Re: [OT] Looking for advice on buying a new laptop
* Hugo Santiago Carrer <hscarrer@gmail.com> [2005 Mar 15 12:53 -0600]:
> Hi list:
>
> So, basically I'm about to buy a used Thinkpad T23 from IBM. I really
> like the little thing, I have used one before and liked the feeling.
> But the questions are,
> Are the Thinkpads really worth the extra buck or is it just the
> brandname? Are they really that linux/debian friendly or they are just
> like any other laptops?
I think they are worth the premium. I just got a used T23 off eBay
two weeks ago to replace my aging 390E. It's about half the weight
of the 390 and everything "just works". I like the Trackpoint as I
can't stand the touchpad style pointer control. It seems to have a
nice battery run time with no special power saving enabled.
It has an Agere modem that is supported by the lt-modem project. There
are .debs available on the 'net, but I've had lock-up problems (on
both the390 and T23) when running the latest available version, 8.31a,
I believe, so I've been using a PCMCIA modem.
The Ethernet is supported by the stock kernel using the e100 driver.
XFree uses the savage driver and alsaconfig set up the AC97 sound chip
without hassle. The speakers are located in along the front edge of
the machine and have more volume and better fidelity than the 390.
The USB ports just worked as well. In fact, this laptop was so
painless to get going that it almost wasn't any fun at all. Heck,
Slackware 10.1 dropped in and played without a hitch.
Since this is the first DVD drive I have of any kind, I don't have any
DVD's to try out in it, but it works great with CDs.
HTH,
- Nate >>
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