Fresh OS installs on brand name laptops

[Phantopeth]

So my trusty Apple Powerbook G4 is hitting the 5 year old mark, and I'm beginning to put thought into a new computer. As much as a part of my just says "Just get a Macbook," I'm also considering getting a Windows based laptop instead this time around. I have owned and maintained several Windows machines over the years, so I know how to keep them ticking, so let's not go into that, please.

In the past I always delt with my own systems I pieced together myself, but I'm curious how easily one could wipe a brand name laptop clean and start fresh with a clean install in this age. If I was to buy, say, a Toshiba L300, and it was packaged with Vista installed from the factory, how easily could I use a copy of Windows XP I have to start fresh, if at all? Will drivers be a huge problem, or does Vista use different drive formatting, kinda like back in the day with all that NFTS/FAT32 business (or whatever it was), that would make a 'downgrade' of OS impossible? What if I wanted to try out Ubuntu?

Not being able to easily get at the insides of the machine and know exactly what I'm dealing with as far as hardware goes makes me feel uneasy about trying to mess with these things. Other than my Powerbook, the last mass produced personal comptuer I've owned was a Tandy my parents bought for me, I don't know, in the early/mid 90s (66 Mhz 486!). Everything between the two was DYI.

Thoughts?

[BlacktotheBlind]

Originally Posted by Phantopeth

So my trusty Apple Powerbook G4 is hitting the 5 year old mark, and I'm beginning to put thought into a new computer. As much as a part of my just says "Just get a Macbook," I'm also considering getting a Windows based laptop instead this time around. I have owned and maintained several Windows machines over the years, so I know how to keep them ticking, so let's not go into that, please.

In the past I always delt with my own systems I pieced together myself, but I'm curious how easily one could wipe a brand name laptop clean and start fresh with a clean install in this age. If I was to buy, say, a Toshiba L300, and it was packaged with Vista installed from the factory, how easily could I use a copy of Windows XP I have to start fresh, if at all? Will drivers be a huge problem, or does Vista use different drive formatting, kinda like back in the day with all that NFTS/FAT32 business (or whatever it was), that would make a 'downgrade' of OS impossible? What if I wanted to try out Ubuntu?

Not being able to easily get at the insides of the machine and know exactly what I'm dealing with as far as hardware goes makes me feel uneasy about trying to mess with these things. Other than my Powerbook, the last mass produced personal comptuer I've owned was a Tandy my parents bought for me, I don't know, in the early/mid 90s (66 Mhz 486!). Everything between the two was DYI.

Thoughts?

My thoughts:

If you think you'll want to go back to XP (I certainly wouldn't blame you) I would check the manufacturer's website, see what kind of drivers are available before you make the purchase. Most seem to have drivers available for both, but it's extremely possible that someone is making drivers only for Vista.

As for the filesystem, I'm pretty sure Vista uses NTFS, probably a higher version but NTFS nonetheless. If you're going to install Ubuntu, you can dual boot both a XP and Linux machine. Just install XP first. I'm not sure how Vista plays with Grub, I've only tried it with XP. Also wifi can be a real pain in the butt with Linux, might want to research that when you decide on a laptop.

As far as laptop hardware, there's really nothing to it. Most of the modern laptops will have manuals available on the internet on how to disassemble them. Just search google for the manual, it can be pretty simple depending on what brand you're looking at.

[Bayou_Brawler]

Originally Posted by Phantopeth

So my trusty Apple Powerbook G4 is hitting the 5 year old mark, and I'm beginning to put thought into a new computer. As much as a part of my just says "Just get a Macbook," I'm also considering getting a Windows based laptop instead this time around. I have owned and maintained several Windows machines over the years, so I know how to keep them ticking, so let's not go into that, please.

In the past I always delt with my own systems I pieced together myself, but I'm curious how easily one could wipe a brand name laptop clean and start fresh with a clean install in this age. If I was to buy, say, a Toshiba L300, and it was packaged with Vista installed from the factory, how easily could I use a copy of Windows XP I have to start fresh, if at all? Will drivers be a huge problem, or does Vista use different drive formatting, kinda like back in the day with all that NFTS/FAT32 business (or whatever it was), that would make a 'downgrade' of OS impossible? What if I wanted to try out Ubuntu?

Not being able to easily get at the insides of the machine and know exactly what I'm dealing with as far as hardware goes makes me feel uneasy about trying to mess with these things. Other than my Powerbook, the last mass produced personal comptuer I've owned was a Tandy my parents bought for me, I don't know, in the early/mid 90s (66 Mhz 486!). Everything between the two was DYI.

Thoughts?

refurbished macbook from the apple store ($900) + upgrade HD and ram yourself ($300) = gold

[Marcury]

Get a MacBook and run both OS X and Vista

[Phantopeth]

Originally Posted by BlacktotheBlind

My thoughts:

If you think you'll want to go back to XP (I certainly wouldn't blame you) I would check the manufacturer's website, see what kind of drivers are available before you make the purchase. Most seem to have drivers available for both, but it's extremely possible that someone is making drivers only for Vista.

As for the filesystem, I'm pretty sure Vista uses NTFS, probably a higher version but NTFS nonetheless. If you're going to install Ubuntu, you can dual boot both a XP and Linux machine. Just install XP first. I'm not sure how Vista plays with Grub, I've only tried it with XP. Also wifi can be a real pain in the butt with Linux, might want to research that when you decide on a laptop.

As far as laptop hardware, there's really nothing to it. Most of the modern laptops will have manuals available on the internet on how to disassemble them. Just search google for the manual, it can be pretty simple depending on what brand you're looking at.

Thanks. Part of the reason I was looking into those Toshiba laptops is that they can still be delivered with XP installed, rather than Vista, although I think I would want to to at least give the new OS a whirl before jumping back to XP.

Good to know that the majority of laptops can be opened up and worked on by the end user (a warrenty voiding activity for sure). I did the same one with my Powerbook to replace the hard drive: a fun, however stressful, way to spend an hour. My tinkering days with computers are over for the most part though, so that's not something I'm hoping to want/have to do. If I was still interested in that, I'd buy an empy mid-tower and go to town

So it at least sounds like clean installs are possible. My main concern and wish is just to have the ability to reformat my computer on a semi-regular basis like I used to do, without the added bloatware that so many brands put in there. If I were to toy with Ubuntu, it would certainly be on a seperate partition apart from Windows; I wouldn't rely on it solely without a backup OS I knew would function (uh oh, serious MS hater bait there).

In the end, as long as I can check my e-mail and do some Word/Excelling with relative speed, I'll be happy. At least I'm not in a rush to make this decision. Now if I can only figure out my other dilemma: Blackberry or iPhone, Blackberry or iPhone...

[BetterBottomEnd]

My laptop is a refurb HP that I've got dual booting XP and Ubuntu right now. I enjoy fiddling and other then getting my wireless working under linux it was pretty simple. I can't get vista to install for the life of me though BSOD every single time. If all you're doing is word processing and surfing Ubuntu is all you really need. I used 64-bit Ubuntu and had no issues with it.

[jkritchey]

I bought a Dell latitude from Dell that had been out on lease for 2 years. It comes with a self booting image, so that it installs first time you turn it on. After completing (7 minutes?) there was nothing, - nothing- on it but Windows XP Pro. (Dell Lat 410 - 1 GB Ram, 12" screen, $425)

I'd never seen that before, but in general the Latitude line, whether new, from the Outlet, or Off Lease have less garbage than the consumer line.