On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote: > On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 01:48:20PM +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote: >> *nod* Also, the Intel "Extreme" graphics chips have decent Linux >> support, as I understand it, and that is the new budget chip in IBM >> laptops. > > 3d support? i'd happily go with anything with nice open > support. 3d is just for toys (a game or 2 or screensavers), but > it's nice to have a bit of glitz when people see a linux laptop.
Well, that is good. I feel very much the same way, but there are plenty of people who really want 3D for some reason. Anyway, both the IBM options have good Linux support. [...] >> I have a P4m-1.8 processor. Sure, it takes me ten minutes to compile a >> kernel but, day to day, I get wonderful performance out of the hardware. >> A faster CPU just wouldn't make that much difference to me, while a 24 >> hour turn-around on replacing a failing hard disk, including IBM sending >> it to me by courier so I had *zero* downtime, is worth quite a bit.[1] > > i'd like to try to spring for the most processor i can afford > just to keep the machine more useful longer. too be honest, i'm > still working nicely at 600mhz, but the rest of the machine is > failing. That is what I did with this laptop, but then I also paid for the 1600x1200 ultra-fine LCD, and that was certainly worth the investment. That said, 1.7GHz P4 is fast enough to achieve everything I want without breaking a sweat, and most of the things are Pentium-M instead; that is worth around a 20% performance increase for day to day use. > i might have to think real hard about the ibm. do they have any > machines designed for linux, meaning all the cool built-ins > (nic, wlan, bluetooth, sound) definitely work with linux? this > is where i may do better with a refurb or used machine, i guess. No, not really. If you are looking, have a look at the reports on the Linux laptops site, and consider the Thinkpad hardware list: <http://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.hardware.thinkpad> They doubtless have a homepage and real email interface somewhere, but I have used gmane forever. :) If you have specific model questions, that is a good place to look and talk about them. Daniel -- Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites. -- William Ruckelshaus, _Business Week_, 18 June 1990 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
