Slashdot Mirror

Didn't seem hard to find to me... try this link.

Forgive me, but I tend to disagree with this quite heavily. While I wouldn't say it's the best, the Dell Inspiron 8000 blows this out of the water for compatability. I'm partial to Mandrake 8.0, but any distribution is supported on this machine, and the ATI M4 Mobility or nVidia GeForce GO video, ESS Maestro3 sound, and Intel EEPro100 onboard ethernet are all supported out of the box. Hell, even the Lucent Winmodem is one of the supported models on www.linmodems.org and works great. Dell's support is great, their options are extremely configurable, and I've been enjoy watching my DVDs with Xine on trips for a while now. I'd recommend this laptop to anyone for Linux use, and would definitely pick it well ahead of an iBook.

they have cool racks that go with their gear designs http://www.dell.com/us/en/esg/topics/segtopic_serv ers_000_rack.htm

From WHERE exactly can I buy those machines please ?

Check out the Dell Poweredge 300SC. I just bought one (they were $100 cheaper last month) and I am really happy with it. All told, including tax, shipping, and one gig of RAM from Crucial, I spent $1120 for a P3/800, 40G IDE disk, and that sleek black case that I can I completely take apart without a screwdriver.

And there's no Microsoft tax.


--

That slashdot and other OSDN sites bear the main responsibility for generating revenue. Slashdot in particular as it's frequented by so many people daily. One way to do it may be to insert some extra data (such as tags) into comments and help boost revenue and creating some subtle albeit effective advertising. Something akin to SmartTags should go a long way towards compensating for the cut revenue from hardware sales. How big a job would it be to implement that in slashcode?

Flash the BIOS the same version. I had a Fujitsu *crapitsu* Milan that had the same problem and it worked. The best remedy in my case was buying a Dell..

I'm pretty sure that other manufacturers have similar products.

They're already losing money from people who buy the PS2 to use mainly as a DVD player. Why would they encourage people to put a Free OS on it, then never buy anything else from Sony to accessorize it? To make this profitable, they'd have to double the price of the box. As the 3DO proved, even the coolest game consoles don't sell well at $700.

The only company making any profit with personal computers right now is Dell, and they are cutting themselves to the bone to do so. Don't expect Sony to do the same with the PS2.

Oh, really? Tell me, Jonny, from which orifice did you so casually pull that statement?

Allow me to present 78 examples of companies that are each dominating an even more enormous part of the country's economy at this very second.

...and this list doesn't even take historical cases into consideration.

...and, hey! I'll be damned. There are even a few tech companies on that list.

Of course, I realize that the Fortune 500 is not a foolproof, catch-all guide to measuring a company's worth. You'll understand, though, if I have a tad more faith in it than in baseless rantings...

>Or, get a Dell OptiPlex GX150. Dell only sells
>these to Corporate/Educational institutions

You can get GX150's from the Factory Outlet as a home/small business buyer.

Quite a few of them available right here.

-LjM

Here's a sample of what your average 'blog will look like by the end of the Summer:

8/20/01:
Just sitting here at my new Dell Dimension sipping a Jolt and I began to wonder about the future of the Internet. I mean, my Comcast @ Home service is wicked-fast. But what's next? I want to be able to stream the new LOTR trailer and snag the demo for Half-Life 2 without a long download.

I can't imagine sites pimping misleading links. But it could happen.

Dell has also announced their Precision 730 workstation with the Itanium. I'll be interested to see if it's the same box with a Dell label on it.

Why have an internal hard disk at all? It requires you to distrute the music to the edge. You don't have a backup and what you end up doing is paying for a very expensive hard disk.

What you want is the Audiotron.

For the same price, you could put several of them around your house and connect them to the linux computer you already have, which could be the central music server.

Basically, you plug it into your network through it's ethernet port and turn it on. It scans all SAMBA shares for mp3 music in /audio or /my music
and lets you select from the IR remote. The output is a SPDIF jack, RCA stereo jacks and a headphone jack. The list price is $299 (cheaper other places).

The only other thing I found was the dell digital audio reciever, but it's totally tied to windows and I think it requires real player installation. It's inexpensive though - $199.

Another interesting one is the harman kardon/zapstation. It can do the same thing, but with video as well. However, if you look deeper into the specs, it's another pile of crap: they try to control everything about the device. You can't load DVD's onto the hard disk, and it incorporates most of the other controlware tactics.

- A.P.

--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?

