Hardware vendors

[Steven Stern]

My 7 year old Dell Dimension 8400 is on its last legs, so I thought it
time to find something new:

07/07/2012 11:57:40AM Agent (Sagar A): "Hi Steve"
07/07/2012 11:57:42AM Agent (Sagar A): "Welcome to Dell US Chat! My name
is Sagar Andreas and I will be your Dell.com Sales Chat Expert.I can be
reached at sagar_andreas at dell.com or via phone at
*******-*******-*******-******* ext. ******* . How may I help you today?"
07/07/2012 11:58:25AM steve: "I'm pricing out desktop computers. I plan
to install Linux. I don't see an option to select "no operating system".
Is there a way NOT to pay for Windows?"
07/07/2012 11:58:48AM Agent (Sagar A): "Its my pleasure to have you on
my chat line today. I'd be more than happy to assist you."
07/07/2012 11:59:38AM Agent (Sagar A): "Steve i am so sorry we dont have
any systems which comes with Linux as call comes with windows OS"
07/07/2012 12:00:01PM steve: "That's a shame. I guess I'm done buying
Dells."
07/07/2012 12:01:01PM steve: "bye"
07/07/2012 12:01:44PM Agent (Sagar A): "i am so sorry ..."
07/07/2012 12:01:48PM Agent (Sagar A): "Is there anything else that I
can help you with?"

Now that I'm done with Dell, I've priced out systems on Ohava, zareason,
and System76. The quotes come out with insignificant dollar differences.
Do you have any experience with these vendors?

A few comments;

1) No, I don't want to assemble my own machine from parts.
2) I plan to install Fedora 17
3) Looking at a quad core i5-3550, 8GB memory, standard "intel advanced
graphics" rather than a more expensive Radeon card.
4) 500GB SATA disk
5) mini- or mid-tower case



-- 
-- Steve