On Sat February 3 2007, Craig White wrote: > as hardware systems go, Dell makes systems that are as cheap as any but > they also offer better systems and I definitely think that the adage > 'you get what you pay for applies' here. > > I have few complaints about Dell and they are easy enough to reach on > the phone and get warranty repairs/parts and I haven't had any arguments > with them about repairs which I think inures to their credit. Also to > their credit, they have been extremely supportive to Linux - at least > with support for SuSE and Red Hat software, moderate in support for > Debian and interestingly enough, their software installs on CentOS > without any trickery at all (i.e. having to > 'doctor' /etc/redhat-release) > > Dell was strictly Intel until a few months ago and thus the market for > the AMD based systems has somewhat escaped them. I gather by the reports > that the newer Intel Duo-Core are in par if not outperforming the > AMD-64's these days but I leave that assessment to others that are more > knowledgeable about those things. > > Anyway, I think Dell has been an asset to Linux and all of their > PowerEdge servers for several years now have been certified to work with > Windows and Linux. > > BTW - Matt Domsch, Dell employee and author of dkms is also a member of > Fedora Project Board of Directors <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board> I'd have to mostly agree with all of the above. The issues I've had were with lower end hardware, though still business machines. But, I was on a low budget mission, and I didn't want to replace the Dell Optiplex's we're retiring now with more of the same. To get the same features in a Dell that I described in my earlier post re: the SuperMicro system we ordered, would have cost us more than twice as much. It wasn't my call ultimately - the decider chose to go with two systems for the price of one, which is about what it worked out to. -- Claude Jones Brunswick, MD, USA
