Options for buying a computer.

[Steve Holmes]

You might be better off dealing with a local computer shop in your area
who might be willing to sell you a computer to your specifications with no
preinstalled anything.  Then you can stipulate that you want at least one
serial port, ISA slots or whatever.  Obviously if you are using new
hardware, new network cards, SCSI host adaptors, etc., you might not need
ISA slots but you probably need one or more serial ports for synth and
modem.  A lot of these local computer shops are quite reasonable and
certainly more flexible than a mail order place.  The problem with a lot
of the big stores and such, they preinstall operating systems and software
and there are sometimes warantee implications at stake if the machine is
reformatted with your own OS.  Just another thing to wrinkle up your
research <sigh>.

If top of the line performance isn't too critical to you, a used machine
might not be a bad bet either.  Linux doesn't require near the resources
that winblows does thus there's often a lot of people selling off their
older pentiums like a 133 or 200 and that will run linux perfectly!

On Mon, 25 Feb 2002, Anna Schneider wrote:

>
> Hi everyone.  If my message isn't very clear, I appologize ahead of time.
> I've had a very frustrating day in computer research lnd.  Even knowing
> that Linux isn't mainstream, I didn't know things would be this difficult,
> so if I'm a bit hard to follow, that's why.
>
> What I want to know is, short of building my own computer, are there any
> options for either buying a computer with Linux already installed or for
> buying a computer with no operating system on it to begin with?  Dell will
> only install on business systems, and Compaq's web site claims that
> several versions of Linux are among the operating systems they offer, but
> when I called the number listed, I didn't get any people, I only got "You
> live in Seattle Washington, Compaq computers are available at these
> locations."  Mutter mutter mutter.
>
> And while I'm here I'll ask a couple of other things.  Is there a list
> anywhere of scsi scanners currently in production complete with features
> and prices?
>
> And I've seen the occasional mention of a program called Viavoice on here?
> Is this a screen reader for Linux, and if so, what are its positives,
> negatives, and how does it compare to Speak Up?
>
> Thanks much.
>
> Anna
>
>
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