One of the common questions I get for my Ubuntu User column is what is my desktop or what is a good desktop for Ubuntu Linux. A few weeks ago I got a Dell Inspiron 560 on sale at Best Buy. It was a great deal, and ended up being a near perfect Ubuntu desktop.
Specs.
- Intel® Core™2 Duo processor E7500
- 8GB DDR3 SDRAM
- DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
- 1TB Serial ATA hard drive (7200 rpm)
- Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD
- 7.1-channel audio support.
- Built-in 19-in-1 digital media reader
- Dell 1525N Wireless-N mini card (802.11b/g/n)
- Built-in 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN
Everything on this computer works out of the box with Ubuntu. I thought the Dell 1525N wireless card was a Broadcom device and was planning a night of sacrificing chickens to the dark wireless gods to get it working under Linux. I was pleased that the card used the ath9k driver and works great in Ubuntu.
With 8GB of ram, I installed the amd64 version of Ubuntu Lucid RC, and I’m amazed how far the 64bit version has come since the last time I tried it. If you have delay switching over to 64 bit for PC with more than 3GB of memory, now is the time to switch. I found the user experience between using the 32bit vs 64bit nearly identical.
The only issue I had with this machine was that the installer ran very very slow, about 10 minutes for the first screen to appear. I’m looking to see if there is an existing bug that matches this problem, if not I will be running ubuntu-bug ubiquity tonight.
If you are looking for a desktop that works great with Ubuntu, I strongly recommend the Dell Inspiron 560.
7 Responses to “Near Perfect Ubuntu Desktop”
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Did you get Windows refunded or did Microsoft bully another person into giving them hundreds of dollars for absolutely nothing of value? You might consider at least matching the cost of Windows in a donation to Free Software developers. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.
The computer is a dual boot system. While I strongly believe in Open Source software, I don’t not force my beliefs on my family who also use the computer. I, in fact, do donate both time and money to Open Source projects all the time.
You don’t need a 64bit kernel for >4GB of RAM. The Intel and AMD architectures have supported PAE mode since the Pentium Pro. In synaptic, you can address nearly 64GB of RAM in a 32 bit kernel like so:
* remove linux-image
* remove linux-headers
* add linux-image-generic-pae
* add linux-headers-generic-pae
I wrote a blog post about this some time ago:
http://blog.davidron.com/2010/01/make-ubuntu-faster-address-maximum.html
@david
I know, but I wanted to give amd64 a try and some bug reporting love.
My dad bought a Dell laptop almost two years ago now with only Ubuntu installed. He loves it and never has had a problem with it.
PAE does not work on all computers. Before I upgraded this work computer Im using now to 64 bit Lucid (it FLIES now!), I was using 32 bit with PAE and using my 4GB of memory. At home I have a very similar P4 computer with 4GB memory, and installed PAE but did not see an increase in my memory availability. This system is probably 3 years old, my home desktop is probably 4 years old. So PAE is great if it works.
Ive noticed only one prob on my 64 Lucid and thats Pogo.com… java games dont seem to load up (even with Sun Java, bc OpenJava or whatever its called was worse). Id like to upgrade my dads laptop system to Lucid 64 bit, but without pogo for him he wouldnt be too happy
The only problem I have run into with using 64bit Linux over the past 7 years is 32bit Flash seems to be less stable. The 64bit version of Flash that for some reason is still not in the official Ubuntu archive is much more stable. Kees Cook’s PPA has the 64bit Flash debs. Of course not using Flash at all is the better option, hopefully Apple will help kill it off sooner than later.
Why do you need so much RAM? Running Kubuntu on my machine leaves well over 3GB of my 4GB as cache!