Display and we get $3373!

Or, you want 64bit PC? Lets try with Alienware Aurora: AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 512MB RAM, 80GB HDD, NV FX5200 Ultra, 80GB SATA HDD, Plextor 8x DVD+-RW Drive, Audigy 2, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0, Firewire: $1760

Sorry, but there is no way that Mac is cheaper (or even close) to comparable PC. And mind you, I chose two of the most expensive PC vendors.

Even with their update, the entry level Macs are still not even remotely competetive with today's cutting edge Intel machines. Apple fanatics, I don't understand why you continue to waste your money on such machines. Take a look at the configurations of the following machines:

Apple eMac
1.25GHz PowerPC G4, 256MB DDR SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA/100, SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
17-inch (16-inch viewable) flat CRT
ATI Radeon 9200 32MB
Mac OSX
= $999

Dell Dimension 2400
2.4GHz Celeron, 256MB DDR SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA/100, DVR+RW optical drive
17-inch (16-inch visible) CRT
Intel 3D Extreme Graphics
Windows XP
= $679

I specced the Dell to be similar to the high-end eMac. Suprise, suprise - it's $320 cheaper. The Intel equivalent is even $120 cheaper than the low-end $799 eMac! What's up with that?

But if we go ahead and spend the extra $300 on an Intel based machine, we get some really flashy upgrades that start to compete with Apple's high-end G5 offerings. For example, we can easily get a 3GHz hyperthreading Pentium 4 (which is 2 processors in one - an effective clockspeed of 6GHz assuming 100% efficiency running parallel tasks). For example:

Dell Dimension 4600
3GHz Pentium 4 with hyperthreading, 512MB DDR SDRAM
120GB Ultra ATA/100, DVD+RW optical drive
17-inch (16-inch visible) CRT
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128MB graphics card
Windows XP
= $998

Ta-da. Conclusion: Apple is still really bad value for money. For the same price as an entry-level Apple system, you could get a significantly powerful workstation capable of handling anything you throw at it - including games. If you're willing to go a step further and build your own machine from components (gasps from the Apple audience), you can get an even higher specced machine for about the same money.

An ultra-high end computer is $1000 if you're willing to shop around. Nobody should settle for anything less, or for overexpensive, underpowered solutions like eMacs. You don't even have to run Windows if you don't want to. Gnome and KDE await you on Linux and FreeBSD (on which Mac OSX was originally based).

Even with their update, the entry level Macs are still not even remotely competetive with today's cutting edge Intel machines. Apple fanatics, I don't understand why you continue to waste your money on such machines. Take a look at the configurations of the following machines:

Apple eMac
1.25GHz PowerPC G4, 256MB DDR SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA/100, SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
17-inch (16-inch viewable) flat CRT
ATI Radeon 9200 32MB
Mac OSX
= $999

Dell Dimension 2400
2.4GHz Celeron, 256MB DDR SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA/100, DVR+RW optical drive
17-inch (16-inch visible) CRT
Intel 3D Extreme Graphics
Windows XP
= $679

I specced the Dell to be similar to the high-end eMac. Suprise, suprise - it's $320 cheaper. The Intel equivalent is even $120 cheaper than the low-end $799 eMac! What's up with that?

But if we go ahead and spend the extra $300 on an Intel based machine, we get some really flashy upgrades that start to compete with Apple's high-end G5 offerings. For example, we can easily get a 3GHz hyperthreading Pentium 4 (which is 2 processors in one - an effective clockspeed of 6GHz assuming 100% efficiency running parallel tasks). For example:

Dell Dimension 4600
3GHz Pentium 4 with hyperthreading, 512MB DDR SDRAM
120GB Ultra ATA/100, DVD+RW optical drive
17-inch (16-inch visible) CRT
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128MB graphics card
Windows XP
= $998

Ta-da. Conclusion: Apple is still really bad value for money. For the same price as an entry-level Apple system, you could get a significantly powerful workstation capable of handling anything you throw at it - including games. If you're willing to go a step further and build your own machine from components (gasps from the Apple audience), you can get an even higher specced machine for about the same money.

