Dude, You’re Getting Ubuntu

by on May 27, 2007

Apparently I can get a Dell Dimension E520N pre-loaded with Ubuntu for $429. That’s with an Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB of memory, and a 250 GB hard drive. The budget machine from Ubuntu hardware vendor System 76 appears to cost $785 if outfitted similarly.

I’m sure I could get an even cheaper system if I put it together myself, but I frankly am not that interested in hardware. I’m perfectly happy to give Dell $50 or $100 to save me the trouble of figuring out which hardware has good Linux support and then comparison shopping for the best deals.

But I’m curious what y’all think: are there other Linux hardware vendors with more competitive prices? Am I likely to have compatibility or other problems with the Dell systems?

Also: Jeremy Reimer at Ars reports that the “Windows tax” appears to be about $50.

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Tim Lee / Timothy B. Lee (Contributor, 2004-2009) is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is currently a PhD student and a member of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. He contributes regularly to a variety of online publications, including Ars Technica, Techdirt, Cato @ Liberty, and The Angry Blog. He has been a Mac bigot since 1984, a Unix, vi, and Perl bigot since 1998, and a sworn enemy of HTML-formatted email for as long as certain companies have thought that was a good idea. You can reach him by email at leex1008@umn.edu.

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