Re: what laptop to buy - suggestion for Debian project developers
before buy a HP lap top I suggest look at the site below
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01087277&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
My Pavilion tx1420us had the problems described albeit is not mentioned
among the computers for recall. So I had to pay to have it fixed.
if that helps . . .
mac
> On Tue, 9 Feb 2010, Bret Busby wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 8 Feb 2010, António PT wrote:
>>> I agree with Jason. I have an HP laptop. Its wireless card is
supported
>>> (ath5k) and so is the graphic board (ATI - with open source drivers).
2010/2/6 Jason Filippou <jason.filippou@gmail.com>
>>>> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 2:22 AM, Daniel Dalton
<d.dalton@iinet.net.au>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>> I'm having great difficulty in finding a laptop suitable for my
needs. I'm vision impaired and a student, so primarily will use the
>>>> machine for
>>>>> school, and at home.
>>>>> Here is what I'm looking for: good debian linux support, including
wifi,
>>>>> ethernet, sound, and the general hardware of the machine.
>>>>> I'm looking for something fairly recent, so I've got half a chance
at
>>>>> locating one in Australia, but any suggested models would be greatly
appreciated. I'm looking for something with a core 2 duro around
1.6
>>>>> ghz or more, and I want something with really good battery life,
perhaps
>>>>> 5 hours or more. I have about $1,000 to spend give or take. Finally,
I'm
>>>>> going to be carrying it around school every day, so portability is
important to me.
>>>>> So basically it must have:
>>>>> - Good debian support including wiffi
>>>>> - core 2 duro 1.6 ghz or more
>>>>> - Good battery life 5 hours or more.
>>>>> I've been looking mainly at lenovo, hp, del, acer and maybe tosheba.
Any suggested models would be greatly appreciated.
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> Dan
>>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>>>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
>>>>> iEYEARECAAYFAktTqc4ACgkQQCYsNYjKJVDaoACgtMC+QMAti5qQS2eJfqLHu5Ob
XqMAoIc7+DsdVSBi2TKwSnGleWZ+0wLN
>>>>> =Aips
>>>>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>>> Hello,
>>>> When it comes to good Linux support, I always advise looking towards
the acquisition of an hp laptop, perhaps with an Intel GMA or other
sorts of Intel onboard GPU, (for people like yourself wo are not
interested in heavy duty graphics support) primarily because you will
virtually never have any problems with closed source graphic card
drivers (Intel's drivers are free software and are henceforth
included
>>>> by the official Debian distribution). I have been especially pleased
by my 4-year old Pavillion laptop, which runs Debian smoothly @ 1GB
of
>>>> ram and with a Centrino processor. It's construction is also pretty
solid and ergonomic, albeit based on PVC, which is not the healthiest
of materials (like most of today's laptops). HP is also very
dedicated
>>>> to receiving and processing complaints about faulty hardware, and the
company has frequently made public announcements regarding free
substitutions of battery models that have been known to overheat, for
example. By buying an HP laptop you're also helping a company that
sponsors free software to an extent, they were among the main
contributors to the most recent DebConf (
http://debconf9.debconf.org/
>>>> ).
>>>> There are a few downsides to my proposal, of course, the most notable
of which being that I'm not very sure what vision support you'd like
from a laptop's screen in order to assist you in your work. Perhaps
you're looking into a specialised system, with a 19'' screen at
least.
>>>> Also, my HP pavillion has an integrated GMA graphics card which, even
though very helpful in the sense that I've never had to care about
drivers (for the reasons I've mentioned earlier in this mail), is
also
>>>> quite weak. I can't run the KDE 4 effects from my laptop, but I used
to run some Compiz Fusion effects when I was running Ubuntu (desktop
cube, mainly). Of course this isn't a real problem, you can always
get
>>>> an HP laptop with a strong graphics card. Nvidia cards work well with
Linux and the company provides well-functioning proprietary drivers,
I'd look into that after a friend of mine had serious trouble with
the
>>>> discontinuation of ATI's support for his Radeon. I also noted your
need for a strong battery, yet I don't think any out-of-the-box HP
laptop (not any I have come across, at least) has such a strong
battery, you'd need to order a larger one yourself. This last
observation is very prone to error, though, due to my limited
knowledge of different battery types.
