Dell Vostro 1000

I have a Dell Vostro 1000 laptop computer. I bought it from Dell.com on November 19th 2008, as part of Dell's "Black Friday" sale. I paid $428 for it. Here are some specs:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-53 (1.7GHz/512KB)
Memory/RAM: 1GB, DDR2, 533MHZ
Hard Drive: 120G 5400RPM SATA
Optical Drive: 8X DVD+/-RW with Double-layer DVD+R Write Capability
Display: 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD
Video Card: Integrated ATI Radeon X1150 Graphics
Ethernet: Broadcom 440x-based 10/100 Ethernet
Modem: Included. Some WinModem I'm sure
Wireless: Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card (Actually a Broadcom BCM4311-based card)
Battery: 29 WHr 4-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Pre-loaded Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (OEM)

When I received the machine and powered it on, I was presented a dialog box (sorry, don't have a screen capture) which required that I accept the terms of Dell's EULA, as well as the Windows Vista EULA, before I could use the machine. Eventually I accepted the EULA, despite the restriction on operating Vista Home editions in a VM environment (one of the principal motivators for purchasing the machine. A disappointment, but not a surprising move from MS). It took about ten minutes for Windows Vista to utterly crush the enjoyment that I usually get from a new machine. That alone is a discussion for another time, though.

So far, I have glossed over a few different operating systems as a replacement for Windows Vista:

I haven't fully installed any of these yet, but I plan to be going through that process soon. I'm excited about OpenBSD 4.3, even though it's still several months away. The forthcoming release should include a brand-new driver for the BCM4311 wireless card built-in to the laptop. In the meantime, I may look in to getting an alternative mini-pci card that is supported.