I'd treat buying a laptop the same as buying a desktop: if the (important) components are known to work with Linux, then it will work. Here are the things that most commonly cause problems:
--Video Card - I strongly recommend Nvidia. I realize that's more challenging in a laptop, but their drivers and support are much better.
--Wireless Capability - Personally, I PCMCIA wireless over built-in, but in any case make sure the wireless chipset is well supported. I use a proxim card which worked with next to no effort.
--Sound Card - While I seriously doubt you could find a laptop sound card that isn't supported, it's still worth a look. Nothing makes me frown faster than a lack of tunes.
--Network Card - Well, maybe no network access could make me frown faster. Linux supports a large variety of NICs, but be on the lookout for Broadcom based cards. If it's a 3com, Intel, or Realtek chipset, you're almost certainly a winner.
If you make good decisions on those, your shiny new laptop should work very well. As far as dual-booting goes, I just have one major caution: install Windows first. Why? Because many Linux partitioning programs pay no attention to cylinder boundaries. Windows will then freak out and "fix" the error by moving your partitions to the nearest boundary. Fixing this is not fun.
Right now I'm about half way through Cisco's "Data Center Fundamentals" book. It is very much an overview and it is 958 pages. While Cisco may not exactly be unbiased, they're not exactly slaps either. What I'm saying here is: if Cisco thinks they can only give me an overview in 950 pages, what can TIA possibly be providing in just 150?
Find a coffee shop (or a similar place) that usually is on the medium side of busy (usually has a couple of people in it, but isn't packed) and show up every day around the same time. After a couple of days, the employees, as well as the other regulars, are bound to start recognizing you and making friends with them should become relatively easy. It may not generate the best friendships, but it's good in the (relatively) short term.
Pretty much, to me a slashdot convention sounds a lot like communism: if you could ever get it to work the way you thought it was supposed to, everything would be great...but that's not ever going to happen. Slashdot is undoubtedly a great community, and one that I'm happy to be a part of, but I believe that a community like Slashdot could only exist in an environment like the internet and trying to turn it into a more conventional (no pun intended) community would only lead to ruin.
What I'm saying here is that Slashdot is about up-to-date nerd news, and letting all the nerds who come here every day say what's on their mind (even the trolls). If ever there was a convention, letting everyone have their say would have to go right out the window, and then I don't see that it would be much different than any other tech convention. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade here, I just don't see this working out well in the end.
It is important to remember to ask the right question. Your asking us to tell you how much you should be willing to take. We can't do that. Only you know how much you're willing to take before it becomes less a security factor and more a nuisance.
Just remember, before you go off the deep edge and decide you just can't take all the searching anymore, that security hasn a lot to do with state of mind. You obviously don't seem to be very afraid of attack, even giving the relavent circumstances, however try to give thought to the fact that maybe the guy behind you is scared out of his mind. Maybe it takes all his will power to show up to work in the morning and knowing that each person is checked very carefully as he enters and leaves the building is the only thing that keeps him from going over the edge.
Or maybe your privacy is being violated in the name of security and you have a right to complain about overzealous search measures.
Either way, try to remember that a lot of the security measures are taken as much for the mental effect as the actual physical safety which means that it is important to appeal to the man who is the most afraid, not the least.
Slashdot Mirror
--Video Card - I strongly recommend Nvidia. I realize that's more challenging in a laptop, but their drivers and support are much better.
--Wireless Capability - Personally, I PCMCIA wireless over built-in, but in any case make sure the wireless chipset is well supported. I use a proxim card which worked with next to no effort.
--Sound Card - While I seriously doubt you could find a laptop sound card that isn't supported, it's still worth a look. Nothing makes me frown faster than a lack of tunes. --Network Card - Well, maybe no network access could make me frown faster. Linux supports a large variety of NICs, but be on the lookout for Broadcom based cards. If it's a 3com, Intel, or Realtek chipset, you're almost certainly a winner.
If you make good decisions on those, your shiny new laptop should work very well. As far as dual-booting goes, I just have one major caution: install Windows first. Why? Because many Linux partitioning programs pay no attention to cylinder boundaries. Windows will then freak out and "fix" the error by moving your partitions to the nearest boundary. Fixing this is not fun.
Right now I'm about half way through Cisco's "Data Center Fundamentals" book. It is very much an overview and it is 958 pages. While Cisco may not exactly be unbiased, they're not exactly slaps either. What I'm saying here is: if Cisco thinks they can only give me an overview in 950 pages, what can TIA possibly be providing in just 150?
Find a coffee shop (or a similar place) that usually is on the medium side of busy (usually has a couple of people in it, but isn't packed) and show up every day around the same time. After a couple of days, the employees, as well as the other regulars, are bound to start recognizing you and making friends with them should become relatively easy. It may not generate the best friendships, but it's good in the (relatively) short term.
Pretty much, to me a slashdot convention sounds a lot like communism: if you could ever get it to work the way you thought it was supposed to, everything would be great...but that's not ever going to happen. Slashdot is undoubtedly a great community, and one that I'm happy to be a part of, but I believe that a community like Slashdot could only exist in an environment like the internet and trying to turn it into a more conventional (no pun intended) community would only lead to ruin.
What I'm saying here is that Slashdot is about up-to-date nerd news, and letting all the nerds who come here every day say what's on their mind (even the trolls). If ever there was a convention, letting everyone have their say would have to go right out the window, and then I don't see that it would be much different than any other tech convention. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade here, I just don't see this working out well in the end.
It is important to remember to ask the right question. Your asking us to tell you how much you should be willing to take. We can't do that. Only you know how much you're willing to take before it becomes less a security factor and more a nuisance.
Just remember, before you go off the deep edge and decide you just can't take all the searching anymore, that security hasn a lot to do with state of mind. You obviously don't seem to be very afraid of attack, even giving the relavent circumstances, however try to give thought to the fact that maybe the guy behind you is scared out of his mind. Maybe it takes all his will power to show up to work in the morning and knowing that each person is checked very carefully as he enters and leaves the building is the only thing that keeps him from going over the edge. Or maybe your privacy is being violated in the name of security and you have a right to complain about overzealous search measures.
Either way, try to remember that a lot of the security measures are taken as much for the mental effect as the actual physical safety which means that it is important to appeal to the man who is the most afraid, not the least.//Morgant