A quick romp across the net for similarly configured and priced machines yields the following results:

• Apple iBook DVD $1499
  1024x768 LCD
  128 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  built-in ehternet
  RGB-video out
  firewire
  
• DELL Inspiron 8000 $1549
  1400x1050 LCD
  64 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  built-in ethernet
  IEEE 1394
  
• Gateway Solo 5300 $1624
  800x600 LCD
  128 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  ethernet (optional PC-card)
  TV-out
  no fireware/IEEE 1394
  
• IBM A22e $1699
  1024x768
  64 MB RAM
  15 GB HD
  CD-ROM
  built-in ethernet
  unspecified external display port
  no firewire/IEEE 1394
  
• Toshiba 2800 $1469
  800x600 LCD
  128 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  built-in ethernet
  TV-out
  no firewire/IEEE 1394

(I have omitted some features either becuase we all know how the contents turns out -- i.e. the CPU on the iBook is much slower than the competition -- or becuase the specs were substantially the same -- everyone has USB ports and modems, so why mention it?)

The Apple offering seems to stand up to the competition pretty well, with the notable exception being the DELL Inspiron 8000 which just kicks butt up and down (1400x1050 LCD! profanity, blasphemy, and disrespect! that is some nice hardware! I wonder how well it does with Linux). Most of the stuff I saw that was significantly cheaper than the Apple system didn't come with built-in ethernet and had only SVGA resolution on the LCD, which are two features near and dear to me.

While you can't get a new Apple laptop for the $900 that some models from some manufacturers are going for at the moment, you are certainly not getting ripped off. I'd say that the old saw about overpriced-underpowered Apple hardware is clearly more myth than reality.

Disclaimer: I'm an old Apple hand (my first real computer -- the kind that didn't store its data on cassette tapes -- was a Lisa 2 running MacWorks back in 1984) who has drifted far into the Linux camp of late (though I do own some Apple stock). I went into this comparisson intending to show that Apple was a clearly better value for the price than PC laptops with similar features, but the truth has bested me.

P.S. what I wouldn't give to have support for the TABLE tag on Slashdot.

A quick romp across the net for similarly configured and priced machines yields the following results:

• Apple iBook DVD $1499
  1024x768 LCD
  128 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  built-in ehternet
  RGB-video out
  firewire
  
• DELL Inspiron 8000 $1549
  1400x1050 LCD
  64 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  built-in ethernet
  IEEE 1394
  
• Gateway Solo 5300 $1624
  800x600 LCD
  128 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  ethernet (optional PC-card)
  TV-out
  no fireware/IEEE 1394
  
• IBM A22e $1699
  1024x768
  64 MB RAM
  15 GB HD
  CD-ROM
  built-in ethernet
  unspecified external display port
  no firewire/IEEE 1394
  
• Toshiba 2800 $1469
  800x600 LCD
  128 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  built-in ethernet
  TV-out
  no firewire/IEEE 1394

(I have omitted some features either becuase we all know how the contents turns out -- i.e. the CPU on the iBook is much slower than the competition -- or becuase the specs were substantially the same -- everyone has USB ports and modems, so why mention it?)

The Apple offering seems to stand up to the competition pretty well, with the notable exception being the DELL Inspiron 8000 which just kicks butt up and down (1400x1050 LCD! profanity, blasphemy, and disrespect! that is some nice hardware! I wonder how well it does with Linux). Most of the stuff I saw that was significantly cheaper than the Apple system didn't come with built-in ethernet and had only SVGA resolution on the LCD, which are two features near and dear to me.

While you can't get a new Apple laptop for the $900 that some models from some manufacturers are going for at the moment, you are certainly not getting ripped off. I'd say that the old saw about overpriced-underpowered Apple hardware is clearly more myth than reality.

Disclaimer: I'm an old Apple hand (my first real computer -- the kind that didn't store its data on cassette tapes -- was a Lisa 2 running MacWorks back in 1984) who has drifted far into the Linux camp of late (though I do own some Apple stock). I went into this comparisson intending to show that Apple was a clearly better value for the price than PC laptops with similar features, but the truth has bested me.

P.S. what I wouldn't give to have support for the TABLE tag on Slashdot.

Crispin - Where have you guys been? I was wondering when you would re-release the 7.0 version.

• Dell is now shipping a WireX product.
• Counterpane has licensed Immunix security technology for their internal use.
• We have two papers that will appear this summer at USENIX Security describing "FormatGuard" and "RaceGuard".

Does this release take care of the compilation problems of RH7?

