hi all,

i am very delighted to get such a feedback from u all guys (thats the
best part i love about linux, ppl trying to help each other).:). the
info provided by u ppl has made me to give serious thots about my
decision, and has given me a chance to keep all those things in mind
bfore going to buy one.

like i said, i am a newbie to linux so i am planning to run GNOME(i mean
i may have tough time just working without a GUI), i didnt knew that it
would tax the CPU, memory so much. here is wat i am planning to buy...if
u think that this is more than sufficient/ not sufficient plz lemme
know...and also any of these that are not compatible with RH7...(sorry
for the long list, i just copied it and most of them i dont
understand..in particular the points from number 10..)

1)Model: COMPAQ ARMADA 1592DMT 
2)Processor: 266 MHz INTEL Pentium II MMX processor with 3DNow! 
3)Display : 13.3" Crisp Color Active Matrix LCD XVGA display 
4)Hard Drive : 4.0 GB UltraDMA hard drive 
5)Integrated CD-ROM Drive 
6)CD-ROM drive Cache : 512KB L2 Pipeline Burst Cache Integrated 
7)Diskette Drive : 3.5" 1.44 MB diskette drive 
8)Battery/Power Supply : High-capacity LiIon battery 
9)Integrated Modem 56K ITU V.90 PCI modem 
10)Graphics : ATI Rage LT Pro, hardware-accelerated 3D graphics with 8
MB video memory 2X AGP for enhanced video, graphics and 3D performance
Maximum internal resolution of up to 800 X 600 X16M; 
11) Compaq Audio : JBL Pro Audio with Bass Reflex PCI Audio 
12) Bus 96 MHz system Bus Security Features Power-on password Reinforced
security slot Accepts third-party security lock devices 
13) Expansion Slots One (1) Type II or one (1) Type III PC Card slot
with support for 32-bit CardBus I/O Interfaces One (1) USB connector
Serial RS-232 compatible, DB9 connector (16550) Parallel SPP/SCP
standard interface (DB25 connector) Mouse or keyboard port - PS2 style
RJ-11 modem jack Two audio ports (headphone/speaker-out and
microphone-in) 


-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Olszewski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2001 9:07 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Akbar Pasha
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: is this sufficient? (newbie q)


A few qualifications to Richard's comments, below.

At 06:21 PM 4/4/01 +0000, Richard Adams wrote:
>On Wed, 04 Apr 2001, Akbar Pasha wrote:
>> hi all,
>
>> should be buying a used laptop. but all those models run on pentium
MMX,
>> with 32 mb ram and 8 gig HDD(i mean the ones that are within $600
price
>> range). i was just wondering whether that would be sufficient to run
>> RH7?? will it not be too slow? what features should i look in for a
>> laptop that i want to run linux on?
>
>As a Windows expert as you say, you can answer your own question, ask
yourself
>when choosing a (secondhand) laptop,
>
>1) Will windows work on it, if yes then Linux WILL work beter.

Yes, *Linux* will work better, but whether *X* (the standard GUI for
Unix/Linux) will work better (or even at all) is less clear. It is
important
to check this, either via the Linux Hardware Compatibility HowTo (if it
is
being kept up; I haven't looked at it in ages) or by asking for specific
feedback on a specific laptop in some appropriate place (like thislist).

>2) Memory, the more the better, 32M is fine more of course is better.

Whether 32 MB is "fine" or not depends on what he wants to do, and he
hasn't
said anything about what he wants to use the system for. In some
situations,
a system with 32MB of RAM will be so slow that it will leave the user
very
discontented.

I'd suggest looking for a system with less hard disk space and more
memory
-- 64 MB and 4 gigs (or even 2 gigs, probably) would be a better balance
for
the typical uses I can think of.

>3) Price, now considering the machines you mention for that price, you
should
>    be happy, even secondhand stuff costs here twice as much.

He should also think about networking. Many built-in modems in laptops
are
WinModems, which (with minor exceptions) do not work with Linux. Getting
PC-Card Ethernet NICs to work with Linux is generally more work than
NICs
for regular desktop systems.

Funally, he might want to think about a desktop system rather than a
laptop.
$5-600 gets you a lot more machine, except for the portability.


--
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski                                        -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA                                    [EMAIL PROTECTED]        
----------------------------------------------------------------


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