Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Martin Theiß]

Hi Tim, *,

Tim wrote:

> >
> > 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.
> >
> 
> i'm currently using a thinkpad r51. sound works, 3d acceleration works
> (quake3 runs smoothly), wlan works, gigabit ethernet works. s2d does not
> work with ACPI yet, but that may be due to me lacking the skills to get it
> running. a friend told me he got s2d working using APM, i'll try that
> within the next few days. it seems to me that most of the components ibm
> uses work wuite good with linux. see
> http://www.sp1r1t.de/networks/linux_on_ibm_thinkpad_r51.html for more
> info.
try to use swsusp2 for suspend to disk. it works very well on my t23, but it
is a little bit invasive with patches against kernel.
http://softwaresuspend.berlios.de/

Kind regards
Martin  Theiß

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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Martin Theiß]

Hi Tim, *,

Tim wrote:

> >
> > 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.
> >
> 
> i'm currently using a thinkpad r51. sound works, 3d acceleration works
> (quake3 runs smoothly), wlan works, gigabit ethernet works. s2d does not
> work with ACPI yet, but that may be due to me lacking the skills to get it
> running. a friend told me he got s2d working using APM, i'll try that
> within the next few days. it seems to me that most of the components ibm
> uses work wuite good with linux. see
> http://www.sp1r1t.de/networks/linux_on_ibm_thinkpad_r51.html for more
> info.
try to use swsusp2 for suspend to disk. it works very well on my t23, but it
is a little bit invasive with patches against kernel.
http://softwaresuspend.berlios.de/

Kind regards
Martin  Theiß

-- 
Martin Theiß <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
GPG-Fingerprint: EC80 53A2 F0A2 6E6C 74D2  CB6E 002A F6D3 E78B 7F45

The box said 'Requires Windows 95 or better', so I installed Linux - TKK 5


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[William Ballard]

On Sat, Aug 14, 2004 at 12:19:01PM -0400, Curt Howland wrote:
> On Saturday 14 August 2004 10:46, Micha Feigin was heard to say:
> > When it works, the Sony is fine, its just that they have one of the
> > worst customer service of any company in the world, and they are
> > clinically paranoid of wares, to the point that they cripple on
> > half descent piece of hardware the produce.
> 
> I have a Sony Vaio GRT-170. I couldn't agree with you more. Very 
> little of the APM functionality works, pretty much just power-off. 
> The beautiful screen, built in Wifi, 64M of non-shared VideoRAM on 
> AGP, amazing "everything" combination CD and DVD+/- RW... It's a 
> wonderful machine.

All the screws fell out of the bottom of my Vaio.  I have it held 
together with duct tape.  Guy I met who had a similarly old one said the 
same thing.  I just put a bunch of bumper stickers on it and made it 
look "cool."

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[William Ballard]

On Sat, Aug 14, 2004 at 12:19:01PM -0400, Curt Howland wrote:
> On Saturday 14 August 2004 10:46, Micha Feigin was heard to say:
> > When it works, the Sony is fine, its just that they have one of the
> > worst customer service of any company in the world, and they are
> > clinically paranoid of wares, to the point that they cripple on
> > half descent piece of hardware the produce.
> 
> I have a Sony Vaio GRT-170. I couldn't agree with you more. Very 
> little of the APM functionality works, pretty much just power-off. 
> The beautiful screen, built in Wifi, 64M of non-shared VideoRAM on 
> AGP, amazing "everything" combination CD and DVD+/- RW... It's a 
> wonderful machine.

All the screws fell out of the bottom of my Vaio.  I have it held 
together with duct tape.  Guy I met who had a similarly old one said the 
same thing.  I just put a bunch of bumper stickers on it and made it 
look "cool."


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Tim]

>
> 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.
>

i'm currently using a thinkpad r51. sound works, 3d acceleration works
(quake3 runs smoothly), wlan works, gigabit ethernet works. s2d does not
work with ACPI yet, but that may be due to me lacking the skills to get it
running. a friend told me he got s2d working using APM, i'll try that
within the next few days. it seems to me that most of the components ibm
uses work wuite good with linux. see
http://www.sp1r1t.de/networks/linux_on_ibm_thinkpad_r51.html for more
info.

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Tim]

>
> 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.
>

i'm currently using a thinkpad r51. sound works, 3d acceleration works
(quake3 runs smoothly), wlan works, gigabit ethernet works. s2d does not
work with ACPI yet, but that may be due to me lacking the skills to get it
running. a friend told me he got s2d working using APM, i'll try that
within the next few days. it seems to me that most of the components ibm
uses work wuite good with linux. see
http://www.sp1r1t.de/networks/linux_on_ibm_thinkpad_r51.html for more
info.


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[William Ballard]

On Sat, Aug 14, 2004 at 05:46:37PM +0300, Micha Feigin wrote:
> When it works, the Sony is fine, its just that they have one of the
> worst customer service of any company in the world, and they are
> clinically paranoid of wares, to the point that they cripple on half
> descent piece of hardware the produce.

Everything on my vaio works, but of course I had to do quite a bit of 
investigating on the internet and tweak various things in the kernel.  
Every piece of hardware under Linux is a bit like that.

Thinkpads are nice.

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[William Ballard]

On Sat, Aug 14, 2004 at 05:46:37PM +0300, Micha Feigin wrote:
> When it works, the Sony is fine, its just that they have one of the
> worst customer service of any company in the world, and they are
> clinically paranoid of wares, to the point that they cripple on half
> descent piece of hardware the produce.

Everything on my vaio works, but of course I had to do quite a bit of 
investigating on the internet and tweak various things in the kernel.  
Every piece of hardware under Linux is a bit like that.

Thinkpads are nice.


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Kelly Felkins]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 07:54:52PM -0700, William Ballard wrote:
> There isn't a thin-and-light laptop on the market today that I would 
> buy.

I'm pretty happy with my sharp pc-mm10. It's thin and light. With the big 
battery it runs for several hours. I bought mine and later had Emperor linux 
install debian on it, or you can buy one directly from them with debian 
installed (they call it a "meteor"). I guess there is now a pc-mm20.

You do make compromises when you have a small and light laptop:

Sometimes I wish I had an integrated cd/dvd drive. The mm10 comes with an 
external, powered cd drive. I can work for hours without power, but I'm in 
trouble if I need to read a cd. This has not been a big deal. 

Sometimes I wish I had IR. It would be nice to sync with a palm via IR. 

It's not too fast. A friend has a Sony laptop that is about 5 years old. The 
specs of the 2 machines are similar and they are similar in size and weight. 
The Sony machine has a 300 MHz Pentium. The mm10 has a 1 g-Hz Crusoe. I think 
the CPU performance is...similar.

Other than those things mentioned it is a pretty good package and runs linux 
nicely. And it is small and light, if that's what is important to you. Has 
USB2, wifi, Ethernet, pcmcia. 

Oh. And it has this very interesting dock. With the device powered off, you can 
set the closed pc in the doc. It is now charging and the hard disk is 
accessible as a USB hard drive. 

-Kelly

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Kelly Felkins]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 07:54:52PM -0700, William Ballard wrote:
> There isn't a thin-and-light laptop on the market today that I would 
> buy.

I'm pretty happy with my sharp pc-mm10. It's thin and light. With the big battery it 
runs for several hours. I bought mine and later had Emperor linux install debian on 
it, or you can buy one directly from them with debian installed (they call it a 
"meteor"). I guess there is now a pc-mm20.

You do make compromises when you have a small and light laptop:

Sometimes I wish I had an integrated cd/dvd drive. The mm10 comes with an external, 
powered cd drive. I can work for hours without power, but I'm in trouble if I need to 
read a cd. This has not been a big deal. 

Sometimes I wish I had IR. It would be nice to sync with a palm via IR. 

It's not too fast. A friend has a Sony laptop that is about 5 years old. The specs of 
the 2 machines are similar and they are similar in size and weight. The Sony machine 
has a 300 MHz Pentium. The mm10 has a 1 g-Hz Crusoe. I think the CPU performance 
is...similar.

Other than those things mentioned it is a pretty good package and runs linux nicely. 
And it is small and light, if that's what is important to you. Has USB2, wifi, 
Ethernet, pcmcia. 

Oh. And it has this very interesting dock. With the device powered off, you can set 
the closed pc in the doc. It is now charging and the hard disk is accessible as a USB 
hard drive. 

-Kelly


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Curt Howland]

On Saturday 14 August 2004 10:46, Micha Feigin was heard to say:
> When it works, the Sony is fine, its just that they have one of the
> worst customer service of any company in the world, and they are
> clinically paranoid of wares, to the point that they cripple on
> half descent piece of hardware the produce.

I have a Sony Vaio GRT-170. I couldn't agree with you more. Very 
little of the APM functionality works, pretty much just power-off. 
The beautiful screen, built in Wifi, 64M of non-shared VideoRAM on 
AGP, amazing "everything" combination CD and DVD+/- RW... It's a 
wonderful machine.

And also, this wonderful piece of hardware has no way to clean the fan 
or thermal fins except to mail it in for "repair" for at least a week 
and, as the people on the "support" phone told me, "expect to have 
the hard disk reformatted."

Because the fan is dusty. I've let it go so long that, indeed, the 
machine does overheat and shut itself off because the fins are dusty.

Talk about a design flaw!

> Have a look at http://www.emperorlinux.com/ for example.

Also http://www.linuxcertified.com/ pre-installs Debian.

Curt-

-- 
September 11th, 2001
The proudest day for gun control and central 
planning advocates in American history

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Micha Feigin]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 07:54:52PM -0700, William Ballard wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 10:24:17PM -0400, John M Flinchbaugh wrote:
> > thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
> > 2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.
> 
> In June I got a hankering for a new laptop, but my 500mhz P3 12" 4lb 
> 30GB built-in ethernet/firewire Sony Vaio laptop from 1999 still works 
> just fine for the majority of things a laptop is well-suited for.  A
> 12" 

When it works, the Sony is fine, its just that they have one of the
worst customer service of any company in the world, and they are
clinically paranoid of wares, to the point that they cripple on half
descent piece of hardware the produce.

IBMs on the other hand are quite good, and at least most stuff works
with linux. I would look at companies that specialize in linux laptops
and see what they are selling.

For wireless, Centerino won't work for you, but some companies also
have mini-pci wireless which you probably have a better chance with
getting to work.

Have a look at http://www.emperorlinux.com/ for example.

As for 3D, at least ATI if you don't use the latest, will work (up to
9200 IIRC), with both a proprietary and OSS driver.

