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Didn't Get That Linux Laptop for Xmas?
cvbear0 writes: "You didn't get the laptop you wanted for Christmas, did you? Well, surf on over to the Linux Laptop SuperGuide. The guys from the Linux Hardware Database and ZDNet have build a list of Linux-friendly laptops. Users can also post their comments about their experiences with certain model. Send back those 15 sweaters you received, and find the Linux laptop of your dreams!" My wish is that power management under Linux would be fully supported. Getting four hours battery life under Windows and two hours under Linux is disappointing.
But an OS/2 one would be nice :)
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
Getting four hours battery life under Windows and two hours under Linux is disappointing.
Since you need twice as much time to get anything done under windows, what else can you expect?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Interesting to see how I did purchasing without this guide -- turns out "my" VAIO got a 4.5. And of course, Linux compatibility was a _big_ factor in choosing it.
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
Anone know where I can get a extremly cheap laptop,
I mean I don't care even if its a 486, I just want something I can carry around. I'm looking in the range of around a 100$, does anyone know where I can get one?
I just want enough to Run Linux and play solataire on road trips.
Amigori
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Wishing BeOS was used more.
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
The ACPI support in the 2.4 Kernel is much better than the APM support in 2.2. I have been using this and without a daemon running it still keeps the power usage low, lower than with APM. It has allowed maby 3-3.5 hours I think, compared with 2 from 2.2. I have not set down and really tested it too much but it has seemed to act much better than in the past. There are downfalls from the earlyness of it though, like the time does not advance when the laptop is asleep, so you have to run xntpd each awakening. It shows though that very soon Linux will be there too.
My wish is that power management under Linux would be fully supported. Getting four hours battery life under Windows and two hours under Linux is disappointing.
.3V differential helps to meet the odd voltage specs. Or just carry around a few car batteries, a 12V cigarette lighter socket wired to some alligator clips, and one of those car adapters for your laptop.
INFIDEL! MISCREANT! Pustulent bootlicking LAPDOG of WILLIAM HENRY GATES III! Knowest thou not that the WRATH of the PENGUIN shall fall upon thee? May thy hard drive CHIP and SHATTER!
Those who would trade security and essential freedoms for a little power deserve not security, freedom, or power.
D00D! 11|\|UX R00lZ! J00 AR3 A 5UCK0R A|\|D 1 0\/\/|\| J00!
What sort of loser hacker are you? Just buy a bunch of AA batteries at the airport or K-mart or wherevery you are and solder them in series/parallel to meet your laptop's power specs. If you can't get it exactly, try combinations of NiCad and regular batteries, as the
I'd like to run a FreeBSD laptop. Does anyone have a good site for FreeBSD laptop compatiblity?
espo
The Compaq iPAQ handheld also overuses its batteries. I wonder if power management isn't a problem across all Linux architectures?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
As far as the other brands, stay away from Toshiba; they're the manufacturer of the cheapest (and shoddiest) laptops around. HP isn't much better. Only the Compaq Armada series is worth retrofitting with Linux. All Dell systems should work out fine. As for Gateway, those laptops are worth their weight in cow pies.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
You don't need to spend $2000 on a laptop to get one that works with Linux or other free OS's.
I bought this one for me this xmas, and I can recommendi it for someone who wants to run linux on it, and who is a geek.
:)
All it's USB, Parallel, Serial, PS2, 2 Type II or 1 Type III pcmcia slots, cdrom 24x, sound card, video card work perfectly.
The internal modem is a lucent one, it is supposed to work, but I haven't had the time to test it yet, same for the TVout.
Why it is good for geeks? Well, just chek all that you can connect to it!!! I can barely think of two interfaces that lack in this laptop!
The only downsize is weight... it's not very light, but I'm sure that it's 14.1'' and all those interfaces sure must compensate it!
Hugs, Cyke
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-lapto p/
Not only does it have a laptop compatibility list that is twenty times larger than the ZDNet one, but it also has howto's, discussion forums, and much, much more.
