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Turns Out Ubuntu Dell Costs $225 More
An anonymous reader writes "One week ago this community discussed the apparent price advantage of Ubuntu Dell over Vista. The article linked to a Dell IdeaStorm page with the status: 'Implemented.' Today the status has changed on that page to 'Reneged: Ubuntu Dell is $225 More Than Windows Dell.' The full price of a Ubuntu Inspiron 1420N is indeed $50 cheaper than the identical hardware configuration with Vista — except that a $275 free upgrade to 2GB memory and a 160-GB hard drive is available for Windows only."
You mean Gnome ?
Dell's promotions and stuff is err..."dynamic", to say the least. You can find the same system at like 5 different price depending where you look. So its no surprise that stuff like that would happen.
Other than stating the upgrades to windows are FREE! You still save $45. What I am missing?
Inspiron Notebook 1420 N
Intel® Core(TM) 2 Duo T5250 (1.5GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Ubuntu version 7.04
2GB Shared Dual Channel3 DDR2 at 667MHz
Size: 160GB2 SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Price: $774
Intel® Core(TM) 2 Duo T5250 (1.5GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Genuine Windows® Vista Home Basic Edition
Anti-glare, widescreen 14.1 inch display (1280x800)
FREE! 2GB2 Shared Dual Channel3 DDR2 at 667MHz
FREE! 160GB4 SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
24X CD writer/DVD Combo Drive
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini-Card
Price:$819
No, Vern. They just let him in.
You simply don't need the extra on linux
For what, exactly? 160gb of hard drive space is good if you're a warez hoarder, and 2gb of ram is good if you're compiling software.
If you're just using it as an internet terminal, then both operating systems are bloated. eg. ubuntu will automatically start cupsd, even if you don't have a printer. If you're obsessed with bloat, then you could spend a week fine-combing gentoo or bsd, or try something like syllable, but ubuntu users want something that will "just work", and that means adding bloat.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
So Dell's base 1420 with Ubuntu costs $747 with these specs:
Meanwhile, Dell's Windows equivalent has exact same specs, except for these differences:
And the Windows version costs $869. So the Ubuntu version is $122 cheaper and has a better WiFi card.
Remind me again... what did you step in?
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Sorry, I transposed numbers on the Ubuntu price -- the machine is $774, not $747, so the difference is $95, not $122.
My apologies. But Dell's Ubuntu system is still cheaper.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
The current Lenovo T60's are totally Linux compatible. I love mine.
"If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind."
It makes sense, you gotta have 2gb of ram for vista to even perform marginally well...and it requires more disk space too.
http://www.mhall119.com
Being relatively a noob to Linux I decided to purchase a desktop with Ubuntu from Dell and have nothing but great things to say about it. I usually build my own computers, which is an easy process for me using Windows because it's easy to guarantee combatibility with the OS. But now with Vista out, my fears of losing all my purchased apps, plus a desire not to get locked into another cost ineffective software solution lead me to trying Ubuntu.
In the past, I've tried different distrobutions (SUSE, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, among others) and have always taken it off my system because some annoying little hardware incompatibility caused me problems. So, while Dell may be charging a little extra for Ubuntu, I think there's something to be said about getting a Linux computer that will "just work" right out of the box.
I also have to mention that I don't feel cheated. I have a great system, 20" Widescreen Flat Panel, 2 GB of RAM, Core 2 Duo (1.X can't remember), the NVIDIA GFX (7300 Lite or something) card, 250 GB SATA HDD, DVD+-RW Dual Layer and another DVD-ROM as well. As some of the other posters had mentioned, this may have not been the "perfect deal" but I only paid about $1000 for the whole system. To me this is a sight better than paying $900 for the same machine using Vista and then having to repurchase Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks; does VS 2005 work on Vista?
Funny enough though, while Vista's having all these compatibility issues with the previous generation's software, I'm using the old Studio 8 suite on Linux under WINE and it's running faster than it did in Windows.
And I am not sure why Kubuntu, XUbuntu and the others exist. XFCE, KDE are available in the mainline Ubuntu.
The standard KDE distribution comes with loads of applications you probably won't use, and is a little overwhelming (and of course, bloated). Kubuntu have tidied it up, removed everything you probably don't need, put some alternative applications in which they prefer (eg. konversation as the IRC client instead of whatever the old one was), added lots of patches (eg. automatic flash installation when you visit a page with flash in it), and given it a prettier default theme.
In other words, they did to KDE what ubuntu did to gnome.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Some anti-MS or pro-Linux person, whichever, was obviously sitting on Dell's website waiting for this to be the case.
Anyone who goes to Dell's site or follows any of the bargain sites (fatwallet, slickdeals, techbargains, etc) knows that Dell deals change on a daily basis. One day you'll be able to buy a PC cheap without a monitor, the next day the purchase will require purchase of a monitor, the next day they'll throw in a RAM upgrade out of nowhere. I know last week there was a deal for a Linux box for around $250 off of Dell's site. They do this to keep people checking back. When someone sees a deal that looks good, they'll eventually make an impulse buy.
This isn't news worthy at all.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
I am not using Beryl although it seemed to work well and never crashed, because I thought it might be the culprit behind my missing panels and workspaces and the like. I removed it and tried Desktop Effects, same problems. Turned off Desktop Effects, same problems. What video card are you using? I seem to remember some Intel cards having issues with wide aspect ratios. Not sure it it would cause any of your problems though. Fantastic for you then. I just tried, but your solution didn't fix my problem. You're getting the same error with Azureus? The hard part is that there does not seem to be any configuration option that will allow me to remove it. I expect it to be somewhere under the other options for my network configuration but I have yet to find it. I'm pretty sure it's just a panel applet, you can probably just right-click it and remove it from the panel. I'll have to check when I get home to be sure (new job won't let me run Linux on my workstation).
http://www.mhall119.com
"Why is the application built into Ubuntu to play music named "Movie Player"?
Because it plays video as well as audio. I thinking Microsoft would get a little bent if they called it Media Player.
Most of your other problems sound like a video driver/X11/ Monitor issue. I had some of the same problems.
1. What video card are you using? Do you have the correct drivers selected. If it is an ATI then the historically bad ATI Linux drivers may be the issue.
2. What monitor is selected. This is the one that got me. If your Monitor isn't auto detected then you will be stuck at lower resolution and things will be pretty ugly. That is one thing I like better about OpenSuse. With SAX2 if it can not detect your monitor you have a huge library to select from manually. I have the same issue with Windows not detecting my LCD at my office. I use a KVM so it doesn't do the auto detect correctly. I have to plug my monitor directly into my Windows Box and let it detect the monitor then plug it into my kvm!
Ubuntu does seem to just work for about 99% of the people that use it. Just like Windows seems to also just work for a good number of people. Sometimes Windows Doesn't just work. My sister in law built her husband a new system. She works at EDS in QA and has a degree in IT. She couldn't get WindowsXP to load on that system. She ended up having to slipstream SP2 on to the the XP install.
Why? Because her new system used a SATA driver and her MSDN XP install didn't support it. Now if she was trying to load Linux all she would have had to do is download a new ISO but with Windows she had to look up how to slipstream SP2 and make a new CD herself.
When you don't buy hardware with the OS installed you sometimes have to make big effort to make it work right. Doesn't matter if it is Linux or Windows.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
ubuntu will automatically start cupsd, even if you don't have a printer
Which can be easily disabled from the Services config in Administration menu.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns