[H-GEN] thoughts on Dell laptops

[Russell Stuart]

On Mon, 2010-11-08 at 08:21 +1000, Peter Robinson wrote:
> Anyone with experience of the current Dell models that can give me some 
> suggestions?

I don't really have a suggestion, but since I have been using Dell
laptops for over a decade and only run Linux on them I'll chime in.

1.  Frustratingly, I've never had all gizmo's on a new Dell laptop work
    out of the box.  This is because Dell tends to use the very latest
    revisions of all chipsets, wireless, video and so on.  Wait 6 
    months for the Open Source software to catch up (ie one Ubuntu
    release), and it will be fine.

2.  Because every large institution and its dog tends to standardise on
    Dell, the pressure to make it work is intense.  Dell is pretty good
    with helping out, too.  The end result is you can be pretty sure the
    next release of Ubuntu will "just work" with all the standard
    peripherals.

3.  Anything done by Intel will tend to work quickly, so when you are
    looking at what chipsets the laptop top uses, you should feel warm
    fuzzy feelings whenever you see Intel used for the CPU, CPU Chipset,
    Graphics, Ethernet, Wireless and Sound.  I've never had problems
    with Realtek either.  Beware that "never had problems" may mean I've
    had to use a different kernel (typically the one from Debian
    Unstable is bleeding edge enough), or on one occasion download the
    latest driver source from Intel's open source repositories and patch
    it myself. However, there has always been a way to get work done
    with my shiny new laptop.

4.  NVidia video is not so good as they can take a few months, and ditto
    ATI.  However here your bacon is saved by X - it will happily drive
    the card in vesa mode until the real driver arrives.  I often find
    myself running the X stuff from Debian unstable for a while.

5.  Beware of Broadcom.  Over the years I have seen it crop up in Dell
    equipment in ethernet cards, wireless, bluetooth, SD Card
    controllers, fingerprint readers, and RFID.  50% of the time it will
    work out of the box.  The other 50% you are in for a loooong wait.
    Not surprisingly I guess, the stuff that has the longest wait is
    stuff I don't have much use for anyway, such as RFID and fingerprint
    readers.

In my experience all the brand name laptops (Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, ...)
are pretty similar design wise - ie mostly good with the occasional
lemon model.  Dell's plus side is they tend to be cheaper unless you
spend a really, really look time bargain hunting; their spare parts are
dirt cheap, and their on-site warranty is the best of the bunch -
probably because they must have to support small armies of people for
places like UQ, so they are really well organised.