Hardware question from "fly-over country"

[doug]

On 11/28/2011 10:59 PM, Cybe R. Wizard wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:22:28 -0600
> Richard Owlett<rowlett at pcnetinc.com>  wrote:
>
>> I'm in RURAL SW Missouri. A local used/surplus computer
>> store is offering a Dell Latitude D620 (4GB memory, 80GB
>> hard drive, Intel Core Duo @ 2.4 GHz) for ~$500. It
>> reportedly has the majority of manufacturer's warranty.
>>
>> Any comments on how suitable a Linux platform this would be?
>>
>> TIA
>>
> Hiya, Richard, I'm in Jeff. County just south of St Louie.
>
> I don't know about that particular box but...
> I bought Elder Daughter a top-of-the-line Dell laptop with all the
> goodies to take off to Rollins College in 2001.  Because she'd be a
> half-a-continent away I bought the on-site next-day service pack for
> the full four years.
> The box died before her second year completed.  A call got a service
> tech within a /week/.  He changed the hard drive.  No joy.  Numerous
> calls got a service tech (not the same one) within a week each
> time.  /NEVER/ was a tech there the next day.  He changed the hard
> drive and the screen (for some reason, the screen worked fine).  No
> joy.  She came home for summer break.  We called and called, got tech
> after tech, they all wanted to install a new hard drive.
> /After the whole summer break/ Dell finally admitted they should just
> give us a new box.  It came bare-bones without the extra DVD drive we
> originally ordered (that one would no longer fit the new box), the
> floppy drive (same problem of fit), the Zip drive (wouldn't fit the
> case), the extra battery (same fitting problem), the extra RAM and the
> large hard drive we had originally ordered.
>
> Their reason?  We were getting a CPU upgrade.
>
> We didn't want a CPU upgrade; we wanted the functionality for which
> we had paid.  We wanted same-day, on-site service for which we'd paid.
>
> We bought her a new Hewlett-Packard laptop in 2003 with which to finish
> college.
>
> I'd never again sully my hands with a Dell.
>
> The 2003 HP still works fine.
>
> Of course, YMMV.  HTH.
>
> Cybe R. Wizard
Well, I guess my mileage varied.  I have a Dell Inspiron 6400/E1505 that 
I bought on epay
about 18 months ago, used, in tip-top shape.  After a little while, I 
added 1 GB RAM and
changed out the 60 GB hard drive for a 360 GB--not because the smaller 
one didn't work,
but because I wanted more space.  I have XP and 3 Linux distros on it, 
and it works
perfectly.  It even has a quite useable keyboard, and with synaptiks, 
the track-pad is
turned off when an external pointing device is plugged in.  (XP seems to 
do that by itself.)
You can plug in an external keyboard to a usb port and it works fine 
also.  Built-in CD/DVD
reader-burner only lacks Light-Scribe capability.  A really nice 
all-around machine.

This is written on that machine with PCLOS.

--doug

--doug