Ubuntu 7.10 on Dell's XPS M1330 Laptop

[Dark Star]

Today, Dell makes (once again) its Linux users happy, by releasing another laptop with Ubuntu 7.10 on it: the beautiful, superb, astonishing, sleek, sexy XPS M1330 laptop. Customers from Spain, Germany, France and United Kingdom can purchase this superb laptop with pre-installed Ubuntu Linux 7.10 (with built-in DVD playback) today!

XPS M1330 features:

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5250 (1.50GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB) / T7500 (2.20GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
• Up to 4GB shared Dual Channel 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
• Intel Graphic Media Accelerator 3100 or an optional 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS video card
• 13.3" UltraSharp CCFL WXGA display (1280x800, 220 nits) with TrueLife and 2.0MP webcam
• Up to 200GB configured with 7200 RPM SATA hard drive
• Integrated Slot-Load DVD+/-RW Drive
• Weight: Starting at 1.79 kg

What should you expect from Dell computers with Ubuntu?

• The default software from the Ubuntu media will be installed on the system, including kernel and applications.
• The peripheral options offered with Ubuntu will be a subset of what is offered withother operating systems. Dell will offer the hardware options on each system and they have the most mature and stable Linux driver support. These hardware options have been thoroughly tested by the Dell Linux team.
• Dell promises to configure/install open source drivers for hardware, when possible.
• Dell promises to use partial open-source or closed source ("restricted" in Ubuntu terms) drivers where there is no equivalent open-source driver. This includes Intel wireless cards and Conexant modems.
• A wiki page of their Linux official website will give technical details of the supported systems, information on the device drivers used for system peripherals, details of Dell's Ubuntu factory-installation, and information on the problems that will be found during the testings, with their fixes and workarounds.
• Dell recommends Linux users to buy Dell printers that have PostScript engines in them. The previous hyperlink lists those printers. You can also check in the Tech Specs tab for each printer on Dell.com show if it has PostScript or not.

Source : Release Announcement | Shop Online
Home Page : Dell - Dell Linux - Community Web

P.S: A post after a long gap

[mehulved]

I'd prefer a HP printer especially as a home user, for linux machines. There's hardly any hassle with them. Otherwise things seem really nice with the laptop except it's too late in the day to offer 7.10 as 8.04 is just around the corner.

[debsuvra]

Yeah Dell is announcing the support for Ubuntu 7.10 lately, but 8.04 is still away for April.

Wish Dell introduce it in India, will save some real money instead of buying Vista.

[infra_red_dude]

Originally Posted by Dark Star

Today, Dell makes (once again) its Linux users happy, by releasing another laptop with Ubuntu 7.10 on it: the beautiful, superb, astonishing, sleek, sexy XPS M1330 laptop. Customers from Spain, Germany, France and United Kingdom can purchase this superb laptop with pre-installed Ubuntu Linux 7.10 (with built-in DVD playback) today!

Shashwat, next time you post a news like this I'll beat you black and blue!!!!

First they (all manufacturers) sell at prices higher than the international market, then they force us to buy Windows, then they release desktops/laptops with Linux and say Hey, I am not gonna introduce this in India and then you post it here saying its only available in Germ, Fr, UK, Spain. Thats like jale pe namak chidakna!

We, in India, are scapegoats and deprived of choice!

[mehulved]

We should stop buying their products and take out demostrations for being treated so unfairly.

[praka123]

assembled laptops-seen this few years(2005?) before.now,this option is not available AFAIK.

given an option like Assembled Desktop to Laptops,We can make custom tailored laptops whose hardware are completely supported by Linux.Sad!..dreams are dreams

Still,wireless support and other mess in laptops can be solved by this way....

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by infra_red_dude

Shashwat, next time you post a news like this I'll beat you black and blue!!!!

First they (all manufacturers) sell at prices higher than the international market, then they force us to buy Windows, then they release desktops/laptops with Linux and say Hey, I am not gonna introduce this in India and then you post it here saying its only available in Germ, Fr, UK, Spain. Thats like jale pe namak chidakna!

