Re: need a recommendation on a good laptop

["Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>" <thebs413@earthlink.net>]

On Wednesday 25 May 2005 12:17, Kyle Pointer wrote:
> I'd go with a ThinkPad from IBM. Their ( IMHO ) fairly priced and they
> will come with Windows XP. And they are supposed to have very good Linux
> compatibility.

Actually, IBM dropped Linux support a long time ago for Thinkpads.
Like most vendors, IBM gets their electronics from the same 2-3 manufacturers.
Worse yet, they ship very buggy BIOSes which can have disk geometry
issues when dual-booting with Linux 2.6 and various XP + service packs/
hotfixes.

The _only_ tier-1 OEM with official support for Linux on their notebooks is
HP.  They even have their Nx5000 series that ships with SuSE Linux and
has complete hardware support, from 802.11a/b/g wireless to standby
and suspend power management.

I actually picked up a really cheap Toshiba S35X series new for $499 that
uses the same i800-series chipset and peripherials (including CardBus)
as my very old Toshiba 2805 series.  Fedora Core 3 installed without issue,
uses DRI/UtahGLX for 3D acceleration (not high performance though)
and everything short of standby/suspend. 

In reality, when in doubt, by an Apple iBook or PowerBook.  There is this
farce that PC notebooks are faster, but reality is that PC notebooks typically
slow down to 800MHz on battery.  Why Apple keeps delaying the G5
iBooks/PowerBooks is beyond me, because at 1.4GHz, they'll use less
power than a typically Intel Mobile or Athlon at even 800MHz.


--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org


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