John wrote: > I am sorry if this has come up before, also about cross posting, but I > havent been able to find anything about it, so wanted to as about it. > > I am a from the UK, and because of my laptop not being up to Ubuntu > specs, I have been looking into buying a laptop with ubuntu already > installed. I have a friend in the USA that has just bought what he says > is a really good Dell laptop with ubuntu in it for just over $400. I > have been looking at the UK Dell site to fimd that the very basic Ubuntu > Installed laptops by Dell, start at £300 plus Vat almost double the > pirce in the USA.
Ahh it's the same with everything. The Playstation 3 is about $399 over there which works out about £250, whereas over here they're about £300. The exchange rate at the moment between US and UK is $1.61 to £1, so just over $400 isn't that much less than £300, I'd say with VAT and delivery charges on top you'd probably be looking at about £100 difference between a UK spec laptop and a US spec laptop. You'd also have to consider that the US laptops have US layout keyboards. Not a major problem but can be a tad annoying. > How come there is such a huge difference in cost? I know Dell is > separate company to Ubuntu, but surely Ubuntu must have gone to > discussions about their software being installed on laptops in this > country. > I don't think it's anything to do with Canonical. I mean Dell can download the software for free. Microsoft do special discount deals for companies such as Dell, and IIRC the crudware that is supplied with machines (McAfee Anti-Virus trials, Office 2007 Trials etc) helps subsidise the cost of the hardware. Technically it shouldn't really cost any more than Windows to stick Ubuntu on a machine as I'm sure Dell would create a standard build and then just stick on a disc image on each laptop (as they would do with a Windows machine). > Being a new user, I really like Ubuntu, but I'm finding it extremely > frustrating not being able to use it, admittedly mainly due to my lack > of experience with it, but if I could find a laptop with it already > installed at a cost like they are in the USA I would dump Windows > altogether, and be able to concentrate on learning Ubuntu without having > to get around the problems I'm finding using it in a dual boot environment. Well looking through the Linux Format magazines, there are companies which do provide laptops with Linux pre-installed. The other option is to do a bit of research (search Ubuntu forums, ask on here, search on Google), see what laptops out on the market and how compatible they generally are. Some laptops you'd probably find would work out of the box with Ubuntu (my old Dell Latitude D610 was such a beast) whereas others would probably fall over when it comes to things like wireless adaptors. I'm sure there would be someone local to you should could help install Ubuntu and provide support. That's one of the things I do in my area, I help with the installation and give tutorials on how to use it. (I run a business doing this, although I find that a lot of people just want Windows reinstalling because they've screwed it up and my suggestions of Ubuntu fall on deaf ears). > Right now, I lost the use of my laptop in the Ubuntu boot, after trying > to install the update from 8.04 to 8.10. I find it really frustrating > that to get my Ubuntu back, I have to tell ubuntu not to load compiz, > which takes up a lot of what Ubuntu is. Which means I'm missing out on a > lot of the functions of Ubuntu. I wouldn't say compiz is a lot of functions. If anything I kind of get fed up with compiz and turn it off. Sure it looks fancy at first but I can't say I'm really fussed about eye candy like that. Assuming you haven't got that much data on your laptop, if I were you, I'd boot from an Ubuntu 8.04.1 Desktop CD, copy your existing data off onto something like a USB pen drive (you'd need to mount the hard drive first) and then reinstall, copying the data back on afterwards. Another thing I'd also recommend is to have a separate partition for /home. It's not the default as far as I can remember but it's not too hard to do and it can be done through the graphical installer. That way if things screw up you can reinstall and just tell the installer to format / (the root partition) and leave /home intact and mount it as /home. > So why, if Ubuntu is trying to get more people to use their products are > they making it so difficult and costly for people like me who are on the > lower incomes, to be able to use their products? Is Dell the only > company selling laptops with Ubuntu already installed? Does anybody know > of any other company that sells them cheaper, or would I have to get one > from the USA. If I do have to buy from the USA, will it work in the UK? To be honest I don't think it's a fault of Canonical or the Ubuntu community. It might be that some of the hardware has slight incompatibilities, but hey, Windows XP doesn't come with every driver built in, I often find reinstalling Windows XP on my other half's PC is a chore as I have to find the network drivers BEFORE I can get the thing on the network to install anything else. For me, Ubuntu just picks up the network card straight away (and in most cases the wireless too). Don't even get me started on Vista. Let's just say, Lexmark X83 printers and Vista don't mix. Pre-installed machines which come with Windows are usually installed from a master disk image. The drivers and updates are included so when you turn it on it's ready to go. Now if you went down the route of upgrading Windows and sticking something like Vista or whatever on then you'd either be on your own (if you bought an OEM copy) or would have to get support from Microsoft (IIRC you get so many incidents and then you have to pay £££'s for support). I'm sure as Ubuntu gains in popularity it will start to get pre-installed on some new machines. The problem at the moment is that most people know Windows and that's what they ask for. Some companies probably think it's just not cost effective to supply Windows and Linux (be it Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE etc). As I mentioned above, if you get a laptop from the US you will be able to use it but it can be a pain in the neck (off the top of my head for starters you'd probably have to get your friend to order it and send him the money, then you may have to pay customs duty and possibly VAT on the item, then you'll have to get either a replacement power supply OR step down power supply from 220/240 volts to 110 volts which are about £10 to £20, and then you'd be lucky if Dell UK actually honour the warranty!) > Its really frustrating. > Yes it can be, your best bet to be honest is to probably join your local LUG (check out www.lug,org.uk) to find your local LUG. Chances are you'd have a local LUG nearby who could help you out with the installation either for free or the cost of a couple of beers at a LUG meet. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
