? 4 the PC PROS

[gpwurzel]

If you go down the linux route (which I strongly agree with), I'd suggest linux mint - very easy to use, you can make it look like windows if you wish, and the update cycle isn't as busy as Ubuntu. There are others, and which one you choose is entirely up to you.

Wurz

[Brooke]

proprietary doesn't mean incompatible.

Generally, I think it does in the context we are using it.  Otherwise, if you are using "proprietary" as a term for design, then everything (or almost everything) we are talking about here is proprietary in that you can't copy it and sell it.  The motherboard, the PSU, probably even the design of the fan blades on the fans you select -- if you copied them and started selling them in high enough volume under your own brand, the manufacturer might come after you for illegally copying their specific design and copyright or some other aspect of IP.

If we want to use the word "compatible" as a better description of what we're talking about, then the Dell machine is compatible with third-party memory, OS's, PSU's, cards, add-ons, etc., but probably not all that compatible for changing CPU's, since, as you point out, their BIOS isn't very adjustable, which is what I said in my earlier post.

[MADe]

I have a friend who has been talking Linux for awhile.
Since I am a do it yourselfer, getting used to Windows software has been challenge enough. I have no formal education regarding puters. I'm self taught, Google has been my teacher, Google and banging my head against wall. I'm stubbornly persistent when I want to understand something. I build things for a living so I have a wide variety of hands on skills. It also helped that by the time I got involved with puters, technology took off and it became EZ for end users like me.

I could not hook her up with Linux. I know to little and she knows nothing, she's in her 70's. Her machine is too old for W7 so its XP until the hardware dies. I had to replace the mobo years ago, so that machine is really good to go hardware wise. I built that machine over 10 years ago. It has a Pentium 3.0GHz/HT cpu and rambus ram LOL.
My 1st gaming build to play FA.

Last time I redid the OS, I placed her into a limited account. That seemed to help.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I have a friend who has been talking Linux for awhile.
Since I am a do it yourselfer, getting used to Windows software has been challenge enough. I have no formal education regarding puters. I'm self taught, Google has been my teacher, Google and banging my head against wall. I'm stubbornly persistent when I want to understand something. I build things for a living so I have a wide variety of hands on skills. It also helped that by the time I got involved with puters, technology took off and it became EZ for end users like me.

I could not hook her up with Linux. I know to little and she knows nothing, she's in her 70's. Her machine is too old for W7 so its XP until the hardware dies. I had to replace the mobo years ago, so that machine is really good to go hardware wise. I built that machine over 10 years ago. It has a Pentium 3.0GHz/HT cpu and rambus ram LOL.
My 1st gaming build to play FA.

Last time I redid the OS, I placed her into a limited account. That seemed to help.

I installed OpenSuSE to my 70 year old grandfather. He had no problems using it for internet or making documents (he was writing a biography).

[Vulcan]

proprietary doesn't mean incompatible. look in the bios, it's probably a modified (by dell) award bios. at least that was their standard from 1994 through 2010. you do realize using standard intel and amd chipsets is the way they maintain industry compatibility don't you? dell, like the other companies tried using modified chipsets which ended up causing them incompatibility problems. once in a while they do something stupid like change the power supply plug on the mobo, or use a low tier nic or sound chip.

That not what he means. Some PC manufacturers use components that require proprietary drivers.

[gyrene81]

That not what he means. Some PC manufacturers use components that require proprietary drivers.

[eagl]

I finally tried Linux on my laptop again, because my win7 install has picked up a lot of cruft and I'm not yet rdy/willing to reinstall everything.  First I tried mint, and it wouldn't run.  I got a mouse pointer but it hung up.  Trying "safe mode" didn't get me any farther.  So I tried Ubuntu, and it worked ok, but on reboot several subsystems didn't reset properly.  Sound and graphics were borked, so was the mouse.  It took 3 reboots before the laptop was back to "normal" running win7, so something in one or more of the Linux drivers were not only not quite compatible, but which put the hardware into a state that could be out of spec or damaging in some way.

So, I pretty much gave up on Linux on my laptop, at least for now.  Ubuntu worked ok but the UI was working too hard to be "not Microsoft", so there were some usability issues with menus being hidden and no single place to go see a list of all installed software (it was all scattered into various categories, except some apps were in more than one category and some apps didn't fit any categories so there was no way to launch them from the GUI, had to use command line), plus the somewhat scary hardware issue, led me to set it aside.

Maybe I'll try another simpler distribution, but some are too simple. I was going to try slackware since that was the first real distro I ever was comfortable with about 20 years ago, but they still need floppies for the installation boot image, and my laptop has no FDD and I don't have a functioning USB FDD.  So no slackware...

I've pretty much settled in win7, except for that MS home server box which I finally upgraded and got running again.  I love the functionality of that thing.  Super useful, and trivial to set up and maintain, and reasonably fast now that its running on hardware with native SATA and gigabit Ethernet on the mobo.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I finally tried Linux on my laptop again, because my win7 install has picked up a lot of cruft and I'm not yet rdy/willing to reinstall everything.  First I tried mint, and it wouldn't run.  I got a mouse pointer but it hung up.  Trying "safe mode" didn't get me any farther.  So I tried Ubuntu, and it worked ok, but on reboot several subsystems didn't reset properly.  Sound and graphics were borked, so was the mouse.  It took 3 reboots before the laptop was back to "normal" running win7, so something in one or more of the Linux drivers were not only not quite compatible, but which put the hardware into a state that could be out of spec or damaging in some way.

So, I pretty much gave up on Linux on my laptop, at least for now.  Ubuntu worked ok but the UI was working too hard to be "not Microsoft", so there were some usability issues with menus being hidden and no single place to go see a list of all installed software (it was all scattered into various categories, except some apps were in more than one category and some apps didn't fit any categories so there was no way to launch them from the GUI, had to use command line), plus the somewhat scary hardware issue, led me to set it aside.

Maybe I'll try another simpler distribution, but some are too simple. I was going to try slackware since that was the first real distro I ever was comfortable with about 20 years ago, but they still need floppies for the installation boot image, and my laptop has no FDD and I don't have a functioning USB FDD.  So no slackware...

I've pretty much settled in win7, except for that MS home server box which I finally upgraded and got running again.  I love the functionality of that thing.  Super useful, and trivial to set up and maintain, and reasonably fast now that its running on hardware with native SATA and gigabit Ethernet on the mobo.

Try Xubuntu or Sabayon. Mint has always been unstable POS IMO. The 'vanilla' ubuntu uses the horrible unity interface. Xubuntu looks pretty much like Win XP. If you want a distro that looks and feels almost exactly like Win7 (but with eye candy) try Zorin.