Dell Inspiron with Linux or DOS

[peech]

I was thinking of getting a Dell Inspiron 15R laptop. Specs are:
Intel® Core™ i3-350M Processor Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit (English)
3GB (1 X 1GB + 1 X 2GB) 2 DIMM DDR3 1333Mhz
320GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5470 - 1GB (India)


Now I am a full time linux user, and do not want to spend money on Windows®7. Is it possible to buy a dell inspiron (or something with similar specs) with preinstalled linux or freedos? I am from the kolkata region if that matters.

Thanks.

[duh]

google dell india tech support or dell india purchase

[tboss]

Yes. You can purchase Dell Inspiron 15R Laptop with DOS with the same configuration you provided above at around 35K in India.

[arijit_2404]

I was in same situation like you in June 2009. I went to every big dealers for Dell, Lenovo, HP and Acer.

Only Acer and Dell provided option to buy a laptop without OS. Dell machine was having FreeDOS, Acer had Linpus Linux. I had two choices at that time, Acer 4736 and Dell inspiron 15. Both were equal in configuration, in fact Acer dealer gave me USB mouse free of cost!

I opted for Acer 4736 because it was 5000/- cheaper. Linpus Linux was pathetic, so I promptly formatted the hard disk and opted for different distributions.

In last year, I have tried Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Sabayon, Debian, Arch Linux, Mint, even Slackware which I installed just yesterday.

Each hardware were properly detected under every Linux distro and I had zero trouble. Wifi was detected but couldn't test properly because I don't use Wifi internet.

So, I don't think you'll have any problems for above config with either Dell or Acer. My only concern is Ati card for which I think you should stick to major distributions.

But only choose between Acer and Dell, otherwise you won't get any no-OS option.

[peech]

@duh Thanks, I will. If I get hold of some email, I'll write to them.

@tboss Really helpful link. I could find two inspiron 1464 laptops, with about 1k difference in price but exact same config. Inspiron 1464 @ 35k Inspiron 1464 @ 36k
It seems kind of fishy. Does anyone know if the site is trustworthy for deliveries at kolkata?

@arijit Nice! I am using arch now.