>>>> I see you've increased your budget, this could help you look into one
of those new pavillions with an i7 processor (if you REALLY want to
step it up) but you don't need such a strong machine for office work
imo.
>>>> All in all, I'd go for an HP laptop both because of the high-quality
of their pavillion laptops and because of their support of open
source
>>>> and Linux, both financially and technically.
>>>> Jason
>> After all of that, here is a simple, quick suggestion (that would
probably be
>> quite complex and require much work to implement).
>> I have a Debian 5 Live CD.
>> Why do Linux Live CD's not include a package, that could be run from
the
>> System menu; something like "System Compatibility Analysis" (as a
suggested
>> name), so that a user boots a computer with the CD, then runs the
application, which displays on the screen, a list of the (major) system
components, such as CPU, RAM, graphics card, sound card, ethernet
adaptor,
>> wiffle adaptor (WhyFie), HDD, etc, with the brand, model number,
capacity/memory, and compatibility, perhaps running demonstration
tests,
>> eg
>> to test the sound card, playing a recorded message like "if you can
hear
>> me,
>> then the sound card is working", with a dialogue box requiring "Click
<Okay>
>> if you heard a recorded message, and <Not Okay> if you did not"? Such
an application, included on Live CD's, such as the Debian 5
LiveCD,
>> would enable users to take the CD to a retailer, boot a prospective
computer
>> (laptop or otherwise) using the CD, and then determine the
compatibility
>> of
>> the system and its components, with the particular Linux distribution and
>> version (what might work with Ubuntu 9.10, might not work with Debian 5).
>> I suggest that this is something worth the Debian project developers
considering, to assist users to investigate prospective laptops for
purchase
>> on the basis of compatibility, and, even, such an application (I
believe
>> that
>> somthing similar, but, not exactly what I have described,
>> "Hardware4Linux",
>> already exists as an RPM, for Red Hat based distributions, but is not
included on Debian LiveCD's) could generate a report, which, when a
user
>> runs
>> the application on a computer owned by the person, and generates the
report,
>> could be sent (via email) to a repository, for publication for other
prospective buyers of the particular computer configuration.
>> --
>> Bret Busby
>> Armadale
>> West Australia
>> ..............
>
> Maybe it would simply be a waste of time, including an application to
test for hardware compatibility, in Linux Live CD's, when computer
manufacturers design their computers to prevent them running anything
other than MS Windows.
>
> I today went to a computer retailer, and attempted to boot an HP Compaq
CQ61-412AX into Linux, using first a Debian 5 Live CD, then a Ubuntu
8.04 Live CD, both of which I have easily used on my HP Compaq NX5000,
which has WinXP, Debian 5, and Ubuntu 8.04 installed, and with the
ability to selectively boot into any one of them.
>
> A staff member at the computer retailer, when I unsuccessfully simply
tried to reboot unsuccessfully with each disk in the drive, at my
request, reset (or, tried to reset) the BIOS, to boot from the DVD drive
first, rather than the HDD.
>
> However, the computer ignored the BIOS setting, and went straight to the
HDD, to boot into MS Winows, with no other booting allowed.
>
> Thus, it appears that HP/Compaq has turned against Linux, and now
prohibits Linux from being run on its new computers.
>
> --
> Bret Busby
> Armadale
> West Australia
> ..............
>
> "So once you do know what the question actually is,
> you'll know what the answer means."
> - Deep Thought,
> Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
> "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
> A Trilogy In Four Parts",
> written by Douglas Adams,
> published by Pan Books, 1992
>
> ....................................................
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