[geeks] FYI - Dell to start accepting orders for Ubuntu laptop/desktops

[Joshua Boyd]

On Fri, May 25, 2007 at 12:45:43PM -0700, velociraptor wrote:
> On 5/24/07, Joshua Boyd <jdboyd at jdboyd.net> wrote:
> > On May 24, 2007, at 7:00 PM, Mark wrote:
> >
> > > On 24 May 2007, at 23:40, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
> > >
> > >> Mark wrote:
> > >>> Also, do they support DAMIT powered Dells with Linux yet? I am not
> > >>
> > >> Forgive my ignorance, but what is DAMIT?
> > >
> > > DAMIT = AMD and ATi. It's a terrible acronym but it seems to be
> > > catching on :)
> >
> > No.  In fact, one difference between the E520 (windows) and the E520n
> > (ubuntu) is that the E520n can't be configured with ATI graphics.
> >
> > A good thing in my opinion, as current ATI sucks hard under linux.
> > ATI's drivers are terrible.
> 
> My Dell Precision 390 came with Nvidia video (dual head DVI using a
> splitter cable) and I had no issues with it under Kubuntu after I
> nixxed the OSS drivers and switched to the Nvidia provided ones (which
> are in the Debian repos).  Of course, this was before I switched to
> Solaris x86.  The latter has worked just as well after tracking down
> the Broadcom ethernet and Nvidia drivers.  SATA is probably the only
> real difference on this box, aside from the video card, from the other
> Dell desktop offerings.

I have an Nvidia laptop.  At first I used the then latest Nvidia drivers
on 6.10.  It had all sorts of things that would cause the machine to
crash when using nvidia drivers, and a lot of the power saving stuff,
including sleep and hibernate wouldn't work.

After upgrading to 7.04 and then choosing the restricted drivers
options, it broke completely.  With a good bit of fiddling and
consulting forums, I was able to get it functioning with the Ubuntu
provided restricted drivers.  On the upside, at this point it no longer
crashes as easily, but on the downside, I still can't use various power
savings options that I would like to use.  Obviously, I probably don't
care as much about power management stuff on a desktop, although maybe I
should. 

In general, my opinion is that unless there is a good reason otherwise,
it is best to stick with hardware well supported by the OSS drivers.  To
me that means either newish Intel graphics, or Radeons older than
X1000.