An ultra-high end computer is $1000 if you're willing to shop around. Nobody should settle for anything less, or for overexpensive, underpowered solutions like eMacs. You don't even have to run Windows if you don't want to. Gnome and KDE await you on Linux and FreeBSD (on which Mac OSX was originally based).

"This has been this way forever and windows still has 90% of the marketshare. People are willing to pay for windows."

Here's the Dell config site. Show us were the price of Windows is shown?

"Windows just works, and works with more hardware without extraconfiguration."

Oh yeah! Just works. Right.

"Of course there are package management solutions that solvealot of this but if the package aint available in it you are left tocompile. When I take a fresh machine an install windows on it,everything just works, with linux you need to figure out why your soundisnt working and then configure the driver and what not and edit configfiles."

See above and below. And wipe the drool off your face.

"But they still are using it and despite the security flaws the general public is perfecty comfortable using windows."

With comfort like this why would they ever leave?

"No one wants to be editing config files to get an application to work."

And yet they still do.

If you're going to criticize Linux, don't you think you should hide Window's skeletons first?

"This has been this way forever and windows still has 90% of the marketshare. People are willing to pay for windows."

Here's the Dell config site. Show us were the price of Windows is shown?

"Windows just works, and works with more hardware without extraconfiguration."

Oh yeah! Just works. Right.

"Of course there are package management solutions that solvealot of this but if the package aint available in it you are left tocompile. When I take a fresh machine an install windows on it,everything just works, with linux you need to figure out why your soundisnt working and then configure the driver and what not and edit configfiles."

See above and below. And wipe the drool off your face.

"But they still are using it and despite the security flaws the general public is perfecty comfortable using windows."

With comfort like this why would they ever leave?

"No one wants to be editing config files to get an application to work."

And yet they still do.

If you're going to criticize Linux, don't you think you should hide Window's skeletons first?

a Dell rack system.

Don't forget to ask them about the complimentary ear protectors.

I did a bit more digging, and according to this, (scroll down to the sata support recap) the poweredge 750 SATA is supported natively by RHEL3 using libata (Jeff Garzik's library), and looks like it uses the ICH5 driver, thus it should work on any 2.6 kernel (with the sata drivers compiled), so i'd be very surprised if there isn't one of the SuSE 9.1 2.6 kernels that supports this SATA off the boot CD.

It would be great if they would include this laptop mode patch, like they did in 2.4. It really prolongs battery life on my laptop, not to mention that with quick spindown times (using hdparm) it kinda solves the heat problem on my Dell D600 laptop.

redhat Server costs $350 a year and can be compared to, say, Microsoft Small Busines Server which is a snip at $1,250. Yet MS shops are undercutting you?

Check this out. Dell support doesn't even know it exists.

You need one of these..

Dell 2001FP 20.1" LCD Monitor

1600x1200 / 16ms response / 400:1 contrast / DVI / $900

Hell, get 2 of them and send me one...

Dell has started opening Dell Direct Stores in malls. These are more of a kiosk than a full-sized store. Like Gateway's stores these are order-to-build stores, not take it home stores like Best Buy.

What exactly could those stores accomplish that could not be done with a kiosk in a shopping mall (kind of like their biggest competitor)? Like the article said, they were simply a money drain and keeping inventory in the store kind of defeats the purpose of the build to order model. Now if only Dell would get out of the super-saturated consumer electronics market and we just might see Dell and Gateway going back to competing to build the best computers (wishful thinking, I know).

Dell does sell computers that don't require the microsoft tax you know.

Apparently they have different info than you

Yeah, because we all know that realgeeks never spend money on stuff they don't need

Just FYI

Yeah cause we all know that geeks never spend money stuff they don't need

The dimensions are always meant to be for home use. Dell trys to put a good spin by saying that it is for cutting edge technology but if you ever try to buy a bunch of them at once, the salesman will try to talk you out of it. In any case, here is the dell responce to Optiplex vs. Dimension.

I hate to break it to you, but Dell still sells Linux based PC's. They backed off on promoting them under threats from MSFT, but they are actively selling and supporting them. Check out linux.dell.com. Also check out the precision workstations. Select a model, then click the right side nav for getting it with linux.

