Dell Inspiron 300m

[pmhauge]

A friend of mine recently bought a 15" MacBook pro and is giving away (although he was about to throw it away) his Dell Inspiron 300m. He describes it as "a worthless piece of crap that doesn't work worth a damn." However, something tells me he just might be describing Windows and not really the machine itself. From what I gather, he did a botched install of Windows and lost his trackpad functionality.

I don't know much about the specs of the machine, and assuming his problems are just software based, I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on running Ubuntu on one of these. Anyone using one? Ubuntu? Xubuntu? 8.10?

[ugm6hr]

If this is the device: http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-inspiron-300m-series/4507-3121_7-30468819.html

I don't see any issues with Ubuntu.

[pmhauge]

That looks like the one. I should be getting the unit today. Looking forward to tinkering with it. Thanks!

[pmhauge]

Got the machine. Installed 8.10. Was up and running in about 30 minutes. Wireless and everything else seems to be working just fine with no issues. It looks like the trackpad issue is hardware related, so I'm using a mouse until I can get the part and fix it. Otherwise, 300m runs Ubuntu like a champ, and considering I got the unit for free, who could ask for more?