Repair or replace laptop?

[DoYouKubuntu]

Great feedback and discussion, everybody! Thanks.

Okay, here's where I am right now: I think it's time to spring for a new laptop. I simply have no desire at this point in my life to experiment with the unknown, i.e., taking the dv7 apart and trying to fix it myself. I'm not going to buy a new battery for it because I always use it plugged in anyway--that's WHY its battery died...as happens with EVERY laptop I've ever owned...so far--my Acer Chromebook isn't there yet, but it's only about 9 months old. I'm shutting it down when it's not needed right now, so its fan being out isn't a huge problem. The NIC thing...I don't know. It's okay and then it isn't and then it is again. I think I'd just like to get a new laptop and go from there.

Even though I've already said I won't be buying a higher priced unit, I am going to look at System76 just out of curiosity. Stay tuned...I've been known to change my mind occasionally.

ETA: I'm looking at the System76 Kudu Professional, which has a 17" screen; configured as I want it, it'll be $828. That's more than I planned on spending, but...well, I'm pondering it now. Thoughts?

Also, will S76 customize the drive for me if I ask nicely? I want it partitioned the way I would partition it, i.e., separate:

/
/home
/data
swap

Otherwise, I'll do it when I receive it. But then that kind of defeats the whole purpose of buying something with *buntu already installed.

EDITED AGAIN! It's done. I ordered the S76 Kudu Professional, and added a note to my order with partitioning instructions. Total price, $927.79 [which includes CA sales tax]. WAY MORE than I planned on spending, but what the hell...

[MoonRise]

I can't really speak to other peoples money but I always try to get what I want and IF that means a slightly higher price I go ahead. If I didn't I know I'd regret it latter. Not much help I know but....oh well.

[NickStone]

EDITED AGAIN! It's done. I ordered the S76 Kudu Professional, and added a note to my order with partitioning instructions. Total price, $927.79 [which includes CA sales tax]. WAY MORE than I planned on spending, but what the hell...

System76 comes pre-installed with Ubuntu who uses Unity, are you happy to use Unity?

[MoonRise]

It'll be easy to switch it to Kubuntu. All will be well after that!

[DoYouKubuntu]

System76 comes pre-installed with Ubuntu who uses Unity, are you happy to use Unity?

No, of course not. But last I heard it was very easy to install KDE/Kubuntu. Which is exactly what I plan on doing.

Also, I received a call this morning from a very nice guy at S76 just to go over the order. He said that they can't do the partitioning I wanted and will basically slap everything on the same partition. He said it's not really recommended any more that you have separate partitions. I told him I'd do it myself once I get the computer--and noted that at least I don't have to wipe windows off of it!

[dibl]

In the past 12 months, I have done major surgery on a Dell Latitude E6500 laptop and a Latitude D620. In both cases, I found a youtube video that showed disassembly and reassembly, and I found a new screen for the D620, and a used mobo for the D620, and a used battery latch mechanism for the E6500, all on E-Bay for not a lot of money. If you need to pull the mobo, the wires that connect to the screen and the antennas are tiny and fragile -- I have a pair of surgical tweezers and also magnifying eyeglasses that came in very handy. I would bet a tidy sum that you will find your CPU heatsink TIM dried and possibly separated from the CPU, so that will need to be cleaned off and replaced.

On the Toshiba -- yes, I've lost track of how many times I've dropped my NB205 netbook on the floor. Fortunatly I replaced the hdd with an SSD soon after I got it, so it takes the beating and won't die. Although the evidence is, Toshiba doesn't give a fig for Linux or Linux users, their hardware is defintely well-designed and well-built.

[NickStone]

No, of course not. But last I heard it was very easy to install KDE/Kubuntu. Which is exactly what I plan on doing.

Also, I received a call this morning from a very nice guy at S76 just to go over the order. He said that they can't do the partitioning I wanted and will basically slap everything on the same partition. He said it's not really recommended any more that you have separate partitions. I told him I'd do it myself once I get the computer--and noted that at least I don't have to wipe windows off of it!

What you should have told him is to "forget about installing Ubuntu on it, just provide the laptop and I'll install Kubuntu myself on it and reduce the price as it won't come with a OS".

[NickStone]

Also, will S76 customize the drive for me if I ask nicely? I want it partitioned the way I would partition it, i.e., separate:

/
/home
/data
swap

Otherwise, I'll do it when I receive it. But then that kind of defeats the whole purpose of buying something with *buntu already installed.

I'm curious to know why you create partitions for Home and Data. What files do you store in your Home and Data partitions?

On my system I have a separate Home partition that I use to store all my files, from documents created using Libre Office to storing digital music from mt CD collection to videos recorded from TV. My root partition stores everything that is system wide. So I am just curious what you store in Home if you have all your files on the Data partition.

[DoYouKubuntu]

I'm curious to know why you create partitions for Home and Data. What files do you store in your Home and Data partitions?

/home is only available to the actual users. /data is available to all users across the network, and is used for storing media along with mail for the mail client SeaMonkey. / contains nothing but the OS and a few apps used by all users, such as SeaMonkey, which go in /usr/local. This scheme makes it extremely easy to back things up, because files are located in a limited number of locations. /home gets much less disk space than /data, and / gets much less than that.

[DoYouKubuntu]

What you should have told him is to "forget about installing Ubuntu on it, just provide the laptop and I'll install Kubuntu myself on it and reduce the price as it won't come with a OS".

It wouldn't have mattered, as there is no cost [that I'm aware of] for the Ubuntu install. Besides, I want to see what a pre-installed *buntu computer looks like!

[Qqmike]

Good idea, DYK. You can see how they set up the UEFI+GPT+ESP thingy.

Compare to the stuff in SteveRiley's subforum posts. Et cetera.
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forumd...EFI-assistance
Doesn't hurt to do so, out of curiosity, if nothing else. And it sounds like if you have questions, you can call them about it.

[Qqmike]

PS ... I forget what they are, but there are some commands Steve covers that help you explore what's there on the disk.

[ronw]

Besides, I want to see what a pre-installed *buntu computer looks like!

I recall being impressed by the out-of-the-box experience with my Gazelle. Not sure how much of that was Ubuntu or System76 or both.

I played around, but it wasn't long before aptitude install kubuntu-desktop. I re-partitioned at the next major release.

[DoYouKubuntu]

UPDATE: It's on its way to my door! Last I checked it was 'out for delivery' so it could be any time now.

[GreyGeek]

... I played around, but it wasn't long before aptitude install kubuntu-desktop. I re-partitioned at the next major release.

Playing around is one of the joys of Linux! I frequently try other distros to see how the compare with Kubuntu. I recently did the latest Ubuntu. Before that was KWheezy, and before that was Mandriva and SUSE, and PCLinuxOS. Always as a guest OS, except for KWheezy. In every case I've returned to Kubuntu because it is most faithful to KDE.