[Beowulf] Re: What vendors would you be sure to check out?

[Bill Hoover]

On Sat, 2005-12-31 at 18:33 -0800, Greg Lindahl wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 31, 2005 at 11:14:25AM -0500, Bill Rankin wrote:
> 
> > 1) I have never had a problem getting the MS license dropped from the  
> > order.  In fact, on their web-based server configuration page they  
> > specifically have a "No installed OS" selection available.
> 
> I think this varies by model. You were buying "servers"; it's the
> consumer & desktop machines that won't let you choose no os. I just
> looked at a random Optiplex desktop, and the configurator only
> allows Windows XP, which is "free"...
> 

Actually, you can get most things (other than notebooks I believe).  We
have bought quite a few of the various Optiplex desktops without any OS.
It is a bit had to track down the web page references, since they
change.  At this moment you could go to:

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/desktops_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

which will show the Precision, OptiPlex, and Dimension lines.

The path I took to get there was dell.com, small business, desktops and
workstations picture, Dell Open Source Desktops (the middle of the left
side).