new laptop

kriwad

Silver Level Poster
No reason at all, but for £8 more you could double your HDD to 500GB if you still want to stick with the generic HDD.

Don't forget to deselect the windows install too if you're not dual booting.
 

rjs1064

Member
it goes back to basic settings when you send a link. But I had an i5 2.66, 500 gig 7200 rpm hdd, no windows,and 1*4 gig ram (so I can up it too 8 if I need to). As I have no real use for windows it needs to work with Linux, it would be nice if someone could just pop in a cd and then we would all know. I don't expect, and have never used tech support for Linux, but as there are very few places that I have found laptops without an os surely we are a "niche market".
 

kriwad

Silver Level Poster
I just got an i7 laptop from pc spec but no discrete graphics, other than that it's likely to be similar enough.
I'm not at home at the moment but I'll schedule a download of the latest ubuntu release and chuck it on there.
You might have to wait until tomorrow afternoon - I just changed ISP and my connection is going through the usual 10 days of being utter crap :)

Edit: anything specific you would like me to install?
 
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rjs1064

Member
That would be great, thanks a lot. I'm not too fussy and I'm prepared to fiddle a bit, but I'm no poweruser. I just want a laptop for general stuff and I've got quite into Linux in the last couple of years, but if it doesn't work the wife will kill herself laughing.
 

kriwad

Silver Level Poster
I'd put money on it working out of the box. It's no problem by the way, I was going to stick linux on it anyway, it might as well be ubuntu :)
 

kriwad

Silver Level Poster
Dual boot Ubuntu installed off USB and running fine.(pic)
First time I've tried Ubuntu in a couple of years, it looks like Unity comes with it Barry (not sure I like it).

This is my full spec so you can pick through it, but like I said it'll prob install without a problem:
Chassis & Display Genesis III: 15.6" HD LED Backlit 16:9 Widescreen (1366x768) Super Clear Glossy
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Dual Core Mobile Processor i7-2620M (2.70GHz) 4MB Cache
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card Intel® HD Graphics 3000 Video Memory Technology up to 1.7GB
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 120GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 270MB/sR | 130MB/sW)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & INTEL® CENTRINO® ADVANCED-N 6230 inc BLUETOOTH
USB Options 3 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery Genesis Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (4,400 mAh)
Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 65W AC Adaptor
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£147)
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Carry Case TARGUS NOTEPAC 15.4" - 16" CARRY CASE CN01 (£22)
Keyboard & Mouse LOGITECH® MK520 WIRELESS KEYBOARD & MOUSE COMBO (£39)
Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
 

rjs1064

Member
Thanks for posting that, and good to hear it works ok. I tried 11.04 on my sons netbook and wasn't sure about unity. Very tidy but hard to find a few things. Still there are always alternative desktops. Thanks again and good luck with your new machine.
 

rjs1064

Member
I just had an email from the marketing dept;
Hello there Richard,

I'm afraid we currently do not support Linux in any way and cannot comment on compatibility I'm afraid.

Kind Regards,

PC Specialist Support Team
What a shame they can't make a bit of an effort.
 

kriwad

Silver Level Poster
Ah well, it's not as big a deal as it used to be.
The days of sitting down with supplies to hack a working x11/x.org multi screen config or whatever are thankfully behind us (mostly!)
 

rjs1064

Member
I had to do that for my old crt monitor. It was my first use of a terminal and a bit scary, but so great when it finally worked. I think that really hooked me on Linux.
 

barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
Thanks for posting that, and good to hear it works ok. I tried 11.04 on my sons netbook and wasn't sure about unity. Very tidy but hard to find a few things. Still there are always alternative desktops. Thanks again and good luck with your new machine.

The top left Ubuntu symbol is going to have to be made more useful and intuitive for the next release. Meantime if you right click on the application or file icon on the left sidebar, you find most things easily. The system settings menuitem under the on/off symbol (top right) is about the most counter-intuitive thing ever! I'm certain this will be moved in the next release. Having said that, now I've persevered with it, I actually prefer the Unity desktop. Try a bit longer before you give up!

I also feel pcspecialist is missing out by not giving compatibility advice. They could easily do that without promising any further support. And Ubuntu peer support is fantastic, so they don't have to worry. The screenshot above looks great! Running the live-CD on my little netbook looks similar. Haven't installed yet as I want to be sure I have plenty of time if there are any problems, but I have it running on my excellent pcspecialist PC with Unity. One really lovely feature is the workspace switcher icon. The ability to see all four spaces and click on the one you want is wonderful. I is ideal for netbooks etc.
 

kriwad

Silver Level Poster
Like clicking Start to Stop XD

Virtual Desktop/workspace is great though. I don't know why it's not a part of a regular Win7 install, it's been a "power" user tool for XP since it came out and you still have to download it separately
 

candtalan

Member
pcspecialist is missing out by not giving compatibility advice. They could easily do that without promising any further support. And Ubuntu peer support is fantastic, so they don't have to worry.

Totally agree. They could even do it for a limited range of items. The extra sales channel would be disproportionate and bigger than stats would normally suggest because they would be in such a niche market with laptops. Their investment and risk would be very low, and they could simply use serendipity for what is or is not compatible, in their normal stock items.

They would be laughing all the way to the bank. Until the competition started to do the same thing of course.
 

rjs1064

Member
I told them I didn't want any support but asked them if they knew of any issues with Ubuntu and was told that we don't support Linux. Which is no help to me, somewhat dismissive and not an answer to the question that I asked. Surely the tea boy could be given a couple of usb keys and told to boot up a few models just to see if wifi, trackpad, etc work. You get the same stone wall from novatech where I bought my sons netbook, is it a stitchup?
I can see how they might make a bit out of the free antivirus, office etc and I can see why they don't want to provide support, but why the hostility?
 

kriwad

Silver Level Poster
If you don't support something it's safer to never support it ;)
As it is it's a bit of a non-issue - you'll struggle to find mainstream gear that doesn't work with Ubuntu, and it takes 20m to throw "x compatible linux" into Google (where x is each component) to check.
 
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