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Would you buy a laptop with Linux on it?

Tom Dunne · 2007-05-02 10:30:39

A while back, I installed Ubuntu onto my Thinkpad. I use it mostly for Internet stuff (college, e-mail, research, Boards.ie) and of course Open Office. Interestingly, Ubuntu has passed The Wife Test(tm) - Mrs. Dune now uses it for all of the above plus, to my surprise, instant messaging. What impressed me most, was the…

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02-05-2007 11:30am

#1

Tom Dunne

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A while back, I installed Ubuntu onto my Thinkpad.

I use it mostly for Internet stuff (college, e-mail, research, Boards.ie) and of course Open Office. Interestingly, Ubuntu has passed The Wife Test(tm) - Mrs. Dune now uses it for all of the above plus, to my surprise, instant messaging.

What impressed me most, was the noticeable speed increase. It's a modest enough system, 512Mb Ram, centrino, with 30Gb of hard-drive, but it has become a helluva lot more responsive since I installed Linux on it. I would do a lot of work both with office documents, including pdfs, and I have never had a problem opening them. I also had a problem with my wireless connection misbehaving under XP, a problem which has disappeared completely thanks to Ubuntu. I am also free from the continuous need for virus updates and windows update.

With the news that Dell is now providing Linux on the PCs it sells, would you buy a laptop with Linux on it? I certainly would.

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#2 02-05-2007 2:23pm
Duras

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tom dunne wrote:

With the news that Dell is now providing Linux on the PCs it sells, would you buy a laptop with Linux on it? I certainly would.

Oh yeah, of course I would... I'm glad to see that, saves you the time of doing it yourself ... Ubuntu is free unlike Vista or XP so that should make their systems cheaper as well...

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#3 02-05-2007 4:55pm
OfflerCrocGod

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Duras wrote:

Oh yeah, of course I would... I'm glad to see that, saves you the time of doing it yourself ... Ubuntu is free unlike Vista or XP so that should make their systems cheaper as well...

I'd be surprised if it did - MS will never let that happen.

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#4 05-05-2007 9:29pm
ethernet

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To answer your question -- absolutely.

I can just see it now -- Ubuntu on Dell's XPS!

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#5 07-05-2007 11:23am
BostonB

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Its unlikely I'd have time to learn a new OS. So no. I have had dual boot laptops in the past with linux and XP on them, but I never got around to using linux.

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