[PLUG] Hardware question from "fly-over country"

Paul Heinlein heinlein at madboa.com
Tue Nov 29 15:32:42 UTC 2011


On Mon, 28 Nov 2011, Richard Owlett wrote:

> I'm in RURAL SW Missouri. A local used/surplus computer store is 
> offering a Dell Latitude D620 (4GB memory, 80GB hard drive, Intel 
> Core Duo @ 2.4 GHz) for ~$500. It reportedly has the majority of 
> manufacturer's warranty.

A Latitude D620 runs all the Linux distros I use (CentOS, Debian, 
Fedora, Ubuntu) mostly trouble-free. The biggest sore spots, depending 
on distribution, are

  1. Wireless drivers
  2. Power management
  3. External monitors
  4. Battery life

The Latitudes can be ordered with Intel wireless cards or Dell 
wireless cards. Drivers for the Intel cards are usually solid, but the 
Dell cards are hit-and-miss, depending on the exact version you're 
getting. In general, Ubuntu is distribution that provides the most 
pain-free wireless installation, but any of them should work with a 
little elbow grease.

Power management in Linux is just not that polished when compared to, 
say, Mac OS X. I've had so-so luck getting Linux systems to reliably 
suspend or wake. The newest Fedora releases seem the best in that 
regard to me, but the bar is pretty low.

Connecting and disconnecting external monitors is more of an X11 
problem than a Latitude issue, but expect hiccups if you plan to 
do so repeatedly during a single power cycle (docking and undocking, 
or connecting to a wall projector). I can't say that any single 
distribution is better than the others in this regard, but perhaps 
someone on the list knows better.

Finally, expect to replace the Latitude's battery every 20 months or 
so. Even if you treat the battery with kid gloves and obsessively do 
full drain and recharge cycles, the battery's lifecycle will slowly 
spiral downward. It's not you. It's the computer. :-) I've had mixed 
luck with third-party manufacturers of Latitude batteries; I tend to 
buy them from Dell these days.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/



More information about the PLUG mailing list