Slashdot Mirror
Linux Laptop Recommendations for 2002?
ocasek asks: "I have been looking into buying a laptop again and one of the requirements I have is that it will be able to run Linux with all features turned on (i.e. suspend, APM, etc.). I used to own a Dell Inspiron 8000 that I had Mandrake 8.0 configured and running on, and aside from the wonderful BIOS hooks for PCMCIA that never worked completely, it was a good laptop.
My question to the /. Community is, in your opinion, what is the best laptop out there to run Linux? I would be interested to hear what OS's you are running on what brand of laptop."
I have an IBM T21 that I'm very happy with. Pretty much everything just works, and there are even tools to manage some of the Thinkpad-specific settings (tpctl). I've been running Debian Sid on it for over six months now and everything works, including the Lucent Winmodem, USB, PCMCIA, sound (using the cs46xx OSS driver in the kernel), IR, APM (suspend works great, but I haven't fiddled with hibernate), and XFree86 4.1 includes an okay driver for the Savage/IX video card. I don't know if Ultrabay hot swapping can work under Linux, although I have used the Ultrabay to put a second hard drive in at boot time.
I do have some video-related problems, though. One annoying, but not really limiting, problem is that the text mode display gets corrupted when X runs. That means I can't Alt-Shift-F[1-6] to virtual consoles after X starts up (well, I can, but I see blinking, flashing fruit salad). This has only caused me a problem once when X locked up and I wasn't on a network where I could SSH in from another box to restart it, so I had to hit the power button (which isn't too bad, since I use a journaled FS). When I shut down I see the same garbage. The others are that the DGA2 support has some issue that blanks the screen when VMWare from goes into full-screen mode, and also seems to cause some occasional lockups for the StarOffice 6.2beta (yes, it's somehow related to the video card), but you can define a certain environment variable to get rid of the StarOffice problem. Since I work for IBM I've talked to various people in the Thinkpad support organizations and they say they're working with S3 to get better Linux drivers made available, so soon I expect even my minor problems to go away.
It's also small, light, fast, runs relatively cool, has a big, bright 1400x1050 display and has the always-excellent IBM keyboard.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Im sure there are a few out there. The problem is there havent been any major releases (that i recall) in 2002. There is a good chance many of the features will be supported but maybe not all. So buy your laptop hopefuly of high quality and reputable brand, Dell, Sony, toshiba, HP, etc... and wait, and check for drivers, updates every so often. The next Major release of your favorite dist. should cover things.
I don't know very much about other laptops, but I can speak from experience. I have an Armada M700, P3 750Mhz w/192Mb RAM, Ati Rage Mobility P 8Mb, 12Gb hdd, Intel EtherExpress NIC, Maestro2 sound, etc. And it's running RedHat 7.2 flawlessly.
All I had to do was insert the install CD, and everything worked perfectly from then on. Autodetected my video, sound, network, APM, etc. No error messages, no troubles with anything. After the install, everything was still running perfectly. None of the problems that a previous poster has with the text mode after starting X. The sound works (does not break, etc). Power management works too, I just have to figure out how to set it up properly, so that it actually does what I want it to do.
Now I know that this is not a brand-new model (at least not with these specs), but you can get the latest one, with pretty much the same base components. They are flawlessly supported in RedHat, even from the very start.
On top of that, Compaq business support is great. I needed a new LCD for it, and they 24/7 phone support, free overnight shipping to and from ther service centres. And everybody I talked to was very polite, knowledgeable. But always deal directly with Compaq, I had some problems with their authorised service centres.
All in all, I strongly recommend the Armada M700 series.
-
OpenBSD
-
MacOnLinux which lets you run Mac OS on top of Linux
-
Darwin which lets you run the X server and related programs
-
Windows if you have to via emulation (which is also very fast.
Plus, it is a seriously cool piece of hardware. For those on more of a budget, the iBook runs all of these also.I am really happy with my HP Omnibook 500. I have two hard drives, one with Win2k and one with Debian (sid) and it is really easy to swap the hard drives (I don't even keep them screwed in place.
The omnibook500 is 3.5 lbs and one inch thick. the 12.1 inch screen is perfect for me. The USB is great, and powers some high-current USB devices from the laptop battery for 2 hours. I get 3.5 hours normally.
Debian works like a charm, recognizing every feature that I have cared to try. Best of all, you can find them starting at $1000 for a 500MHz model, up to 2400 for a 750MHz model. I recently bought a second one for $1600 w/ 700MHz and a base with CDROM. This does make the debian install much easier. (Previously I had to take the hard drive out and with a special cable, put the tiny IDE drive in my tower computer to start the install, and then slap it in the omnibook at that point in the Debian install where you reboot and continue the installation)
The only drawback is it uses a Mobility M1 Rage from ATI which doesn't have any 3D X support. (It doesn't even do OpenGL very well in the first place) I still prefer it to the latest and greatest Geforce 2go and related laptops from Toshiba. The quality and style of the HP Omnibook 500 is just right for me.
-Jim
Celebrate Excellence!
My mother wants a laptop, and I think one of these will be the choice.
However, I want built-in Bluetooth support, and a Crusoe and DDR RAM would be nice too.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid