Last August, a piece of my own computer equipment died at work. It was a Dell Dimension 8300 desktop that my father-in-law had given me. In my municapl career, this system was near and dear to me, because it served as my Linux training computer and as a primary workstation. Using it as a primary workstation speeded up and made deeper my Linux education. All in all for an older hyper-threaded CPU computer, it was pretty fast, robust, and a great system.
To replace this system, it was agreed I could purchase a pre-installed Linux system with comparable hardware. Having had good luck with System76 http://system76.com/ with laptops, I chose to purchase a Ratel “Value” system, and proceeded to get it set up as a test system.
It basically sat with very little use until last week. I tried an Informix SE database copy. This is an unauthorized refresh that works. Basically, you delete the current database directory and all files, then copy over a new database directory and its files.
That copy time went from 2:17 on a Thinkpad T61p Dual Core 2.xG 4GB RAM to 1:40 on the Ratel. I immediately decided the Ratel would become my permanent workstation, and would act as my desktop (email, web browsing, including hosting test versions of our database applications).
All in all, I am pleased with System76 hardware and their support response. And, yes my laptop had a goofy motherboard and needed replacing earlier this Fall. My view of companies is you do not know how good they are, until you deal with them under problem conditions.
Comments on: "Unexpected and Pleasant Hardware Surprise" (1)
Very nice. Glad the Ratel worked for you.
They are great systems. A hair pricey, but you don’t have to muck with drivers or an extra installation of a Linux distro.
They only support Ubuntu though. That might be a deterrent for someone who wants to use, say, Fedora.
Nice writeup.
Amy