[PLUG] Buying laptop? Buy another hard drive

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Sat Apr 2 20:53:59 UTC 2011


On Sat, 2 Apr 2011, Keith Lofstrom wrote:

> You may need that Windoze hard drive for warranty service. You may also
> need it to upgrade the BIOS. Manufacturers typically charge more per GB
> for hard drives than Newegg or Fry's, so you can save money buying it
> yourself. And if you ever want to sell the laptop, you will probably find
> more buyers (sadly) if the machine is running Windoze.

Keith,

   Dell has a linux group pretty well hidden in the company, but they have a
linux based firmware tool kit. Currently only the BIOS is upgradable, but
they expect other firmware to join the parade. The idea is to upgrade
firmware as can be done with distribution software using yum, apt, slackpkg,
and others.

   Now, only .rpm packages are available (perhaps the .deb packages are
there, too). I've just joined the firmware developers' mail list and
volunteered to port the process to Slackware. I'll get help in writing the
SlackBuild script from the slackbuild.org folks.

   I don't know about you and others, but by the time I decide to replace my
portable machine it has no resale value regardless of what OS is installed.
:-)

Rich



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