OT $45.00

[Collins Richey]

On 8/10/06, Tim Wunder <tim at thewunders.org> wrote:
> On Thursday 10 August 2006 8:39 am, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> > On Thu, 2006-08-10 at 07:08 -0400, Kurt Wall wrote:
> > > On Wed, Aug 09, 2006 at 08:42:21PM -0700, Bob Hemus wrote:
> > > > I bought a Gateway in 1997 that came with win95.  I just got a chit in
> > > > the mail from M$ for 45 bucks!!  Hot Dawg!!
> >
> > But, unfortunately, it was still a Gateway...
>
> Gateway in 1997 was a far cry from the Gateway of recent vintage. It might
> have actually been a decent computer...
>

I'll check back in a couple of years. I have a Gateway of extremely
recent vintage, and it's OK thus far, but the fans are a little noisy.
The only real irritation is the fact that it's too new (amd64 with
nForce MCP51 board) for perfect Linux support. I've finally gotten
sound to work, but the nic has a hiccup when you go back to Linux
after booting WinCrap (potentially fixed in a later kernel). It
certainly eats up the compiles for Gentoo in no time flat.

I've even had reason (a personal screwup) to reinstall the WinCrap
using the supplied disk, and that went without a hitch. One side
benefit, the WinCrap installer honors the current partitioning setup
(it had been reduced with ntfsresize using Ubuntu), and after the
reinstall, I was able to half the wasted WinCrap space yet again.
About the only thing I need WinCrap for is the Epson printer
utilities. There is a FOSS version that works partially. And, if I
encounter one of those PDF files that uses the latest and greatest
Adobe crapola thathasn't yet been offered in acroread, it's handy.

So, from my standpoint, it's a bit too early in the game to knock
Gateway. My general impression from work and home is that all large
manufacturers these days build to the "you're toast in 2+ years"
desktop spec.

-- 
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.