I think the difference lies in the warranty and/or service contract.

Excuse me?

I just went to dell.com and configured a 1750 just as you said: the price came to $1,948.

Am I missing something?

Go here and add a second CPU, one GB of RAM and the 72GB, 10K rpm hard disk.

that's $1499+ 2nd Processor Intel Xeon, 2.4GHz w/512K Cache, 533Mhz Front Side Bus [add $299 or $8/month1] + 1GB DDR SDRAM (2X512MB) at a 512 price (mail-in rebate not valid) Dell Recommended + 73GB,10K RPM, 1in (Ultra 320) SCSI Hot Plug Hard Drive [add $150 or $4/month1]

$1948 dude, not $4127.

Erm ... just did a search on the Dell web site and got this, seems like Dell do alternative OS platforms, even if they don't promote them quite the way they should.

Dell does have direct stores, and sometimes you can take a pre-built laptop from their store.
I don't think they have any of these stores in New York, but if you travel somewhere outside of New York, maybe you can pick one up.

Not sure why this warrents an ask slashdot when a quick search found this:
Gateway Stores
Circuit City
Dell Direct Stores
Or if your feeling artistic:
Apple Stores

between desktops and laptops/notebooks, too: for a given class of machine (CPU, RAM, HD, display) the laptop would cost significantly more than the desktop.

However, in recent years the gap has narrowed: now a 2.4GHz Celeron laptop with a 14" display can cost under $700. (Scroll down to the Inspiron 1100) The laptop still costs more than the same class desktop, but the gap isn't nearly as wide as it once was.

I believe that - as the PDA/handheld market matures - the price gap will close a bit. There will always be expensive stuff on the high end, but the entry- to mid-level stuff will offer pretty darn good performance.

Dude, not quite:
Your $2700 "fully loaded PowerBook" is actually $2999 (Assuming you don't customize it, that costs more)... it includes 512 DDR333 SDRAM (Your $1000 PC Laptop (if you go with Dell, for instance) includes 384 MB DDR266 SDRAM, that's nowhere near 5x's more), I can't really compare the battery life since I own neither of the two (can you substantiate twice the battery life from real world experience?), 2.5 times the storage capacity is about right (30 GB drive in the Dell, 80 GB drive in the Apple), Superdrive for the Mac, CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive for the Dell, Airport Extreme for the Apple (802.11g/b), upgrade for the dell (Dell TrueMobile(TM) 1300 WLAN (802.11b/g, 54Mbps) miniPCI Card [add $49 or $2/month1]), bluetooth for the Apple, no bluetooth for the dell, 17inch monitor on the Apple, 15 inch on the dell, G4 1.33 Ghz for the Apple, P4 2.8GHz for the Dell. 6.9 lbs weight for the Apple, 7.22 lbs weight for the Dell.

The Apple costs 3 times more than the Dell. Do you have 3 times more stuff?

Contrast this to Dell. They do no R&D... they assemble.

This is a great point, but it's not longer true. It was true several years ago, however. Dell now does a good deal of in house R&D. They used to buy laptops from Sager and rebadge them as Dell. Now their laptops are designed in house and a good deal of engineering goes into them. Take this for example.

With the Dell Axim, their Ipod clone, their line of custom cases, laptops, and even proposed standards (dell is pushing for a standard port for upgradeable graphics cards in laptops, and is developing a solution in house for it). They are way past their assembler days of yore.

For what they do (and what they are) iPods are extremely expensive. Like all Apple hardware, you pay for the design (which is undoubtably nice) and the "cool" factor (helped by the marketing people). If fashion is more important to you than value and/or functionality then iPods are great (and I'm not criticising, some people value fashion highly and I have no problem with that). But if you want something which just plays music well, is functional, and is much better value, you should look else where.

For $778, you could have gotten a Dell notebook with a 40GB drive ($699 for 20GB).

Good job Tom. Now you just need to investigate that other Michael's claims.