Can I build a 2.4 kernel with this?

I would really like to use XF86 4.03

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Now available for purchase

I can just picture people clicking reload a hundred times on Dell's website trying to get a lower price for their new laptop.

In reference to your price comparisons among the three 1U servers you mention; the Sun Netra X1 is a single CPU system with IDE drives while the Dell PowerApp.web 120 (aka PowerEdge 1550) and the VALinux 1220 are both capable of being dual CPU systems and have SCSI drives. At least on the Dell front, the PowerApp.web 110 (aka PowerEdge 350) is a closer match in terms of hardware to the Sun Netra X1. I don't know what the performance differences would be given my lack of experience with Sun's hardware and recent versions of Solaris, but the other comment(s) here have some thoughts on that issue.

Jonathan

In reference to your price comparisons among the three 1U servers you mention; the Sun Netra X1 is a single CPU system with IDE drives while the Dell PowerApp.web 120 (aka PowerEdge 1550) and the VALinux 1220 are both capable of being dual CPU systems and have SCSI drives. At least on the Dell front, the PowerApp.web 110 (aka PowerEdge 350) is a closer match in terms of hardware to the Sun Netra X1. I don't know what the performance differences would be given my lack of experience with Sun's hardware and recent versions of Solaris, but the other comment(s) here have some thoughts on that issue.

Jonathan

In reference to your price comparisons among the three 1U servers you mention; the Sun Netra X1 is a single CPU system with IDE drives while the Dell PowerApp.web 120 (aka PowerEdge 1550) and the VALinux 1220 are both capable of being dual CPU systems and have SCSI drives. At least on the Dell front, the PowerApp.web 110 (aka PowerEdge 350) is a closer match in terms of hardware to the Sun Netra X1. I don't know what the performance differences would be given my lack of experience with Sun's hardware and recent versions of Solaris, but the other comment(s) here have some thoughts on that issue.

Jonathan

In reference to your price comparisons among the three 1U servers you mention; the Sun Netra X1 is a single CPU system with IDE drives while the Dell PowerApp.web 120 (aka PowerEdge 1550) and the VALinux 1220 are both capable of being dual CPU systems and have SCSI drives. At least on the Dell front, the PowerApp.web 110 (aka PowerEdge 350) is a closer match in terms of hardware to the Sun Netra X1. I don't know what the performance differences would be given my lack of experience with Sun's hardware and recent versions of Solaris, but the other comment(s) here have some thoughts on that issue.

Jonathan

Dell gave a link to check if the batteries were from the faulty batch - it's http://support.dell.com/battery/check.asp and I had to type in the service tag and battery numbers for each one. And then Dell make you do it again to make sure you typed right (invariably I hadn't so had to do it again).

In the end the only possibly dodgy batterys I found belonged to my boss's boss, who'd informed us of it in the first place, but carried on using his battery w/o checking it for a further 3 weeks!

BTW, this is my first post since I've been coming here, so go easy on me, huh?

WRONG.

"Customers are encouraged to go to support.dell.com/i5000battery or contact a Dell call center in their country, where they will receive replacement instructions. The instructions include how customers can receive two new batteries for each recalled battery that is returned."

Not that this is too hard to find at Dell's Support Site... http://support.dell.com/I5000Battery/

To top this off, according to their site:

"Customers will receive one replacement battery for each battery identified as subject to recall. Upon return of a recalled battery, customers will receive an additional battery at no cost."

Thats TWO brand spankin new batteries, one upon registering the defective one and one upon receipt of it... I just ordered an Inspiron 8000 two days ago, and service like this make me damn glad I went with Dell.

Dell is quite familiar with this sort of thing. Last time, it was the Latitude notebooks that were going up in flames. The details from the horse's mouth can found here.

Gateway
Dell

They're selling P4s with 32MB TNT2 cards.... uhm... yeah.

700 MHz Celeron

14.1" XGA TFT

128MB SDRAM

Internal 56k Modem (supported!)

Internal 10/100 ethernet (supported!)

10GB HD

8X DVD

Modular Floppy

100MB Zip

I especially like the fact that onboard modem and ethernet are supported, so I don't have to waste PC card slots for my network access. Check out the Linux on Laptops site to see how others have tweaked out their laptops for linux.

I've met some Dell tech support people in the past, and they seem to know their chicken. Between that and the 3-year warranty I purchased, The only thing I expect to have trouble with is my wireless network at home (There are no linux drivers for Acer Warplink cards *sigh*)

(And no, I don't work for them, so don't flame me...:-)

Dell sells laptops preloaded with Linux. Loading Windows would be trivial, but im not sure about Solaris. See http://www.dell.com/html/us/segments/bsd/choose_in spn_8000l.htm.

