Hi Thanks for your views, I like the machine and may purchase one when my old laptop dies.Like the fact that it runs linux and no i will not put Windoze on it.Lets have more linux base machines cause i think Vista Sucks! Dell now do linux machines maybe others will follow. Barry
Barrys linux mail bazubuntumail@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
Dell now do linux machines maybe others will follow.
I've read (and I think I checked when a family friend was after a new laptop) that it's cheaper to buy a Dell Windows machine of the same spec than to buy one of their Ubuntu machines. Also, you can try for the Windows tax refund.
So, that makes me wonder if Dell are either:- a. market-testing the gullibility of Ubuntu users; b. looking to say "well, demand wasn't as high as predicted" when they accept the Microsoft shilling to become an exclusively Windows vendor.
Paranoid or experienced?
"There has been a lot of discussion about this on IRC and at least one ALUG member has already purchased one."
*looks smug*, that'd be me. And it is totally lovely, and the keyboard is surprisingly usable.... so.. *recommends*
At Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:53:04 +0000, Rob Page wrote:
"There has been a lot of discussion about this on IRC and at least one ALUG member has already purchased one."
*looks smug*, that'd be me. And it is totally lovely, and the keyboard is surprisingly usable.... so.. *recommends*
You didn't tell me! When was this?! Can we have a look?
;-) R.
On 10 Dec 2007, at 14:53, Rob Page wrote:
"There has been a lot of discussion about this on IRC and at least one ALUG member has already purchased one."
*looks smug*, that'd be me. And it is totally lovely, and the keyboard is surprisingly usable.... so.. *recommends*
One of my students has bought an eee too and I can confirm that the keyboard is a bit on the small side but still usable -- certainly more so than my old Toshiba Libretto. He says battery life is 3.5-4 hours.
The student concerned finds that he can't execute programs from his USB memory stick: the system isn't setting the execute bit upon compilation or honouring chmods. I don't know is this is because of the format of his stick or if the system is doing something to make it difficult -- but I reckon it's something that most of us would like to know the answer to before buying.
HTH.
..Adrian
"Adrian F. Clark" alien@essex.ac.uk wrote: [...]
The student concerned finds that he can't execute programs from his USB memory stick: the system isn't setting the execute bit upon compilation or honouring chmods. [...]
Has he checked the fstab or mount for "noexec" option? Given the target markets, I'd expect them to be shipped with that for USB sticks, but then the previously-mentioned root-shell doesn't make me very confident about it...
Regards,
On Mon, Dec 10, 2007 at 03:59:43PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
"Adrian F. Clark" alien@essex.ac.uk wrote: [...]
The student concerned finds that he can't execute programs from his USB memory stick: the system isn't setting the execute bit upon compilation or honouring chmods. [...]
Has he checked the fstab or mount for "noexec" option? Given the target markets, I'd expect them to be shipped with that for USB sticks, but then the previously-mentioned root-shell doesn't make me very confident about it...
The root shell is trivial because it's based off ubuntu, so sudo all the way - a swift sudo su - will would out of the box on most ubuntu based distributions for the primary user these days. I'd guess, though, that in the case of it being loaned to students, the first user will actually be the IT department, and hopefully they'll have enough clue to stop that hole... still with physical access to the machine, without judicious amounts of superglue, there's not going to be a lot you are going to be able to do to stop a determined tyke from getting root anyways.
(Of course, really determined people can magically gain root and set all the details back nicely given even a very small window of sudo rights... I'm sure robrob will remember the circutious route we took with one of the servers at his and steve's work when steve was on holiday to restart the hangman bot as steve... that was a fun excercise in how to abuse the system in inventive ways :)
Cheers,
On Dec 10, 2007 3:16 PM, Adrian F. Clark alien@essex.ac.uk wrote:
The student concerned finds that he can't execute programs from his USB memory stick: the system isn't setting the execute bit upon compilation or honouring chmods. I don't know is this is because of the format of his stick or if the system is doing something to make it difficult -- but I reckon it's something that most of us would like to know the answer to before buying.
If the memory stick is FAT formatted then I am not surprised chmod isn't working. If it isn't FAT, then I don't know.
Tim.
On Mon, Dec 10, 2007 at 02:16:03PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
Paranoid or experienced?
Not true. I've checked this out several times in the past when I've heard it.
The Ubuntu laptops always seem to be about £30 cheaper than the ones with Windows for the same spec. Total price difference at the moment is only £10 but they won't sell you a windows laptop without 1GB of RAM so you have to upgrade the 512MB Ubuntu offering with an expensive £30 Dell upgrade, the very same upgrade is available from crucial for £9.98 inc vat and delivery.
The main problem with Dell is that you only get a subset of their products offered with Ubuntu.
Adam
On 10/12/2007, MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop wrote:
I've read (and I think I checked when a family friend was after a new laptop) that it's cheaper to buy a Dell Windows machine of the same spec than to buy one of their Ubuntu machines. Also, you can try for the Windows tax refund.
So, that makes me wonder if Dell are either:- a. market-testing the gullibility of Ubuntu users; b. looking to say "well, demand wasn't as high as predicted" when they accept the Microsoft shilling to become an exclusively Windows vendor.
or: c. a commercial operation factoring in the kick-back they no doubt get from installing all the 30-day trial versions of Office/PaintShop Pro/Broadband/etc. that just doesn't exist with a Linux based OS.
Greg
On Mon, 2007-12-10 at 19:15 +0000, Greg Thomas wrote:
or: c. a commercial operation factoring in the kick-back they no doubt get from installing all the 30-day trial versions of Office/PaintShop Pro/Broadband/etc. that just doesn't exist with a Linux based OS.
Bravo, This is exactly my suspicion. I think to the large volume OEM's like Dell or HP an OEM sticker probably costs them something like a 10th of what it costs me. Then once you add the kickback from putting on a trial of Norton that expires and offers renewal after 30 days, plus say a signup wizard for AOL I suspect that to the manufacturer the MS licence is practically free.
This I suspect was the leverage MS were using or accused of using to convince the OEM's not to offer OS free machines (and at one point machines with alternative Operating Systems) i.e Play the game by our rules or pay the same for an OEM sticker as Joe Bloggs system builder.
Greg
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