We, in India, are scapegoats and deprived of choice!

I am completely with you Anirudh. This is just Bull$hit(the $ is intended). Whats the point of making our stomachs churn even more than it already does telling us about over-priced laptops in india which have dirt cheap counterparts elsewere?

This really IS discrimination. Companies from asia like Acer, Asus, Toshiba, etc instead of looking at fellow asians like Indians are turning towards USA and killing us with their prices.

Whats the fugging point of telling us that a Compaq Presaro 6608 is VFM here when we KNOW that its overpriced along with everything else? The same goes for the Dell Books.

Do you see the price extra that dell charges for an extra GB of ram(two from 1 GB) ? Its a huge Rs. 2499. And they lie to us that the cost of upgrades later will be very high. An upgrade from a T5350 to a T7500 costs about Rs. 10000 from dell. This is just plain unfair. The Indian government is only making bad worse by imposing abusive taxes on Electronics calling them luxury items.

I wish we will be able to assemble our own laptops one day. Atleast make available to us some Laptop Skletons that we can improve on by adding stuff like 8700M GT, C2D 7500, Transcend Laptop RAM DDR2 4 GB, etc that we get for uncheap but much cheaper than branded laptop prices in India. And yes, Apple is the leader of such companies in their overpricing drive. The govt over-reacts when Rice becomes costlier by Re 1/- per kg but never cares when laptops become Rs. 10K costlier.

[dragonlord]

In case some1's lookinf gor the 1330 Gutsy ISO, here it is

With nVidia 8400M GS:
http://linux.dell.com/files/ubuntu/i...-reinstall.iso

With Intel X3100
http://linux.dell.com/files/ubuntu/i...-reinstall.iso

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

The govt over-reacts when Rice becomes costlier by Re 1/- per kg but never cares when laptops become Rs. 10K costlier.

I am sure you won't die if laptop become 100K costlier. But surely it affects many people even if the price of rice rises by 50paise. Please don't compare laptops with something as essential as food grains.

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by mehulved

I am sure you won't die if laptop become 100K costlier. But surely it affects many people even if the price of rice rises by 50paise. Please don't compare laptops with something as essential as food grains.

I just said that electronics are being ignored by the Indian Govt. Look at the Tata Nano. The Govt is also going on hyping about it. Is it too essential ? Its just another methord of helping people "stay connected". Just like laptops.

Besides, what is Dell thinking giving away Ubuntu as it is with just a few extr drivers ? They should be giving a customised ubuntu that matches the colour of the laptop bought, and with a "dell menu" instead of a gnome menu(that has the logo in it), polished gnome bars, better looking icons, better themed firefox with extentions and a game or two like UT3(its XPS. XPS=Gaming).

[szandor]

Originally Posted by debsuvra

Yeah Dell is announcing the support for Ubuntu 7.10 lately, but 8.04 is still away for April.

Wish Dell introduce it in India, will save some real money instead of buying Vista.

i'm not sure what kind of deal you're expecting but a base vista system is $999 and a base ubuntu system is $949. so don't get all happy happy joy joy and rely on linux to make your hardware cheaper.

Originally Posted by infra_red_dude

First they (all manufacturers) sell at prices higher than the international market, then they force us to buy Windows, then they release desktops/laptops with Linux and say Hey, I am not gonna introduce this in India and then you post it here saying its only available in Germ, Fr, UK, Spain. Thats like jale pe namak chidakna!

see my above post. i'd save about a tank of gasoline for my car if i went with ubuntu instead of vista. from your post, i can see you have internet access. why not just download your distro of choice rather than let some company make your decision for you? i'm running fedora on an m1210. i did not need dell and every piece of hardware works. nvidia, webcam/mic, bt, wifi, cd/dvd ripping/burning, buttons, etc, etc.