Their Inspiron and Latitude laptops will support RedHat, at least according to this page. IIRC, you can order the machine with Linux pre-installed.

Ooops. Sorry for the formatting error...

You'll also want to spring for a 15" LCD screen, I think.

Dell's GX150 SF can be seen here .

Compaq's EN SFF can be seen here.

What exactly is the business model for Eazel? How are they expecting to turn a profit ever? How (besides the now dried-up venture capital) will they pay their engineers and sustain a viable company?

If you look at their website, you will notice that they have corporate dealings with Sun Microsystems, Red Hat Linux, and Dell. They also are partnered with Xythos and Loudcloud.

They may not be turning over a profit yet, but they are working toward making a profit with a product that may be an innovation.

While I'm sure this bill will get a lot of press, the simple fact is, it has very little chance of passing, much less getting out of committee and to the House floor. Why? Well, there's a lot of problems.

First, the Texas Legislature only meets every 2 years (and only meets for about the first 5 months of the year, at that). And while a lot of people want to change this, dumb bills like this are the perfect reason[1]. This is clearly a reaction to an annoyance. Once the author goes home, the bill dies and he'll never re-file it. Meanwhile, the important bills get through because there's political pressure to move them.

Second, this would, of course, drive 2 of the state's largest employers nuts, as well as annoy the oddly powerful ISP lobby (ISPs hate nothing more than to have to support Censorware. It seems to cause nothing but complaints.)

Third, and most important, the bill (as written) is simply NOT enforceable. Under certain readings of the bill, I could say that EVERY operating system has Cencorware built in. All you have to do is remove the default gateway, and there you go no more access to porn sites. Further, what about machines bought out of state and shipped in? What about machines built in state and shipped out of state? Do these have to have the Censorware included?


[1] How many times and your state assembly done something dumb? It happens less often here.

With the exception of PCMCIA cards, SODIMM memory modules, and 2.5" hard drives, laptop parts arent commoditized - they aren't even standardized, really (CD/DVD drives are essentially the same form factor, but laptop manufacturers add their own unique connector and bezel). The rest of the parts are all specially designed for every different laptop. Very few laptop manufacturers have compatible parts (one exception is Dell and the now-defunct Quantex, who OEM'd the entire laptop from another manufacturer), which is why you can't walk into a PC shop, grab a bunch os standard laptop parts, and put them together.

If you're looking for a Linux laptop, Dell and QLITech (who took over from TuxTops; and they OEM the same system Dell sells as the 5000e as their Emperor).

should ex-hippies really be the target audience? Are they the ones running all the servers nowadays?

Sure. Ever worked a gig in the Bay Area? Freaks, Deadheads, long-hairs, and flower children everywhere, and many working for high-tech firms, pardon the pun ;^). IBM is doing a lot of this linux work in Austin, which is a pretty hippified place...

At least that's how was. That's how it looks. Word has it that several of the coolest stoner spots have closed (White Rabbit, Steamboat, Electric Lounge, Liberty Lunch, ...) have closed up, and most of the big tech outfits there (Moto, AMD, ,and Big Blue, all have drug tests... Austin Comedian Steven Kendrick says that "Austin Sucks" now because of it... (Of course, you can always refuse to participate in FORCED URINATION, and help make the world a better place in the process...)

The moral of the story is that it may be hip to *look* like a hippy, but just don't *act* like a hippy...

The place I work now has four Cobalt RAQ's (2 Raq 1's, 1 Raq 2, and a Raq 4). However, before we got the Raq 4, I found the Dell PowerApp series. Personally, I was quite impressed with both the features and the price. They didn't buy it only because a promotion allowed them to buy a Raq 4 for a very nice price.

Anyway, the Dell PowerApp's come in two flavors really useful to Web hosting companies - a web hosting rack mount and a web caching rack mount. They have CD-ROM drives (unlike the Cobalts), run SCSI hard drives (unlike some Cobalts), support both RH Linux or Windows NT. It also features a web based GUI configuration system. While personally I wouldn't buy the NT version, I can easily see this as being useful to companies who want to maintain different OSes but the same hardware. They run Celeron's or Pentium III's and are priced slightly cheaper (at least when I looked at them) than their comparable Cobalts.

I really liked the floppy/CD-ROM that's built in, which makes it much easier to reinstall than the ethernet install required by the Cobalts. It also has a video, keyboard, and mouse port, so one can run X to config or their precious NT environment.

I've been noticing a lot of Cobalt-like boxes in Linux Journal, like Penguin Computing's Relion servers. Appro (never heard of them before) also offers some rack mounts. Apparantely Cobalt's popularity has really brought many competitors to the field, as they seem to be rather numerous in my Linux magazine.

Hope this helps.

Some Additional Linux Distribution Suggestions

• Caldera Systems
• Turbo Linux
• SuSE
• Mandrake

• Sun/Open Office
• Applix/Applixware Office
• Oracle
• HP
• Compaq
• Dell
• GNU

• Osborne/McGraw-Hill
• O'Reilly
• Sybex

At least, it is for my laptop. If you happen to have a Dell, try here for some options. Other manufacturers, ask your OEM.

a few calls to select U.S. retailers to buy a "thin-and-light 14"TFT linux notebook",
2000.dec.19 - dec.23

dell seems to offer some redhat models on their website, but the links fail if you try to buy.
dell sales-people (on the phone) say linux is not available.
dell's Inspiron 4000 comes very close to how i'd like to see my machine, at $2350.

compaq 1.800.888.0220: (don't have any linux notebooks at this time)
compaq is the reason why i want the manufacturer to install the OS for me -
i spent 2 days in 2000-may failing to become friends with compaq's graphics chip.

fujitsupc.com 877-372-3473 (don't sell linux.)

gateway.com 800-846-4208 (we don't offer that operating system)

toshiba.com 1-800-316-0920 (runs on eastern time or something?) no linux

ibm-direct: yes they have linux pre-installed but the price seems to be about 60% higher
than dell+windowsMe

--- some lesser-known retailers and re-sellers:
tuxtops: don't have "thin-and-light" models
enpower: "thin-and-light" model coming soon - that may be worth the wait.
here in LA, some PC Club employees said they would put linux on there for me.

necxdirect.com (failed - no phone number listed)
microwarehouse 1-800-397-8508 "sorry, we don't carry any."
elinux has some 20 models of older yet pricey notebooks, nothing juicy.
--- places that I didn't get through ---
nec 888-632-8701 just rings and rings
sony 1 800 352-7669 (will try next week)
CDW 800 850 4239 (closes early?)

a few calls to select U.S. retailers to buy a "thin-and-light 14"TFT linux notebook",
2000.dec.19 - dec.23

dell seems to offer some redhat models on their website, but the links fail if you try to buy.
dell sales-people (on the phone) say linux is not available.
dell's Inspiron 4000 comes very close to how i'd like to see my machine, at $2350.

compaq 1.800.888.0220: (don't have any linux notebooks at this time)
compaq is the reason why i want the manufacturer to install the OS for me -
i spent 2 days in 2000-may failing to become friends with compaq's graphics chip.

fujitsupc.com 877-372-3473 (don't sell linux.)

gateway.com 800-846-4208 (we don't offer that operating system)

toshiba.com 1-800-316-0920 (runs on eastern time or something?) no linux

ibm-direct: yes they have linux pre-installed but the price seems to be about 60% higher
than dell+windowsMe

--- some lesser-known retailers and re-sellers:
tuxtops: don't have "thin-and-light" models
enpower: "thin-and-light" model coming soon - that may be worth the wait.
here in LA, some PC Club employees said they would put linux on there for me.

necxdirect.com (failed - no phone number listed)
microwarehouse 1-800-397-8508 "sorry, we don't carry any."
elinux has some 20 models of older yet pricey notebooks, nothing juicy.
--- places that I didn't get through ---
nec 888-632-8701 just rings and rings
sony 1 800 352-7669 (will try next week)
CDW 800 850 4239 (closes early?)

They are not the same thing. Empeg is a car player and Rio reciever is a home receiver that uses the phone lines or ethernet. The Rio Receiver is being distributed by Dell and possibly others but I haven't heard them confirmed.

It can play DVDs, VCDs, MP3s and audio CDs. It doesn't have any problems with CD-Rs like some players have. It comes with a browser and you can surf the web, read /. and check your mail during those half-time snack breaks you take while watching movies. With a little extra hardware thrown in, it can even play the most hi-tech video games on the planet. Hell, it can even boot Linux!

I strongly recommend that you go in for a system like this.

Regards,
Iyer

(Please note, this is not an endorsement of the I-opener, especially as they're being discontinued.)

