Where are the cheap used laptops

[richlevy]

Well, I was too late for the $118 laptop. I figured it would have cost me about $50 to add a CDROM and hard drive to it.

After a few unsuccessful bids on Ebay, I bought a more expensive laptop from the same company.

Dell Inspiron 8100

CPU: Intel Pentium III-M 1.13GHz Processor
Hard Drive: 48GB Hard Drive
Memory: 256MB RAM
Display: 15" Color LCD
Networking: 10/100Mbps NIC
Audio: ES1980 Maestro-3 PCI Audio
Video: 32MB nVidia GeForce 2 Go/MX Ultra
Ports:

* 1 PS/2
* 1 Serial
* 1 Parallel
* 2x 2.0 USB
* 1 10/100Mbps NIC
* 1 56K V.90 Mini PCI Modem
* 2 PCMCIA Slots
* Sound

Drives:

* 48GB Hard Drive
* 24x CD-ROM Drive
* Standard 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive (hotswap)

Includes:

* AC Adapter
* Power Cord
* Battery

With sales tax the total came to $261. Shipping was free, and most of the laptops on Ebay cost $35-40 to ship. So I got this at the same cost as if I had paid $225 on Ebay.

Since the place is in PA, I paid sales tax. However, this does mean that it will be delivered tomorrow.

And now my dilemma. I didn't expect to be buying a PC with this much power and a dedicated graphics card. In theory this PC will run many of my game programs if I install Windows XP on it, and it has a COA (certificate of authenticity) sticker on it, so I can legally install XP on it if I can get my hands on a disk.

However, I really wanted to get off of the Windows merry-go-round and move to Linux to simplify security and not have to worry about dropped support for XP when Vista starts to mature. Right now my Virus scanner is a huge drain on my CPU. While I will install some kind of firewall for Linux, it's not going to be anywhere near as intensive as what I use to protect my Windows PC.

Still, I am so tempted to carry my some games with me on vacation. I really don't want to play around with dual boot. So I will stick with my original plan and go with Ubuntu or KUbuntu (any opinions on which is better?) and try to stay away from the dark side of the force.

I am concerned with getting the Maestro-3 sound card and NVidia card working on Linux. It looks like there are issues with Ubuntu and Maestro. I was hoping that one benefit of an older system would be that the drivers would be worked out for most of the popular hardware.

I found the ALSA project page for the ESS1988 (mine is 1980). I'm hoping I don't have to go to that much trouble.

BTW, there is some damage on the PC. The PC is under warranty and the first thing I will test is the NIC card, so I will know quickly if it's cosmetic or not. If it's not, the PC goes back. If it is just cosmetic, out comes the duct tape.

BTW, the ports are USB 2.0, so no worries there. Wish me luck.