On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 01:30:55 -0500 Jason Stephenson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'll second this. In fact, every Compaq that I've ever seen does this. > It's usually the last partition on the disk, is roughly 32MB in size and > generally of a type not recognized by Linux fdisk or fips. I have 2 Presario laptops, both running Linux. One was initially set up to dual boot. Both are pure Linux now. Most PC vendors today place a hidden partition from which you can reinstall or repair the OS. The reason for this is that they do not have to provide you with an installation CD. One of the first things I did at work when I got my new desktop computer was to set it up for dual boot Windows XP and Linux. The only reason I used Windows was initially to work on a document using WordXP. I subsequently installed OfficeXP on Linux and imported the custom HP fonts. Unfortunately, the document template does not render well under OO. I bought the Compaq's because they were the best bang for the buck with my discount. WRT: Gateway. I soured on Gateway years ago. I worked on a contract for a company that had a contract with Gateway for their PCs. Virtually every machine from Gateway had a problem. One of my coworkers bought one and the monitor arrived DOA. Later I worked at Microcom who was also a Gateway customer. I took a Gateway out of the box, and found that the CD was dead. More specifically, the secondary IDE channel. I do know some Gateway success stories, but the failures far outweigh the success. I have also had personal experience with Dell. A client of mine had a Dell, and had a bad experience with customer service (before they outsourced to India). The BLU bought a Dell server. (Actually it was Boston User Groups). JABR had some difficulty with GENToo initially, so we went to Fedora Core 2. religiously, JABR does not like SuSE, and since he was doing the work... In general, I would probably buy a Dell or HP/Compaq depending on the price and features, although I might also buy a system with Linux preinstalled. -- Jerry Feldman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9
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