Here

Actually Dell offers either FreeDOS or Redhat Linux WS.
Dell n Series

Also, buried in their website you can purchase their n - series with no OS installed and FreeDOS in the box. They start at $419.

Here are some links to manufacturer's recycling plans. They are not perfect. But, I imagine, these programs are better than throwing an old box in a ditch somewhere.

Dell Recycling and Donations

Gateway Recycling (Large Business)

HP Recycling

John

A step in a nice direction.

And, yes, they do sell this same system without the special with only 128MB of RAM and still put Windows XP on it.

OK, here is the link without the spaces. Michael's Computers

Just because a SMB (small- to medium-size business) doesn't need systems running RAID arrays that can survive multiple simultaneous drive failures [which Compaq pioneered]

Actually, no, they didn't do all the RAID pioneering in the PC world. The DDA was an in-house-designed product that was pretty darned nifty for its time, and resulted in quite a few patents for the people who worked on it.

Back in the early 90s, Dell was actually shaping up to be a formidable engineering company in its own right. We (I worked there at the time) designed and debugged our own motherboards and ASICs, and Dell was the first PC vendor to come out with an 80486 workstation, beating Compaq (who was famous for being first with the 80386) to the punch.

People around here seem to be selling Dell short as an engineering outfit, and that's not entirely fair or accurate. After it became clear that the PC was a commodity, Dell's engineering efforts were redirected at manufacturing and support processes rather than the products themselves, and that's when they really started to kick butt. No one -- not HP, not Compaq, not IBM -- proved able to compete with Dell's process engineering talent.

Michael Dell is probably the least shady character on Dell's board of directors.

Have a look at their BOD page. You will see that a lot of the people on the board are affiliated with large banks (chase/manhattan), oil companies, defense contractors, government agencies, etc. However, this is typical of many large US companies.

M. Dell however, was a true business man. Started Dell from the ground up and had no other motives.

Go here - Michael Dell's Page Then click Michael on the menu bar at the top, and go to "Michael's Computers"

However the Opteron is HALF the price of a Xeon!

Heh, you haven't been to Pricewatch lately. An Opteron 248 is $949 compared with $821 for a 3.2ghz Xeon (1mb cache). Dell has the 2mb Xeon listed at $1,499. We know the street price will be a couple hundred lower.

AMD can't afford to sell at HALF the price of Intel.

but dells are POS computers. they come preinstalled with spyware. they refuse to use anything but processors designed and manufactured by Intel. and they look LAME. and if you own something like a powerbook, and then user a Dell for a few short hours you'll discover they ARE truly designed POS style.

...then slap yourself in the face for me and say, "Macs are not expensive."

Why is it then, that Apple's least expensive offering, the base eMac uses the G4 1 Ghz processor that debuted in Apples just over 2 years ago (January 28, 2002) and costs $799, while $599 on a Dell Dimension 2400 ($100 mail-in rebate brings final price to $499) gets you a processor (Pentium 4 2.66 Ghz) that debuted 1-1/2 years ago (August 26, 2002)?

That seems about the same, right... read on... for a comparison of the specs:

Sources: Apple Specs - Dell Specs - Dell E-Value Code: 6V212-D24TVP

Apple: 1 Ghz G4 (133mhz FSB) - Dell: 2.66 Ghz Pentium 4 (533mhz FSB)
Apple: 128 MB SDRAM (PC-133?) - Dell: 128 MB 333 Mhz DDR RAM
Apple: 40 GB HDD - Dell: 80 GB HDD (free upgrade)
Apple: 17 inch Flat CRT display (16 inch viewable) - Dell 17 inch CRT display (16 inch viewable)
Apple: ATI Radeon 7500 Integrated - Dell: Integrated Intel(R) 3D Extreme Graphics
Apple: Single Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) - Dell: Dual Drives: 48x CD-ROM Drive + FREE UPGRADE! 48x CD-RW Drive
Apple: No charge ground shipping (two to five business days after shipment) - Dell: Free ground shipping (3-5 day)
Apple: N/A - Dell: $100 Mail in Rebate

With the exception of the Intel 3D "extreme" video card (maybe the same, but probably less desireable than the eMac's Radeon 7500) and the lack of standard DVD-ROM drive on the Dell (but it's only $30 extra by selecting this option: Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + FREE UPGRADE! 48x CD-RW Drive [add $30 or $1/month1]) the Dell, for is definitely a comparable (probably a better) value for the hardware, dollar for dollar. Now, if we're talking $499 after a rebate for the Dell vs. $799 for the Apple, that's a $300 Apple premium on a low-end Apple vs. a low-end PC (by today's standards).

