[sclug] Recommendation for Laptop for Linux

[alan c]

On 07/12/14 15:41, Neil Haughton wrote:
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Keith Edmunds <kae at midnighthax.com>
>> To: sclug at sclug.org.uk
>> Cc:
>> Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2014 20:13:13 +0000
>> Subject: Re: [sclug] Recommendation for Laptop for Linux
>> On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 19:55:51 +0000, olivier.lauret at googlemail.com said:
>>
>> > Linux Emporium website doesn't seem to work anymore. I cannot see any
>> > items.
>>
>> The Linux Emporium is one of the sad stories of Linux in the UK. They
>> *used* to be really, really good. Then the original owner, a guy called
>> John Winters, sold the business. No criticism of him for doing so (quite
>> the opposite: well done), but it went rapidly and continuously downhill
>> from that point. I stopped buying from them soon after John sold up (around
>> 2004 or so, I think).
>>
> 
> That's a shame. You wonder why someone would buy a viable business and then
> let it go downhill. Maybe it was 'really good' for the customer but not
> profitable.

I used them for friends a few times and they were *excellent*, though
as you suggest, I thought their excellence, and the time spent for
customers was probably not probably being covered profitably.

> FWIW I have had good experiences with Zoomstorm. I bought a Zoomstorm
> machine sans OS for work as a server and installed W7 on it, and it just
> sits there and works 24x7. I have an OS-free desktop machine from them at
> home which came with 8GB memory and a 1TB near-silent hard drive and I have
> installed an SSD and several successive Mint versions (17 now) on that, and
> it "just works" too. Fast, too - boot to logged-in in a few tens of
> seconds. My only complaint is that I can't 'see' various cell phones,
> cameras or non-Linux music players connected directly via USB. Flash
> drives, memory cards and other USB devices such as external hard drives
> have no problem though. That's probably a general Linux problem, not the
> hardware itself, I'm guessing.
> Neil.

Desktop PCs are no problem to get , many places. However, laptops,
with the components being less standardised, are a serious problem, if
avoidance of a pre installed Windows OS is really a factor. It is for
me. System76 is USA based, and is tempting, being kept well in mind.
Dell and HP - both are slated variously to be approved and sell Ubuntu
pre installed, but I never seem to have much real retail availability.
The EBuyer HP laptop was good, a friend bought one, though it was a
low priced, low end machine.
-- 
alan cocks