Advice for Linux on a Laptop?

Trillian_1138 is seeking your advice on the following: "So I'm looking at replacing my aging laptop. I have a desktop running Ubuntu, which I use as a primary, and it is more than adequate for my needs. However, I'd love a small, portable laptop to use in class and on trips. I've been looking at the MacBook Pros and, more recently, the MacBooks, and was almost ready to buy the low-end MacBook and be done with it. I liked its ability to dual-book to Windows for a couple of school-related programs, but the more I thought about it the more I like using Ubuntu at home and the less reason I saw to buy a Mac if I could use Ubuntu on a laptop. This brought me to the idea of buying a laptop to use as a dual-boot Linux/Window machine, either with Linux or Windows pre-installed, and setting up a dual-boot with the other OS. Might any of you have advice, anecdotes, success stories, horror stories, or general input?" "Please note I am not looking for a discussion on whether Linux is 'Ready for the Desktop'. I switched over to Ubuntu earlier this year and haven't looked back. As far as I'm concerned, Linux is ready for *my* desktop, which is all I really care about. This laptop is for me, not my mom. I'm not a command-line guru by any means and likes having a nice GUI, but am comfortable Googling when my DVDs stop playing after an update or poking around in configuration files to get things working. What I'm now curious about is what to expect - positive and negative - with Linux on a laptop.

I know a quick Google search yields lots of information on laptops running Linux, and I am continuing to use Google to look at information on running Linux on laptops which came with Windows, buying OS-less laptops, and buying laptops with Linux pre-installed, but I'm curious what the Slashdot crowd thinks. Is it even worth the bother? Would I be better off buying a Dell and installing Linux or buying a laptop with Ubuntu pre-installed from somewhere like system76.com or Linuxcertified.com?"

Comments

Re:ThinkPad, ThinkPad, ThinkPad

[ottothecow]

Oh yeah...my T23 ran mandriva/mandrake great and runs (k)ubuntu even better.

A girl who lives across the hall also has a T23 (with windows, but live cd's work jsut fine on it) that is equally as old as mine and works just as well...no hardware problems for either of us. A girl down the hall has a T43 which is just a beatiful system and a guy down the hall just got a t60 which is great (and the first model released after the branding switch).

The girl with the T23 just bought a macbook (on release day, they were in stock in the chicago store...she made what might be the largest impulse buy I have seen someone actually make) and it is really really nice...and osx is...kind of like linux. I may buy her T23 off of her just because mine works so well and I have family who I may be able to convince to use it if I give them a preprepared linux laptop that just works (like the thinkpads do). The ebay market has seen a HUGE influx of these machines so the price is way down. They must have just ended a lot of corporate leases or something becasue the price is half what it was a year ago even though other companies similarily specced (albiet crappier because tehy are compaq or dell) machines are more expensive than the T23s.

Yes...go thinkpads!

Re:Yeah. Buy a Mac

[Cybrex]

Everyone else? Unanimous? Those are strong statements regarding machines that have been on the market for only two days!

Unless by "everyone else" you mean "the two people who have actually gotten their hands on one and tried", of course. ;-)