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http://www.pcsforeveryone.com/

I've gotten one computer from them, and it was a mostly decent experience. (The card reader didn't work because of some weird incompatibility issue. I've forgotten the details now so i can't say if the problem was "obvious" enough that they should have warned me about it when i put the components together.)

A friend of mine has gotten a couple computers from them. One of them ended up having a flaky hard drive or something that was causing her some aggravation, but they seemed pretty reasonable with their support for the problem.

I believe all of the above computers were desktops, but it seems unlikely the laptop side of their business would be significantly different

I used my own experience working for a company where:

1. A hour of lost Data from certain machines may mean a million dollars in lost revenue.

2. We own the raw fiber between locations.

3. We also have live systems at the backup site.

Even so, this is what I suggested for our next generation of backup hardware. 40TB of usable backup space (after RAID and hot spares) for under $16,000 is nothing to sneeze at. Being able to double that for an extra $10,000 or much less if you get the hard drives somewhere else ($16,000 for 80TB if you combine this box with drives from another source)

Before you ask, I checked. The machine comes with the empty drive trays if you don't order drives.

try: http://pcsforeveryone.com/ The sell 3U storage servers with drive space for 12 drives i think?

pcsforeveryone gives me this fine choice!

No Operating System with System Testing Fee [ + $49.00 ]
Microsoft Windows XP Home [ - $89.00 ]

No-OS, Computers without Operating System (for those who want to install their own Operating System):

  http://www.abestpc.com/laptop.htm Laptops

  http://www.adamant.com/ Desktops Laptops

  http://www.avadirect.com/ Desktops Laptops
  http://www.com4.nl/ Desktops
  http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/ Desktops Laptops

  http://www.goldenelectronics.co.uk/ Desktops
  http://www.hypersonic-pc.com/ Desktops Laptops

  http://www.ion-technologies.com/ Laptops
  http://store.madtux.org/ Desktops/

  http://www.laptopchoice.com.au/ Laptops
  http://www.mtechlaptops.com/ Laptops

  http://www.mwave.com/ Laptops
  http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/ Desktops Laptops

  http://www.pcsforeveryone.com/ Laptops
  http://www.powernotebooks.com/ Laptops

  http://www.rjtech.com/ Laptops
  http://www.topmicrousa.com/laptops-notebooks.html Laptops

  http://www.unitedmicro.com/ Desktops Laptops
  http://xnbs.com/ Laptops

  http://www.xtremenotebooks.com/ Laptops
  http://www.zepto.com/ Laptops
 
  http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/23168/

I want you to find me a vendor with even decent warranty support who can build a 1U opteron with the SAME specs as a sun, IBM or HP for half the price.

I've been using PCs for everyone recently and they are pretty good though not the least expensive out there. The good part is that they preinstall Linux and make sure it works - some of the more expensive hardware I never had any experience with.

Also, as far as support goes, if the price savings are big enough (say 50%) one can just ignore hardware breaking down and replace it with a new box. Works well for general purpose compute needs.

• pcsforeveryone have some notebooks with Linux preinstalled. Unfortunately, they seem to gravitate towards NVidia. I have not bought any notebooks from them (yet ?) but did buy a few desktops/workstations, so they are quite reasonable.
• not linux related - hard disk with smaller rpms tend to be slower, but produce less heat and noise. They are also usually less expensive. On the other side the newer drives with fluid-dynamic bearings are a lot quieter anyway.

Big retailers suck... they're slow-moving, and easily suckered into spending all their time on marketing and none on educating their staff or customers. (Micro Center is an exception--I've never found someone stupid there, and only once was someone a little pushy. Still not nearly as bad as Circuit City and Best Buy can be if you get a sales-droid.)

The way Linux will become popular is places like PC's For Everyone--friendly, local computer stores, where you talk to people who know their stuff and aren't just programmed to sell you the most expensive system. I bought my notebook from them and purchased it OS-free, saving $110 over buying it with XP Home. If you combine a friendly store like that with a distro like Ubuntu that is very familiar and usable to Windows users, you could easily start converting users.

(Coincidentally, they're also very nice about supporting Linux: I installed Gentoo--not the world's stablest distro by a long shot--and when I started getting segfaults and such, they easily could have blamed me, the compiler, or my choice of distro. Instead, they fixed it in a weekend, and I had it back with working RAM. Right now it's in for a new hard drive, since it suddenly stopped working unless I rock the laptop to keep it from stalling.)

They also have a much prettier and less cluttered website than Micro Center, and a much easier (and less slimy--it shows real-time price instead of waiting for you to customize your "dream box" and then telling you it costs $4500) customization then Dell. And did I mention they support Linux?

(Some of this praise is due to the fact that, after dropping off my laptop, one of their employees caught me on the way out and sent me home with an Intel hat, polo shirt, and travel mug as thanks for all the feedback I gave them on their website. ;-)

Big retailers suck... they're slow-moving, and easily suckered into spending all their time on marketing and none on educating their staff or customers. (Micro Center is an exception--I've never found someone stupid there, and only once was someone a little pushy. Still not nearly as bad as Circuit City and Best Buy can be if you get a sales-droid.)

The way Linux will become popular is places like PC's For Everyone--friendly, local computer stores, where you talk to people who know their stuff and aren't just programmed to sell you the most expensive system. I bought my notebook from them and purchased it OS-free, saving $110 over buying it with XP Home. If you combine a friendly store like that with a distro like Ubuntu that is very familiar and usable to Windows users, you could easily start converting users.

(Coincidentally, they're also very nice about supporting Linux: I installed Gentoo--not the world's stablest distro by a long shot--and when I started getting segfaults and such, they easily could have blamed me, the compiler, or my choice of distro. Instead, they fixed it in a weekend, and I had it back with working RAM. Right now it's in for a new hard drive, since it suddenly stopped working unless I rock the laptop to keep it from stalling.)

They also have a much prettier and less cluttered website than Micro Center, and a much easier (and less slimy--it shows real-time price instead of waiting for you to customize your "dream box" and then telling you it costs $4500) customization then Dell. And did I mention they support Linux?

(Some of this praise is due to the fact that, after dropping off my laptop, one of their employees caught me on the way out and sent me home with an Intel hat, polo shirt, and travel mug as thanks for all the feedback I gave them on their website. ;-)

Japanese retailers have apparently already started selling Windows XP Pro x64 and the article says: "Pricing is on par with the regular professional version of Windows XP."

The photos from the article show the OEM version of XP Pro x64 edition (no fancy box or printed manual). The OEM version of XP Pro costs about $140 at newegg.com.

One reason I never tried out the pre-release version of x64 is that it seemed to require an XP Pro key, which I didn't have.

I think it will also be required for the "free upgrade" to the x64 edition. Everything I've read about the "free upgrade from 32-bit Windows XP" (like this article) only mentions the Professional edition and excludes the Home edition.

Another good reason to buy XP Pro over XP Home, even for single CPU systems: free exchange for the 64-bit edition of XP Pro.

An Opteron for example. Try a quick customization of your own: PC's For Everyone The default motherboard can take 8gb and higher end boards go from 16gb to 64gb. If Dell & friends can't supply you with what you want find a local custom build shop that has been around a while and has a good service record. As others have pointed out you can also build it yourself. For support there are plenty of third party on-site support companies, some specializing in Linux. Find one with reps in your area. HTH

Here are other sites offering Small Form Factor listings:

SSF at HardwareCentral.

Shuttle PCs at PCs For Everyone.

And just in case you don't know, here this guy explains what a Small Form Factor PC is.

Rumor may have it wrong.

PC's for Everyone in (Cambridge, Mass, US) offers pre-loaded Red Hat or SuSE or Windows 2000 or XP Home/Pro. I don't think they'd risk their Windows reseller status to build (I'm guessing) a low volume of Windows/Linux boxes for enthusiasts-who-don't-want-to-do-it-themselves.

They'll do dual-boot setups for an extra $49.

While the cost isn't trivial, and you pay for two operating systems, it might be useful for a corporate pilot, a QA environment, etc.

Small shops like this are good for giving you customized builds with good install procedures (properly routed cabling, OS+hardware testing, etc). Of course, they don't stock low-volume parts like 1GB DIMM's, but if you want to keep your costs down without sacrificing quality components, small vendors like this can be really great. I've bought six dual-athlon development servers from them and I couldn't be happier with the price/performance ratio.

There are alternatives to big vendors and build-it-yourself, but they aren't without trade-offs.

-don

Try:
PCs for Everyone

PCs for Everyone lists the following prices (all OEM, which requires a hardware purchase):

• WP Office 2002 Standard: $19
• Works 2002 (incl. Word): $89
• Office XP Small Business: $219
• Office XP Pro: $369

The downside: their online ordering system is very tedious.

Just a satisfied customer.

Here in Cambridge, MA, PCs for Everyone is considered one of the best small companies. They sell parts, will build a custom pc, and offer a few pre-built pcs.

so either you get a pc, where you can't reinstall windows, or you get a mac, where you can't touch the hardware. Or, just go to a local shop and get a quality machine with all the cds.

I do everything I need to do with free (beer) software, although Loki occasionally tempts me to spend some money on games.

There's even a place in the same city as Spindletop where I usually buy my hardware. PCs for Everyone checks out each component for Linux support.

The price I pay over cost is a contribution to what seems like a superfluous project. I just don't see the added value.

All of which is not to say that I would turn the dogs on the UPS driver if he showed up at the door with one...

As long as I'm wishing, I might as well wish for a pony...

Ok folks, there's an easy solution to the problem of a company not giving you the full OS on CD: buy from a company that does. I just bought a new PC, with, I'm ashamed to say, Windows 98. And I'll keep it, until all the games I want are available for linux.

However, I got a full version. And, had I chosen, I could have gotten a full version of ME, or of RedHat, or a store-burned RedHat CD & install (for about $30). All of these were the OEM versions, but not linked to the bios (at least, I havn't noticed... and I've already used it to fix another machine). And yes, they sell machines with no OS at all. They also give away a free copy of Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 with every M$ OS. (The store, by the way, is PCs For Everyone. So shop at a smaller store, and simply DON'T BUY from companies that don't sell things you want! It's that easy!

I don't use arrow keys very often (I'm more of a mouser and don't use emacs much), and I love my MS Natural Elite, which I got for about $25 extra over the default keyboard when I bought a PC at PCs for Everyone last summer. PCfE was one of the first places to buy a PC with preinstalled Red Hat. Their quality is high and prices are most reasonabubble. Lifetime labor warrantee on all their systems. I'm a most happy customer.