oota

After a billion attempts, I finally got Linux installed on my laptop and have X displaying pretty graphics. It’s not perfect since GNOME shows up in 1024×768 while the screen itself is displaying in 1280×800. There are some minor wrinkles to iron out but it’s doable. yay. Guess I’ll keep this one and work out the final problems.

The laptop got shipped almost a month earlier than what Dell had projected and I received it Monday afternoon.

It’s pretty sweet but I’m having some regrets at the moment and thinking I should’ve gone with the Thinkpad.  :(  (at least for what I’m trying to do with it).

Linux doesn’t want to install on it.  Ubuntu chokes before the system really boots up and Debian doesn’t have a driver for the NIC.  The DVD drive is apparently notorious for not allowing “hacks” to allow it to read non region 1 DVDs.  Region locking is a crime against humanity.

Mostly the hardware is too new to have easliy working drivers and install procedures for Linux at this time, while the Thinkpad would’ve been up and running almost out of the box.

Vista isn’t too bad for windows though, no real complaints there yet.