I'm toying with the idea of going into business, supplying office solutioons in the UK and thailand which are based 100% on Opensource software.. and the users will use Linux (distro not decieded, and not related to this question at the moment unless someone thinks this is important)

My question is to ask people thier experiences with Brand named manufacturers and Linux Operating systems..

I'm not interested in which PC manuifactures offer Linux on thier desktops or laptops, what i would like to know is Which Hardware people think is the most linux friendly? Such as Dell, HP, toshiba etc? And addons as well..

My definition of Linux Friendly is that i load a distro onto a PC and it works, with little or no fiddling, patching or updating of drivers? This i guess is especially important for me on "Laptops" which from hreading the HCL can be a right pain in the rear with things like modem drivers and the like..

The Three areas of PC use i'm looking at right now are...

1) Standard Office Desktop
2) Fileserver supporting upto 100 users
3) Laptop used by out of office people like sales staff (but not limited to)
4) Laptops for Managers so the bells and whistles type of hardware



Which desktop PC manufacturer has the most linux friendly hardware?

Which Laptop PC brand would fall into the same above catagory?



Cost right now is not an issue either..

I have a few ideas of my own, I however would like to know what other people think...

To answer your questions:

You need to search and read up on the basics. Much of that is addressed here and elsewhere already. Post back here when you have some more specific questions. However a good starting point is searching the forum for "which distro" and also a great web site for you to check out is http://www.distrowatch.com

I'm not bothered by the distro, as i mentioned in the first page..

the reason for the question is i see companies like Dell, HP, Acer all advertising "Linux Ready PC's" And i was wondering about the HARDWARE, and NOT the distro..

I think the question, is pretty specific..

However, if it makes your thinking a little easier, an example...

Mandrake on the desktop/Laptops
Fedora on the servers..

Now.. Which hardware manufacturers make thier hardware, best "out of the box" to run the above distros?

I'm sorry if the snext statemnt offends ANYONE.. however i see it disucssed about what linux users want a lot on forums, and to be honest, its NOT the lack of software, lack of hardware support.. Its the answers people get when they are asking simple questions...

Again, I appreciate the answer, however the first paragraph says

<quote>(distro not decieded, and not related to this question at the moment unless someone thinks this is important)</quote>

And this IS a hardware forum.. so not to offend, but why point me to www.distrowatch.com? of the first 10 i checked distros, not one gave me a hardware spec..

So to reitterate the question again, incase it confused, or mislead...

Can anyone recommend a PC manufacturer who makes Desktops and Laptops which are Linux Friendly with little tweaking etc..?

Suprising, this seems to have flummoxed the software heads,, suppose i will go out and buy 200 dell pc;s and then find that no distro supports the soundcard, or the graphics card drivers fro linuix are flaky then.. Shame.

If you're going to buy 200 PCs, surely you can contact a hardware manufacturer that offers a Linux ready PC and work out a deal for confirming that the hardware to be supplied does what you need.

As for calling me a software head - I prefer geek, but I do answer when my wife calls me propellor head.

IBM (Lenovo) and Sager for notebooks. I suggest staying away from SIS and VIA chipsets. Also use notebook models with nVidia graphics instead of integrated graphics. ATI is ok, but they take some tweaking.

I suggest building the desktops or servers from parts. I do not recommend Dell, Gateway, Acer, Packard Bell (or was it Packard Hell), and HP because they will include junk. IBM and Sun Microsystems make good servers, but they are costly.

Gentoo can be used by notebooks, desktops and servers. An admin can control Gentoo more easily than other distributions. Also all desktops and servers can be schedule to get a tbz2 file from your server to update programs with out doing any re-imaging.

Thank you for the reply..
My reason for looking at off the shelf supplier was purly for a hardware support basis.. if the hardware goes down, its cheaper longterm to get it swapped out..