First Impressions: My Ubuntu-based Dell

Posted 08/10/2007 at 1:55pm | by Robert Strohmeyer

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I was initially disheartened to notice that my audio card and GPU weren’t working out of the box. I had expected to have to enable the GeForce 7300’s proprietary driver using the Restricted Drivers Manager, but it simply wouldn’t enable until after I downloaded 84 updates, which took another few minutes. Fortunately, the Intel wireless card worked perfectly right away, so I just surfed the Web for a few minutes while all the updates downloaded and installed. After another quick reboot, the sound worked fine and I was able to enable the Nvidia driver. So the actual time from opening the carton to starting real work was about 10 minutes total. That’s a darn sight better than the usual process of wiping out a Windows partition, installing Ubuntu, and then configuring the drivers, which normally takes me about half an hour on my old notebook. And as annoying as it is to have any piece of hardware not instantly jump into action on the first boot, even my grandmother could have breezed through this initial setup process quickly.

Once the system was up and running, I enabled Desktop Effects to see a little eye candy. Ubuntu’s default Desktop Effects consist of a stripped down Compiz Fusion with just Wobble and Cube enabled. I wanted the whole shebang, so I ended up uninstalling Desktop Effects and installing the full version of Compiz Fusion, which took about five minutes. Then I spent another half hour screwing around with different themes, just for the hell of it, until I settled on something I liked. None of this was necessary, really, but what’s the point of having a new toy if you’re not going to play with it? To that end, once I had my desktop interface all customized out, I popped in Brazil on DVD and played with the notebook’s front-mounted media controls.

All things considered, the Dell Inspiron 1505N is a competent—albeit discontinued—notebook that strikes a healthy balance between business and entertainment (you know, busitainment). Dell’s preinstallation fell short of my expectations by delivering a system that wasn’t quite fully functional the moment I booted it up, but the machine basically fixed itself with the first round of automated software updates. But the real question to answer here is whether I’d recommend a preinstalled Ubuntu system like this to you, the reader. So here goes:

If you’re an experienced Linux user who knows how to select hardware appropriately, there’s no supremely compelling reason to choose one of these Dells over another system you like more. After all, you’re not likely to go looking for support from the manufacturer unless your hardware is legitimately defective, in which case the preinstallation wouldn’t help you much anyway. But if you’re relatively new to Linux, or just don’t feel like hassling with setting up all your drivers—which can be a pain even for those who’ve done a hell of a lot of it—then Dell’s Ubuntu systems are worth a look. For my own part, I’m pleased enough with the system. It’s got plenty of power for the limited gaming I do, and now that it’s up and running it’s robust and immensely stable. Could I have found another laptop with all the same components and installed Ubuntu myself for about the same price (and without waiting two weeks for it to arrive)? Sure. But I’m just as happy that I didn’t have to.

SIDE NOTE: I’m damned glad Dell is going to be selling some systems through retail channels in the coming year, because for someone (like me) who’s into instant gratification, it just sucks waiting around for a new PC to arrive.