Originally Posted by infra_red_dude

We, in India, are scapegoats and deprived of choice!

i know what you mean. this is how i feel when i call customer service/tech support that's been outsourced to india and i get some guy that doesn't know his buttocks from a keyboard. the only reason i can think of that companies would give you the short end of the stick is, if i was going to sell something to a person that thought a person came back as a cow, i'd try and charge them more money too. or at least try and sell them property on the moon.

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

I am completely with you Anirudh. This is just Bull$hit(the $ is intended). Whats the point of making our stomachs churn even more than it already does telling us about over-priced laptops in india which have dirt cheap counterparts elsewere?

This really IS discrimination. Companies from asia like Acer, Asus, Toshiba, etc instead of looking at fellow asians like Indians are turning towards USA and killing us with their prices.

Whats the fugging point of telling us that a Compaq Presaro 6608 is VFM here when we KNOW that its overpriced along with everything else? The same goes for the Dell Books.

Do you see the price extra that dell charges for an extra GB of ram(two from 1 GB) ? Its a huge Rs. 2499. And they lie to us that the cost of upgrades later will be very high. An upgrade from a T5350 to a T7500 costs about Rs. 10000 from dell. This is just plain unfair. The Indian government is only making bad worse by imposing abusive taxes on Electronics calling them luxury items.

I wish we will be able to assemble our own laptops one day. Atleast make available to us some Laptop Skletons that we can improve on by adding stuff like 8700M GT, C2D 7500, Transcend Laptop RAM DDR2 4 GB, etc that we get for uncheap but much cheaper than branded laptop prices in India. And yes, Apple is the leader of such companies in their overpricing drive. The govt over-reacts when Rice becomes costlier by Re 1/- per kg but never cares when laptops become Rs. 10K costlier.

any laptop company does this. an upgrade from 1gb just to 2gb is at least 5 times more than what you get for it online yourself. even local stores are 3 times more. consumer electronics tax? there are ways around that. you should also do a little more searching online. barebones laptops have been around for awhile. even ones with dedicated graphics. also, do you really have to buy it from dell? i just bought an m1330 which is now my 5th dell laptop and 3rd one i have not bought from dell. rather than paying dell, i buy from whatever reseller i find the cheapest online. to give you an idea, i bought a 2.2ghz, 3gb ram, led screen, nvidia, a/g/n, bt, fingerprint reader, 160gb 7200 drive, 9-cell battery with a 3 year warranty m1330 that was brand new in the box for right under $1300 including shipping which took 4 days. from dell, it would have been quite a bit more even with their $499 instant savings and it would have taken at least 2 weeks to get it. i've yet to have a dell laptop go out on me so i'll still buy dell, but not from dell.

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

Besides, what is Dell thinking giving away Ubuntu as it is with just a few extr drivers ? They should be giving a customised ubuntu that matches the colour of the laptop bought, and with a "dell menu" instead of a gnome menu(that has the logo in it), polished gnome bars, better looking icons, better themed firefox with extentions and a game or two like UT3(its XPS. XPS=Gaming).

i thought you guys wanted the laptop to be cheaper? having dell customize linux for you is going to cost money. why pay dell for this when other people in the linux community are doing it for free? linux is free. download it, install it, compile your drivers if you need one, and viola! you're done. i've gotten everything working in linux on any laptop/desktop i've ever owned that was working in windows. even xbox's, pda's, ipod's, etc. i may even install it on my coffee maker. this thread really defeats the purpose of linux. i remember when the best option for unix was a tadpole or naturetech sun solaris laptop. these things could get up to twice as much as the top of the line m1730. now everyone wants a distro that does this or does that, match the color of my laptop, special icons, work out of the box, yada yada, and then ask, 'how do i use sudo?' or 'when i type 'make install' i get an error. in my opinion, if you rely on someone like dell to make linux work for you, you're more of a hindrance to the linux community than a supporter because you're going to be one of those people posting in a linux forum asking, 'i want to download/install compiz-fusion but i don't know how to connect to the internet!' as opposed to working out bug issues with other users.

