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 Channel Futures

Open Source


Buying a Dell Ubuntu Netbook

  • Written by Christopher Tozzi
  • January 4, 2010

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my search for an Ubuntu netbook.  I finally made a decision and received the new machine this week.  Read on for the details.

As I discussed in the earlier post, my search centered around three vendors–System76, Zareason and Dell–each of which offers Ubuntu as a pre-installed option on netbooks.

As commentators on the post pointed out, there are plenty of netbooks from other manufacturers that will run Ubuntu just fine, but few of those vendors offer Ubuntu preinstalled (a few do provide other versions of Linux as an OS option).  I’m certainly capable of installing Ubuntu myself, but I prefer not to pay the Windows tax.

And the winner is…

System76, Zareason and Dell all provide solid options.  In the end, however, I ended up choosing a Latitude 2100 netbook from Dell’s education and business line–which was not among my initial considerations but was brought to my attention by readers.

The decision was mostly an economic one.  Dell simply proved to be the least expensive option for my configuration, particularly because I bought from its refurbished outlet, which offers discounts on lightly used pre-owned systems, but with the same warranty as on new machines.

For a refurbished Latitude 2100 with 2 gigabytes of memory, webcam, Intel a/g/n wireless, 6-cell battery and 16-gigabyte SSD device, I paid $308 before taxes and after applying a 15% discount coupon I had received from a friend for Dell refurbished systems.  As an added bonus, Dell was offering free shipping the week of my purchase.

Based on my research, that price seemed like quite a deal for those specs.  A new system with similar hardware from any of the three vendors I was considering would have cost at least a hundred dollars more.

I took a risk, of course, playing the refurbished game with Dell.  But in my case, there’s no indication that anyone used the netbook before me–it looked brand new in its packaging–and all the hardware works great so far.

In defense of Zareason and System76

In fairness to Zareason and System76, the pricing on their netbooks is by no means outrageous, and there are good reasons to buy from those companies despite their slightly higher prices (which seem less high if you’re not willing to consider Dell’s refurbished systems).  Besides supporting Linux-only vendors, their customers are likely to receive a less bureaucratic and more Ubuntu-oriented support experience, should they require it.

In addition, as far as I could tell, all of Zareason’s and System76’s netbooks use completely free drivers that will “just work” in any modern version of Ubuntu.  In contrast, Dell inexplicably incorporates some devices–like the Intel UMA 500 graphics chipset and some Broadcom-based wireless cards–that lack truly open-source support and are thus not Ubuntu-friendly.  Although Dell provides drivers for these devices, getting them working in generic Ubuntu (as opposed to Dell’s customized build) involves a lot of shenanigans.

For me, since I’ve been using Ubuntu for a while and don’t expect to require commercial technical support, and because I was able to avoid non-Linux friendly hardware, cost mattered most and Dell proved to make the most sense.  Depending on their needs, however, other users may make different choices.

In any case, I am well pleased with my new netbook and hope to write a post soon detailing its performance under Ubuntu.

Tags: Cloud Service Providers Digital Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Mobility Open Source

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19 comments

  1. Avatar Eli January 4, 2010 @ 3:49 pm
    Reply

    Good call with the Dell outlet. There are many people to testify to the quality of Dell’s refub’d products.

    I do not like however, the problem with not using Dell’s version of Ubuntu. I guess there’s always some give and take with a purchase like this.

  2. Avatar Steven Rosenberg January 4, 2010 @ 5:43 pm
    Reply

    I’ve also considered the Dell Latitude 2100. Good to know about the troublesome hardware.

    I’m assuming that Dell ships the laptop configured to pull from its own repository so all those closed-source bits are right there and easy to update.

    I wonder if ZaReason and System76 also have repos for the bits that they provide to help customers keep their machines working.

    Re: ZaReason, I’ve had a few occasions to speak to the company’s CTO, Earl, and I have a lot of confidence that the ZaReason team will deliver a good machine and support it after the fact, so that’s one good reason to go that way.

  3. Avatar Leo January 4, 2010 @ 6:01 pm
    Reply

    Excellent. I also bought a dell with Ubuntu at the outlet, and I had a very positive experience, I am probably one of the guy who recommended that you look into that.

    If you need support, I strongly recommend that you use their online-chat system, it is a lot, lot better than picking up the phone. I received first class support, another reason I will buy from Dell next time. For now, I am still loving my Vostro A90 …

  4. Avatar zak89 January 4, 2010 @ 6:59 pm
    Reply

    So you did choose the 2100 then, eh? Nice choice; I’m still eyeing one.

    The Intel graphics issue is a sticky one; I think the blame largely falls on Intel (an otherwise very Linux-friendly corporation) for choosing an openly linux-unfriendly vendor to develop the chip; Dell pretty much uses whatever Intel cranks out. I hear rumors that a new driver will be solving this issue in the near future (same old, eh?).

    Surprisingly, however, System76 has been known to use linux-incompatible components as well (one blogger discovered his System76 laptop had a non-functional touchpad due to compatibility issues (this has since been resolved). So you can’t be too careful.

    @Steven: Dell does seem to do a good job at keeping up to date Linux drivers available; but it can be a bit touchy; I have heard of OS upgrades gone awry on Dell’s Ubuntu, so it’s best to be cautious (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it).

  5. Avatar Jack Dausman January 4, 2010 @ 9:05 pm
    Reply

    It’s a good choice. We’ve been testing netbooks, and I took our eval copy of the Latitude 2100 and put the Ubuntu UNR on it. Very nice.

  6. Avatar davesnyd January 4, 2010 @ 10:37 pm
    Reply

    Does anyone know of vendors offering Ubuntu (or UNR) preloaded on an 11.6″ netbook?