I've been using Dell Latitude CPt S500GT running Linux for over half a year and I have mostly positive things to say about it and about Linux power management. The battery is enough for more or less 4 hours of work under both Linux and Windows. Sometimes it is a bit longer under Win, because harddrive spins down more often and for longer periods of time. There are kernel patches available to limit "kupdate" activity somewhat, but since I carry rather important stuff, I am hesitant to apply them.
About the only complaint I have about this machine is how it misbehaves when going to "standby mode" with X-Window active. Hopefully, it will go away with X4 and ACPI in the kernel, which I am preparing to switch to in the near future.
If you have any interesting experiences with Dell Latitudes and Linux, post them below. I'd love to exchange some knowledge...
--
"Man in the Moon and other weird things" - wfmh.org.pl/thorgal/Moon/
I'm confused. I'm not christian, and celebrate the midwinter solstice instead -- should I leave my computer or stay online?
Please, I'm really happy for you, as this is an important holiday for you, but why not accept that in an international forum there will be plenty of people not sharing your set of beliefs?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
My laptop (see subject) works great with Mandrake, mmm, 7.2. The battery life is shorter, I figure around 2.5 hours, but it totally kicks ass on lose98. Think about it. A real OS on a P3 700. Woo Hoo!!!! I chose Mandrake for it after installing a number of others, including FreeBSD 4.2, which didn't work all that well, sniff, I've been a FreeBSD fan forever. Anyway, Mandrake was by far the simplest to install, virtually everything worked, except that piece of shit winmodem. I got the software modem to work via linmodem though.
Dive Gear
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
Ah, the old X resource hog myth. Funny how we run X on the Linux iPaq (16MB ROM, 32MB RAM). X can be run in a small space, at good speed. X was originally developed on a machine with 4MB of RAM. Jim Gettys has either checked in or is checking in the changes to X to allow it to run "bloat-less". Check out hendhelds.org
>>>>
My wish is that power management under Linux would be fully supported. Getting four hours battery life under Windows and two hours under Linux is disappointing.
Why don't you just read the source and program in a better power management? I was under the impression that everyone who used Linux looked at the source and improved it. It's like that bizarre cathedral!
I have to admit, reading the source and improving Linux (which doesn't really need any improvement, especially in UI) is much easier than using Windows. And let's face it, with Windows you have a hard time finding the newest software.
Good luck!
GenChalupa
Hey all I noticed the little comment that Rob placed about power management and Linux. Well there is good news in that front. Currently the ACPI (advanced configuration and power interface) being worked on. Its for the 2.4 kernel. If you have a laptop that supports this protocal then you are in luck. http://phobos.fs.tum.de/acpi/download.html check it out. Oh just for your info ... if anyone out there has a lucent modem there is an open source ( i dont know its its GPL'd) verson avalible!
http://walbran.org/sean/linux/stodolsk/
So you're writing it yourself, huh? No? Then you have nothing to complain about.
Sure, but in those four hours a Winblows user has to reboot an average of 36,211 times.
Sniff, sniff. Smells like another MICRO$HIT A$troturfer to me! Don't these M$ employees have anything better to do?
Download the latest Mozilla nightly. It's _much_ more power efficient than the previous nightly.
The Transmeta chip would give you all the time you need except the laptop makers are all too stupid to use them properly.
Or you could get a PowerBook and get EIGHT hours.
While I have personally installed GNU/Linux with virtually no effort on several Vaios, including Demolinux on a pcg 505tr, I personally bought a generic notebook from CompUSA. The Amerinote is perfect for linux. It is a Celeron 366 with a 13.3 inch TFT screen. 6gig HDD with a Rage Pro LT chipset. Nothing too awe inspiring there I know, but for a portable computing device that lets me do a bit of writing in an easy chair or bring along on a trip, it is the perfect machine. Even though it has a winmodem, it is a Lucent one, I have gotten it to work. It is nothing great, but then this not the machine I would choose to do heavy browsing or big FTP sessions on. I also don't understand your battery life problems. I get about an extra hour of battery time out of Gnu/Linux, specifically Linux-Mandrake 7.2.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Of course, why buy from Sony, the near-monopoly of the movie industry? So you can screw them over by not registering or using their provided software.
