new laptop!

Finally the long held dream of a notebook pc got fulfilled. And my dream was to say no to Microsoft EULA and to have only Free Software on this machine.

Which is a shattered dream...

I got this Dell Inspiron 8500. The machine is bigger and heavier than normal laptops. But a great 15.4 inch screen :-) It got delivered to a friend's place in Bangalore, the taxes being lower there. So I head there.

My plan was to say no to the Microsoft EULA for Windows XP and then install Debian on it (note I had given up all hopes of getting a refund for Windows in India; this was purely on ideological grounds).

So I boot up the machine and the XP EULA promptly comes up. I say `no' and put in the Debian woody CD. Proceed to wipe all shreds of XP off the machine and get woody to boot up.

The great thing with Debian is the seamless upgrades to the latest versions (via apt-get). Not having network access at my friends place, him and me take the laptop to his office (did I mention he works at Cisco? ;-) )

Where we discover an interesting problem. Debian woody does not support the network card, a broadcom 4410. The broadcom driver is available on the net, but there is no way to get it on the machine without the network card working. Argh....

So we come back, and I accept defeat. Install XP on it and cry myself to sleep at night...(not really actually, but I almost did feel physically sick)

So I'm back in Hyderabad now. Waiting for this weekend so I can bring the machine to my company and download the driver via Windows XP and then get Debian to have network support. Then bye-bye XP.

Still, kudos to bill gates, he did make me use the damn thing...