[vox] Default Linux installation on HP d220

[David Margolis]

Hello,

I just read about this in Linux Magazine and then went and checked it out.
With all the Walmart PCs that come with Linux, this isn't exactly
ground-breaking news, but it's nice to see one of the big companies
directly supporting Linux on a desktop PC.

Pros:
1. You get to choose _Linux_ as your OS right there on the web site
2. Slick, sturdy-looking, compact but flexible, black case with USB 2.0 on
the front
3. Good, well-supported hardware at a very reasonable price ($350-$450
depedending on what you add/subtract)

Cons:
1. Mandrake 9.1 - Mandrake is a good Desktop choice, but it seems most users are going
to format and reinstall their favorite flavor anyway.  Then again, not
too many _experienced_ Linux users would buy a preconfigured PC anyway.
Mandrake has a very helpful hardware-detecting installer, and lots of
equally useful userland tools, so given that, maybe Mandrake is the best choice for
this target audience?
2. No AGP - You're stuck with Intel Extreme graphics (though this chipset
is well supported, and configures with OpenGL pretty easily).
3. Shared VRAM (see No. 2 above), but you can dedicate lots of system RAM
to VRAM, so that is sort of a pro within a con

So it looks like the only real downside is the integrated graphics, which
wouldn't even a problem if they offered a backup AGP slot.  Othewise it
looks like pretty solid (and neat-looking) desktop PC with out-of-the-box
Linux support.


Anyway, I'm just throwing that out to bait opinions.  Most people will
probably say _blah, whatever_, but I think it's a reasonably meaningful
gesture from a more credible (hopefully) vendor than Walmart.

Dave