Thursday, July 31, 2008

Wedge "Ubuntu" Antilles: "Almost there . . ."

I apologize for the Star Wars trivia quote, but that's what I thought when I saw that Dell had shipped my lappy yesterday and will be arriving sometime today. It's almost a full week early, which is AWESOME! I can't wait to get my hands on that thing.

I'll post again later this evening when I get home.

You know what? Seeing as how popular unboxing posts are, that's what I'll do!

Keep your feelers on this blog folks. I'm calling the next post . . .

Dell / Ubuntu 1525N: THE UNBOXING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

By gosh golly! What's that?!

I'll be keeping my old posts up for now, just for laziness sake.

Just want to give a quick update for ANYONE who may have read the previous post on some type of regular basis. This blog will change. Read the title all the way at the top and you'll see what it'll be about.

Anyway . . .

So last weekend, I got home after a bit of alcoholic binge-ing (i.e. heavily buzzed) and I logged on to check out my mail. I wandered the interwebs for a bit and decided to do a bit of a search on Ubuntu. Earlier in the week I had become obsessively curious about Dell's and Linux. The obsession really kick in that night!

Back in '02 or '03, I had graduated from Heald (hey, stop laughing I actually got something out of it!) with an AS in Computer tech. During the program we had a to do a senior project with a group. I really pushed my group into making a bombproof server. In other words, a linux box. I busted my ass on that project and swore to myself "Never AGAIN!!!". But hey, that was the young me and now I'm bored at work and need to play with something that I can learn all over again.

By the way, I'm gonna be 35 come August.

Back to Saturday night:

So there I was, reading up on the latest stuff about Hardy Heron and I remember that Dell was only pre-loading Gutsy Gibbon. But I Googled Dell and 8.04 and lo-and-behold! Do my eyes deceive me? Dell was now offering a few select pc's and laptops with Hardy Heron!!!

I hit the link and there were three options available: A tower, an Inspiron lappy and an XPS lappy.

Since I hadn't touched Linux since I was in school, I decided to pick the Inspiron lappy. Below are the specs

Inspiron 1525
Intel Core 2 Duo T7250, 2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache
fancy, dancy, black shell
4GB, DDR2, 667MHz, 2 Dimm
15.4" Widescreen WXGA LCDTrueLife
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
120GB 7200 RPM SATA with Free Fall Sensor (better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it)
Ubuntu 8.04 with DVD Playback
Integrated 10/100 NIC
8X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer
Integrated High Def Audio (2.0)
Intel 3945 WLAN (802.11 a/g) Mini-card
Six cell battery


There weren't that many upgrade options available, but I upgraded what I could. Except the webcam and Harddrive. Don't need the webcam, and I plan to use external storage anyway.

Backup all the time and backup your backup. You can NEVER backup enough.

Oh, and for those of you considering this or any Dell pc (or HP, Gateway . . .), search for coupon codes. Needless to say, in my inebriated state I purchased the damn thing. This set up would've run me about $1100, but using one of the Dell codes available with a quick search saved me 25%. It came out to about $870, shipped!

Keep and eye on here, I plan to post up my experiences. Constructive comments and suggestions will be appreciated. This is a whole new game for me. I'll need the help.

GD

p.s.
Don't expect anything here for a bit about the laptop. I have an estimated delivery for the first week of August.