One of the common questions I get for my Ubuntu User column is what is my desktop or what is a good desktop for Ubuntu Linux. A few weeks ago I got a Dell Inspiron 560 on sale at Best Buy. It was a great deal, and ended up being a near perfect Ubuntu desktop.
Specs.
- Intel® Core™2 Duo processor E7500
- 8GB DDR3 SDRAM
- DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
- 1TB Serial ATA hard drive (7200 rpm)
- Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD
- 7.1-channel audio support.
- Built-in 19-in-1 digital media reader
- Dell 1525N Wireless-N mini card (802.11b/g/n)
- Built-in 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN
Everything on this computer works out of the box with Ubuntu. I thought the Dell 1525N wireless card was a Broadcom device and was planning a night of sacrificing chickens to the dark wireless gods to get it working under Linux. I was pleased that the card used the ath9k driver and works great in Ubuntu.
With 8GB of ram, I installed the amd64 version of Ubuntu Lucid RC, and I’m amazed how far the 64bit version has come since the last time I tried it. If you have delay switching over to 64 bit for PC with more than 3GB of memory, now is the time to switch. I found the user experience between using the 32bit vs 64bit nearly identical.
The only issue I had with this machine was that the installer ran very very slow, about 10 minutes for the first screen to appear. I’m looking to see if there is an existing bug that matches this problem, if not I will be running ubuntu-bug ubiquity tonight.
If you are looking for a desktop that works great with Ubuntu, I strongly recommend the Dell Inspiron 560.