chip33az@netscape.net

  Hi everyone.  Wanted to share an experience with the group.  I bought a Dell 2.8G  Intel duo / 1Gig RAM / 160G HD / 19 inch flat panel late November for  about what lesser components to upgrade my old 500 MHz dev box would have  cost.    Thanks to Nathan in Payson I bought a Dell with much more.  I must add  I'm extremely happy!  I finally loaded Linux on it Friday.  It took only an hour or so to do  the install, however it took all day to find a distro that would find  the flat panel and NIC.  I tried Fedora Core 4 - bombed right away on  the display driver.  Xubuntu 6.06, Ubuntu 6, and Ubuntu 6 - alternate.   Either they could not
 find the NIC or the flat panel diver.  These guys  required that I get much deeper into the install before the problem  occurred.  Not as much fun as finding out right away!  So after numerous attempts and several hours of frustration, I  downloaded Fedora 6.  This was  also an interesting experience.  Starting at  about 4:30pm on Friday I tried to download from only west coast servers.   Several were at like 17kbs .... telling me it was going to be 2 1/2  hours.  Then I happened upon one of the west coast university servers.  It  took 11 or 12 minutes per disk.  Maybe it had something to do with Good  Weather, South Coast (beach), and University Students. There are 5  disks plus a rescue disk.  A little multi-tasking and I was burning and  installing at the same time.  Fedora found all my hardware and setup completely.  A few more  packages and I was home free.  Just thought I would share my experience.  This is my second Dell in as  many years.  The other Dell works well
 for my wife.   I'm finding they have great deals on great hardware.  Keith