Putting $799 total into a PC would definitely get you far closer to today's cutting edge than $799 would in an Apple. CLEARLY, Apples ARE comparatively expensive (even the lowest end Apple IS expensive compared to a low end PC). Of course, Apple folks don't tend to buy them for the cheap prices so my post clearly just addresses purely monetary values you brought up (and comparison is how one generally determines what "expensive" means).

What strikes me is that, for the most part, Apples use more or less the same commodity hardware PC parts that drove PC prices into the gutter (except motherboards, processors, and special Apple versions of graphics cards (probably VERY similar to PC brehteren)) but they just cost more. Unless Apple is using uber-cool american master craftsmen to hand assemble these beauties (they are perty), which I somehow doubt... their origin is most likely very geographically similar to their PC brehteren, how can anyone call them any

...then slap yourself in the face for me and say, "Macs are not expensive."

Why is it then, that Apple's least expensive offering, the base eMac uses the G4 1 Ghz processor that debuted in Apples just over 2 years ago (January 28, 2002) and costs $799, while $599 on a Dell Dimension 2400 ($100 mail-in rebate brings final price to $499) gets you a processor (Pentium 4 2.66 Ghz) that debuted 1-1/2 years ago (August 26, 2002)?

That seems about the same, right... read on... for a comparison of the specs:

Sources: Apple Specs - Dell Specs - Dell E-Value Code: 6V212-D24TVP

Apple: 1 Ghz G4 (133mhz FSB) - Dell: 2.66 Ghz Pentium 4 (533mhz FSB)
Apple: 128 MB SDRAM (PC-133?) - Dell: 128 MB 333 Mhz DDR RAM
Apple: 40 GB HDD - Dell: 80 GB HDD (free upgrade)
Apple: 17 inch Flat CRT display (16 inch viewable) - Dell 17 inch CRT display (16 inch viewable)
Apple: ATI Radeon 7500 Integrated - Dell: Integrated Intel(R) 3D Extreme Graphics
Apple: Single Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) - Dell: Dual Drives: 48x CD-ROM Drive + FREE UPGRADE! 48x CD-RW Drive
Apple: No charge ground shipping (two to five business days after shipment) - Dell: Free ground shipping (3-5 day)
Apple: N/A - Dell: $100 Mail in Rebate

With the exception of the Intel 3D "extreme" video card (maybe the same, but probably less desireable than the eMac's Radeon 7500) and the lack of standard DVD-ROM drive on the Dell (but it's only $30 extra by selecting this option: Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + FREE UPGRADE! 48x CD-RW Drive [add $30 or $1/month1]) the Dell, for is definitely a comparable (probably a better) value for the hardware, dollar for dollar. Now, if we're talking $499 after a rebate for the Dell vs. $799 for the Apple, that's a $300 Apple premium on a low-end Apple vs. a low-end PC (by today's standards).

Putting $799 total into a PC would definitely get you far closer to today's cutting edge than $799 would in an Apple. CLEARLY, Apples ARE comparatively expensive (even the lowest end Apple IS expensive compared to a low end PC). Of course, Apple folks don't tend to buy them for the cheap prices so my post clearly just addresses purely monetary values you brought up (and comparison is how one generally determines what "expensive" means).

What strikes me is that, for the most part, Apples use more or less the same commodity hardware PC parts that drove PC prices into the gutter (except motherboards, processors, and special Apple versions of graphics cards (probably VERY similar to PC brehteren)) but they just cost more. Unless Apple is using uber-cool american master craftsmen to hand assemble these beauties (they are perty), which I somehow doubt... their origin is most likely very geographically similar to their PC brehteren, how can anyone call them any