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First time on Forum...

I'm about to buy a cheapish mainstream desktop, blow away Windows, and install the latest Ubuntu. If the desktop hit the market about a year ago, what is the chance that I will be successful? I realize that it's high, but is it very high, so that I can risk my $250?

I installed Ubuntu, no problems, on an old Dell last weekend. Out of the PCs I'm thinking of buying for the next one, let me give a concrete example:

Dell i3847-4461BK Desktop PC with Intel Core i3-4150 Processor

On the Ubuntu site they said that Dell did have an U image for this exact one, but being a bit of a novice, I don't know how it will go with a generic install. Might there be missing drivers or something? Please note that this question is about probabilities. If you can give me a 0.99 for that example, great...

Thanks! Mike

MikeN
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  • I deliberately said that I have installed Ubuntu before, on hardware and in VMware in fact, so it's absolutely not a duplicate. I diligently did my research on likelihoods in general and that candidate machine in particular, but did not find an answer to justify risking my $250... – MikeN Jul 15 '15 at 22:45
  • If you do not whish to risk anything, why not buy a computer with Ubuntu preinstalled? Afaik shopping recomendations are out of the scope of Askubuntu. If you insist tho, you'll have to make sure on your own the hardware you are buying is Linux compatible. The most I can do is leave this link of a Linux hardware compatible store. https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ – xangua Jul 15 '15 at 22:51
  • I recently installed to a Dell SFF 3647 but with core i3. I did backup of Windows, used Windows to shrink NTFS, rebooted and made sure it ran chkdsk and had fast startup off. Then used gparted to create the partitions I wanted. I use 25GB for / (root) and data partition(s) and space to test other installs. The actual UEFI install using Something Else with it partitioned in advance took 10 Min. And on reboot it just worked. – oldfred Jul 15 '15 at 22:53
  • Here is a complete list of hardware suppliers who sell computers with Ubuntu pre-installed all over the world. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuPre-installed – xangua Jul 15 '15 at 23:00
  • Thanks for your info, xangua and oldfred. I'm in a hurry, so I'm going to buy the Dell I mentioned and give it a shot. I was hoping for a reply like: "An old Dell is virtually certain to work, and one that's been out for a year has, say, a 99% chance. Installing Ubuntu on a no-name box is 90-95% likely to work." Of course I made this up, but you see what I was looking for. Anyway, you have increased my confidence, thanks. I'll report back in a couple of days, FWIW. – MikeN Jul 16 '15 at 20:52

2 Answers2

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Inexpensive Dell laptops that come with Ubuntu preinstalled are widely available, including offline at stores, and you also save money by not buying a laptop that comes with Windows preinstalled. Dell laptops that come with Ubuntu preinstalled have customized hardware that is selected to be compatible with Linux.

Dell laptops that come with Windows preinstalled often require running some additional commands in the terminal to get all the hardware devices to work properly, but the probability of a successful installation is high, although I don't know how to provide an exact numerical value for the probability of a successful installation short of asking Dell. In general, Dell uses the Ubuntu community for supporting the Ubuntu operating system including providing drivers in the repositories, etc.

karel
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My experience with Dell is that if it does not possess "weird" graphic cards or the latest Nvidias, it just works.
Ususally the support for the Nvidias is added pretty quickly (one month or so after the release) via the latest proprietary drivers.

The only problem might be the wireless card.
Does it have it? Will you use it? If so, what is its chipset?
Please ensure that it is supported by the open source driver or at least its producer supports Linux, otherwise there will be a lot of problems.

You can simply Google the name of chipset + Linux and see when the latest problems appear.

dadexix86
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