Linux and Dell

[Calum]

this is fine in theory, and so on, but once you give them your credit card details and they charge you for 1x laptop and 1x shitty operating system, then it's you who is being fucked around trying to get your money back. By even booting the machine into windows you are agreeing to the EULA. And to know this, you must boot into windows so you can read the EULA, am i right?

so do explain implicitly to them on the phone that fobbing you off with windows will do nobody any good, but DO NOT give them a chance to charge you for m$windows, that's my advice.

[pkd_lives]

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
this is fine in theory, and so on, but once you give them your credit card details and they charge you for 1x laptop and 1x shitty operating system, then it's you who is being fucked around trying to get your money back. By even booting the machine into windows you are agreeing to the EULA. And to know this, you must boot into windows so you can read the EULA, am i right?

so do explain implicitly to them on the phone that fobbing you off with windows will do nobody any good, but DO NOT give them a chance to charge you for m$windows, that's my advice.

Ding - you squared that nail right up...and I'm blowed if you did not go and hit it smack straight where it needed to go.

My G/F me, told me I'm just doing this for the Drama, and a principle, and I said damn right I am.

Void, I never gave you shit, I actually thought you might have built a laptop - well never said I was the brightest lamp.

Muffin - Thanks for the Links. Trouble is two fold. I was burnt last time when the Manufacturer went Belly up a month after I brought the machine. Left me high and dry with no official copies of the software I had installed. I lost my warranty, which would have been useful for my MOBO went 11 months in. And I don't have a CC, I hate them, cash/cheque and out the door is my prefered method, that's why I'm very careful, but thanks for the BBB link, I may get a charge card though.

I want to know more about the freedos thing. Is it a M$ operating system, and is it free? I don't care if it will just bring up a shell, and does not support any of the hardware, when I get it it's getting RH, or somesuch.

[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: pkd ]

Edit : Arrgghhh. FreeDOS is not M$ so I don't think I can ask for this. Anyone know different?

[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: pkd ]

[Crunchy(Cracked)Butter]

You would know if you are being fucked over the phone  before you give them the credit card because they have to quote the price to you so that there is an agreement of sorts.

So you will know whether you are getting charged for the hardware and the "shitty operating system".

[pkd_lives]

When I called Dell I tried to open up a negotiation dialogue. I don't want M$, so give me one with no M$, or with a free distribution OS.

They did not bite. But I am wondering maybe I can get Dos 1.0, maybe for a $1. If that works then fine. But somehow I don't think they will.

You see it is not only the OS, these comps come with specific software. Such as Norton - oh yeah that I need. And I don't need any of it. So to my mind of thinking a non-OS computer should be $300 USD cheaper. Does anyone work for a computer reseller, and can they offer pointers here.

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by pkd:

Void, I never gave you shit, I actually thought you might have built a laptop - well never said I was the brightest lamp.

I should have put a smiley at the end of my message because I was smiling when I wrote it. I was dumb for forgetting the machine in question was a laptop. Still smiling..

[pkd_lives]

Well bad news from Gateway (I don't really want one of them). But it's cool you can chat with them on-line. Go and try it out at gateway.com. No waiting for e-mails - which HP and Sony still have not replied to.

[Crunchy(Cracked)Butter]

quote:Originally posted by pkd:
Well bad news from Gateway (I don't really want one of them). But it's cool you can chat with them on-line. Go and try it out at gateway.com.

"chatting"!

Bah, i cannot because i live outside the US.  How shit!  Anyway i could still fill in the service report so i told them what:

Er like i couldn't chat with them just because i live outside the US.  Thas means i cannot get a Gateway on import!"

Not that i would mind you.

[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: Crunchy(Cracked)Butter ]

[Calum]

quote:Originally posted by pkd:
My G/F me, told me I'm just doing this for the Drama, and a principle, and I said damn right I am.

and for the several hundred bucks you stand to lose.

 

quote:And I don't have a CC, I hate them, cash/cheque and out the door is my prefered method, that's why I'm very careful,

a man after my own heart!