Well, guess what. She loved it. She got into the whole eBay thing, is sending e-mail all over the place, is throwing out her cookbooks because she can find all her recipes online (no joke!)... having a ball.

Four months later, she's thinking of getting rid of it. Why? Well, as great as it is, it's not a real browser. It can't do movie clips, I don't think it can do sound, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it couldn't handle some websites. She's now thinking of getting an honest-to-goodness computer solely for the purpose of surfing. So I expect that she'll either get a bottom-feeder Dell for well under $1000, or I'll tell her to just get a remanufactured Pentium or something.

If I had any knowledge about Macs (she's used them before) I'd get her an old Mac, a modem, and a dialup account and let her go nuts. And I could probably do it for the price of an appliance, too.

"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."

I use two SyncMaster 900IFTs, and they match very well

To sum up my aborted post, Cray has been evolving from the single processor Cray-1, to the Multi-processor Cray YMP, to the massively distributed T3E. Seymour and Cray Computer Corp. (spun off of CRI in the late 80's or so) failed because they couldn't push as much performance through a smaller number of processors. Eventually the physical laws of silicon (Seymour even tried GaAs to get more performance) take over, and you must expand the number of processing units to get greater and greater performance.

The T3E is a 3D toroidal-constructed system. SGI's Origin uses the Hypercube. Sun uses whatever Cray's Business Unit did back in the day before SGI sold the Starfire, renamed the Sun UltraEnterprise 10000, to Sun (SMP I guess). The model works. That's not disputed.

The High-End market that Cray and Hitachi serves is fairly stagnant (growing slightly more than inflation) at around 1 Billion USD/year (IIRC). It doesn't grow 40% per year like standard PCs, handhelds, or the streaming video & porn market. The pie is only so big, so IBM and Sun choose the bigger market; they're exploiting the internet. ASCI projects don't make much money. They're done for the press they receive. I've heard of companies exploiting Cray's extreme I/O bandwidth for file archivers to tape robots, but that's about it for general purpose. You wouldn't buy an SV1 or a Hitachi to run Apache, that's for sure.

As Durinia pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, Ford and other auto companies still use Cray Vector machines, as well as other research labs, etc. Vector use isn't dead in the US. It's just not the centerpiece, I guess.

I have a Dell inspirion 7500 lappy whichi I bought in March/April of this year. For the most part it is a great machine and the PIII processor clocks at 500mhz when on battery power and 600 when plugged in. I can't tell any real performance difference between the two modes and the battery times feel the same as the inspirion 5000 that my wife has so I guess the speedstep thing is really pointless. The machine runs really hot and it is not something you would want to put on your lap per se. The screen is huge for a laptop but the drawback to this particular (the 7500) is that it is very heavy and when closed is about 2" thick. The plus is I have dragged this puppy all over and though it has had quite a beating in the 6 months I have had it is a real workhorse very capable as a desktop replacement.

Maybe Bob doesn't get it because he's not really paying attention to what his company is doing.

Redhat, the company, is going about setting up deals with many businesses, such as Dell and IBM, in ways that cause them to prefer the Redhat distribution over others. What Microsoft has done in the past, and what I compare Redhat with, is the practice of trying to make sure that I have no choice in OS for my computers. In the case of Redhat, it's no choice of distribution.

This is different than encouraging some company to offer Linux, and Redhat, with their hardware. These are cases where the hardware vendor will refuse to support their hardware problems when the software being run isn't Redhat (or Windows).

Bob, if you want to be a better member of the Linux community, then work to encourage hardware vendors to not just support Redhat, but to also support their hardware with not just any distribution running the Linux kernel, but other operating systems, such as xxxxBSD, as well.

at dell's gigabuys website , there are a few 17 inch panels that are well under two thousand dollars.

They're not the tops of the pops (Viewsonic VP181), but they're pretty damn good, and as low as ~1450USD. Most notable is the DELL 1701 FP for $1449 .

Just use mulitple monitors with that, and I'm sure you'll be happier than if you dropped the same wad for a single VP181. That's the decision I'm making right now.

at dell's gigabuys website , there are a few 17 inch panels that are well under two thousand dollars.

They're not the tops of the pops (Viewsonic VP181), but they're pretty damn good, and as low as ~1450USD. Most notable is the DELL 1701 FP for $1449 .

Just use mulitple monitors with that, and I'm sure you'll be happier than if you dropped the same wad for a single VP181. That's the decision I'm making right now.