Debian Pre-Installed?

Can anybody recommend a manufacturer that builds a laptop with Debian preinstalled? In need 4GB RAM. Thanks.

 

FWIW, I've noticed that most outfits that specialize in selling notebooks with Linux preinstalled tend to be just as expensive if not more than big retailers like Dell and HP. If it were me I would probably check out Tuxmobil's database and find a last generation notebook that has good compatibility with Debian and see if I could find one of that model in good condition somewhere like eBay.

My two cents.

 

Just a question: Why would you need to install Debian on a notebook? That distro is huge!!! Why not consider a much more lighter, laptop friendly, Debian deriviate?

And yes, I'd also suggest installing yourself. I've noticed most places that install Linux for you charge more than Windows :S.

 

Yeah, I don't need all of Debian. Ubuntu would be good enough.

 

What the hell ??? Debian is customizable, people only install what they want. The minimum hardware requirements of Debian are less than that of Ubuntu (which is itself a debina derivative).

Debian has a huge list of AVAILABLE packages, doesnt mean one need sto instal all of it !

 

wearetheborg is exactly right. If you do a net install of Debian all you get is the base - period. No GUI, none of the overhead. It merely gives you a foundation to build the system as you wish.

 

If you go to lxer.com you can find a list of vendors that sell linux laptops. No matter what you get, Kanotix can have a fully functional Debian Sid system for you in about 10 minutes, once your hdd is partitioned right.

Edit: hmm... 4GB RAM.... probably have to get a sager, or something huge. I can't think of any notebooks that have that much RAM. But since sager does dual HDD, maybe they would have the RAM, too? What do you think you will need all that RAM for? I could eat it up pretty quick with some of my femlab models...

 

Hi, I'm new here
I was looking for that too, and I think if you go for an HP (like the new nc8430 with Core 2 Duo) with the FreeDOS (that means you dont pay $$ for Windows) and one 2GB of RAM (you may want to extend it to 4GB).

 

if you want ubuntu, look at system76.com, they don't have 4gb of ram, i dont think, but they offer nice notebooks built on ASUS barbones with Ubuntu preinstalled.

 

There is a site called www.empirelinux.com (it's down right now) that sells notebooks with Linux pre-installed. You can configure most of them any way you want them, including up to 4GB of RAM and a large choice of OS'. I don't have any experience with the company though.

 

You can do the same with Ubuntu Thats how I installed my system, so I didn't get programs I didn't use.

Also, I was just saying, that if you aren't going to use the masses of Debian packages on install, wouldn't Ubuntu's superior hardware support (especially with new hardware) be a better option?

 

As ubuntu is based on debian, woudn't debian support all hardware that ubuntu does ?

 

No. Each distribution has its own settings and included drivers/software. Debian is just the basic structure.

 

Debian is a fully fledged distro in its own right. Each distro has its own pros and cons. Some people may not like the Debian installer, or complain about the auto-detection, etc. I have had various versions of Debian installed on all my computers, which has included there laptops.

Unless the notebook/laptop is old, a more up to date kernel than the package available in the stable "Sarge" branch is needed, but there are choices such as tracking (following) either the Testing or Experimental branches (i.e. what will eventually become next stable version of Debian).

Because I prefer to stay with the stable branch, I get my kernel source from kernel.org, apply various kernel patches. I use a small number of packages from backports.org, for things like the wlan tools, because I'm too lazy to compile my own packages if there are already ones compiled.