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On my vacation I went into Media Markt in Germany. Normally the employees have no clue what they talk about so I tend to brush them off because they have noting new to say anyway...
After the third guy offered to help while I was studying the laptop section I was really tired of getting "helped" so I pulled out the heavy gun:
"I want a Linux ready laptop without Optimus technology and no WIndows" Now that should scare him off (it usually does ).

True enough - he had no clue what Optimus was but..... He did have a laptop without Windows!
Now that is plain impossible here so I was more than interested - finally someone that has not been forced by Microsoft to put that inferior OS on the computer!

So he gave up all the rehearsed nonsense that they normally fool the poor innocent "victims" with and just pulled out an Acer Aspire 5250

He was a bit apologizing when he said there was no OS on it and rather surprised by my big smile. And even more surprised when I rejected his offer to put Windows on it for an extra 50 EUR




It actually came with Linpus installed - but that is no keeper. And there was no GUI. I always test if the Laptop is hot in the store. And I noticed the the HP laps were extremely hot. This one does not even get warm compared to that.
And the entire enchilada costs 299 Euro. I thought it was a fair price so I bought it.

I have put Arch on it and given it to my wife. The main problem was that I could not get the Network manager to work with the Atheros (wireless) card. It would simply freeze the computer to the extent that I had to use the "Swedish button" (Power off).
So I had to make some network starting stuff and put it in rc.local - my wife will not notice the difference anyway.

The drivers for AMD are not that good either, but I found some free ones that do the job.
The moral of the story is that there are some companies selling Laptops without Windows and have a reduced price because of it. That is worth an honorable mentioning.

Nice story!

viking60 wrote:So he gave up all the rehearsed nonsense that they normally fool the poor innocent "victims" with and just pulled out an Acer Aspire 5250

When I tried googling for something about this machine in the more evolved English language ( ), one result was a grandmother's memory question about "the new Wal-mart disposable laptop" at Tom's Hardware.

Nice tip there if I ever need more memory. And yes this could be a Wal-Mart product in Germany they have the Aldi products: Buy beer bread and a laptop. And some of them are actually quite good at a reasonable price.
This one looks good and has been behaving well for 24 h now
Edit:
Found a foreign link:


The capacities are more than sufficient for a light weight Arch installation and any Linux installation really. Camera so everyone can see us picking our nose and DVD and USB ++
You will not miss anything. Exept maybe Nvidia
This is not the box for heavy duty 3d action. And that price of 328 USD is even cheaper than 299 Euro at the moment (currency thing - might be different tomorrow)

viking60 wrote:I have put Arch on it and given it to my wife. The main problem was that I could not get the Network manager to work with the Atheros (wireless) card. It would simply freeze the computer to the extent that I had to use the "Swedish button" (Power off).
So I had to make some network starting stuff and put it in rc.local - my wife will not notice the difference anyway.

First off, good on both of you, and good job!

Warning: This is a warning (re: this part of your post):

Then it goes on to state to use rc.local and netcfg to configure the network. I get this on boot, but for now it doesn't freeze me up or anything. It could be that on a fresh install this does indeed need to be done, but since I was already installed and configured, all it does is throw this at me on boot, right between loading Syslog-NG and bringing up the network.

Yup I used netcfg and rc.local. It works, but I am sure there are other ways of doing it. I will play around with it when my wife is not using it.
Not sure I understand what is deprecated though

viking60 wrote:Not sure I understand what is deprecated though

See here (and is what i couldn't completely find the words for in my previous post, as I couldn't get to that exact message at the time; it doesn't show up in dmesg):

Code: Select all

Warning: This functionality is deprecated.
  Please refer to /etc/rc.conf on how to define a single wired
  connection, or use a utility such as netcfg.

Inxsible wrote:the format of the rc.conf was changed because net-tools (which also provides ifconfig) was deprecated.

yes I have noticed. I have been able to ssh into my other boxes with the ip though. And I am using netcfg which seems to be correct. I am not sure this is rellevant for the network-manager, but it could be.
I think I will continue blaming the card and the drivers.

Just an update here, because I always miss that myself on the internet. This Laptop has been in use for some time now and it is rock solid with Arch!
I have Gnome3 KDE and enlightenment on it and we use XBMC to stream live TV and there is no lagging whatsoever! And the quality is perfect!

This one was worth the money!

My wife is a complete amateur, she has one interest in a laptop: It must work, and in the exact way she wants to! If it doesn't .......she will kill me! So you can imagine the pressure. And this box has preserved my life (It might be Arch that has though)!

So heartwarming to hear your tale of domestic tranquility.


(p.s. I'm envious of your hip, new multimedia server.)

Yeah the absolute amateurs are the toughest customers, especially if you are married to them
And eh server eh,,, But I'll take your word for it!