    Dell, ZaReason, and System76 all seem to have only 10.1″ Ubuntu machines.

    I’ve had excellent experience with the ZaReason “HomeBox” I purchased two years ago (and also with their support). So for “Steve Rosenberg”– I heartily recommend ZaReason. But AFAIK, they have no plans of putting out an 11.6″ netbook.

    Dell does have an 11.6″ netbook– the Insipiron 11z– but they do not appear to have plans to offer it with Ubuntu.

    Gateway has an 11.6″ machine that does not come preloaded; it isn’t clear how successful people have been in putting UNR on it themselves (I’ve seen postings with both thumbs up and down). I’d prefer to purchase a preloaded machine– to know that everything should work.

  7. Avatar Christopher Tozzi January 5, 2010 @ 1:28 am
    Reply

    davesnyd: unfortunately I don’t know of any vendors offering Ubuntu on 11 inch netbooks. I actually looked into that myself because I’d prefer a slightly larger screen.

    Steven Rosenberg: just to be clear, all of the hardware in the netbook I purchased from Dell is fully supported with open-source drivers. But some of Dell’s configuration options include hardware that doesn’t yet have open-source support (in particular, machines with the Intel UMA 500 graphics chipset, and some of the Broadcom-based wireless cards (not sure which name Dell markets these under)).

    zak89: thanks for the tip about System76 also possibly using Linux-unfriendly hardware (do you know what in particular to watch out for?). Also, do you happen to have a link on what Intel (or whoever) is doing to solve the UMA 500 graphics issue? I hadn’t heard any positive news on that…

  8. Avatar Earl January 5, 2010 @ 6:07 am
    Reply

    @Steven: Rather than maintain our own repositories, any bits ZaReason needs for our systems gets submitted back upstream. That way you’ll be better supported long-term, be more free to reinstall, swap distros, etc. As a result, we have no trouble installing a variety of distros on our netbook. We’ve preloaded Ubuntu, Kubuntu, UNR, Mint, Fedora, CrunchBang, Debian, 64 Studio, Moblin, JoliCloud, ChromeOS, and others.

  9. Avatar Martin Wildam January 5, 2010 @ 10:43 am
    Reply

    I have a Dell Latitude E-5500 and I ordered my one without any OS – installing Ubuntu on my own from the standard downloadable CD image.

    With 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope I had some issues with the Onboard Intel graphic card – basically in being a little slow.

    That problem is gone since the update to 9.10 Karmic Koala. So I am perfectly fine.

    I had all kind of vendors so far – Asus, Sony, Fujitsu and HP. The HP was my worst experience and Sony my best – but I do not like their new keyboard layout and I heard of some problems of their hardware with Linux. Therefore I took the sure way and took the Dell. I already had a hardware issue but their service is awesome! They come to me with the spare part under the arm and repair under my eyes.

  10. Avatar Leo January 5, 2010 @ 2:49 pm
    Reply

    @Martin: how did you order it with no OS? I don’t see an option in the US Web Page, is that in a different country? Over the phone? Thanks!

    @everyone: both System76 and ZaReason offer 12-inch laptops, but they are considerably more expensive than their 10 inch netbooks, roughly speaking twice as much.

  11. Avatar Leo January 5, 2010 @ 4:09 pm
    Reply

    @Earl: excellent! That’s the right approach!

  12. Avatar rodnox January 7, 2010 @ 2:59 am
    Reply

    Well, why did you chose a netbook, that would have a touch screen, but dell refuses to give that with linux? Karmic can handle touch screens ..

  13. Avatar Steven Rosenberg January 7, 2010 @ 3:15 am
    Reply

    @Earl

    Thanks for the info and the upstream contributions.

  14. Avatar Christopher Tozzi January 7, 2010 @ 3:31 am
    Reply

    rodnox: as far as I know, Dell does offer the touchscreen with Ubuntu 9.10 on the Latitude 2100. I have a friend who bought one that way. He tells me the touchscreen works great once you install the “Calibrate Touchscreen” package in the Software Center (or if you keep Dell’s Ubuntu that comes preinstalled on the machine, the touchscreen works out-of-the-box, obviously).

  15. Avatar shmerl January 7, 2010 @ 4:27 pm
    Reply

    Regarding issues of Windows Tax see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_refund

  16. Avatar horde January 8, 2010 @ 6:03 am
    Reply

    I have bought Dell Vostro A840 for mere 300 €.
    It has ubuntu 8.04.3 preinstalled and works great.

  17. Avatar vajorie January 10, 2010 @ 2:50 am
    Reply

    I tried the “customize” option in the dell link provided. The specs I have in my $330 Acer netbook (similar to system76’s netbook specs) gave me a $500 latitude (new).

    Also, refurbished doesn’t just mean “used”. It rather means returned by a previous customer for unknown (to you) reason, then repackaged. Hopefully yours was not returned for some kind of doa.

    The “used” ones are however sometimes called “off-leased” (eg in tigerdirect).

  18. Avatar Piotr January 12, 2010 @ 7:10 am
    Reply

    Refurbished will never look used. Even the smallest damaged part, are changed by refurbish stuff. Refurbish process, also have testing process, so you will never get damaged stuff.

    But it has mental usage, because you know it is not from factory, but from refurbish proces 🙂

  19. Avatar Martin Wildam January 14, 2010 @ 6:55 am
    Reply

    @Leo: I have sent an email, that none of the models on the website matches my needs (I also wanted a “normal” monitor and not that “glass thing”). They contacted me within a few hours offering me a few alternatives. So if you have special desires they build it for you!

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