Hardware Archive

When Dell put up its IdeaStorm community-feedback site, the company was surprised by the strong response in favor of shipping personal computers with Linux. The PC company then announced that it would offer Ubuntu Linux on select systems, and as of yesterday, they are taking orders. Ubuntu Linux is now available on the XPS 410n high-end desktop system at USD 849 (compared with USD 899 for the same machine with Windows installed), the E520n desktop at USD 599, and the E1505n notebook at USD 599. For now, the Ubuntu systems will only be available to customers in the United States. Availability is expected 'in the coming weeks' according to an announcement given on May 1, but Dell.com lists a shipping time of three to five days.

Chip-maker Intel "should be ashamed of itself" for efforts to undermine the USD 100 laptop initiative, according to its founder Nicholas Negroponte. He accused Intel of selling its own cut-price laptop - the Classmate - below cost to drive him out of markets. Professor Negroponte, who aims to distribute millions of laptops to kids in developing countries, said Intel had hurt his mission "enormously".

"Ubuntu Feisty Fawn and Windows Vista are two state-of-the-art desktop operating systems. I got this Bi-OS laptop (with Feisty and Vista Business) recently as my desktop replacement. I compare some features of Vista vs. Feisty. Both operating systems have made great progress. Laptop is well built and great for a consultant like me (albeit tad heavy)." More here.

"Late last week the One Laptop Per Child project had a media event in Cambridge, and while I couldn't make the event, I did tape a video interview for the BBC on the project. During my preparation I kept coming across these claims that Microsoft and OLPC had partnered to put Windows XP Starter Edition on the OLPC, and according to one report, this was being done to get the XO laptop into US schools. None of this jibed with what I had been hearing from sources, so I decided to look into it further. As it turns out, a number of new outlets, including the AP and Reuters, mischaracterized the situation."

It's been 12 years since I got my first PC. Back then, it came with a 14" 800x600 CRT monitor. But times change. Now, for just $250 you can get a 22" LCD monitor with a 1680x1050 resolution! Geeks.com were very kind to send us one of their LCD monitors, the Viewsonic VX2235wm, for a review. We tested the monitor under Windows, Linux and the Mac and here is what we found.

"Clive Sinclair's ZX Spectrum is a quarter of a century old today. The machine that really launched the UK IT industry hit the streets of a depressed Britain on 23 April, 1982. Dark days, then. But lo, along came bespectacled Messiah Sir Clive Sinclair with the successor to his 1981 release, the black-and-white ZX-81. The ZX Spectrum boasted a visual cortex-melting eight colours at 256 x 192 resolution, blistering 3.5MHz CPU, and crucially, a crisp-repelling vulcanised rubber keyboard."