> screen is a must for using on an airplane when the guy in front of you 
> leans his seat back; lighter is *always* better.  These values trump CPU 
> power: because no matter how much CPU power you have in a laptop you are 
> held back by relatively slow hard drives.
> 
> Since money was a factor for me too, the only laptop I could possibly 
> justify was just a $700 7lb 2.4 Celeron, a giant brick to just use as a 
> thin client / office / web client.  If not that, then just get one of 
> the 7lb $1500 no-battery-getting desktop P4 models.  There is *no* tasty 
> thin-and-light laptop on the market ATM, no sweet spot for 
> price/performance.  The only laptops worth buying these days all way 6-7 
> pounds.  So I decided to get *no* laptop and just keep my old 4 pounder.
> 
> Instead I spent $500 on a top of the line HP ipaq w/ 400 mhz processor, 
> bluetooth, wireless ethernet, built-in-keyboard; $300 on a bluetooth 
> gps; $200 on 2 512mb SD memory cards; and $30 on a nice leather case.
> 
> Much more bang for the buck.  I can still use my old 500mhz PC as a thin 
> client.
> 
> There isn't a thin-and-light laptop on the market today that I would 
> buy.
> 
> 
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>  
>  +++
>  This Mail Was Scanned By Mail-seCure System
>  at the Tel-Aviv University CC.
> 

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Curt Howland]

On Saturday 14 August 2004 10:46, Micha Feigin was heard to say:
> When it works, the Sony is fine, its just that they have one of the
> worst customer service of any company in the world, and they are
> clinically paranoid of wares, to the point that they cripple on
> half descent piece of hardware the produce.

I have a Sony Vaio GRT-170. I couldn't agree with you more. Very 
little of the APM functionality works, pretty much just power-off. 
The beautiful screen, built in Wifi, 64M of non-shared VideoRAM on 
AGP, amazing "everything" combination CD and DVD+/- RW... It's a 
wonderful machine.

And also, this wonderful piece of hardware has no way to clean the fan 
or thermal fins except to mail it in for "repair" for at least a week 
and, as the people on the "support" phone told me, "expect to have 
the hard disk reformatted."

Because the fan is dusty. I've let it go so long that, indeed, the 
machine does overheat and shut itself off because the fins are dusty.

Talk about a design flaw!

> Have a look at http://www.emperorlinux.com/ for example.

Also http://www.linuxcertified.com/ pre-installs Debian.

Curt-

-- 
September 11th, 2001
The proudest day for gun control and central 
planning advocates in American history


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Micha Feigin]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 07:54:52PM -0700, William Ballard wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 10:24:17PM -0400, John M Flinchbaugh wrote:
> > thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
> > 2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.
> 
> In June I got a hankering for a new laptop, but my 500mhz P3 12" 4lb 
> 30GB built-in ethernet/firewire Sony Vaio laptop from 1999 still works 
> just fine for the majority of things a laptop is well-suited for.  A
> 12" 

When it works, the Sony is fine, its just that they have one of the
worst customer service of any company in the world, and they are
clinically paranoid of wares, to the point that they cripple on half
descent piece of hardware the produce.

IBMs on the other hand are quite good, and at least most stuff works
with linux. I would look at companies that specialize in linux laptops
and see what they are selling.

For wireless, Centerino won't work for you, but some companies also
have mini-pci wireless which you probably have a better chance with
getting to work.

Have a look at http://www.emperorlinux.com/ for example.

As for 3D, at least ATI if you don't use the latest, will work (up to
9200 IIRC), with both a proprietary and OSS driver.

> screen is a must for using on an airplane when the guy in front of you 
> leans his seat back; lighter is *always* better.  These values trump CPU 
> power: because no matter how much CPU power you have in a laptop you are 
> held back by relatively slow hard drives.
> 
> Since money was a factor for me too, the only laptop I could possibly 
> justify was just a $700 7lb 2.4 Celeron, a giant brick to just use as a 
> thin client / office / web client.  If not that, then just get one of 
> the 7lb $1500 no-battery-getting desktop P4 models.  There is *no* tasty 
> thin-and-light laptop on the market ATM, no sweet spot for 
> price/performance.  The only laptops worth buying these days all way 6-7 
> pounds.  So I decided to get *no* laptop and just keep my old 4 pounder.
> 
> Instead I spent $500 on a top of the line HP ipaq w/ 400 mhz processor, 
> bluetooth, wireless ethernet, built-in-keyboard; $300 on a bluetooth 
> gps; $200 on 2 512mb SD memory cards; and $30 on a nice leather case.
> 
> Much more bang for the buck.  I can still use my old 500mhz PC as a thin 
> client.
> 
> There isn't a thin-and-light laptop on the market today that I would 
> buy.
> 
> 
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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Bruno Ducrot]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 10:24:17PM -0400, John M Flinchbaugh wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 10:18:28AM +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:
> > On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote:
> > > i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
> > My recommendation would be for an IBM laptop.
> [snip]
> > The second reason is that most of their hardware is well supported by
> > Linux, including the graphics chips (ATI or Intel) which will 
> eventually
> > work with an OSS driver, even if they don't support hardware 3D
> > today[1].
> > These days you get the Centrino wireless card as well, which sucks, 
> but
> > people are getting there, and Intel are now getting into an OSS driver
> > for it.
> 
> i do lean towards the ati chips instead of nvidia, because i really
> don't like having to patch my source much or load binary drivers.
> 
> what about acpi support?  it took me over 3 years to really see
> decent acpi support on my inspiron 3800.  is acpi support on all
> hardware coming along the same, or am i going to buy a new
> machine and lose all my power management capabilities?  that
> feels like one of those deep, dark things that i can't tell just
> by looking up a chipset.

ACPI is becoming stable for the PM portion, though there are still
some issues with pm codes for the other subsystems (especially USB,
maybe AGP, and more or less all video cards though the radeon is
perhaps OK for this due to some non oficial support from ATI).

> any acpi (battery, ac, fan, processor, events) successes out
> there?

Some trouble still with events (some bugs where unfortunately
reintroduced, but it should be OK now hopefully).

> thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
> 2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.

-- 
Bruno Ducrot

--  Which is worse:  ignorance or apathy?
--  Don't know.  Don't care.

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Daniel Pittman]

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:



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

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Bruno Ducrot]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 10:24:17PM -0400, John M Flinchbaugh wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 10:18:28AM +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:
> > On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote:
> > > i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
> > My recommendation would be for an IBM laptop.
> [snip]
> > The second reason is that most of their hardware is well supported by
> > Linux, including the graphics chips (ATI or Intel) which will 
> eventually
> > work with an OSS driver, even if they don't support hardware 3D
> > today[1].
> > These days you get the Centrino wireless card as well, which sucks, 
> but
> > people are getting there, and Intel are now getting into an OSS driver
> > for it.
> 
> i do lean towards the ati chips instead of nvidia, because i really
> don't like having to patch my source much or load binary drivers.
> 
> what about acpi support?  it took me over 3 years to really see
> decent acpi support on my inspiron 3800.  is acpi support on all
> hardware coming along the same, or am i going to buy a new
> machine and lose all my power management capabilities?  that
> feels like one of those deep, dark things that i can't tell just
> by looking up a chipset.

ACPI is becoming stable for the PM portion, though there are still
some issues with pm codes for the other subsystems (especially USB,
maybe AGP, and more or less all video cards though the radeon is
perhaps OK for this due to some non oficial support from ATI).

> any acpi (battery, ac, fan, processor, events) successes out
> there?

Some trouble still with events (some bugs where unfortunately
reintroduced, but it should be OK now hopefully).

> thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
> 2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.

-- 
Bruno Ducrot

--  Which is worse:  ignorance or apathy?
--  Don't know.  Don't care.


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[John M Flinchbaugh]

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.
:)

> > what about acpi support?  
> I can't say, since my A31p and the R40 laptops we used all had good,
> solid APM support, so I never really bothered with ACPI. :)
[snip]
> I get the feeling that it is reasonably good from postings on the
> Thinkpad hardware list, but APM still works well, and I still use it
> happily. :)

i jumped to acpi from years of apm use to invert the power
management model -- let the OS control and implement reactions
to events, like suspend.  swsusp is much faster than bios s2d,
and it uses my swap, so it doesn't waste space needing a special
suspend partition.

> 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.

support is a good point, plus finding parts on ebay is a plus!

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.
-- 
}John Flinchbaugh{__
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Daniel Pittman]

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:



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


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Martin Fluch]

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004, Daniel Pittman wrote:


My recommendation would be for an IBM laptop.


I would also go for a IBM ThinkPad, have sticked to them now for more then 
5 years (770, 600, T20, T22) which I have always bought used (so I'm not 
at the bleding edge of performance, but never needed to). But what I can 
observe is that always the manufacturing quality is one of the best I 
could think of, which is in my opinion something worth investing money 
into...


Cheers,
- Martin

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Daniel Pittman]

On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 10:18:28AM +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:
>> On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote:
>>> i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
>> My recommendation would be for an IBM laptop.
> [snip]
>> The second reason is that most of their hardware is well supported by
>> Linux, including the graphics chips (ATI or Intel) which will 
> eventually
>> work with an OSS driver, even if they don't support hardware 3D
>> today[1].
>> These days you get the Centrino wireless card as well, which sucks, 
> but
>> people are getting there, and Intel are now getting into an OSS driver
>> for it.
>
> i do lean towards the ati chips instead of nvidia, because i really
> don't like having to patch my source much or load binary drivers.

*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.

> what about acpi support?  

I can't say, since my A31p and the R40 laptops we used all had good,
solid APM support, so I never really bothered with ACPI. :)

> it took me over 3 years to really see decent acpi support on my
> inspiron 3800. is acpi support on all hardware coming along the same,
> or am i going to buy a new machine and lose all my power management
> capabilities? 

I get the feeling that it is reasonably good from postings on the
Thinkpad hardware list, but APM still works well, and I still use it
happily. :)

> that feels like one of those deep, dark things that i can't tell just
> by looking up a chipset.

*nod*

> thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
> 2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.

In part, I resolved this by asking myself two questions:

1. Is that actually a *fair* comparison?

That is to say, I would chose a 1.7GHz Pentium-M processor over my
1.7GHZ Pentium-4 processor any day -- the former will give much better
battery life and performance, despite the clock speeds being equal.


2. Do you actually *need* anything more?

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]


   Daniel


Footnotes: 
[1]  I have a RAID-1 in my laptop, so I can just remove the failed
 drive, overwrite it enough to be happy, then slot in the new one.

 With a single hard disk machine you would need to have backups to
 make this painless since the courier is not going to hang around
 for you.
-- 
Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion
without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without
moral passion is television.
-- Rita Mae Brown

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[adcarlson]

Try the Fujitsu S6210...great thin-and-light.

