Options for buying a computer.

[Amanda Lee]

Get into the frame of mind of thinking about a USB port as now being the
most universal port going forward until something else comes along to
trump it.  My NOtebook has 4 <g>!  No serial port; 1 parallel port and
ah'yes! a Firewire Port ...  Modems, keyboards, Speech Synthesizers,
Network Interfaces, Scanners, Printers, most any peripheral out there
these days is available in a USB life form! <g>!

Amanda Lee

Alexandria, VA



On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, Steve Holmes wrote:

> 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
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
>
>
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