Re: [PLUG] Sources for a Microsoft tax free laptop

["K.S. Bhaskar" <bhaskar@bhaskars.com>]

I ended up purchasing a Pangolin from System 76
(http://www.system76.com).  I placed the order on the web on a weekend
and received an immediate automated acknowledgement followed by a
confirmation on Monday.  They sent an e-mail when it shipped (ahead of
when they anticipated shipping) and sent me a DHL tracking number.  It
arrived ahead of when it was supposed to arrive, and so far has been
reasonable.  I have not yet put it through its paces.

The only wrinkle was an eccentric disk partitioning that I will fix -
/ was mounted on /dev/hda1.  There was a small extended partition, and
it was entirely filled with the swap partition.  But I will take care
of it when I configure the machine.  I always set up two root
partitions, both pointing to the same home partition, so that if I
screw one up, I still have the other.

Bottom line is that it was a reasonble machine at a reasonable price.
The company was easy to deal with, and I didn't pay a tax for any
software I wouldn't use.

-- Bhaskar

On 6/1/06, K.S. Bhaskar <bhaskar@bhaskars.com> wrote:
> Thanks, all and especially Jim, for the suggestions.  I'll provide
> feedback on what I do.
>
> Even with a warranty, I am a little leery about buying a refurbished
> machine, after seeing the way some of my colleagues treat their
> laptops.
>
> As for a Mac, while it is not as bad as sending money to M$ for
> something I won't use, I would be sending money to Apple for something
> I won't use.  I want the freedom of a FOSS stack, which OS X is not,
> so I would end up running GNU/Linux (or maybe FreeBSD) on it.
>
> -- Bhaskar
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