The above logic, "buy Sony hardware but screw Sony by not using their provided software" made me laugh.
Hardware enjoys a hefty markup over the price that covers COGS (cost of goods and services) plus NRE (non-recurring engineering). They tack on US$35 or so, about 1%-2% of the total retail price, to include software made by other companies. They value your registration card somewhere between $0.05 and $5.00 in marketing, which is about 0.3% max of the total retail price.
Oh, Sony's quaking in their boots! Sony is in the business of making hardware and media. They outsource the software and content. If you don't use the software they provide, they frankly don't care .
[
Installation of Linux on IBM ThinkPad is pretty painless. IBM is well known for his support to Linux community, and it reflects on every model of its ThinkPad.
There are ThinkPad Configuration tools if you are interested
Above all, ThinkPad is reliable. You can see from the fact that second hand ThinkPad sell at pretty good price at Ebay.
Disclaimer: I'm an ex-employee of IBM and I really hate IBM but I still think ThinkPad is a great product.
Let's put it this way. I consider just about anything to be vapor until the moment it displays on my screen. A processor becomes real once I can stroke the Core gently in anticipation...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I've been a fan of OS/2 as well, and used it to run my multi line BBS "back in the day".
The OS/2 community is alot like the Linux community, except the OS isn't open sourced. Thats actually one thing I liked about it, because people ran it because they liked it, unlike your typical Windows user who uses it because it came with their computer, and they think Windows is their own choice.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
For the first time ... EVER ... I did not receive any hideous clothing from any of my relatives this year. In fact, the closest thing to clothing that I received was a belt that I desperately needed. However, I did sort of receive a laptop. My best friend's laptop's (AMD K6-2 300MHz, 3GB HD, 32MB RAM) screen went nuts on him the last couple of weeks of school, and since he absolutely needs a laptop for school, his dad ordered him a new one. The day his new laptop came in, his old laptop's screen suddenly started working again! So, temporarily permanently I have myself a kickass laptop! However, Linux is not included, since my school revolves around Microsoft Office, and I kinda need to have it installed. :-) Maybe next year!
No mention of Apple PowerBooks on that site. LinuxPPC runs fantastic on many of them!
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
A webpage for help to the people who whant to run Linux have been around for a while. Check it out:o p/
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-lapt
Okay, here are the links you'll need when picking out a free software laptop:
o p/
. html
n etbsd.html
:)
Linux:
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-lapt
http://www.linux.org/hardware/laptop.html
FreeBSD:
http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/~dkulp/fbsd/laptop.html
http://www.jp.freebsd.org/PAO/LAPTOP_SURVEY/index
OpenBSD:
http://www.openbsd.org/i386-laptop.html
http://www.monkey.org/openbsd-mobile
NetBSD:
http://www.reedmedia.net/misc/netbsd/laptops-and-
http://newsletter.toshiba-tro.de/netbsd/
X window system LCD configs:
http://www.sanpei.org/Laptop-X/note-list.html
http://www.sanpei.org/Laptop-X/Laptop-X/
Notebook survey for graphics/PCMCIA
http://hci.ucsd.edu/dsf/notebooks.html
If anyone has any other links for other free software OSes, please post them
--posted anonymously to avoid karma whoring.
I recently bought my laptop (Topaz 8400) from http://www.tuxtops.com with RedHat 6.2 pre-installed and I love it. It couldn't be easier and you don't have to pay the Microsoft tax.
Unfortunately, a week ago sunday it got stolen. I hope whoever stole it knows how to crack root. ;)
have a day,
-l
> My wish is that power management under Linux
> would be fully supported.