[MetalheadGautham]

^^customising linux to suit a dell laptop won't take more than 2 weeks for even an ordinary guy like me. Spending a little time to make the OS look good is not a bad marketing stratagy. Look at Apple. Mac is just FreeBSD customised(and spoilt)

And youdo have a point in saying that the perpose of linux itself is about learning stuff, and doing things yourself, and showing off your personality in your OS. but as far as marketing is concerned, there is nothing wrong in prebundling eyecandy. afterall, dell has released a video, "Why Linux" in which they show off Compiz Fusion as a marketing stratagy.

[infra_red_dude]

Originally Posted by szandor

i'm not sure what kind of deal you're expecting but a base vista system is $999 and a base ubuntu system is $949. so don't get all happy happy joy joy and rely on linux to make your hardware cheaper.

Things are not like this here. Its not about making things cheaper. Its like they make us pay for Vista jus coz they think some XYZ will pirate Vista if its NOT a part of the deal. Why should I pay just coz there's some possibility of some XZY pirating it if not bundled?

Originally Posted by szandor

why not just download your distro of choice rather than let some company make your decision for you? i'm running fedora on an m1210. i did not need dell and every piece of hardware works. nvidia, webcam/mic, bt, wifi, cd/dvd ripping/burning, buttons, etc, etc.

Pre-installed systems are always better. Mebbe not for me or you but for a first time user. Why is GNU/Linux adoption rate so low here and piracy high? Coz people who use systems bundled with Vista never bother to give GNU/Linux a try jus coz they fear going thru the hardware drivers would be worser than hell.. and those who buy hardware without vista (here everything either comes with windows or free-dos or no OS), just either use a retail copy or pirate. Nobody bothers to "download GNU/Linux" hunt for drivers and make all th ehardware work. Believe me, if computers come pre-installed with Linux a lot of things would change.

Originally Posted by szandor

i know what you mean. this is how i feel when i call customer service/tech support that's been outsourced to india and i get some guy that doesn't know his buttocks from a keyboard. the only reason i can think of that companies would give you the short end of the stick is, if i was going to sell something to a person that thought a person came back as a cow, i'd try and charge them more money too. or at least try and sell them property on the moon.

I dunno about what you asked but the BPO guys here are quite technically proficient. The thing thats lacking (severely) here is knowledge about GNU/Linux. They know neither the head nor tail of it. For everything else, I've to say that people here are quite helpful and knowledgeable (as far as common things is concerned).

Originally Posted by szandor

...barebones laptops have been around for awhile. even ones with dedicated graphics. also, do you really have to buy it from dell?

Laptops like these are still a distant dream here. Coz all these barebones laptop are not manuf. in India and we gotta order from aboard. Anything coming from outside directly to us (when they don't haf a local office) is gonna cost us almost double!

Originally Posted by szandor

i thought you guys wanted the laptop to be cheaper? having dell customize linux for you is going to cost money. why pay dell for this when other people in the linux community are doing it for free? linux is free. download it, install it, compile your drivers if you need one, and viola! you're done.

Its not for me.. its for the kid in my neighbourhood who doesn't care about piracy. Its for my uncle who wants to use Linux but has no clue what driver/compiling are.. etc.

Originally Posted by szandor

now everyone wants a distro that does this or does that, match the color of my laptop, special icons, work out of the box, yada yada, and then ask, 'how do i use sudo?' or 'when i type 'make install' i get an error. in my opinion, if you rely on someone like dell to make linux work for you, you're more of a hindrance to the linux community than a supporter because you're going to be one of those people posting in a linux forum asking, 'i want to download/install compiz-fusion but i don't know how to connect to the internet!' as opposed to working out bug issues with other users.

And whats wrong if new users want to try/use Linux but don't know anything about it? Does it mean that only the veterans haf the authority to use Linux? This is the biggest hindrance in GNU/Linux adoption. The old hats wanna look elite by shunning n00bs. As long as people are not considerate about new users, nothing's gonna change. Linux is not a privilege only for those "seasoned" users.