On 13-Aug-2004 William Ballard wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 10:24:17PM -0400, John M Flinchbaugh wrote:
>> thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
>> 2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.
> 
> In June I got a hankering for a new laptop, but my 500mhz P3 12" 4lb 
> 30GB built-in ethernet/firewire Sony Vaio laptop from 1999 still works 
> just fine for the majority of things a laptop is well-suited for.  A 12" 
> screen is a must for using on an airplane when the guy in front of you 
> leans his seat back; lighter is *always* better.  These values trump CPU 
> power: because no matter how much CPU power you have in a laptop you are 
> held back by relatively slow hard drives.
> 
> Since money was a factor for me too, the only laptop I could possibly 
> justify was just a $700 7lb 2.4 Celeron, a giant brick to just use as a 
> thin client / office / web client.  If not that, then just get one of 
> the 7lb $1500 no-battery-getting desktop P4 models.  There is *no* tasty 
> thin-and-light laptop on the market ATM, no sweet spot for 
> price/performance.  The only laptops worth buying these days all way 6-7 
> pounds.  So I decided to get *no* laptop and just keep my old 4 pounder.
> 
> Instead I spent $500 on a top of the line HP ipaq w/ 400 mhz processor, 
> bluetooth, wireless ethernet, built-in-keyboard; $300 on a bluetooth 
> gps; $200 on 2 512mb SD memory cards; and $30 on a nice leather case.
> 
> Much more bang for the buck.  I can still use my old 500mhz PC as a thin 
> client.
> 
> There isn't a thin-and-light laptop on the market today that I would 
> buy.
> 
> 
> -- 
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Quasar Jarosz]

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, Robert Aldridge wrote:

> I'm running Debian Sid on an HP Pavilion zv5120us that I got at Circuit
> City about 3 months ago.  I did have to jump through some hoops to get
> the ATI Radeon 9000 IGP video card performing nicely, but I was

Is that the same as the Radeon U1? or a different chip?
I've been keeping an eye out for a working driver for the U1 for a while.

My HP Pavilion ze4430us works very well with everything (other than modem,
havn't tried it). Acpi works, including the lid switch, power button, temp
and fan sensors. It will not suspend (well, it will, but it won't ever
come back :)

i am using ndiswrapper 0.6 with the integraded Broadcom 54g wifi card,
with no problems (works great, even better than in windows, with windows'
own driver.. go figure..).

The only problem is i have to use either the vesa, or radeon (with some
extra settings that disabled 3d acceleration). It has a 64 meg card i
beleive, which preforms quite nicly in windows, but there does not seem to
yet be accelerated support under linux :(

-Quasar

> successful.  With the 0.9 release of ndiswrapper, I have the wireless
> card working perfectly (I'm emailing from a wireless connection now).  I
> haven't tried getting the internal (Win)modem working, but it should
> supposedly work with sl-modem drivers.
>
> Over all, I've been very pleased with this laptop.  It is a bit on the
> heavy side (it has the 15.4" wide screen), and carrying it around for a
> week at a conference is getting old.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Robert Aldridge
>
> >>> John M Flinchbaugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/12/04 3:55 PM
> >>>
> i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
> as it is unplanned, i must be a bit budget-minded, but i still
> need some power features.  i don't need a desktop replacement,
> but i also don't need ultra-portable.
>
> inspiron 5150's, hp pavilions, and ibm thinkpad r41's look sort
> of attractive at first glance, but i keep finding horror stories
> on tuxmobil.com.
>
> i'd like to actually be able to use all the integrated hardware,
> like bluetooth, 802.11, ethernet, acpi, maybe even the modem.
> i'm leary of having to screw with ndiswrapper to support the
> wireless nic.  battery-life is also a consideration.
>
> can anyone recommend an excellent notebook on which to run linux
> which is still available new?
>
> i'm deathly afraid of buying a new machine to find out i can't
> use half the stuff with linux or have to jump through hoops and
> proprietary/screwy drivers to do anything.
>
> i know my 3800 is finally well supported, but i'm obviously looking
> for an upgrade, and not just another old machine.  send me your
> success stories and horror stories.
>
> thanks you so much in advance.
> --
> }John Flinchbaugh{__
> | [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
> ~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[John M Flinchbaugh]

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.
:)

> > what about acpi support?  
> I can't say, since my A31p and the R40 laptops we used all had good,
> solid APM support, so I never really bothered with ACPI. :)
[snip]
> I get the feeling that it is reasonably good from postings on the
> Thinkpad hardware list, but APM still works well, and I still use it
> happily. :)

i jumped to acpi from years of apm use to invert the power
management model -- let the OS control and implement reactions
to events, like suspend.  swsusp is much faster than bios s2d,
and it uses my swap, so it doesn't waste space needing a special
suspend partition.

> 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.

support is a good point, plus finding parts on ebay is a plus!

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.
-- 
}John Flinchbaugh{__
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[William Ballard]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 10:24:17PM -0400, John M Flinchbaugh wrote:
> thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
> 2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.

In June I got a hankering for a new laptop, but my 500mhz P3 12" 4lb 
30GB built-in ethernet/firewire Sony Vaio laptop from 1999 still works 
just fine for the majority of things a laptop is well-suited for.  A 12" 
screen is a must for using on an airplane when the guy in front of you 
leans his seat back; lighter is *always* better.  These values trump CPU 
power: because no matter how much CPU power you have in a laptop you are 
held back by relatively slow hard drives.

Since money was a factor for me too, the only laptop I could possibly 
justify was just a $700 7lb 2.4 Celeron, a giant brick to just use as a 
thin client / office / web client.  If not that, then just get one of 
the 7lb $1500 no-battery-getting desktop P4 models.  There is *no* tasty 
thin-and-light laptop on the market ATM, no sweet spot for 
price/performance.  The only laptops worth buying these days all way 6-7 
pounds.  So I decided to get *no* laptop and just keep my old 4 pounder.

Instead I spent $500 on a top of the line HP ipaq w/ 400 mhz processor, 
bluetooth, wireless ethernet, built-in-keyboard; $300 on a bluetooth 
gps; $200 on 2 512mb SD memory cards; and $30 on a nice leather case.

Much more bang for the buck.  I can still use my old 500mhz PC as a thin 
client.

There isn't a thin-and-light laptop on the market today that I would 
buy.

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Martin Fluch]

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004, Daniel Pittman wrote:
My recommendation would be for an IBM laptop.
I would also go for a IBM ThinkPad, have sticked to them now for more then 
5 years (770, 600, T20, T22) which I have always bought used (so I'm not 
at the bleding edge of performance, but never needed to). But what I can 
observe is that always the manufacturing quality is one of the best I 
could think of, which is in my opinion something worth investing money 
into...

Cheers,
- Martin
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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[John M Flinchbaugh]

On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 10:18:28AM +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:
> On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote:
> > i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
> My recommendation would be for an IBM laptop.
[snip]
> The second reason is that most of their hardware is well supported by
> Linux, including the graphics chips (ATI or Intel) which will 
eventually
> work with an OSS driver, even if they don't support hardware 3D
> today[1].
> These days you get the Centrino wireless card as well, which sucks, 
but
> people are getting there, and Intel are now getting into an OSS driver
> for it.

i do lean towards the ati chips instead of nvidia, because i really
don't like having to patch my source much or load binary drivers.

what about acpi support?  it took me over 3 years to really see
decent acpi support on my inspiron 3800.  is acpi support on all
hardware coming along the same, or am i going to buy a new
machine and lose all my power management capabilities?  that
feels like one of those deep, dark things that i can't tell just
by looking up a chipset.

any acpi (battery, ac, fan, processor, events) successes out
there?

thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.
-- 
}John Flinchbaugh{__
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~


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Description: Digital signature

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Daniel Pittman]

On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote:
> i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
> as it is unplanned, i must be a bit budget-minded, but i still
> need some power features.  i don't need a desktop replacement,
> but i also don't need ultra-portable.
>
> inspiron 5150's, hp pavilions, and ibm thinkpad r41's look sort
> of attractive at first glance, but i keep finding horror stories
> on tuxmobil.com.
>
> i'd like to actually be able to use all the integrated hardware,
> like bluetooth, 802.11, ethernet, acpi, maybe even the modem.
> i'm leary of having to screw with ndiswrapper to support the
> wireless nic.  battery-life is also a consideration.
>
> can anyone recommend an excellent notebook on which to run linux
> which is still available new?

My recommendation would be for an IBM laptop.

There are two primary factors in this; firstly, their support is better
than any other that I have dealt with. While most vendors are a PITA to
get to service things with any warranty, but especially the default one,
IBM have always been responsive and reasonable.

Their hardware is also a lot more rugged than other vendors which, if
you are like me and don't fancy replacing it often, is a big bonus --
less failures means less costs and a longer life.


The second reason is that most of their hardware is well supported by
Linux, including the graphics chips (ATI or Intel) which will eventually
work with an OSS driver, even if they don't support hardware 3D
today[1].

Traditionally, the only non-OSS hardware was the software modem, which
is exactly what *every* vendor shipped, and was one of the few that
actually had a reasonable non-free driver out there.

These days you get the Centrino wireless card as well, which sucks, but
people are getting there, and Intel are now getting into an OSS driver
for it.

Daniel

Footnotes: 
[1]  ATI release the 3D specs to OSS after some years, and have done so
 for a while now, while Nvidia don't...  so, even if you get the
 choice of a binary driver or no hardware 3D today, ATI gives you
 something to look forward too with the free driver...

-- 
What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to
make life more livable.
-- Louise Nevelson

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Daniel Pittman]

On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 10:18:28AM +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:
>> On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote:
>>> i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
>> My recommendation would be for an IBM laptop.
> [snip]
>> The second reason is that most of their hardware is well supported by
>> Linux, including the graphics chips (ATI or Intel) which will 
> eventually
>> work with an OSS driver, even if they don't support hardware 3D
>> today[1].
>> These days you get the Centrino wireless card as well, which sucks, 
> but
>> people are getting there, and Intel are now getting into an OSS driver
>> for it.
>
> i do lean towards the ati chips instead of nvidia, because i really
> don't like having to patch my source much or load binary drivers.

*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.

> what about acpi support?  

I can't say, since my A31p and the R40 laptops we used all had good,
solid APM support, so I never really bothered with ACPI. :)

> it took me over 3 years to really see decent acpi support on my
> inspiron 3800. is acpi support on all hardware coming along the same,
> or am i going to buy a new machine and lose all my power management
> capabilities? 

I get the feeling that it is reasonably good from postings on the
Thinkpad hardware list, but APM still works well, and I still use it
happily. :)

> that feels like one of those deep, dark things that i can't tell just
> by looking up a chipset.

*nod*

> thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
> 2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.

In part, I resolved this by asking myself two questions:

1. Is that actually a *fair* comparison?

That is to say, I would chose a 1.7GHz Pentium-M processor over my
1.7GHZ Pentium-4 processor any day -- the former will give much better
battery life and performance, despite the clock speeds being equal.


2. Do you actually *need* anything more?

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]


   Daniel


Footnotes: 
[1]  I have a RAID-1 in my laptop, so I can just remove the failed
 drive, overwrite it enough to be happy, then slot in the new one.

 With a single hard disk machine you would need to have backups to
 make this painless since the courier is not going to hang around
 for you.
-- 
Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion
without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without
moral passion is television.
-- Rita Mae Brown


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To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[adcarlson]

Try the Fujitsu S6210...great thin-and-light.

