First off, I need to mention that I am a big fan of Linux and in particular Linux mint 6 (a version of Ubuntu) for it's free assortment of software and improved security over windows and OS 10. Linux lets me do everything I need to do with a computer such as Internet, office, bit-torrent, videos, and music. If it had software to let me use/sync my iphone to it's fullest I would probably never use windows again ... but I digress. I was in the market for an affordable netbook for my wife. All she uses a computer for is to word process, do email, and surf the internet. She isn't the most savvy internet surfer and I'm concerned when she shops online about her letting hackers gain access to sensitive financial accounts. I initially considered a mac but decided against it for financial reasons. The Eeepc was also a choice but the odd arrangement of the touchpad was a turnoff. After seeing a similar linux netbook made by Dell (with their great reputation), I was sold. The netbook was easy to purchase from dell with plenty of options and arrived promptly. It worked great right away and behaved perfectly. It has it's own flavor of Ubuntu 8.04 and made it easy for my wife to interact with it according to her limited needs. Eventually the Ubuntu automatic update kicked in and wanted me to update. Being a pc user this was not out of the ordinary since pc users are used to daily antiviral updates, firewall updates, spyware updates, and windows security updates ... so I updated. After the restart it would not start, oops! I also did not have an external dvd/cd drive, double oops and couldn't restore with the provided backup disk!! I called dell tech support but they told me that they did not support the os and that I should call canonical. Canonical said that they didn't have a financial arrangement with dell and would not be able to help me. Being used to making linux flash drives I tried to make a flash drive out the provided dell software ... didn't work. I checked online for the dell linux OS iso image but dell deleted it. I called dell and they were of little support and didn't know why the software was removed. Eventually I used an Ubuntu 8.04 flash drive and reinstalled the OS. I Could not get sound to work but my wife doesn't do music or youtube and was content so I stopped there. I tried a Linux mint 6 flash drive but even it with all it's extra drivers could not get the sound to work. Probably in time the necessary dell drivers will come out with one of the Linux versions and I'll try again. The purpose of this review is to let potential buyers know that dell will not support you if you go the Linux route. If you do you may have a lot of work to do on your own to get it running once it crashes. Lastly even if you have an external drive you probably will still not be able to restore the OS. See the following link.
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