Re: IBM Thinkpad or a Toshiba?

[sen_ml@eccosys.com]

mark> A friend is thinking of buying a new laptop and putting Debian on it.
mark> Have you any recommendations on which one to get?  He is currently
mark> vacillating between getting the IBM Thinkpad and getting a Toshiba.

i've used both kinds (various models) and think either brand is fine
from a pure technical point-of-view.

my personal preference is for the thinkpads, but the last time i had to
choose it was a toss-up between a toshiba and a thinkpad :-)

did your friend have any particular models in mind?

some models of both brands have various utilties available for them.

for toshibas:

  toshiba-fan
  toshiba-hotkey
  toshutils

i'm not sure which models these work w/, but there are already debian
packages.

for thinkpads:

  tpctl -- http://jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu/~thood/tpctlhome.htm

i'm making a package of this, but i'm not a maintainer yet, so it
might take some time before this is available, unless someone else
does it in the mean time :-)

depending on the model, if your friend hasn't installed debian before
(and doesn't have anyone to help him), it might be less than
straightforward.

it used to be the case that none of the rescue disks worked w/ some of
the thinkpads (600, 770), but people have made some that work now:

  ftp://ftp.icenet.fi/private/fpolacco/debian/
  http://www.debian.org/~joeyh/boot-floppies/

i think the former are some images that Fabrizio Polacco 
<fpolacco@debian.org> made (but i don't know for sure), while
the latter are some experimental images for 2.1r3 (i might be
wrong about this too).

i've verified that the latter images work on the 240 and the former on
600s and 770s.  the images may very well work on other models as well.

if the toshiba machines don't work w/ the normal rescue disks, i think
it is very likely that they may work w/ the tecra disks.