 

quote:I want to know more about the freedos thing. Is it a M$ operating system,

NO! Not on yer nellie! it is a GPLd project that you can find available on sourceforge.net  

quote:and is it free?

yes.  

quote:I don't care if it will just bring up a shell, and does not support any of the hardware, when I get it it's getting RH, or somesuch.

i spent a few days trying to install freedos, which was fun, but when it repeatedly failed to install after i had downloaded a few different distros/versions of it, i gave up. not even a command prompt, although it supposedly boasts its own GUI, and unofficially runs m$windows.

quote:Arrgghhh. FreeDOS is not M$ so I don't think I can ask for this. Anyone know different?

I heard that wal-mart were selling PCs with freedos when M$ said they could not sell PCs with NO OS if they also sold PCs with windows. Apparently M$ can no longer demand that resellers only put windows on their machines, so now they demand that resellers HAVE to include an 'operating system' with every PC.
Hey, did you check out wal-mart? they supposedly sell lindows, windows xp and freedos desktops, maybe they will do you a laptop?

[rtgwbmsr]

Sony has a chat thing too, you know.
http://sonystyle.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/sonystyle.cfg/php/enduser/live.php

Tell us the results..I'd like to know.

[rtgwbmsr]

Dell Precision workstations with Linux:
http://www.dell.com/us/en/bsd/products/minicat_precn_340l.htm
Notice the lack of a "Pick a Windows" and "Pick some shitty M$ software"?

No minimum purchase required that they noted. Enjoy!

[voidmain]

Actually I didn't notice. I selected "configure" system and they only show Windows XP. But they do say they offer RedHat 7.3 on certain systems here:

http://www.dell.com/us/en/bsd/learnmore/learnmore_os_linux.htm

Also notice on the details page at that URL that Dells position of offering RedHat is to help people move to Dell hardware from the UNIX platform and not from Windows. Can you say "we don't want to step on the toes of the big bad wolf"?

[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[pkd_lives]

Zombie, thanks for the link, I found a company called powernotebooks that looks good, and strange though it seems netegg had the BBB label at the bottom of their site.

Muffin, thanks but the Sony site keeps trying to runa temporary Java from sony, that does not plug in to my system.

Muffin / Void, Cheers for continuing the search but the only Linux systems available are servers, however they conveniently note that the Intel 4 M will run Linux. And those base systems are desktops, and if you continue to hunt you will find that eventually you are asked to configure W2K, XP home or business.

Okay my fucking shackles are up. This is pissing me off. But I will end up paying more for hardware by buying from some small unproven business. I have a temporary reprieve for I'm getting a few free parts for this old bucket.

[rtgwbmsr]

Really? Not what I'm seeing...


EDIT: DOOD: It's the workstations. Follow the link above...they exist...

Void: I was pointing you at the 340L's. The lower end Linux workstations.

[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: The_Muffin_Man/B0b ]

[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: The_Muffin_Man/B0b ]

[voidmain]

I gotcha. If you hit "continue" it takes you here:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.asp?customer_id=04&keycode=6W463&order_code=WS340TL

Which does show RedHat installed. What confused me is it didn't show it on the page you linked to. And at the bottom of the page you linked to it said:

Dell PCs use Genuine Microsoft Windows.

And if I clicked the Click  Here link it showed XP as the only OS. I should have clicked the "Continue" link near the bottom of the page.

My mistake.

Now, is that the lowest end machine they sell Linux on? Starting at $1377??? That pisses me off. What if I want a low end dell but run Linux on it? I do buy Dell Servers with RedHat 7.3 installed but it really sucks that they still won't sell me a laptop without buying a copy of XP crap..

[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[rtgwbmsr]

Zombie, hit reload when you have problems. A lot of times the proxy or your computer will cache the page, and reload forces it to get an updated version.

I don't know why he doesn't build his own either. Tigerdirect.com has some seriously low-price stuff for sale. I built a higher end computer with parts I bought from there for around $500...now I want to build a server for $250. I'm damn close, except for the hard drive...