Buy a Dell or build my own?

[donlinux]

Curious for input from this society.
I'm going to be either building a new computer or buying one. My old compaq running Cassandra finally fried itself, and the $2.99 motherboard replacement from E-Bay didn't help.
Anyway, my question is this:
Is it better to buy a pre-built Linux/Ubuntu computer from Dell to show support and hopefully keep the linux boxes available there and elsewhere or should I just say the heck with it and build one from a barebones kit? If barebones, does anyone have recommendations for good linux friendly barebones kits?

I welcome all suggestions before making my final decision.

Thanks in advance for your valued input.

[nelamvr6]

Have you ever built a computer before?

You can have a lot of fun building your own box, and you can learn a lot.

But sometimes "learning experiences" can be costly.

Buying a Dell will give you a much easier warranty path if something goes wrong. If something goes wrong with your DIY box you may have a tougher time with warranty claims.

If you do decide to build your own, just stay away from the bleeding edge, stick with main stream brand name components and you may avoid issues.

[900i]

Pre-Built, Life's too short, why do you need to know how to build a computer?

[donlinux]

Built a few computers in my life and am comfortable doing so. I guess it's more of the idea of is it worth it to spend the extra money to try and promote linux via Dell or am I just supporting a short term "test" from Dell.

[veloct]

Personally, I don't have the time to go back to building and I'm comfortable running linux or getting linux to run on any PC so I would just buy but that's just me. Do what makes you happy, don't ask others. Always seems to backfire later on.

[allforcarrie]

i build my own desktops so i know its done rite and not some low grade crappy products.