I have used Tecra's in the past, and they are good machines. A friend suggests she has heard stories about their technical support slipping, but I've never had trouble. She's just had a lot of trouble with a new Dell, and she's using my Tecra780 to get her schoolwork done.
I now have a T21 Thinkpad, running SuSE 7.3 (kernel 2.4.10, XFree86 4.1.0). Sound, video, pointing stick ran out of the box. Floppy, LS 120 drive, DVD/CD, and 2d hard disk are recognized without drama. The Intel 10/100 ethernet and the built-in modem work fine (the modem is a Lucent, and an rpm for the kernel is available. I used a null ethernet cable to transfer my files from the Tecra to the Thinkpad). It suspends and restores (although I haven't messed with networking while doing these). It recognizes USB devices (like my Fuji1300 digital camera), but I haven't tried using any. It recognizes my 3Com Megahertz 10/100 LAN PC Card. I bought it on eBay, direct from IBM (yup, they've unbuttoned the shirt - at least the top button), for US $1310, full warranty. I've seen A series machines as well, but I expect they're selling the last generation (there's an A22p for sale as I write this, and several T22 series). But then, that might suit for that price. My backup is a 2d hard disk in the Ultrabay and "dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc". I can swap the drives, and lilo runs and I can boot either linux or the W2000 that came on the system. I bought the hard disk carrier on eBay from a 3d party, but the 2d disk is also straight from IBM on eBay - 20G for US $93, the identical disk as the original (so no warranty problems). I have put a friend's Compaq disk (Toshiba actually) in to back it up while I restore her system, and that also was recognized without fanfare. I haven't tried the IrDA or the video out. I've read on SourceForge there is a basic driver for the Ultraport camera (clips on the top of the display for video conferencing), but I haven't gotten that far. I'll be getting the external floppy cable soon, and I'll try that then. I'm pleased. It's *light* and feels solid, and it's backed for 3 years internationally by a 900 pound gorilla - I've dealt with IBM tech support before (in New Zealand), and they were fine. I don't expect the recession will slow them down much. regards, Bret [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I was originally looking at a toshiba Tecra 9000 for a new Laptop to > fit my budget of $5000 CAD. I recently came across the IBM Thinkpad > A30p which i can squeeze into the budget as well. I'm favouring this > over the tecra now for a few reasons (133MHz Bus instead of 100, ATI > Radeon 32 MB instead of some other garbage, Video in/out as opposed to > tv-out only etc etc..) Does anyone know of any problems running linux > on this model or have any opinions on IBM's w/ Linux as opposed to > other Laptop Manufacturers? > > TIA > Andre -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