That attitude (sense of eliteness/geekiness) is what sux in the FOSS community.

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

Mac is just FreeBSD customised(and spoilt)

Mac is just not customized FreeBSD. You've got it all wrong.

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

And youdo have a point in saying that the perpose of linux itself is about learning stuff, and doing things yourself.....

That is a wrong notion! Its one of the options with Linux but not the only goal of GNU/Linux!

[kumarmohit]

Why bother, it would not be coming to India

[infra_red_dude]

Originally Posted by kumarmohit

Why bother, it would not be coming to India

Thats the main issue in the last 3-4 posts.

[szandor]

Originally Posted by infra_red_dude

And whats wrong if new users want to try/use Linux but don't know anything about it? Does it mean that only the veterans haf the authority to use Linux? This is the biggest hindrance in GNU/Linux adoption. The old hats wanna look elite by shunning n00bs. As long as people are not considerate about new users, nothing's gonna change. Linux is not a privilege only for those "seasoned" users.

there's nothing wrong with it but there is a learning curve and most of the people that see linux think of it as a shiny new toy and then complain that sound doesn't work out of the box, yet, they can't grasp the difference between 'su' or 'su -' after it benig explained 6 times. why should people be labeled as elitist if they comprehend linux? it doesn't matter if you're 15 or 55. it's because of people that think like you that have caused the classifications of, 'people who are proficient in windows are computer professionals and the ones who are not are home users, the people who are proficient in linux are elitists and the ones who are not are n00bs.' i think the term i used was hindrance. it's windows place to make, well, windows environments that work out of the box. the goal of linux is not the same as the goal of windows. linux was a solution to unix code proprietary issues. not to make some silly box rotate on your computer. however, that's the beauty of linux. the ability to make some silly box rotate on your computer. (yes i have compiz-fusion pimped out on my nividia/m1210) i just think too many people have the wrong expectation of what linux should be. just because someone's uncle wants to use it but has no idea what a driver is, is not a good reason to mold linux for his use. if my uncle wants to bang some of the 18 year old girls i know because it sounds interesting, i'd still tell him to meet people his own age, just like i'd tell yours that he should either stick to windows or at least start with the basics. i'm hardly a 'seasoned' user or 'veteran'. i just started installing it on systems and figured my way through it with the help of log files and google. at one point, i thought it would be interesting and fun to be a plastic surgeon but after the second boob job went wrong and my parents complained about the blood in the garage, i decided, this is probably too complicated for me to grasp and stuck with giving people aspirin.

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by szandor

there's nothing wrong with it but there is a learning curve and most of the people that see linux think of it as a shiny new toy and then complain that sound doesn't work out of the box, yet, they can't grasp the difference between 'su' or 'su -' after it benig explained 6 times. why should people be labeled as elitist if they comprehend linux? it doesn't matter if you're 15 or 55. it's because of people that think like you that have caused the classifications of, 'people who are proficient in windows are computer professionals and the ones who are not are home users, the people who are proficient in linux are elitists and the ones who are not are n00bs.' i think the term i used was hindrance. it's windows place to make, well, windows environments that work out of the box. the goal of linux is not the same as the goal of windows. linux was a solution to unix code proprietary issues. not to make some silly box rotate on your computer. however, that's the beauty of linux. the ability to make some silly box rotate on your computer. (yes i have compiz-fusion pimped out on my nividia/m1210) i just think too many people have the wrong expectation of what linux should be. just because someone's uncle wants to use it but has no idea what a driver is, is not a good reason to mold linux for his use. if my uncle wants to bang some of the 18 year old girls i know because it sounds interesting, i'd still tell him to meet people his own age, just like i'd tell yours that he should either stick to windows or at least start with the basics. i'm hardly a 'seasoned' user or 'veteran'. i just started installing it on systems and figured my way through it with the help of log files and google. at one point, i thought it would be interesting and fun to be a plastic surgeon but after the second boob job went wrong and my parents complained about the blood in the garage, i decided, this is probably too complicated for me to grasp and stuck with giving people aspirin.

