On Tue, 2007-09-11 at 16:34 +0100, André César de Sá wrote: > Get a Toshiba / Asus.. :P
I've been using Debian on a Toshiba M105-S3074 for nearly a year now and it runs great, despite all the talk about Toshiba ignoring Linux. As long as the hardware inside is not exotic, having official vendor's support is not so important. Here most things work out-of-the-box with standard drivers, and those that do not - usually minor gagdets - can be made to work with "unofficial" drivers. For anyone having doubts: * the GPU is Intel's 945GM Express, works pretty well with i810/intel X.Org driver (3D acceleration included); I've also successfully tested the VGA output, which needs no configuration to "just work" * the sound chip is Intel HDA Controller -> standard ALSA snd_intel_hda driver module * touchpad is made by ALPS - supported by X.Org's synaptic driver, though requires some xorg.conf tweaking (default settings, which assume a Synaptic touchpad, result in really slow cursor movement and no tap-clicking) * Ethernet (Intel PRO/1000) works with standard e1000 driver, Wi-Fi (Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG) with ipw3945 (requires non-free binary firmware, though - but runs smoothly) * built-in Texas Instruments 5-in-1 flash card reader works with the tifm(xx) driver - tested with SD cards * setting LCD brightness by software works with the omnibook module (http://omnibook.sourceforge.net/); people on some forums report that on similar laptop models you can get this functionality through standard kernel's ACPI video driver by flashing Toshiba's new "Vista-only" BIOS (sic!) * multimedia keys work with omnibook, too * fingerprint reader (not-very-useful gadget as it is) works with ThinkFinger driver and software * PCMCIA seems to work, my friend's Wi-Fi card got detected once * suspend/hibernate is tricky, though I got it working with some combinations of kernel version and loaded modules It may be reasonable, however, to buy a laptop with GNU/Linux preinstalled - everything should work nice then, and you save money you'd otherwise pay for a Windows licence. In any case, checking http://linux-laptop.net/ for the model you want to buy can help. Regards, -- Krzysztof Lubanski