I missed my chance to get a Dell laptop with XP and have been looking
around to see what is still available.  Lenovo offers some models with
Linux or XP, but the prices are a bit high and selection is limited.
I think I saw a few at Toshiba with XP, but again limited selection.

Are there any sources of laptops that have decent selection and don't
require that you pay MS for their crappy Vista OS?  It is looking like
I might have to build a compact desktop to get a decent PC without
paying MS for an OS that I don't want.

Rick

rickman wrote, On 04.07.2008 09:00:
> I missed my chance to get a Dell laptop with XP and have been looking
> around to see what is still available.  Lenovo offers some models with
> Linux or XP, but the prices are a bit high and selection is limited.
> I think I saw a few at Toshiba with XP, but again limited selection.
> 
> Are there any sources of laptops that have decent selection and don't
> require that you pay MS for their crappy Vista OS?  It is looking like
> I might have to build a compact desktop to get a decent PC without
> paying MS for an OS that I don't want.
> 
> Rick

At least here in Germany you can buy notebooks with "FreeDOS" operating 
system even from HP / IBM / Asus etc. 
http://www.notebooksbilliger.de/advanced_search_result.php?quick=1&x=0&y=0&keywords=FreeDos

You should have similar vendors in your country.

Regards, Rolf.

On Jul 4, 3:00 am, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I missed my chance to get a Dell laptop with XP and have been looking
> around to see what is still available.  Lenovo offers some models with

Here's a question - Why do you need to buy a new one? What about
dellauctions.com, or IBM's eBay auctions, or the refurb merchandise
link on toshibadirect.com, etc etc?

rickman wrote:
> I missed my chance to get a Dell laptop with XP and have been looking
> around to see what is still available.  Lenovo offers some models with
> Linux or XP, but the prices are a bit high and selection is limited.
> I think I saw a few at Toshiba with XP, but again limited selection.
> 
> Are there any sources of laptops that have decent selection and don't
> require that you pay MS for their crappy Vista OS?  It is looking like
> I might have to build a compact desktop to get a decent PC without
> paying MS for an OS that I don't want.
> 
> Rick

I don't want to get into flamewars about one vendor or another, but...

I do a lot of business with TigerDirect. I just checked, and they still 
sell XP Pro laptops. Some are off-lease, some are new.

I'm betting that their are other vendors as well.

RB

Rube Bumpkin wrote:
> 
... snip ...
> 
> I don't want to get into flamewars about one vendor or another,

Then don't recommend Tiger.  They have an evil reputation.

-- 
 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>;
            Try the download section.

CBFalconer wrote:
> Rube Bumpkin wrote:
> ... snip ...
>> I don't want to get into flamewars about one vendor or another,
> 
> Then don't recommend Tiger.  They have an evil reputation.
> 

I've used them for a long time, buying equipment for my kids' school 
(I'm the volunteer Sysadmin) and personal use. I've probably spent $10K 
and had exactly one problem with a desktop computer. I called and they 
shipped a replacement computer. It got there faster than the original. 
Within the last month I bought 23 512K SODIMMs for laptop upgrades. They 
arrived in two days and all worked.

RB

CBFalconer wrote:
> Rube Bumpkin wrote:
> ... snip ...
>> I don't want to get into flamewars about one vendor or another,
> 
> Then don't recommend Tiger.  They have an evil reputation.
> 
Only for you Mother Falconer.

I have used them for years, never had a problem.

donald

On Jul 4, 10:32 am, Rube Bumpkin <Some...@somewhere.world> wrote:
> CBFalconer wrote:
> > Rube Bumpkin wrote:
> > ... snip ...
> >> I don't want to get into flamewars about one vendor or another,
>
> > Then don't recommend Tiger.  They have an evil reputation.
>
> I've used them for a long time, buying equipment for my kids' school
> (I'm the volunteer Sysadmin) and personal use. I've probably spent $10K
> and had exactly one problem with a desktop computer. I called and they
> shipped a replacement computer. It got there faster than the original.
> Within the last month I bought 23 512K SODIMMs for laptop upgrades. They
> arrived in two days and all worked.
>
> RB

I have to say I am not impressed with Tiger.  I looked at the laptops
and found that they only categorize based on price, brand or CPU.
With 15 pages of laptops it is very hard to find just the ones running
XP.  Further the selection of XP machines is rather limited, just like
the other sites I found, Toshiba and Lenovo.  Someone suggested the
off-lease (otherwise know as *used*) laptops.  I can get one with a
Celeron M, which is I don't know how many years old, only half a gig
of RAM and 40 GB of HD for $420.  That is only a couple of bucks less
than the new machines with better everything!!!

