On 10/12/2013 11:27 AM, James Griffin wrote:
/ Adam Thompson wrote on Fri 11.Oct'13 at 11:10:46 -0500 /
Hi guys,
I am looking for some suggestions for a good, small quite laptop. I was
looking at futureshop.ca and bestbuy.ca. I currently have an HP dv3
For OpenBSD, I would never buy something at FutureShop or BestBuy;
those are all consumer-oriented "Designed For Windows 8" laptops.
I either buy Lenovo ThinkPads from an authorized reseller (e.g. the
x201t sitting in front of me, and many of the OpenBSD developers use
various models of Thinkpad), or I buy off-lease (trailing-edge) Dell
Latitude/Precision laptops directly from Dell - see www.dfsdirect.ca
for their off-lease selection.
The Latitude E4000 series are all quite small and light, are readily
available, and AFAIK are fully supported. Right now I'm running
5.3-RELEASE on a Latitude D630 with no issues at all, and IIRC the
E4500 should be fully supported as well.
Many people cringe at the thought of a used laptop, but note that
DFS will offer a 1-year warranty, which is exactly what you get
buying consumer-grade laptops from a retail big-box store anyway. My
favourite part of the Latitude E series (and most Precision models,
too) is that if you get the optional docking base, you can then run
dual-DVI off the laptop!
--
-Adam Thompson
athom...@athompso.net
I agree, all my OpenBSD and UNIX machine are bought as refurbished machines. I
have found they have much better support in terms of drivers/hardware and they
cost a fraction of the price in some cases.
Interesting. I always feel that I am getting ripped off when buying
something refurbished but then again I find my stuff which I bought many
years ago still works and is easier to install stuff on (things I care
about anyway) and now when looking around I find the new stuff has some
major improvements which might come in handy (graphics, CPU, faster RAM)
if I settle for the off the shelf stuff (Win* or OS X) but since I don't
I have to poke around more to find what I like.
I guess I should look as well on refurbished stuff and they come with a
warranty, isn't it usually shorter? Replacing a hard drive and adding
some more ram plus the right OS may make it into a livable solution. At
the end one uses the software. My old Sony is kind of like that lots of
things will never work, read webcam, but overall it has proven to be a
well made laptop. I also got a more recent Dell, XPS I think, for my
significant other and that one is also quite good it has sustained mass
impact from some kid handling and is still running.
Thanks for offering your experience.
