Acer and Gateway - Predictions anyone?

[ryokimball]

Gimme a beige box,
I'll do the rest.

lol, I've made every computer I've ever used/owned until this new (shiny) HP. We do have a couple of other machines that are lying around with presumably factory parts. For instance, the Linux-box which I commandeered during the black era between my last computer and this was one of two Gateways that my father purchased from his old workplace. They work surprisingly well for such wimpy computers (low RAM and CPU speed, et cetera). I don't recall nor feel like looking up said specs, but they were running Fedora 6 with virtually no lag, although I think it did have some problems with some proprietary formats in videos and such... but that's all software.
As far as Acer goes, my grandmother has a very old one. It seems okay aside from the crawling speed of Windows 98 (or is it 95?) and other bugs. I don't think all of those can go under the software side of things, but then again, it is Microsoft.

All in all, a computer's a computer. Some companies can put them together better, but even with this machine, the first thing I did (before even booting) was open it up and tweak some bells and tune some whistles (I can't stand to have only one hard drive and one cd/dvd-rom... it makes me feel obsolete-er than I already am). So "Gateway" and "Acer" are pretty much useless words in my vocabulary.

[carlosponti]

an old gateway serves as my file server with CentOS but it was bought in 1998 i believe. Pentium III 500 processor and almost nothing else but the case is original. I added more ram etc. I can say that atleast its not packard bell i am trying install linux on an old PB with a 233 P2 MX and cant seem to get anywhere.

[celticgeek]

Right now my wife is using an old Gateway (600 MHZ, to give you an idea). Various things have quit working over the years (sound card, for example), but it is still functional. Right now it is running the original Windows 98, but I have installed various distros on it at various times.

I am using a two year old or so Gateway Model (554GE media box) and I am running CentOS 4.4 on it right now. It came with Wndows XP, but I soon fixed that. The CD player has died on it, and the DVD/CD player/writer died but was replaced under warrenty. Since the new DVD/CD player works well with CDs, I have not replaced the CD player. Other than that it is doing well.

I also just got rid of a six year old Gateway laptop that I got as part of a second bachelor's degree program. It was running well up until last fall when something died internally. I didn't replace it since I no longer really need a laptop (although I may buy one anyway). I was using it to try various desktop distros, and it was running Ubuntu when it finally died.

So my experience with Gateway has been pretty positive.

I have never used any Acer products, so I don't know about them.