> Getting four hours battery life under Windows
> and two hours under Linux is disappointing.
I use a Gericom Overdose 2 laptop and I had 3 hours with Linux, BeOS 4, Win2k and Win98.
I therefore have to say I had a wonderful surprise when I switched between kernel 2.2.17 to 2.2.18.
This is more a matter of stability (no more crash during blanking) than of durability.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
My 'new' laptop is a Toshiba T2000SXe 386SX 16Mhz 2.62 BogoMips :)
2Meg RAM argh! (640K base, 1408K extended) almost the same as this but without 2Meg mem card and no Win3.1.
Battery life is about, 5 min? :)
the previous owner said it was a nice machine with harvard graphics, msword excel and stuff under win3.1 but I when I boot it, nothing. fdisk p? nothing so I just install linux.
Linux? yes kernel 1.0.4 runs smoothly. slip/plip only networking.
Hello,
thanks for the links, but I can't really find some infos on the Sony PCG-C1VN, I ordered it, but I still have to wait...:-(
I thought this would be the only reasonable laptop for an Linux only user, like me. First I was not impressed you have to pay this M$ tax. Second I heard, that you have to fidle around with X and compile it new to get it running with the strange screen resolution the Picturbook has.
If anyone has some links or hints, I would be very thankfull, I asked google, but it didn't find much usefull...
Michael
I was actually telling the truth in the comment there... I just threw the surprise under the "m" in because I'm an asshole. Other than that, the article was entirely factual... hardly deserving of a "troll" rating. Don't you think?
-CoG
"And with HIS stripes we are healed"
-CoG
"And with HIS stripes we are healed"
Handel's "Messiah"
Instead of removing the battery you could try pressing on/off button for 5 secs.
--
"Man in the Moon and other weird things" - wfmh.org.pl/thorgal/Moon/
I think a better site to look at while we're on the topic is this one.
I think some credit needs to be given to the distributions especially in my case where I'm using a Dell Inspiron 7000 with a "Designed for Windows NT/98" sticker permanently attached.
When I first got this laptop, it wouldn't run anything but Windows. The sync rates for the LCD, the sound, the network card... none of them were installed correctly. Now with Mandrake 7.x in particular, the install runs great... and I'm sure Dell made little effort if any to help them out.
a few calls to select U.S. retailers to buy a "thin-and-light 14"TFT linux notebook",
2000.dec.19 - dec.23
dell seems to offer some redhat models on their website, but the links fail if you try to buy.
dell sales-people (on the phone) say linux is not available.
dell's Inspiron 4000 comes very close to how i'd like to see my machine, at $2350.
compaq 1.800.888.0220: (don't have any linux notebooks at this time)
compaq is the reason why i want the manufacturer to install the OS for me -
i spent 2 days in 2000-may failing to become friends with compaq's graphics chip.
fujitsupc.com 877-372-3473 (don't sell linux.)
gateway.com 800-846-4208 (we don't offer that operating system)
toshiba.com 1-800-316-0920 (runs on eastern time or something?) no linux
ibm-direct: yes they have linux pre-installed but the price seems to be about 60% higher
than dell+windowsMe
--- some lesser-known retailers and re-sellers:
tuxtops: don't have "thin-and-light" models
enpower: "thin-and-light" model coming soon - that may be worth the wait.
here in LA, some PC Club employees said they would put linux on there for me.
necxdirect.com (failed - no phone number listed)
microwarehouse 1-800-397-8508 "sorry, we don't carry any."
elinux has some 20 models of older yet pricey notebooks, nothing juicy.
--- places that I didn't get through ---
nec 888-632-8701 just rings and rings
sony 1 800 352-7669 (will try next week)
CDW 800 850 4239 (closes early?)
