The quest for a decent computer that is not too expensive continues. I had almost set my mind on building my own, when I found this link on the Dell UK website. It’s a desktop computer with Ubuntu Linux as an OS. The operating system is not a problem at all, because I’ve been using Linux at home and in the office for many years.
The price is noticeably lower than other Dell computers with similar configurations. What I’d like to ask is: does it necessarily mean lower quality components? Or just the difference made by not throwing in the OS and all that “free” stuff like printers and monitors? If I add those back in I get back to a price very close to the usual Dell prices.
A few more questions: what kind of motherboards does Dell usually use? Are they any good? They appear to use 667 MHz RAM for this computer, rather than the faster 1033 MHz RAM I would have bought for a self built PC; does RAM speed make much of a difference with current technology?
And finally, does that price look like a good deal at all? The graphics card is a bit of a bummer, but I suppose I could just pop in another when prices of currently top video cards cool down a bit.
Unless something has changed drastically, Dell uses proprietary motherboards, often with non-standard connectors, e.g., to the power supply. This is not in and of itself a bad thing, but if your power supply goes bad, you may have a hard time finding one to replace it without going through Dell.
FWIW, I have 3 Dells that match this description, and 2 of them stay turned on 24/7. One runs XP and the other Ubuntu, and I can’t say as I have much problem with either, although the XP one (which is much older) is starting to make some cooling fan noise.
If you’re planning to run Linux, I would assume your hardware needs are likely to be rather modest. Web browsing, email, OpenOffice document creation, perhaps some image editing? The listed computer should be more than sufficient for any of this under Linux. (Although I’d probably pay the extra £15.00 to bump up to a full gig of RAM.)
If you want to play recent computer games, you’ll want to run Windows and you’ll likely want to boost both the processor, video card and memory. Barring that, though, I’d say you should be good to go with this system. I’ve personally had good experience with Dell’s hardware reliability – all the machines I’ve used became obsolete before they stopped working.
Substandard power supply, motherboard, video card and OS.
Dell has enough money to sell computers that cheap.
As for the quality of components, you have a year warranty so your good for at least a year. My Dell’s motherboard failed after four years, but it came with a five year warranty on hardware so now my rig is still working.
Depends what you need your computer for. For your basic tasks it will make a difference. Like **Giraffe **said, add the $15 and go with 1 Gig of RAM.
What are you going to be using the computer for? For your basic computer tasks it looks swell. For gaming and other CPU intensive tasks it won’t cut it.
I’m sure you didn’t mean that the OS is substandard, did you? Free, certainly - and that has an effect on price, but I don’t think Linux can really be described as a substandard OS.
I always thought Linux was worst than the other two, but I never used it, so I could be wrong. Is there anything that Linux is better suited for than Windows or the Mac OS X?
Errr, no offense meant, but you’re quite wrong - but there, you do admit that you never used Linux, so allow me to let you know . Linux is no worse than Windows as of itself, and it is in fact more reliable and possibly more efficient, not to mention the huge advantage given by the availability of the source code, but the difference is made by the applications: alas, there are many more commercial applications, of all kinds, that are popular with users under Windows. If you want, say, Photoshop, you either get it under Windows or MacOs X, and not on Linux.
Granted, there are many, many replacements available under Linux (such as The Gimp in lieu of Photoshop), and they’re very often free and open sourced, but as of now they’re just not as popular with the average user.
By the way, an unexpected windfall allowed me to budget more for the new computer, so I ordered a bunch of components from Dabs and am going to build my own again!
Concur - Linux may be rendered less suitable for certain purposes by the lack of specific software (although this problem is fast disappearing), and the comparative difficulty of administration, but there’s just no way it can be truthfully described as a substandard OS. In terms of being an OS, it is arguably superior to Windows in many ways (the security model and choice of filesystems, to name but two)
Well it appears we define substandard differently. As an OS by itself, I know it is pretty decent. As a consumer product it is still substandard to OS X and Windows.
It’s free to try, and it’s a good, stable, reliable, secure operating system. In terms of what an operating system is supposed to do, it beats Windows hands down.
For any given hardware platform, it typically performs faster and more responsively than Windows. Apps launch quicker, and you see the egg timer for shorter periods. Sure, it doesn’t run applications written specifically for Windows with any great ease, but until quite recently, that was also the case with Apple’s OS.
What, specifically, are you expecting to want to do, that you think it will fail on?
Well, you yourself say you never used Linux, so the best thing you could do to be enlightened, if you can spare the time, is to download a bootable Ubuntu ISO and give it a whirl. But until you do, faffing about what is substandard and what isn’t, and what is a good consumer product and what isn’t, is a tad pointless when you don’t know the other side of the coin.
Of course, if you don’t like Linux that’s a completely different kettle of fish, but disliking something doesn’t have to mean pooh-poohing its good points. The OS and the applications are two different things, and Linux does not have as many applications as Windows, yes. But as an OS for the everyday user, the one that browses the Net and writes CVs and letters to Aunt Mable, it’s perfectly OK and even better than Windows.
I’m not disputing that Linux is a good stand alone OS, I’m sure it is from what I hear people say about it.
Though if Linux can’t run most of the applications out there, then IMO, it is of less use than the other two operating systems. Don’t call it substandard if you wish, but it’s still not as useful.
I don’t think anyone would argue with you that there are more end-user software applications for windows for the typical home user, but the term ‘substandard’ does seem to be unnecessarily disparaging. Most people consider that to mean inferior or shoddy all-around, which you will get an argument about. But maybe that’s what you’re looking for, I dunno.
It probably is the term ‘substandard’ that’s the sticking point - because it implies (to me, and it appears at least a few others) some kind of fundamental flaw or incompetence.
I’d still have to take issue with the notion of the ‘two others’ though - the way you get Macs to run most of the applications out there (i.e. the ones written specifically for Windows) is to run Windows on your Mac (either natively, or through some kind of virtualisation). In which case the argument pretty much reduces down to Linux (and OSX) being inferior because they’re not Windows, which would just be silly.
It may be that you can’t necessarily run the exact same applications on Linux as you can on Windows, but:
There are Mac applications you can’t run on Windows (does that make a Windows PC inferior to a Mac then? - there are enough people who would agree)
and
-Pretty much any practical thing you can do on a Windows PC, you can do on a linux machine - you just use a different program to do it - Firefox instead of IE (it’s better anyway), Pidgin instead of MSN messenger, Thunderbird instead of Outlook (Again, better), OpenOffice instead of MS Office, and so on.
If that’s the case then I’ll concede the argument. I didn’t have much going into my opinion other than the fact that I knew it couldn’t run as many apps as Windows.
Sorry if I’ve laboured the point - I really don’t mean to be a rabid Linux evangelist - I use it about 50/50 with WinXP - as recently as a handful of years ago, it could quite truthfully have been said that Linux wasn’t a viable desktop OS for anyone other than geeks and experts, but just recently, it’s made massive leaps forward and has really come together.
. Linux is no worse than Windows as of itself, and it is in fact more reliable and possibly more efficient, not to mention the huge advantage given by the availability of the source code, but the difference is made by the applications: alas, there are many more commercial applications, of all kinds, that are popular with users under Windows. If you want, say, Photoshop, you either get it under Windows or MacOs X, and not on Linux.