what will work out of the box?

Desktops are easy - just buy an Nvidia card... still closed-source drivers, but has AIGLX and compositing support... Depending on how much 3D acceleration you need, you may not need to spend more than $50.

Given my experience installing Ubuntu on 4 different recent Dell laptops, as well as my own 1505, I will go as far as to say that if you have an Intel video card and Intel wireless, EVERYTHING will work out of the box - 3D Desktop, WiFi, card reader, media buttons... everything.

thats what i figured. I have ubuntu on my home desktop now, but face issues with my ati x series card. Looking to purchase a laptop in the near future anyways and hopefully i will side with ubuntu.

What about suspend and hibernate? currently that's my main problem with Ubuntu. The suspend/restore operation not always works.
My other concern is related to the SD reader. I suppose it will work, but it's better to know for sure.

Suspend and hibernate will NOT work correctly if using XGL with an ATI card. However, I've verified that with an Intel video card, both suspend and hibernate work fine. As far as the SD reader goes, it works with no problems or hassles. Just so that I am being clear - when I installed Ubuntu 7.04 on a 14" Dell XPS laptop that had the Intel 915 graphics card, it took far less time to get it set up and configured than installing Windows. It took 40 minutes to install (only 5 minutes attended), 10 minutes to update (only 30 seconds attended), and about 20 minutes to install all necessary additional software (using the GUI only) and to configure Beryl. So it was a little over an hour, and EVERYTHING worked.

I'd go for the Nvidia card if I were you, just for the better gfx performance. The support there is better than it is for the intel chipsets.

I would like to clarify some points on suspend, resume & hibernate made in this thread.

All of these WILL work on any card.

However ;)

If you decide to install 3rd party, binary drivers (e.g. proprietary Nvidia.com "nvidia" driver or proprietary ati "fglrx" drivers) in order to get 3d acceleration then you will lose the resume and hibernation abilities.
- This is because due to the nature of their closed sourced-ness, Linux developers do not know how to "reinitiate" the card when rebooting.

Using the standard open source "nv" or "ati"/"radeon" drivers with these cards will let you take advantage of resume & hibernate, AND give you better battery life/management.

The intel drivers are open source and will suspend/resume & hibernate perfectly.

Does the Intel card in the Laptop Inspiron E1505N works fine with Compiz/Beryl? You know, I want all :-) I want to use suspend/hibernate/resume but also want to use compi/beryl. As you said that NVidia is not a good choice for suspend/resume functionality, I wonder if the Intel card is a good choice for Compiz/Beryl.

Intel is the ideal card for it in my opinion. You may get laggy performance with a useless effect like rain, but everything else "should" be perfect :) I'm hoping that Dell broaden sales to the Europe/UK and I'll be the first to buy one of those laptops. I'd definitely choose the intel over nvidia personally. Half of the Beryl developers use intel cards. They even got beryl working on an intel classmate at UDS Sevilla ;)

Message Edited by PriceChild on 05-30-2007 09:15 PM

So no doubt that the Dell Insiron E1505n has the right hardware for Ubuntu then? I wanted to wait for a neutral review, but it hasn't appeared yet. Also I wanted bluetooth hardware as it works fine on Ubuntu, but I need a new laptop so probably I won't wait anymore.

BTW: I don't live in the U.S. I will buy it thou a friend and he will send it to me. The possibility of a perfect working (supported) laptop for Ubuntu is too tempting!

Thanks for the tip related to the Mac.

What I'm looking for is hardware supported by the provider under linux. Known to work and supported. With my current Acer laptop, when I had to bring it to support they requested the original Windows XP installed. But if I have a problem with this Dell I don't have to reinstall Windows nor Mac OS X just to get support. (And don't have to pay for something that I won't use anyway).

That's the main reason I'm looking for this laptop. My old pretty Acer Ferrari looks so good, but in linux has some problems. So I'm willing to sacrifice the wonderful look of my laptop just for this, for hardware known to work AND supported under my preferred OS: Ubuntu Linux.

In addition I'm supporting Linux with this buy and not Mac nor Windows. I think that's a good deal for me, I just want to make sure everything is OK before I buy it.

The iSight camera won't and there is something else but it escapes me...

That's fantastic!! Thank you!!