13 May 2005

Buying a new laptop

After two days of trying to talk myself out of it, I ordered a new Dell laptop. It's an Inspiron 510M with a 15-inch display and lots of goodies in it. It's too heavy, but lighter than my current one. I checked online forums to see if it's compatible with the latest version of Ubuntu Linux; all indications are good, so I'm encouraged. I don't want to cope with tricky setups on my first foray into Linux. I can do command line, but I really don't want to be bothered. I also ordered an optional power pack with an airline connector (among other bits). I've been really annoyed at Dell that they changed the power input socket on their Inspiron laptops; I haven't been able to get a tip for the Igo Juice power pack (that I bought several years ago) to fit the power input on the Inspiron 1150 I'm using now. I hate waiting for gadgetry to arrive...