[NCLUG] Gateway MT6916

[DJ Eshelman]

this may be completely too late... but hey, why not...
Two pieces of advice based on my experience with a lot of these Vista
laptops:

1)  Make sure you have recovery disks - sometimes you have to make them
within Windows.  Gateway doesn't have a stellar past about providing these
disks.

2)  Most laptops shipping with Vista are using SATA HDDs.  I have run into a
few issues when either downgrading to XP or installing CentOS or Debian in
getting it to properly identify the SATA driver; that being said the same
unit loaded Kubuntu without a sweat.  Go figure.

have fun!

On Nov 22, 2007 8:29 AM, Brian Wood <bwood at beww.org> wrote:

> Vincent Randal wrote:
> > Any opinions about this computer?
> > http://www.gateway.com/retail/mt6916.php
> >
> > It comes with Vista and I am concerned VmWare will be slow under that.
> >
> > Anyway I bought one - it's still in the box unopened because I am
> concerned I
> > will have trouble getting everything to work if I do a Linux install on
> it.
> >
> > But it was cheap and I have until January 8 to decide if I want to keep
> it or
> > pay a restocking fee. Is that the way it goes with a new notebook? You
> just
> > take your chances?
>
> Generally yes, but if you want to be "safe" there are several vendors
> shipping laptops with Linux pre-loaded, "guaranteeing" that the hardware
> all works, including drivers for "exotic" things like touch screens and
> fingerprint readers.
>
> I think there was a recent Linux Journal article on these vendors.
>
> But of course the "cheap" feature may not be included :-)
>
> beww
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