Hey folks, sorry it’s been a bit quiet around here lately, things are hectic at the moment and I’m still far from 100% fit. Anyway, just thought you’d like to know I got my new Ubuntu powered Dell XPS m1330 and it’s a lovely machine. I would highly recommend it as a powerful ultra-mobile Linux solution.

However, there is a problem with the one I’m currently typing this post on. It arrived with a faulty DVD/CD drive, arrggh!!! The motor on the slot-loading drive doesn’t work. Looks like I’ll be waiting a bit longer to move onto this system full-time then. I’ve emailed Dell but customer services are not open on the weekend, it will be a while before I get a reply. I’m really hoping they’ll ship me a replacement or send someone to fix this drive ASAP. It seems my luck is pretty bad at the moment with this and a few other things stacking up but I’m hanging in there and things can only improve right?

IMPORTANT EDIT: As of today 18/02/08 it appears that my dvd drive is working yippee!!! I managed to clear the blockage stopping the motor from working and I’ve been using it all day to test it out. It seems pretty stable and I think I fixed it. Eat your heart out MacGuyver Something got stuck in the drive before it arrived, maybe during transport it was knocked I dunno. As long as it doesn’t die again in the near future I will be keeping this machine and I’m very pleased about that

I was intending to do a full review of this system but there isn’t much point at the moment since this machine is faulty. I can report that it was installed with a custom Dell image of Ubuntu 7.10 which includes the dvd-css decoders and LinDVD for DVD playback. I was attempting to tryout this functionality when I realised the drive was broken, good job I did. Using this for a day so has confirmed what a nice machine it is though and I can’t wait to get the fully working one. In truth I don’t use the optical drive much at all but since I paid for it I’d like one that works. Worth checking out if you want a new Linux laptop though, your luck can’t be as bad as mine.

In other news: I’m currently running Foresight Linux on the desktop and I hope to have a review of that out before I have to travel for a few days next week. I’ll probably talk about it on Linux Outlaws as well, the weekly podcast I do with my friend Fab. We’re getting quite a few listeners now and it’s really nice to hear people’s feedback.

Check out my Fab’s review of his XPS m1330 here

So for now I await a response from Dell and possibly a new laptop or a new dvd drive at least. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m hoping it will be 3rd time lucky…