Hi Forum,

I've been thinking about a new desktop, and get a good employee discount with Dell. Whatever I get, I would want to dual boot with Linux. Dell has recently come out with the 530N line pre-loaded with Ubuntu. I would assume, based on this that the Window's version is the same hardware, and therefore compatible. Has anyone tried this? The 530 has only been out for a few weeks, but I was hoping maybe someone else had already paved the way for me. I know I've had fun with Linux on Dell machines in the past.

I guess I could get the 530N, and order Vista separately. I think it might be cheaper to get the Vista pre-loaded and then install Ubuntu myself.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

Michael

I, personally, would stay away from Vista for awhile yet. I understand
Microsoft is already discussing a Service Pack 1 for Vista, and possibly a
Service Pack 3 for XP! Ubuntu preloaded is the way to go. I have had
PCs in for repair/service with Vista on them...and it is such a 'bloat'.


You could order your laptop with NO OS, and then install one/two yourself.
I'm NOT sure how much money you'd save doing it that way, but it may be
something to consider.

Just my two cents...

I've had a Dell Inspiron 530 for two weeks. It has Vista loaded, and I thought since the 530n is the same hardware, I'd be able to dualboot easily. But the only distro I can get to boot from the cd drive is Ubuntu, and it isn't always successful. When it did boot, it installed fine, dual booting was easy to set up, and I was happy. But it's the only distro that boots to the serial ATA cdrom. Debian 40r0 i3 didn't boot for install, nor did Knoppix. Neither could detect the cdrom device for installation. BIOS settings are set properly, but I don't know enough to get it to see that the drives are on /dev/sda and /dev/sdb instead of always searching hdx...

Getting a little OT, but I think it's relevant to the discussion. The 530 isn't 100% linux-friendly out of the box. Hope this helps some...