Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Turns Out Ubuntu Dell Costs $225 More

Posted by kdawson on from the implemented-and-reneged dept.

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."

2 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What's the incentive? by Geek_3.3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or Dell really DOES make a lot of money off of the crap-o bloatware (6 month's free AOL etc) and this is their way of compensating.

  2. Re:Vista needs the space by Anthony+Rosequist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    LOL, that's Ubuntu users for you: "I did not have that problem, therefore it does not exist."
    First, that's not what the parent was saying at all. It was more along the lines of:

    "I did not have that problem, and you didn't give me enough diagnostic information to adequately help you solve it. You can attempt to find someone else with a similar problem, or we can work on it a little bit longer and try and get more information."

    Plus, we don't know if the GP was messing around with things that he shouldn't have. People that are new to Linux (especially if you're having problems) shouldn't be messing with their Gnome install, advanced user settings, or extremely experimental beta eyecandy software, despite how tempting it can be.

    Without knowing that information, I think that mhall did a great job addressing AC's problems. He recommended that, even though he wasn't sure exactly what the problem was (since he had never experienced them), he should:
    • Check his screen resolution (and possibly video card drivers),
    • Not mess with Beryl or Compiz,
    • Create a new, default, user account and see if that helps, or
    • If he doesn't have much to lose, try re-installing.
    You're ridiculing him for some advice that he offered (for free) that was more helpful than most customer service departments (where they get paid), especially given the limited amount of information he had.