On 13-Aug-2004 William Ballard wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 10:24:17PM -0400, John M Flinchbaugh wrote:
>> thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
>> 2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.
> 
> In June I got a hankering for a new laptop, but my 500mhz P3 12" 4lb 
> 30GB built-in ethernet/firewire Sony Vaio laptop from 1999 still works 
> just fine for the majority of things a laptop is well-suited for.  A 12" 
> screen is a must for using on an airplane when the guy in front of you 
> leans his seat back; lighter is *always* better.  These values trump CPU 
> power: because no matter how much CPU power you have in a laptop you are 
> held back by relatively slow hard drives.
> 
> Since money was a factor for me too, the only laptop I could possibly 
> justify was just a $700 7lb 2.4 Celeron, a giant brick to just use as a 
> thin client / office / web client.  If not that, then just get one of 
> the 7lb $1500 no-battery-getting desktop P4 models.  There is *no* tasty 
> thin-and-light laptop on the market ATM, no sweet spot for 
> price/performance.  The only laptops worth buying these days all way 6-7 
> pounds.  So I decided to get *no* laptop and just keep my old 4 pounder.
> 
> Instead I spent $500 on a top of the line HP ipaq w/ 400 mhz processor, 
> bluetooth, wireless ethernet, built-in-keyboard; $300 on a bluetooth 
> gps; $200 on 2 512mb SD memory cards; and $30 on a nice leather case.
> 
> Much more bang for the buck.  I can still use my old 500mhz PC as a thin 
> client.
> 
> There isn't a thin-and-light laptop on the market today that I would 
> buy.
> 
> 
> -- 
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Quasar Jarosz]

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, Robert Aldridge wrote:

> I'm running Debian Sid on an HP Pavilion zv5120us that I got at Circuit
> City about 3 months ago.  I did have to jump through some hoops to get
> the ATI Radeon 9000 IGP video card performing nicely, but I was

Is that the same as the Radeon U1? or a different chip?
I've been keeping an eye out for a working driver for the U1 for a while.

My HP Pavilion ze4430us works very well with everything (other than modem,
havn't tried it). Acpi works, including the lid switch, power button, temp
and fan sensors. It will not suspend (well, it will, but it won't ever
come back :)

i am using ndiswrapper 0.6 with the integraded Broadcom 54g wifi card,
with no problems (works great, even better than in windows, with windows'
own driver.. go figure..).

The only problem is i have to use either the vesa, or radeon (with some
extra settings that disabled 3d acceleration). It has a 64 meg card i
beleive, which preforms quite nicly in windows, but there does not seem to
yet be accelerated support under linux :(

-Quasar

> successful.  With the 0.9 release of ndiswrapper, I have the wireless
> card working perfectly (I'm emailing from a wireless connection now).  I
> haven't tried getting the internal (Win)modem working, but it should
> supposedly work with sl-modem drivers.
>
> Over all, I've been very pleased with this laptop.  It is a bit on the
> heavy side (it has the 15.4" wide screen), and carrying it around for a
> week at a conference is getting old.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Robert Aldridge
>
> >>> John M Flinchbaugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/12/04 3:55 PM
> >>>
> i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
> as it is unplanned, i must be a bit budget-minded, but i still
> need some power features.  i don't need a desktop replacement,
> but i also don't need ultra-portable.
>
> inspiron 5150's, hp pavilions, and ibm thinkpad r41's look sort
> of attractive at first glance, but i keep finding horror stories
> on tuxmobil.com.
>
> i'd like to actually be able to use all the integrated hardware,
> like bluetooth, 802.11, ethernet, acpi, maybe even the modem.
> i'm leary of having to screw with ndiswrapper to support the
> wireless nic.  battery-life is also a consideration.
>
> can anyone recommend an excellent notebook on which to run linux
> which is still available new?
>
> i'm deathly afraid of buying a new machine to find out i can't
> use half the stuff with linux or have to jump through hoops and
> proprietary/screwy drivers to do anything.
>
> i know my 3800 is finally well supported, but i'm obviously looking
> for an upgrade, and not just another old machine.  send me your
> success stories and horror stories.
>
> thanks you so much in advance.
> --
> }John Flinchbaugh{__
> | [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
> ~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[William Ballard]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 10:24:17PM -0400, John M Flinchbaugh wrote:
> thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
> 2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.

In June I got a hankering for a new laptop, but my 500mhz P3 12" 4lb 
30GB built-in ethernet/firewire Sony Vaio laptop from 1999 still works 
just fine for the majority of things a laptop is well-suited for.  A 12" 
screen is a must for using on an airplane when the guy in front of you 
leans his seat back; lighter is *always* better.  These values trump CPU 
power: because no matter how much CPU power you have in a laptop you are 
held back by relatively slow hard drives.

Since money was a factor for me too, the only laptop I could possibly 
justify was just a $700 7lb 2.4 Celeron, a giant brick to just use as a 
thin client / office / web client.  If not that, then just get one of 
the 7lb $1500 no-battery-getting desktop P4 models.  There is *no* tasty 
thin-and-light laptop on the market ATM, no sweet spot for 
price/performance.  The only laptops worth buying these days all way 6-7 
pounds.  So I decided to get *no* laptop and just keep my old 4 pounder.

Instead I spent $500 on a top of the line HP ipaq w/ 400 mhz processor, 
bluetooth, wireless ethernet, built-in-keyboard; $300 on a bluetooth 
gps; $200 on 2 512mb SD memory cards; and $30 on a nice leather case.

Much more bang for the buck.  I can still use my old 500mhz PC as a thin 
client.

There isn't a thin-and-light laptop on the market today that I would 
buy.


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[John M Flinchbaugh]

On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 10:18:28AM +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:
> On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote:
> > i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
> My recommendation would be for an IBM laptop.
[snip]
> The second reason is that most of their hardware is well supported by
> Linux, including the graphics chips (ATI or Intel) which will 
eventually
> work with an OSS driver, even if they don't support hardware 3D
> today[1].
> These days you get the Centrino wireless card as well, which sucks, 
but
> people are getting there, and Intel are now getting into an OSS driver
> for it.

i do lean towards the ati chips instead of nvidia, because i really
don't like having to patch my source much or load binary drivers.

what about acpi support?  it took me over 3 years to really see
decent acpi support on my inspiron 3800.  is acpi support on all
hardware coming along the same, or am i going to buy a new
machine and lose all my power management capabilities?  that
feels like one of those deep, dark things that i can't tell just
by looking up a chipset.

any acpi (battery, ac, fan, processor, events) successes out
there?

thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a
2.8GHz dell.  that's hard to justify on a budget.
-- 
}John Flinchbaugh{__
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Daniel Pittman]

On 13 Aug 2004, John M. Flinchbaugh wrote:
> i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
> as it is unplanned, i must be a bit budget-minded, but i still
> need some power features.  i don't need a desktop replacement,
> but i also don't need ultra-portable.
>
> inspiron 5150's, hp pavilions, and ibm thinkpad r41's look sort
> of attractive at first glance, but i keep finding horror stories
> on tuxmobil.com.
>
> i'd like to actually be able to use all the integrated hardware,
> like bluetooth, 802.11, ethernet, acpi, maybe even the modem.
> i'm leary of having to screw with ndiswrapper to support the
> wireless nic.  battery-life is also a consideration.
>
> can anyone recommend an excellent notebook on which to run linux
> which is still available new?

My recommendation would be for an IBM laptop.

There are two primary factors in this; firstly, their support is better
than any other that I have dealt with. While most vendors are a PITA to
get to service things with any warranty, but especially the default one,
IBM have always been responsive and reasonable.

Their hardware is also a lot more rugged than other vendors which, if
you are like me and don't fancy replacing it often, is a big bonus --
less failures means less costs and a longer life.


The second reason is that most of their hardware is well supported by
Linux, including the graphics chips (ATI or Intel) which will eventually
work with an OSS driver, even if they don't support hardware 3D
today[1].

Traditionally, the only non-OSS hardware was the software modem, which
is exactly what *every* vendor shipped, and was one of the few that
actually had a reasonable non-free driver out there.

These days you get the Centrino wireless card as well, which sucks, but
people are getting there, and Intel are now getting into an OSS driver
for it.

Daniel

Footnotes: 
[1]  ATI release the 3D specs to OSS after some years, and have done so
 for a while now, while Nvidia don't...  so, even if you get the
 choice of a binary driver or no hardware 3D today, ATI gives you
 something to look forward too with the free driver...

-- 
What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to
make life more livable.
-- Louise Nevelson


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[dbarker]

Thus spake Robert Aldridge ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):

> I'm running Debian Sid on an HP Pavilion zv5120us that I got at Circuit
> City about 3 months ago.  

I'm running sarge (used the new installer) on an Averatec 3220. Only a 12"
screen but an AMD Athlon CPU. DVD-ROM/CD-RW is nice.

Everything works nicely (well, haven't tried the modem, no use for it)
except...

> With the 0.9 release of ndiswrapper, I have the wireless
> card working perfectly (I'm emailing from a wireless connection
> now).  

Maybe that will do it..

If you're looking for a cheap laptop as your not-main machine, this is
worth looking at. Only weighs 4.2 lbs. too...
-- 
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood|
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to.   |
|email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | |
|phone: +1 250 370 4452   | Hermann Scherchen.  |

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Emil Carlsson]

I have an acer 1300, but the newer versions should work about the same, 
it have good battery and after a while I got X to accept my graphics 
card and after that everything works like a charm, thou I can't use the 
modem but still. Besides the flickering screen at a start (that is now 
fixed) I am very satisfied with the machine and especially it's battery.


Regards

John M Flinchbaugh wrote:


i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
as it is unplanned, i must be a bit budget-minded, but i still
need some power features.  i don't need a desktop replacement,
but i also don't need ultra-portable.

inspiron 5150's, hp pavilions, and ibm thinkpad r41's look sort
of attractive at first glance, but i keep finding horror stories
on tuxmobil.com.

i'd like to actually be able to use all the integrated hardware,
like bluetooth, 802.11, ethernet, acpi, maybe even the modem.
i'm leary of having to screw with ndiswrapper to support the
wireless nic.  battery-life is also a consideration.

can anyone recommend an excellent notebook on which to run linux
which is still available new?

i'm deathly afraid of buying a new machine to find out i can't
use half the stuff with linux or have to jump through hoops and
proprietary/screwy drivers to do anything.

i know my 3800 is finally well supported, but i'm obviously looking
for an upgrade, and not just another old machine.  send me your
success stories and horror stories.

thanks you so much in advance.
 

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[dbarker]

Thus spake Robert Aldridge ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):

> I'm running Debian Sid on an HP Pavilion zv5120us that I got at Circuit
> City about 3 months ago.  

I'm running sarge (used the new installer) on an Averatec 3220. Only a 12"
screen but an AMD Athlon CPU. DVD-ROM/CD-RW is nice.

Everything works nicely (well, haven't tried the modem, no use for it)
except...