Tiger does have a lot of stuff, but they don't make it easy to find.
It's too bad I can't build my own laptop like I can a desktop.  I may
try to find one of those really small case desktops, but so far all
the ones I could find are preconfigured with an OS... Vista.  I
haven't found a barebones case like that.  Maybe I need to make my
own.  How hard can it be to bend a little sheet metal?  I have a
friend who has a machine shop in his garage and I could build pretty
much any sort of case I want, and I mean *any* sort of case.  Another
friend built a PC in a beer case...  I think it was an MGD PC.  :^P

Rick

On Jul 4, 11:32 am, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have to say I am not impressed with Tiger.  I looked at the laptops
> and found that they only categorize based on price, brand or CPU.
> With 15 pages of laptops it is very hard to find just the ones running
> XP.  Further the selection of XP machines is rather limited, just like
> the other sites I found, Toshiba and Lenovo.  Someone suggested the

You're really casting blame where it doesn't belong. The situation is
very simple: Microsoft wants to book all the Vista sales it can in
order to obfuscate the true uptake rate of Vista vs XP and protect
itself against major competitors MacOS and Linux. Therefore it decided
to stop selling Windows XP licenses. The only Windows on sale now is
Vista, and there is a little fine print saying that you can downgrade
to XP if you wish. And this is 100% Microsoft's fault, not Sony's or
Dell's or Tiger Direct's.

Any fullsize laptop or desktop you see in any catalog preloaded with
XP is either refurbished or new old stock; i.e. used or leftovers. You
won't find the $499 "back to school" special laptops with XP on them.

Your only choices are therefore to select from the limited array of
"new old stock" computers that were preloaded by the OEM with Windows
XP (deal with the price), or buy a used machine (shop around; I bought
a ThinkPad R51, 1.6GHz/WiFi/40GB/1GB/combo for $175), or buy a Vista
machine and downgrade it one way or another. Plenty of XP retail boxed
editions are available on eBay, Craigslist et al.

You may also want to consider one of the ultraportable machines that
fall into Microsoft's category where XP is still allowable (but you'll
complain that these are expensive and slow and too small and maybe the
wrong color and smell bad).

Or of course there's the piracy route. Enjoy.

There's nothing shameful in buying a used machine, though. Most of my
computer equipment is purchased used; the only new computer in my
office is my MacBook. (Well, "new" = "1 year old but I bought it brand
new").

rickman wrote:
> I missed my chance to get a Dell laptop with XP and have been looking
> around to see what is still available.  Lenovo offers some models with
> Linux or XP, but the prices are a bit high and selection is limited.
> I think I saw a few at Toshiba with XP, but again limited selection.
> 
> Are there any sources of laptops that have decent selection and don't
> require that you pay MS for their crappy Vista OS?  It is looking like
> I might have to build a compact desktop to get a decent PC without
> paying MS for an OS that I don't want.
> 
> Rick

Do a web search for "whitebox computer" or "whitebook computer".  A 
couple of years ago there was great interest in selling bare laptops for 
the user to assemble; I think it's died down but there's still a market 
for small OEMs to 'make' laptops from semi-standard components.

Also, check out System76.  They're one of the aforementioned small OEMs 
that integrate an Asus whitebook into a full system and load Ubuntu 
linux on it.  The best part is that they support some of the unique bits 
of the laptop that Ubuntu doesn't -- when you get a System76 machine it 
comes with their custom drivers, which they seem to be pretty good about 
keeping updated.

There prices are surely a bit higher than bare parts from Asus, and way 
higher than a good used or refurbed machine, but my Gazelle laptop has 
worked just right out of the box, the only problems I've had with it 
have been self-induced, and their service department has been quite good 
about supporting me.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html