currently, linux is in two catogaries:

1. GNU Software + Linux kernel + GRUB loader

2. The Linux OS

the former is for ppl like infra, you and me. but the later is for people who know nothing but windows, or for people who think all mp3 players are iPods.

but unfortunately, everyone seems to think that knowledge linux and shiney linux are the one and the same. But its wrong. There are/were distros like OpenSuSE, Mandriva Discovery, etc made for n00bs, but that does not mean all linux distros should be like that or vice versa.

a computer like Dell needs a n00b linux as its targeted at the mass market. Just like the way Macintosh OS is n00b unix, we need an el perfecto n00b linux for these commertial wannabe users that dell targets.

so don't talk about learning cycles, as in this case its not important. Here, being easy to learn and use with little or no experience is the most important factor.

ofcource, given the choice between Knoppix DVD and Mandriva Discovery, you and me will choose the former and a wannabe user will choose the later. But we guys know how to adjust, and how to convert an distro to another one. But its not the case for those who use linux not as an OS, but as a "Computer" and a "device to get some work done".

[infra_red_dude]

I ask one Question: What is the goal of GNU/Linux and who has the authority to set these goals???!!!

@Metal
There is nothing called "Linux OS"!

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

2. The Linux OS

There is nothing called "Linux OS"

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

There are/were distros like OpenSuSE, Mandriva Discovery, etc made for n00bs, but that does not mean all linux distros should be like that or vice versa.

Yep, true. If someone is very much interested in controlling his/her OS or compiling then that person should head to Sorcerer/SourceMage/Gentoo.

GNU/Linux is all about choice!

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

Here, being easy to learn and use with little or no experience is the most important factor.

Add this to the above sentence "...for adoption by the masses who don't know about GNU/Linux but haf the desire to learn".

Do you think by giving everything to them out-of-the box they'll never experiment? Curiosity is human being's natural trait. Sooner or later they guy will experiment with things. First impression is the best impression!

A great coder may never look into GNU/Linux jus coz he cudn't get into the first time due to his hardware being not supported. So who is at loss? FOSS community may haf lost a great contributor. Give the ppl an initial push and you'll see their talent coming out ... outta 100 people i'm sure 10 would contribute to OSS in some or the other way.

[MetalheadGautham]

@infra: Linux OS does not exist. but I mentioned it here because thats what the aam admi thinks as being existant, just like the way most people call mp3 players iPods.

we ppl know that Linux + GRUB + GNUware is what really powers our system, but ignorant people call it "Linux OS"(companies like acer are also a part of these guys)

[szandor]

Originally Posted by infra_red_dude

I ask one Question:

actually, you asked several.

Originally Posted by infra_red_dude

A great coder may never look into GNU/Linux jus coz he cudn't get into the first time due to his hardware being not supported. So who is at loss? FOSS community may haf lost a great contributor. Give the ppl an initial push and you'll see their talent coming out ... outta 100 people i'm sure 10 would contribute to OSS in some or the other way.

interesting you mentioned that. i just read an article about the fellow who works on pulseaudio.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Interv...nartPoettering

And finally, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself: how you got involved in free software? Things you love to do when not hacking!?

I got involved in Free Software back when I installed Slackware in Kernel 1.x times on my 486, where I totally didn't get it. Some classmate of mine talked about that Linux thing that supposedly was free of charge, and I installed it, and it didn't work for me at all. I quickly removed it from my hard drive, but I guess in a way I was already hooked. So a year or two later later I bought Red Hat Linux 5.1, together with a friend, to give it another try. That was 1998. Very quickly I moved to Debian, though, and used it for almost 8 years, and never used anything else again.

[infra_red_dude]

^^^ I'm all confused! Are you saying that they turn back someday or something else?

I quoted that example coz I've seen it in real life!