[plug] Where to get supported hardware?

[Tim Bowden]

On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 16:34 +0800, tamlin at bur.st wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I need to buy a new laptop, I wanted to buy one of the Dell Ubuntu  
> ones (Inspiron 1420E) but have found that they only sell Open source  
> systems in the US at this stage and won't support the hardware unless  
> I have windows installed for them to troubleshoot with.

Can you purchase the same model here with windows, and swap it out for
your distro of choice?  If so, how much trouble are you willing to put
up with to get required drivers going?

> 
> Does anyone know where I can buy a system that is guaranteed to work  
> with Ubuntu? Ie. one that has already been tested and all the necesary  
> drivers/patches found?

Don't think your going to get this here.  Even where linux has been
tested on a certain model by a third party, manufacturers sometimes
change components without changing model numbers, and linux
compatibility can vary within the same model.
> 
> I'm currently looking at a (community run, I think) organisation in  
> the US that does exactly this but would prefer to find somewhere local  
> or at least close enough to phone.

Be very careful with warranty terms when buying internationally, and
even if it is covered any money saved buying OS can be well and truly
lost the first time you have to stump up return shipping costs for
warranty work.
> 
> Does anyone know of anywhere like this? Where do you buy your hardware?
> 
> Thanks

I've found the best place to purchase laptops has been
http://cybershop.com.au/Notebooks/notebookspromo.shtml in Northbridge.
They don't do linux support but in my experience they are happy to let
you run a live CD on a laptop of your choice and test it.  Historically
I've always found Toshiba laptops to work well with linux, but my latest
is an A100 and the SD-card reader doesn't work.  The on board modem is
also not functioning, but I haven't tried to get it going, as I never
use it.  The other issue to watch is graphics chipsets.  You need to
decide if you want to run binary drivers or not.  

> 
> P.S.
> How come PLUG doesn't have a web forum?
> 

Hey, what a great idea!  Why didn't we think of that before?

> Jesse
> 

Tim