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Information Technology News Locating Linux-loyal Laptops
Information Technology News Locating Linux-loyal Laptops | Locating Linux-loyal Laptops |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Sunday, 07 October 2007 | |
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Page 2 of 3 You might prefer a known brand. That’s fine too. In this case, you can also find resellers who are filling the gap left by the hardware vendors themselves.Featured Whitepaper
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Where VG Computing differ greatly, however, is in their very long list of known brand-name laptops that they onsell, and will install Linux on. At time of writing, this encompasses 17 Acer models, 18 ASUS models, 7 from BenQ, 23 Hewlett Packard options, 20 from Lenovo, 6 LG and 16 from Toshiba: that’s 107 reputable and easily-researched hardware choices in one spot. What’s particularly outstanding is that for each model VG Computing give you a rich choice of Linux flavours. You aren’t constrained to Ubuntu if that’s not your cup of tea (but this said, Ubuntu is extremely popular and has a reputation for ease of use; no doubt these are reasons that influenced Dell in their decision to adopt it.) Instead, for any laptop you can elect to buy it with any modern version of Fedora, CentOS, SuSE, OpenSuSE, Ubuntu, KUbuntu, Xubuntu, SimplyMEPIS, Mandriva Linux, PCLInuxOS, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware or Freespire distributions. To my mind, this site offers a remarkable and unique commitment, whereby you are guaranteed a working installation of your choice of a popular Linux distro on your choice of well-known laptop models. This service can be found elsewhere too; Emperor Linux in the U.S. have a range of Dell, Lenovo, Panasonic and Sony laptops which they resell, in this case with their own EmperorLinux as one of the distro options. There is a downside; VG Computing charge $59 to $79 for this service, the price varying by the distribution chosen (Ubuntu is $59, for example, while Debian is $79.) Some might grumble that you are paying for a free operating system but you do need to remember the reseller is adding a time-consuming service on top of the base hardware which they themselves have sourced, not built. (EmperorLinux do not add any fee for this service.) To my mind the bigger catch is that you are actually paying twice for an operating system. All these brand-name systems already come with differing versions of Windows. VG Computing do not offer any rebate on these if you elect a Linux OS instead. That said, the software still comes to you as part of the bundle so you might have some luck if you take up your case with the original supplier – be it Toshiba or HP or any other. A small number of stories exist on the Internet where plucky individuals have sought refunds from systems manufacturers for their unused OEM copies of Windows. |
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