> With the 0.9 release of ndiswrapper, I have the wireless
> card working perfectly (I'm emailing from a wireless connection
> now).  

Maybe that will do it..

If you're looking for a cheap laptop as your not-main machine, this is
worth looking at. Only weighs 4.2 lbs. too...
-- 
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood|
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to.   |
|email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | |
|phone: +1 250 370 4452   | Hermann Scherchen.  |


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Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Robert Aldridge]

I'm running Debian Sid on an HP Pavilion zv5120us that I got at Circuit
City about 3 months ago.  I did have to jump through some hoops to get
the ATI Radeon 9000 IGP video card performing nicely, but I was
successful.  With the 0.9 release of ndiswrapper, I have the wireless
card working perfectly (I'm emailing from a wireless connection now).  I
haven't tried getting the internal (Win)modem working, but it should
supposedly work with sl-modem drivers.

Over all, I've been very pleased with this laptop.  It is a bit on the
heavy side (it has the 15.4" wide screen), and carrying it around for a
week at a conference is getting old.

Good luck,

Robert Aldridge

>>> John M Flinchbaugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/12/04 3:55 PM
>>>
i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
as it is unplanned, i must be a bit budget-minded, but i still
need some power features.  i don't need a desktop replacement,
but i also don't need ultra-portable.

inspiron 5150's, hp pavilions, and ibm thinkpad r41's look sort
of attractive at first glance, but i keep finding horror stories
on tuxmobil.com.

i'd like to actually be able to use all the integrated hardware,
like bluetooth, 802.11, ethernet, acpi, maybe even the modem.
i'm leary of having to screw with ndiswrapper to support the
wireless nic.  battery-life is also a consideration.

can anyone recommend an excellent notebook on which to run linux
which is still available new?

i'm deathly afraid of buying a new machine to find out i can't
use half the stuff with linux or have to jump through hoops and
proprietary/screwy drivers to do anything.

i know my 3800 is finally well supported, but i'm obviously looking
for an upgrade, and not just another old machine.  send me your
success stories and horror stories.

thanks you so much in advance.
-- 
}John Flinchbaugh{__
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Emil Carlsson]

I have an acer 1300, but the newer versions should work about the same, 
it have good battery and after a while I got X to accept my graphics 
card and after that everything works like a charm, thou I can't use the 
modem but still. Besides the flickering screen at a start (that is now 
fixed) I am very satisfied with the machine and especially it's battery.

Regards
John M Flinchbaugh wrote:
i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
as it is unplanned, i must be a bit budget-minded, but i still
need some power features.  i don't need a desktop replacement,
but i also don't need ultra-portable.
inspiron 5150's, hp pavilions, and ibm thinkpad r41's look sort
of attractive at first glance, but i keep finding horror stories
on tuxmobil.com.
i'd like to actually be able to use all the integrated hardware,
like bluetooth, 802.11, ethernet, acpi, maybe even the modem.
i'm leary of having to screw with ndiswrapper to support the
wireless nic.  battery-life is also a consideration.
can anyone recommend an excellent notebook on which to run linux
which is still available new?
i'm deathly afraid of buying a new machine to find out i can't
use half the stuff with linux or have to jump through hoops and
proprietary/screwy drivers to do anything.
i know my 3800 is finally well supported, but i'm obviously looking
for an upgrade, and not just another old machine.  send me your
success stories and horror stories.
thanks you so much in advance.
 


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new laptop recommendations?

[John M Flinchbaugh]

i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
as it is unplanned, i must be a bit budget-minded, but i still
need some power features.  i don't need a desktop replacement,
but i also don't need ultra-portable.

inspiron 5150's, hp pavilions, and ibm thinkpad r41's look sort
of attractive at first glance, but i keep finding horror stories
on tuxmobil.com.

i'd like to actually be able to use all the integrated hardware,
like bluetooth, 802.11, ethernet, acpi, maybe even the modem.
i'm leary of having to screw with ndiswrapper to support the
wireless nic.  battery-life is also a consideration.

can anyone recommend an excellent notebook on which to run linux
which is still available new?

i'm deathly afraid of buying a new machine to find out i can't
use half the stuff with linux or have to jump through hoops and
proprietary/screwy drivers to do anything.

i know my 3800 is finally well supported, but i'm obviously looking
for an upgrade, and not just another old machine.  send me your
success stories and horror stories.

thanks you so much in advance.
-- 
}John Flinchbaugh{__
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~


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Description: Digital signature

Re: new laptop recommendations?

[Robert Aldridge]

I'm running Debian Sid on an HP Pavilion zv5120us that I got at Circuit
City about 3 months ago.  I did have to jump through some hoops to get
the ATI Radeon 9000 IGP video card performing nicely, but I was
successful.  With the 0.9 release of ndiswrapper, I have the wireless
card working perfectly (I'm emailing from a wireless connection now).  I
haven't tried getting the internal (Win)modem working, but it should
supposedly work with sl-modem drivers.

Over all, I've been very pleased with this laptop.  It is a bit on the
heavy side (it has the 15.4" wide screen), and carrying it around for a
week at a conference is getting old.

Good luck,

Robert Aldridge

>>> John M Flinchbaugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/12/04 3:55 PM
>>>
i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
as it is unplanned, i must be a bit budget-minded, but i still
need some power features.  i don't need a desktop replacement,
but i also don't need ultra-portable.

inspiron 5150's, hp pavilions, and ibm thinkpad r41's look sort
of attractive at first glance, but i keep finding horror stories
on tuxmobil.com.

i'd like to actually be able to use all the integrated hardware,
like bluetooth, 802.11, ethernet, acpi, maybe even the modem.
i'm leary of having to screw with ndiswrapper to support the
wireless nic.  battery-life is also a consideration.

can anyone recommend an excellent notebook on which to run linux
which is still available new?

i'm deathly afraid of buying a new machine to find out i can't
use half the stuff with linux or have to jump through hoops and
proprietary/screwy drivers to do anything.

i know my 3800 is finally well supported, but i'm obviously looking
for an upgrade, and not just another old machine.  send me your
success stories and horror stories.

thanks you so much in advance.
-- 
}John Flinchbaugh{__
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~


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new laptop recommendations?

[John M Flinchbaugh]

i must buy a new notebook to replace my declining inspiron 3800.
as it is unplanned, i must be a bit budget-minded, but i still
need some power features.  i don't need a desktop replacement,
but i also don't need ultra-portable.

inspiron 5150's, hp pavilions, and ibm thinkpad r41's look sort
of attractive at first glance, but i keep finding horror stories
on tuxmobil.com.

i'd like to actually be able to use all the integrated hardware,
like bluetooth, 802.11, ethernet, acpi, maybe even the modem.
i'm leary of having to screw with ndiswrapper to support the
wireless nic.  battery-life is also a consideration.

can anyone recommend an excellent notebook on which to run linux
which is still available new?

i'm deathly afraid of buying a new machine to find out i can't
use half the stuff with linux or have to jump through hoops and
proprietary/screwy drivers to do anything.

i know my 3800 is finally well supported, but i'm obviously looking
for an upgrade, and not just another old machine.  send me your
success stories and horror stories.

thanks you so much in advance.
-- 
}John Flinchbaugh{__
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hjsoft.com/~glynis/ |
~~Powered by Linux: Reboots are for hardware upgrades only~~


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Re: Laptop recommendations

[Werner Heuser]

On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 02:53:25PM -0400, Curt Howland wrote:
> There's also,
> 
> http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html
For more providers of laptops, notebooks and PDAs with
Linux pre-installed, see http://tuxmobil.org/reseller.html
> 
> And if you need to overwrite Windows,
> http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/
Don't forget the TuxMobil Linux Laptop Survey
http://tuxmobil.org/mylaptops.html

Werner

-- 
|=| Werner Heuser = Berliner Str. 122 = D-13187 Berlin = Germany
|=|  T. 0049 - (0)30 - 349 53 86
|=| http://TuxMobil.orgUniX on Mobile Systems: HOWTOs,Software
|*| This is no time for phony rhetoric -- Lou Reed

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Curt Howland]

There's also,

http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html

And if you need to overwrite Windows,
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/

Emperor Linux seems to have passed into non-existence.

On Sunday 06 June 2004 14:26, [EMAIL PROTECTED] was 
heard to say:
> Thus spake Rolf Heckemann ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> ...
>
> > In your situation, I would probably consider the Lindows Mobile
> > PC from sub300.com (http://www.sub300.com/port.htm).
>
> Looks interesting. Does anyone on the list have experience with
> these machines?

-- 
September 11th, 2001
The proudest day for gun control and central 
planning advocates in American history

Re: Laptop recommendations

[dbarker]

Thus spake Rolf Heckemann ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
...
> In your situation, I would probably consider the Lindows Mobile PC
> from sub300.com (http://www.sub300.com/port.htm).

Looks interesting. Does anyone on the list have experience with these machines?

-- 
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood|
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to.   |
|email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | |
|phone: +1 250 370 4452   | Hermann Scherchen.  |

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Werner Heuser]

On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 02:53:25PM -0400, Curt Howland wrote:
> There's also,
> 
> http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html
For more providers of laptops, notebooks and PDAs with
Linux pre-installed, see http://tuxmobil.org/reseller.html
> 
> And if you need to overwrite Windows,
> http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/
Don't forget the TuxMobil Linux Laptop Survey
http://tuxmobil.org/mylaptops.html

Werner

-- 
|=| Werner Heuser = Berliner Str. 122 = D-13187 Berlin = Germany
|=|  T. 0049 - (0)30 - 349 53 86
|=| http://TuxMobil.orgUniX on Mobile Systems: HOWTOs,Software
|*| This is no time for phony rhetoric -- Lou Reed


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Re: Laptop recommendations

[Curt Howland]

There's also,

http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html

And if you need to overwrite Windows,
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/

Emperor Linux seems to have passed into non-existence.

On Sunday 06 June 2004 14:26, [EMAIL PROTECTED] was 
heard to say:
> Thus spake Rolf Heckemann ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> ...
>
> > In your situation, I would probably consider the Lindows Mobile
> > PC from sub300.com (http://www.sub300.com/port.htm).
>
> Looks interesting. Does anyone on the list have experience with
> these machines?

-- 
September 11th, 2001
The proudest day for gun control and central 
planning advocates in American history


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Re: Laptop recommendations

[dbarker]

Thus spake Rolf Heckemann ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
...
> In your situation, I would probably consider the Lindows Mobile PC
> from sub300.com (http://www.sub300.com/port.htm).

Looks interesting. Does anyone on the list have experience with these machines?

-- 
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood|
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to.   |
|email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | |
|phone: +1 250 370 4452   | Hermann Scherchen.  |


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Laptop recommendations

[dbarker]

I'm probably going to be buying a new laptop over the summer to use at
school in the new academic year.

Apart from the usual things - installs debian (sarge) with no
(significant) problems, etc - I have one requirement which is crucial
and yet, I suspect, not entirely usual: I *must* be able to display on
an external projector/monitor (preferably 1024x768, which is the
maximum our college projectors will handle) reliably, preferably via a
Function-key/BIOS switch, as getting it to work consistently via
software (using atitvout on my Dell Latitude CPx) has been a
persistent headache for the last academic year. And it needs to be a
3-way switch: the BIOS on my Dell will display on the laptop screen or
externally but not both, which was a major pain in class.

So - any recommendations? Doesn't have to be superfast or equipped
with lots of bells and whistles - in fact I'd prefer it to be cheap
and functional: I've got a desktop at home for CD-burning and the
like. 

Oh yes, wireless networking is a highly desirable feature also. And
I'd rather go for an AMD chip, but this is a preference rather than a
requirement.

Thanks in advance for all advice.
-- 
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood|
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to.   |
|email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | |
|phone: +1 250 370 4452   | Hermann Scherchen.  |

Laptop recommendations

[dbarker]

I'm probably going to be buying a new laptop over the summer to use at
school in the new academic year.

Apart from the usual things - installs debian (sarge) with no
(significant) problems, etc - I have one requirement which is crucial
and yet, I suspect, not entirely usual: I *must* be able to display on
an external projector/monitor (preferably 1024x768, which is the
maximum our college projectors will handle) reliably, preferably via a
Function-key/BIOS switch, as getting it to work consistently via
software (using atitvout on my Dell Latitude CPx) has been a
persistent headache for the last academic year. And it needs to be a
3-way switch: the BIOS on my Dell will display on the laptop screen or
externally but not both, which was a major pain in class.

So - any recommendations? Doesn't have to be superfast or equipped
with lots of bells and whistles - in fact I'd prefer it to be cheap
and functional: I've got a desktop at home for CD-burning and the
like. 

Oh yes, wireless networking is a highly desirable feature also. And
I'd rather go for an AMD chip, but this is a preference rather than a
requirement.

Thanks in advance for all advice.
-- 
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood|
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to.   |
|email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | |
|phone: +1 250 370 4452   | Hermann Scherchen.  |


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Re: Laptop recommendations

[Derek Broughton]

From: "Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Michael Nordmeyer wrote:
> >
> > Apple introduced a new iBook with 14.1" display yesterday. Check it
> > out, it's on the apple site. But it's $1799 with 700Mhz and DVD/CDRW
> > combo. Still quite inexpensive compared with Wintel consumer laptops.
> > Apple hardware is solidly built.
>
> This system looks really great! and is a great vallue for money. But it
> is out of reach of my pocket..:-( My maximum limit is $1200.

My Dell Inspiron 2500 was a little over US$1000 with taxes for an 800MHz
processor (I don't know iBooks, but I presume that's a 64bit cpu, so
admittedly not a comparable processor) with 14.1" display.  I didn't get the
DVD, but it's kind of hard to see how that makes the iBook "inexpensive".
It works great - it took some time before I managed to find an off-the-shelf
kernel that worked, but it's running Woody with kernel-image-2.4.16-586.  I
still haven't figured out sound though, but that's mostly because I couldn't
much care about it,

derek

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan]

I just checked up Compaq Presario webpages. There is something called
700 series laptops, which comes with AMD Duron processors. They seem to
be cheap.(around $1000) with S3 Savage graphics chip. They have not
given details of the size of the display. Anyone having experience
running Debian GNU/Linux on this machine?

-- 
 Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
 Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Derek Broughton]

From: "Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Michael Nordmeyer wrote:
> >
> > Apple introduced a new iBook with 14.1" display yesterday. Check it
> > out, it's on the apple site. But it's $1799 with 700Mhz and DVD/CDRW
> > combo. Still quite inexpensive compared with Wintel consumer laptops.
> > Apple hardware is solidly built.
>
> This system looks really great! and is a great vallue for money. But it
> is out of reach of my pocket..:-( My maximum limit is $1200.

My Dell Inspiron 2500 was a little over US$1000 with taxes for an 800MHz
processor (I don't know iBooks, but I presume that's a 64bit cpu, so
admittedly not a comparable processor) with 14.1" display.  I didn't get the
DVD, but it's kind of hard to see how that makes the iBook "inexpensive".
It works great - it took some time before I managed to find an off-the-shelf
kernel that worked, but it's running Woody with kernel-image-2.4.16-586.  I
still haven't figured out sound though, but that's mostly because I couldn't
much care about it,

derek


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Re: Laptop recommendations

[Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan]

I just checked up Compaq Presario webpages. There is something called
700 series laptops, which comes with AMD Duron processors. They seem to
be cheap.(around $1000) with S3 Savage graphics chip. They have not
given details of the size of the display. Anyone having experience
running Debian GNU/Linux on this machine?

-- 
 Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
 Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])


-- 
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Re: Laptop recommendations

[Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan]

Michael Nordmeyer wrote:
> 
> Apple introduced a new iBook with 14.1" display yesterday. Check it
> out, it's on the apple site. But it's $1799 with 700Mhz and DVD/CDRW
> combo. Still quite inexpensive compared with Wintel consumer laptops.
> Apple hardware is solidly built.

This system looks really great! and is a great vallue for money. But it
is out of reach of my pocket..:-( My maximum limit is $1200.

> Apple is going to use more and more standard parts to reduce cost. I
> don't know if Darwin, Apple's Open Source, provides also source code
> for a whole hardware experience.

I read somewhere that someone studied the Darwin source code of the
sound driver for iBook2 and wrote a minimal driver for the linux kernel.
Yes, the presence of Darwin is a great thing for Free Software, once can
atleast study the source and understand the ststem better.

-- 
 Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
 Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Michael Nordmeyer]

On Tuesday 08 January 2002 05:06, Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan wrote:
> Mark Brown wrote:
> > Don't know about the pricing (Apple's store is currently off-line)
> > but iBooks are rather nice with long batter life and gorgeous
> > screens.
>
> Yes, I checked them up. The screen size is only 12.1", apart from

Apple introduced a new iBook with 14.1" display yesterday. Check it 
out, it's on the apple site. But it's $1799 with 700Mhz and DVD/CDRW 
combo. Still quite inexpensive compared with Wintel consumer laptops. 
Apple hardware is solidly built.

> that it looks really good for the price vs the performance you get.
> But it doesn't have a floppy drive. Debian installation experiences
> on the net shows that they sometimes don't boot off the CD... also

You may want to check out
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ibook.html

> sound doesn't work at this point. Apart from that it is a good
> machine. But somehow I dislike Apple because they use a lot of
> propreitary ASICs on their hardware and don't publish anything about
> them, which is bad.

Apple is going to use more and more standard parts to reduce cost. I 
don't know if Darwin, Apple's Open Source, provides also source code 
for a whole hardware experience.

- Michael

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan]

Michael Nordmeyer wrote:
> 
> Apple introduced a new iBook with 14.1" display yesterday. Check it
> out, it's on the apple site. But it's $1799 with 700Mhz and DVD/CDRW
> combo. Still quite inexpensive compared with Wintel consumer laptops.
> Apple hardware is solidly built.

This system looks really great! and is a great vallue for money. But it
is out of reach of my pocket..:-( My maximum limit is $1200.

> Apple is going to use more and more standard parts to reduce cost. I
> don't know if Darwin, Apple's Open Source, provides also source code
> for a whole hardware experience.

I read somewhere that someone studied the Darwin source code of the
sound driver for iBook2 and wrote a minimal driver for the linux kernel.
Yes, the presence of Darwin is a great thing for Free Software, once can
atleast study the source and understand the ststem better.

-- 
 Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
 Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])


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Re: Laptop recommendations

[Michael Nordmeyer]

On Tuesday 08 January 2002 05:06, Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan wrote:
> Mark Brown wrote:
> > Don't know about the pricing (Apple's store is currently off-line)
> > but iBooks are rather nice with long batter life and gorgeous
> > screens.
>
> Yes, I checked them up. The screen size is only 12.1", apart from

Apple introduced a new iBook with 14.1" display yesterday. Check it 
out, it's on the apple site. But it's $1799 with 700Mhz and DVD/CDRW 
combo. Still quite inexpensive compared with Wintel consumer laptops. 
Apple hardware is solidly built.

> that it looks really good for the price vs the performance you get.
> But it doesn't have a floppy drive. Debian installation experiences
> on the net shows that they sometimes don't boot off the CD... also

You may want to check out
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ibook.html

> sound doesn't work at this point. Apart from that it is a good
> machine. But somehow I dislike Apple because they use a lot of
> propreitary ASICs on their hardware and don't publish anything about
> them, which is bad.

Apple is going to use more and more standard parts to reduce cost. I 
don't know if Darwin, Apple's Open Source, provides also source code 
for a whole hardware experience.

- Michael


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Re: Laptop recommendations

[Jeff]

I was just checking out the new Dell Precision M40:

7.89 lbs.
Pentium  III 1.2 GHz processor-M with large 512KB L2 cache
ISV certified 3D OpenGL accelerated workstation graphics
NVidia Quadro2 Go 256-bit, 4X AGP video chipset
32MB DDR video memory
POWERdraft, QuadroView, MAXtreme workstation applets
512MB memory
48GB ATA100 HDD
15.1" display

Sounds pretty hot!

jc

-- 
Jeff CoppockSystems Engineer
Diggin' Debian  Admin and User

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan]

Mark Brown wrote:
> 
> Don't know about the pricing (Apple's store is currently off-line) but
> iBooks are rather nice with long batter life and gorgeous screens.

Yes, I checked them up. The screen size is only 12.1", apart from that
it looks really good for the price vs the performance you get. But it
doesn't have a floppy drive. Debian installation experiences on the net
shows that they sometimes don't boot off the CD... also sound doesn't
work at this point. Apart from that it is a good machine. But somehow I
dislike Apple because they use a lot of propreitary ASICs on their
hardware and don't publish anything about them, which is bad.

-- 
 Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
 Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Jeff]

I was just checking out the new Dell Precision M40:

7.89 lbs.
Pentium  III 1.2 GHz processor-M with large 512KB L2 cache
ISV certified 3D OpenGL accelerated workstation graphics
NVidia Quadro2 Go 256-bit, 4X AGP video chipset
32MB DDR video memory
POWERdraft, QuadroView, MAXtreme workstation applets
512MB memory
48GB ATA100 HDD
15.1" display

Sounds pretty hot!

jc

-- 
Jeff CoppockSystems Engineer
Diggin' Debian  Admin and User


-- 
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Re: Laptop recommendations

[Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan]

Mark Brown wrote:
> 
> Don't know about the pricing (Apple's store is currently off-line) but
> iBooks are rather nice with long batter life and gorgeous screens.

Yes, I checked them up. The screen size is only 12.1", apart from that
it looks really good for the price vs the performance you get. But it
doesn't have a floppy drive. Debian installation experiences on the net
shows that they sometimes don't boot off the CD... also sound doesn't
work at this point. Apart from that it is a good machine. But somehow I
dislike Apple because they use a lot of propreitary ASICs on their
hardware and don't publish anything about them, which is bad.

