From news.sai.msu.su!Radio-MSU.net!news.dfn.de!newsjunkie.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!reason.cdrom.com!usenet Sat Apr 06 21:26:49 1996 Path: news.sai.msu.su!Radio-MSU.net!news.dfn.de!newsjunkie.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!reason.cdrom.com!usenet From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Why to not buy Matrox Millennium Date: Thu, 04 Apr 1996 02:52:05 -0800 Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM Lines: 39 Message-ID: <3163A9D5.2F1CF0FB@FreeBSD.org> References: <4j21ph$crr@slappy.cs.utexas.edu> <4j3muv$34m@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> <3155FA66.167EB0E7@FreeBSD.org> <4jasq0$phk@jaws.cs.hmc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: time.cdrom.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b2 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2-CURRENT i386) To: Deborah Gronke Bennett Xref: news.sai.msu.su comp.os.linux.development.apps:2088 comp.os.linux.development.system:3539 comp.os.linux.x:4674 comp.os.linux.hardware:5719 comp.os.linux.setup:8509 Deborah Gronke Bennett wrote: > Gateway has recently changed their default bundles so that they all > have the Matrox card in them. Furthermore, they have also changed their > policy so that if you want a card which is not in the default bundle, > you don't get any credit for the card which is deleted. So even if And this is yet another excellent argument for why I will probably *never* buy a "canned" system like this and always either build my own or contract with a local dealer (in my case, compumart in Walnut Creek) to build me a system from a list of components that *I* specify. I realize that this is sometimes a problem for the large corporate buyers which have MIS departments from hell which only allow purchase orders from vendors on a very short list, but even the largest companies have started to cave in given the extreme volatility of the PC market. When I started at Lotus a few years back, we were allowed to buy systems from Compaq and DELL. Period. When I left, we were allowed to generate PO's for the PC vendor down the street since it was so often transpiring that DELL and Compaq didn't *have* the kinds of systems we needed at any price. All it generally takes is some significant push-back from engineering that their work is being held up because big vendor X is not capable of supplying systems with parts Y and Z, which are of course indispensible. After being bored with the exact details once or twice, most MIS depts will pretty much cave in (Geek: "You see, the gateway box is using the Diamond Mongoose card which has only 1.7MB of QRAM and it.." [MIS director with glazed look on face]: "Uh.. OK, uhm, fine.. Order it from someone else then!"). Oh yeah, if you're in the south S.F. bay area, there's even a vendor which knows (gasp!) about UNIX systems, albeit BSDI systems. ASA Computers in Sunnyvale has been churning out BSDI boxes for a few years now, and what makes a good BSDI box also makes a pretty good FreeBSD one. Ask for Billy and tell him I sent you - it might shift him a little closer to the FreeBSD axis.. :-) [No, I don't get a commission! :)] -- - Jordan Hubbard President, FreeBSD Project