On Friday 20 November 2009 17:43:20 Paul Hartman wrote: > On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 6:16 AM, Mick <michaelkintz...@gmail.com> wrote: > > 2009/11/20 J. Roeleveld <jo...@antarean.org>: > >> On Sunday 15 November 2009 19:39:40 Mick wrote: > >>> I have been thinking of buying this laptop and was looking at the > >>> Gentoo Wiki which shows relatively good hardware compatibility, except > >>> for the radeon card which is now an older offering: > >>> > >>> http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Dell_Studio_XPS_16 > >>> > >>> The current spec on the UK Dell website shows 1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4670 > >>> (see below). > >>> ================================================================ > >>> PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 720QM (1.60Ghz, 6MB cache) > >>> LCD: Black Leather back cover : 15.6" (inch) Truelife 1080p Full HD > >>> WLED Edge to Edge Display > >>> MEMORY: 4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048] > >>> HARD DRIVE: 500GB (7,200rpm) Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive > >>> PRIMARY BATTERY: 9-cell 85Whr Lithium Ion battery > >>> OPTICAL DRIVE: Internal Blu-Ray ROM (Blu-Ray read, DVD and CD > >>> read & Write) Optical Drive > >>> GRAPHICS CARD: 1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4670 graphics card > >>> WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY: Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g) > >>> BLUETOOTH: Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module > >>> ================================================================ > >>> > >>> According to these links the RadeonHD driver is experimental: > >>> http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeon > >>> http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeonhd%3Aexperimental_3D > >>> > >>> Does anyone have experience with this driver, or better yet, this > >>> laptop? Shall I buy or shall I shy away from it? > >> > >> Most Dell-laptops actually work quite nicely with Linux, however, be > >> aware that DELL has issues with the harddrives they supply. > >> I've seen 6 different recent DELL-laptops with crashed harddrives in the > >> past 1.5 years. These laptops were handled carefully. > >> > >> Response from Dell was: "Sorry, we shipped a wrong batch...." > >> > >> I would suggest frequent backups of important files and/or the harddrive > >> swapped for a more reliable model. > > > > Thanks guys - the hard drive story sounds scary! Was there a > > particular batch of a particular hard drive manufacturer that was > > suspect here? > > I think you could mention any brand of hard drive and people would > have horror stories about it. Hard drives are like airplanes; they > tend to fail spectacularly. The good news is that if you had to choose > one part of a laptop to go bad, the hard drive would probably be the > easiest piece to replace (or maybe RAM). Certainly better than a trend > of failing display panels!
In this case they were Seagates, but as mentioned, all manufacturers make mistakes. The last Dell that had a crashed harddrive (after 3 months of use, 2 weeks ago) had a Seagate - ST9160823ASG. > I've owned a couple Dell computers personally and overseen dozens of > them at work and they are generally good value and perform without > issues. Their business division's customer service (at least a few > years ago) was pretty good, they would send someone to our office the > next morning to fix the problem. These were for a business customer (A big one) and all Dell offered was sending replacement drives to the seperate users' homes or their nearest offices. > I would also check out the Asus G51J-A1 which is a similar set-up to > the Dell. It seems to be a good package for the price too. Getting into the preferences of brands here, so I will refrain from commenting. One thing to still keep in mind, Asus does not really care about Linux users either. Is there a decent laptop-brand that actually does? -- Joost