-- 
 Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
 Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])


-- 
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Re: Laptop recommendations

[Mark Brown]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 08:34:52PM +0530, Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan wrote:

> I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good laptop
> (under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?

Don't know about the pricing (Apple's store is currently off-line) but
iBooks are rather nice with long batter life and gorgeous screens.

-- 
"You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream - or a fever."


pgpV3ESqHW6gB.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Michael Perry]

Quoting Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan on Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 08:34:52PM +0530:
> Hi,
> 
> I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good laptop
> (under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?
> 
> -- 
>  Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
>  Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
> 
> 
I've been using a IBM Thinkpad T21 here with great luck.  It has
supported components and is speedy enough to play DVDs with its 8mb S3
Savage video card.  I run debian unstable on it with a 2.4.17 kernel in
both wired and wireless.

You can find them at ubid I believe (or they were there at least) for
under your cost point.

BTW, my T21 has a 800mhz PIII, 256mb of memory, and a 20g ibm hard disk
drive.  Memory for the T21s is pretty cheap these days.  I bought a
256mb memory module for under $75.

-- 
Michael Perry | "Do or do not; there is no try" Master Yoda
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.lnxpowered.org 

Re: Laptop recommendations

[kiss the sun and walk on air]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 03:17:25PM +, Richard Ibbotson wrote:
> I like Toshiba myself.  Low cost and very reliable. There's also the 
> IBM ones.  Good prices for these in the States.  Compaq can be good 
> as well.  You might run into problems with spares for any of these ?

If you choose toshiba, be sure to see what video chipset your laptop
has. Many of them have the Trident CyberBlade series which is not
accelerated under XFree86 since Trident refused to give developers
spec docs.
-pete

-- 
(peter.royal|osi)@pobox.com - http://pobox.com/~osi
jabber/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] - icq/ 153025 - aim/ osifx - yahoo/ osi_fx
your brain on life - http://fotap.org - incubating


pgpCmqZuHFOOQ.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Serge Rey]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 08:58:14PM +0530, Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan wrote:
> Serge Rey wrote:
> > 
> > are you looking to buy while in the u.s., or while you be buying before
> > you travel? if the former, you might want to look for good deals on
> 
> I am planning to buy one after reaching US. Laptops are prohibitively
> expensive in India.
> 
> > thinkpads (like an x20 or x21). i picked up one there with a 3 year
> > warranty for about $700 less than retail. runs debian like a champ.
> 
> I am a bit unfamiliar with the US stores etc. YOu mean to say, online
> stores? or the normal stores? If online, could you please suggest some
> stores? 

sure. ebay is an on-line bidding/auction site. http://www.ebay.com
it is a good idea to read the entire add for an item before bidding.
i've never had a problem in any auctions i've been involved with, but
reading the entire add has alerted me to sometimes fine details (i.e.,
payment options, shipping costs and times, auction type) that can be
important.

if you have specific questions about ebay (i.e., non-debian-laptop) feel
free to contact me off list and i'm happy to help.

-- 
Sergio J. Rey   http://typhoon.sdsu.edu/rey.html
Q: "Have you lived in Europe all of your life, Jean?" 
A: "Not yet." - Jean Paelinck 


pgp7z1o8a3D2D.pgp
Description: PGP signature

RE: Laptop recommendations

[Oliver Andrich]

Hi,

I would suggest a Toshiba. I own a Satelite 3000 series and after some hints
and some rethinking I got Debian up and running on it perfectly. Most problems
were caused by my problems and my strange ideas about Linux and Laptops. ;
Official retail is $1600, but I have seen shops in the US selling it for as
low as $1150. May this is an option. But I also have to admit that you want to
run Woody or even better Sid on it, cause it is a quite new notebook and so it
needs some special drivers...

Otherwise pick one of the cheaper and more "conventional" Toshi notebooks..

Best regards,
Oliver

> -Original Message-
> From: Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 4:05 PM
> To: debian-laptop@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Laptop recommendations
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good laptop
> (under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?
>
> --
>  Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
>  Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan]

Serge Rey wrote:
> 
> are you looking to buy while in the u.s., or while you be buying before
> you travel? if the former, you might want to look for good deals on

I am planning to buy one after reaching US. Laptops are prohibitively
expensive in India.

> thinkpads (like an x20 or x21). i picked up one there with a 3 year
> warranty for about $700 less than retail. runs debian like a champ.

I am a bit unfamiliar with the US stores etc. YOu mean to say, online
stores? or the normal stores? If online, could you please suggest some
stores? 

-- 
 Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
 Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Serge Rey]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 08:34:52PM +0530, Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good laptop
> (under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?

are you looking to buy while in the u.s., or while you be buying before
you travel? if the former, you might want to look for good deals on
thinkpads (like an x20 or x21). i picked up one there with a 3 year
warranty for about $700 less than retail. runs debian like a champ.

-- 
Sergio J. Rey   http://typhoon.sdsu.edu/rey.html
Why use Linux? We could give you a thousand reasons.
 - Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman


pgp7uFINd3paM.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Richard Ibbotson]

Hi

> I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good
> laptop (under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?


I like Toshiba myself.  Low cost and very reliable. There's also the 
IBM ones.  Good prices for these in the States.  Compaq can be good 
as well.  You might run into problems with spares for any of these ?

I could go on forever.  For me it's whether you like or don't like 
the sticky out thing in the middle of the keyboard or do you prefer a 
touchpad for ease of use.

You might want to have a look at 

http://www.linux-laptop.net/

Configuring your laptop is an issue that you should take seriously :)

Thanks


-- 
Richard

www.sheflug.co.uk

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Mark Brown]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 08:34:52PM +0530, Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan wrote:

> I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good laptop
> (under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?

Don't know about the pricing (Apple's store is currently off-line) but
iBooks are rather nice with long batter life and gorgeous screens.

-- 
"You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream - or a fever."



msg06215/pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Laptop recommendations

[Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan]

Hi,

I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good laptop
(under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?

-- 
 Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
 Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Michael Perry]

Quoting Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan on Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 08:34:52PM +0530:
> Hi,
> 
> I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good laptop
> (under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?
> 
> -- 
>  Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
>  Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
> 
> 
I've been using a IBM Thinkpad T21 here with great luck.  It has
supported components and is speedy enough to play DVDs with its 8mb S3
Savage video card.  I run debian unstable on it with a 2.4.17 kernel in
both wired and wireless.

You can find them at ubid I believe (or they were there at least) for
under your cost point.

BTW, my T21 has a 800mhz PIII, 256mb of memory, and a 20g ibm hard disk
drive.  Memory for the T21s is pretty cheap these days.  I bought a
256mb memory module for under $75.

-- 
Michael Perry | "Do or do not; there is no try" Master Yoda
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.lnxpowered.org 


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Re: Laptop recommendations

[kiss the sun and walk on air]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 03:17:25PM +, Richard Ibbotson wrote:
> I like Toshiba myself.  Low cost and very reliable. There's also the 
> IBM ones.  Good prices for these in the States.  Compaq can be good 
> as well.  You might run into problems with spares for any of these ?

If you choose toshiba, be sure to see what video chipset your laptop
has. Many of them have the Trident CyberBlade series which is not
accelerated under XFree86 since Trident refused to give developers
spec docs.
-pete

-- 
(peter.royal|osi)@pobox.com - http://pobox.com/~osi
jabber/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] - icq/ 153025 - aim/ osifx - yahoo/ osi_fx
your brain on life - http://fotap.org - incubating



msg06211/pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Serge Rey]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 08:58:14PM +0530, Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan wrote:
> Serge Rey wrote:
> > 
> > are you looking to buy while in the u.s., or while you be buying before
> > you travel? if the former, you might want to look for good deals on
> 
> I am planning to buy one after reaching US. Laptops are prohibitively
> expensive in India.
> 
> > thinkpads (like an x20 or x21). i picked up one there with a 3 year
> > warranty for about $700 less than retail. runs debian like a champ.
> 
> I am a bit unfamiliar with the US stores etc. YOu mean to say, online
> stores? or the normal stores? If online, could you please suggest some
> stores? 

sure. ebay is an on-line bidding/auction site. http://www.ebay.com
it is a good idea to read the entire add for an item before bidding.
i've never had a problem in any auctions i've been involved with, but
reading the entire add has alerted me to sometimes fine details (i.e.,
payment options, shipping costs and times, auction type) that can be
important.

if you have specific questions about ebay (i.e., non-debian-laptop) feel
free to contact me off list and i'm happy to help.

-- 
Sergio J. Rey   http://typhoon.sdsu.edu/rey.html
Q: "Have you lived in Europe all of your life, Jean?" 
A: "Not yet." - Jean Paelinck 



msg06210/pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature

RE: Laptop recommendations

[Oliver Andrich]

Hi,

I would suggest a Toshiba. I own a Satelite 3000 series and after some hints
and some rethinking I got Debian up and running on it perfectly. Most problems
were caused by my problems and my strange ideas about Linux and Laptops. ;
Official retail is $1600, but I have seen shops in the US selling it for as
low as $1150. May this is an option. But I also have to admit that you want to
run Woody or even better Sid on it, cause it is a quite new notebook and so it
needs some special drivers...

Otherwise pick one of the cheaper and more "conventional" Toshi notebooks..

Best regards,
Oliver

> -Original Message-
> From: Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 4:05 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Laptop recommendations
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good laptop
> (under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?
>
> --
>  Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
>  Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>



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Re: Laptop recommendations

[Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan]

Serge Rey wrote:
> 
> are you looking to buy while in the u.s., or while you be buying before
> you travel? if the former, you might want to look for good deals on

I am planning to buy one after reaching US. Laptops are prohibitively
expensive in India.

> thinkpads (like an x20 or x21). i picked up one there with a 3 year
> warranty for about $700 less than retail. runs debian like a champ.

I am a bit unfamiliar with the US stores etc. YOu mean to say, online
stores? or the normal stores? If online, could you please suggest some
stores? 

-- 
 Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
 Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])


-- 
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with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Serge Rey]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 08:34:52PM +0530, Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good laptop
> (under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?

are you looking to buy while in the u.s., or while you be buying before
you travel? if the former, you might want to look for good deals on
thinkpads (like an x20 or x21). i picked up one there with a 3 year
warranty for about $700 less than retail. runs debian like a champ.

-- 
Sergio J. Rey   http://typhoon.sdsu.edu/rey.html
Why use Linux? We could give you a thousand reasons.
 - Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman



msg06207/pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Laptop recommendations

[Richard Ibbotson]

Hi

> I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good
> laptop (under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?


I like Toshiba myself.  Low cost and very reliable. There's also the 
IBM ones.  Good prices for these in the States.  Compaq can be good 
as well.  You might run into problems with spares for any of these ?

I could go on forever.  For me it's whether you like or don't like 
the sticky out thing in the middle of the keyboard or do you prefer a 
touchpad for ease of use.