For those who still cling to the belief that Dell have some kind of non-Microsoft product, cast your mind back to the anti-trust trial and the "open discussions" with Scott McNealy, Michael Dell, Jim Clarke, etc. Michael Dell was the one brown-nosing Bill Gates with his pathetic "alternative OS" lies. He got called on it in front of the senators, and live on TV. He's so deeply owned by Bill that the thought of anything else coming out of their factory is laughable. Having said that, I've run several of their pre-configured Windows boxes. They are horrible, bizarrely installed, cheaply made, crap. Ironically, they seem to run BSD (net and open) and RedHat just fine. Go figure.
Hi, I have been working the past 6 months on a contract with a large Toshiba Reseller / Service agent, where I worked at a tech. So obviously I recieved a laptop to use on site. Obviously I wanted to be able to boot the damn thing in under 20 mins so I put redhat 6.2 on there (later upgraded to 7.0 which turned out to be a mistake)
The model laptop I used was a Toshiba Satelite 1550 which is a "education" model (very basic, passive screen etc) k6-2-366mhz 64mb ram 4.8gb hdd, 2mb s3 video card. (this model is called a 2100 outside of Australia)
I instantly noticed that there where a lot of drivers / applications which supported Toshiba laptops such as a appliction to turn the fan on and off,
The power management settings built into the rh 6.2 kernel where beautiful I recieved up to 4 hours battery life when In linux, not bad for a reported 1.3hour battery (lasted about 1 hour in windows)
The laptop came with a built in lucent winmodem which as many of you know now has a linux kernel module avaliable.
I also used a Xircom Re-100 realport card.
The laptop was soo easy to setup and configure I had it totaly setup in much less time than a desktop machine.
And the best part was with Xfree4.0 multimonitor support allowed me to use the external screen and the lcd screen at the same time, SO I could run VMWARE on the LCD panel (had to run windows because of the lan at one of the sites(and for minesweeper)with Pine and Star Office on the CRT.
Well thats about that if you have any queries about linux on Toshiba laptops feel free to contact me on sfalz@stpaulswgl.vic.edu.au
Cheers
--- I'd love to go out with you, but I have to study for a Turing test.
The FOSA and Ashton notebooks being advertised on Egghead.com seem interesting, but I've never heard of these names, so I'm a little concerned about putting down my hard earned cash on them.
--- I'd love to go out with you, but I have to study for a Turing test.
And what does "Please, I'm really happy for you, as this is an important holiday for you, but why not accept that in an international forum there will be plenty of people not sharing your set of beliefs?" mean to you?
echo $email | sed s/[A-Z]//g | rot13
Does anyone know if there are any companies planning on offering Linux (or any other free UNIX) pre-installed on laptops? I realize it is quite possible to install Linux on most laptops myself, but I am just curious.
Thanks,
Ben
I do this kind of thing on an outdated laptop with a 233 MHz Pentium, and I'm fine. Mozilla could be faster, though. In other words, *any* modern laptop will serve your needs. Just make sure that you have lots of RAM, that's the major speed factor. My machine has 160 MB and it shows.
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You may like my a cappella music
The same could be said of any of the OSes in the first five years of existance. Windows, that lame dog of an OS from 1984, did not mushroom until after vers 3.x, and Linux did not go anywhere until about 5 years or so later.
I know OS/2 has some bad things about it, but in the main, its quite usable. When you run allocmem it gets rid of the unnecessary dll files that load (specifically, pages them out to swapper.dat). This gives you heaps of core for the apps.
Interesting note: {flamebait}Windows NT derives from v 1.3 of OS/2, and its still there in W2K. I mean, the IBM OS/2 1.3 cmd.exe and rexx runs natively under it. [I've done this, based on a thing in Technet.]{/flamebait}:)
The real reason for wanting an OS/2 laptop is that we can force open standards and a universal installer. For everyone.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
I have two Compaq Laptops running Linux. I have a Prosignia and an Armada. Yes, there were some problems with the graphics at first, but most were fixed with XFree86 3.3.6 and of course, 4.0. Other stuff works great.
âoeIn theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." â Albert Einstein