You might want to have a look at 

http://www.linux-laptop.net/

Configuring your laptop is an issue that you should take seriously :)

Thanks


-- 
Richard

www.sheflug.co.uk


--
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Laptop recommendations

[Muthukrishnan, Ramakrishnan]

Hi,

I will be travelling US shortly, and would like to buy a good laptop
(under $1200). Could someone give a recomendation?

-- 
 Ramakrishnan M  (http://www.hackGNU.org/)
 Texas Instruments, India   ([EMAIL PROTECTED])


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Re: Laptop Recommendations

[Heather]

> Just as a warning I started by purchasing a used cheap notebook, it
> was a IBM ThinkPad 760EL that I purchased from a used computer store cheap.
> The problem is I got addicted to the concept of portable computer and had
> to have a newer, faster, and better notebook so I now own a ThinkPad A20M.
> The ThinkPad A20M is great and I can not imagine life with out it!  If this
> is something you are going to use alot you may want to purchase a new laptop.

Also in the category of general recommendations, just mentally add 1.5 pounds
to whatever they say the silly thing weighs.  Otherwise you'll find that
its carrying case and your power adapter and other toys you enjoy carrying
with it weigh a lot more than you had in mind!

My first laptop was a p60 which ran hot (see "fastest CPU for its time").
It also was quite heavy, which I decided wasn't too bad after a few months
of carrying around the Computer Shopper Guide like it was the JCPenney 
xmas wish book or something.  I didn't realize its power brick was heavy too.
And if I wanted an extra battery, another brick!

And, while it's possible it's a real pain to replace the keyboard.  So if
you can get your hands on the model you're considering, esp. if your hands
are large... it's a good idea to try out a little typing on the beast 
before committing your hands to live with it.

If you get a lightweight with external CD, consider just buying your own
external CD bay, if it's USB driven - you can probably save a bunch;  you
could even get a CDRW instead.  Just surf the iMac aisle comparing the 
optional drive to the iMac boxed products.  Someone I know recently saved 
themselves almost $200 to get a faster drive.

Now, in the category of debian recommendations...

Sound is really popular but lots of our questions are folks trying to spin
up sound the first time; with 3 ways to do it (but only one right per machine)
it really is a pain.  I've seen CS4281's appearing a lot lately and they use
a "normal" kernel module so I would gravitate towards it, if shown a bunch
of otherwise equivalent laptops.

I've not enough experience with the recent video chips to be sure of any good 
ones to really shoot for, (e.g rocking fast X 4 support, etc.) but the ATI 
Mobility family should be a safe bet if you feel lost.

* Heather Stern * star@ many places...

Re: Laptop Recommendations

[Heather]

> Hi,
> 
> I'm interested in buying an old laptop and installing Debian on it. What are 
> people's recommendations?
> 
> I've been looking at the Dell Latitude XPi P150 and P166. They have an 
> installed CD-ROM and floppy. I've also been looking at the HP Omnibook 
> 800CT, I think with a 150 cpu.

The Omnibook 800CT makes a very happy debian box!  (Personal experience)


* Heather Stern * star@ many places...

Re: Laptop Recommendations

[Heather]

> Just as a warning I started by purchasing a used cheap notebook, it
> was a IBM ThinkPad 760EL that I purchased from a used computer store cheap.
> The problem is I got addicted to the concept of portable computer and had
> to have a newer, faster, and better notebook so I now own a ThinkPad A20M.
> The ThinkPad A20M is great and I can not imagine life with out it!  If this
> is something you are going to use alot you may want to purchase a new laptop.

Also in the category of general recommendations, just mentally add 1.5 pounds
to whatever they say the silly thing weighs.  Otherwise you'll find that
its carrying case and your power adapter and other toys you enjoy carrying
with it weigh a lot more than you had in mind!

My first laptop was a p60 which ran hot (see "fastest CPU for its time").
It also was quite heavy, which I decided wasn't too bad after a few months
of carrying around the Computer Shopper Guide like it was the JCPenney 
xmas wish book or something.  I didn't realize its power brick was heavy too.
And if I wanted an extra battery, another brick!

And, while it's possible it's a real pain to replace the keyboard.  So if
you can get your hands on the model you're considering, esp. if your hands
are large... it's a good idea to try out a little typing on the beast 
before committing your hands to live with it.

If you get a lightweight with external CD, consider just buying your own
external CD bay, if it's USB driven - you can probably save a bunch;  you
could even get a CDRW instead.  Just surf the iMac aisle comparing the 
optional drive to the iMac boxed products.  Someone I know recently saved 
themselves almost $200 to get a faster drive.

Now, in the category of debian recommendations...

Sound is really popular but lots of our questions are folks trying to spin
up sound the first time; with 3 ways to do it (but only one right per machine)
it really is a pain.  I've seen CS4281's appearing a lot lately and they use
a "normal" kernel module so I would gravitate towards it, if shown a bunch
of otherwise equivalent laptops.

I've not enough experience with the recent video chips to be sure of any good 
ones to really shoot for, (e.g rocking fast X 4 support, etc.) but the ATI 
Mobility family should be a safe bet if you feel lost.

* Heather Stern * star@ many places...


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Re: Laptop Recommendations

[Todd V . Rovito]

Just as a warning I started by purchasing a used cheap notebook, it
was a IBM ThinkPad 760EL that I purchased from a used computer store cheap.
The problem is I got addicted to the concept of portable computer and had
to have a newer, faster, and better notebook so I now own a ThinkPad A20M.
The ThinkPad A20M is great and I can not imagine life with out it!  If this
is something you are going to use alot you may want to purchase a new laptop.

Thus spake Peter Cordes ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):

> On Fri, Mar 16, 2001 at 04:44:03PM -, Todd Kokoszka wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I'm interested in buying an old laptop and installing Debian on it. What 
> > are 
> > people's recommendations?
-- 
Todd V. Rovito
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Carpe Aptenodytes!  "Seize the Penguins!" 

Re: Laptop Recommendations

[Heather]

> Hi,
> 
> I'm interested in buying an old laptop and installing Debian on it. What are 
> people's recommendations?
> 
> I've been looking at the Dell Latitude XPi P150 and P166. They have an 
> installed CD-ROM and floppy. I've also been looking at the HP Omnibook 
> 800CT, I think with a 150 cpu.

The Omnibook 800CT makes a very happy debian box!  (Personal experience)


* Heather Stern * star@ many places...


--  
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Re: Laptop Recommendations

[Peter Cordes]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2001 at 04:44:03PM -, Todd Kokoszka wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm interested in buying an old laptop and installing Debian on it. What are 
> people's recommendations?
 
 Get something with enough RAM for what you want.  Esp. older laptops
sometimes use custom RAM that only works with that model, so upgrades are
expensive.
 
 Try to get one with at lithium battery, since they're better.
Nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) batteries are ok.  Don't get nickel-cadmium,
since they don't hold as much charge, and suffer from the "memory effect",
where they lose effective capacity if you don't discharge them all the way.
(you can reverse this a bit, but it's not good.)

 In general, laptop upgrades cost a lot more than for desktop machines.
Don't buy a really cheap laptop and plan to upgrade.  (unless it was really,
really cheap, and not too bad.)  Hard drives are an exception.  Laptop ones
cost more, but they are compatible.

 Some laptops with slow-by-modern-standards processors have CPUs which were
the fastest for their time, and use a lot of power.  I've heard tales of
P200MMX laptops that would run for half an hour on a full charge.  If
you're going to be near an outlet most of the time, you can get away with
buying a power-hungry laptop, though.

 Another thing to watch for is that older laptops might not be PCI-based, in
which case they probably won't take 32-bit (cardbus) PC cards, and you won't
be able to tweak the hard drive performance with hdparm very well
(probably).  If this matters to you, then get a PCI laptop.  (I think most
pentium laptops would use PCI).

-- 
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ;  e-mail: X([EMAIL PROTECTED] , ns.ca)

"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
 Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack
 my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BCE

Re: Laptop Recommendations

[Todd V . Rovito]

Just as a warning I started by purchasing a used cheap notebook, it
was a IBM ThinkPad 760EL that I purchased from a used computer store cheap.
The problem is I got addicted to the concept of portable computer and had
to have a newer, faster, and better notebook so I now own a ThinkPad A20M.
The ThinkPad A20M is great and I can not imagine life with out it!  If this
is something you are going to use alot you may want to purchase a new laptop.

Thus spake Peter Cordes ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):

> On Fri, Mar 16, 2001 at 04:44:03PM -, Todd Kokoszka wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I'm interested in buying an old laptop and installing Debian on it. What are 
> > people's recommendations?
-- 
Todd V. Rovito
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Carpe Aptenodytes!  "Seize the Penguins!" 


--  
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Re: Laptop Recommendations

[Peter Cordes]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2001 at 04:44:03PM -, Todd Kokoszka wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm interested in buying an old laptop and installing Debian on it. What are 
> people's recommendations?
 
 Get something with enough RAM for what you want.  Esp. older laptops
sometimes use custom RAM that only works with that model, so upgrades are
expensive.
 
 Try to get one with at lithium battery, since they're better.
Nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) batteries are ok.  Don't get nickel-cadmium,
since they don't hold as much charge, and suffer from the "memory effect",
where they lose effective capacity if you don't discharge them all the way.
(you can reverse this a bit, but it's not good.)

 In general, laptop upgrades cost a lot more than for desktop machines.
Don't buy a really cheap laptop and plan to upgrade.  (unless it was really,
really cheap, and not too bad.)  Hard drives are an exception.  Laptop ones
cost more, but they are compatible.

 Some laptops with slow-by-modern-standards processors have CPUs which were
the fastest for their time, and use a lot of power.  I've heard tales of
P200MMX laptops that would run for half an hour on a full charge.  If
you're going to be near an outlet most of the time, you can get away with
buying a power-hungry laptop, though.

 Another thing to watch for is that older laptops might not be PCI-based, in
which case they probably won't take 32-bit (cardbus) PC cards, and you won't
be able to tweak the hard drive performance with hdparm very well
(probably).  If this matters to you, then get a PCI laptop.  (I think most
pentium laptops would use PCI).

-- 
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ;  e-mail: X([EMAIL PROTECTED] , ns.ca)

"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
 Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack
 my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BCE


--  
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Laptop Recommendations

[Todd Kokoszka]

Hi,

I'm interested in buying an old laptop and installing Debian on it. What are 
people's recommendations?


I've been looking at the Dell Latitude XPi P150 and P166. They have an 
installed CD-ROM and floppy. I've also been looking at the HP Omnibook 
800CT, I think with a 150 cpu.


Thanks,
Todd
_
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Laptop Recommendations

[Todd Kokoszka]

Hi,

I'm interested in buying an old laptop and installing Debian on it. What are 
people's recommendations?

I've been looking at the Dell Latitude XPi P150 and P166. They have an 
installed CD-ROM and floppy. I've also been looking at the HP Omnibook 
800CT, I think with a 150 cpu.

Thanks,
Todd
_
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.


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