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Re: Recommendations for Laptop



[via the November archive]
>Andrew Clark said:
>> I would like to get a laptop and run Debian on it.  Does anyone have any
>> recommendations for machines/manufactures to buy or avoid?
>
>If you're willing to pay new laptop prices, www.linuxlaptops.com will sell
>you one with Linux preinstalled.  Even if you don't buy from them, their list
>of available models will give you some machines that are known to work well
>with Linux.  Highly recommended.
>
>Otherwise, I've got a UMax ActionBook 320T which works well, with two
>caveats:
>
>1)  The screen whines in X and UMax won't divulge the proper refresh settings
>because "we only support Windows".  Also, 800x600x32 works in Windows, but
>I can't get it to work for X.

>From ERV's Monitor Service Monitor FAQs 
(http://www.monitorservice.com/faqs.html):
   [in response to many customers even in MSwin asking for "monitor drivers"
    they first explain how to tell if your monitor has plug-and-play support.]

   Common settings: The following sweep frequencies will be generally
   helpful to the users that set up the software for the monitors. and we
   will only list the common SVGA modes.
     * SVGA MODE VGA60 horizontal 31.469 khz vertical 59.941 hz. 640x480
     * SVGA MODE VGA103 horizontal 46.874 khz vertical 75.000 hz 800x600
     * SVGA MODE VESA85 horizontal 53.674 khz vertical 85.061 hz 800x600
     * SVGA MODE VESA75 horizontal 60.023 khz vertical 75.029 hz 1024x768
     * SVGA MODE VESA85 horizontal 68.667 khz vertical 84.997 hz 1024x768
     * SVGA MODE VESA horizontal 63.981 khz vertical 60.020 hz 1280x1024
     * SVGA MODE VESA85 P horizontal 91.146 khz vertical 85.024 hz
       1280x1024
     * SVGA MODE VESA75 horizontal 79.976 khz vertical 75.025 hz
       1280x1024
     * SVGA MODE VESA70 horizontal 87.500 khz vertical 70.000 hz
       1600x1200
     * SVGA MODE VESA75 horizontal 93.750 khz vertical 75.000 hz
       1600x1200

   The above listing represents the latest published info taken from a
   new monitor's users manual preset . Your settings may vary slightly
   depending on horizontal phase (position) settings.

A very handy set of notes to keep around - perhaps it will help!

>2)  APM doesn't seem to like X either.  If it goes to sleep/suspend while X
>is up, the graphics card won't reset itself properly when it wakes up.
>(Which can be worked around by telling BIOS to stay awake if it sees VGA
>activity and always remembering to switch to a text console before closing
>the cover.)
>
>It's not perfect, but it's workable and I'm happy with it.

I had read that older X especially had a problem with apm, but I'm not sure
if that's what you're suffering.

>Geek Code 3.1:  GCS d- s+:+ a- C+++ UL++>$ P+>+++ L++>++++ E- W+(--) N+ o+ !K
>w--- O M- !V PS+ PE Y+ PGP t 5++ X+ R++ tv- b++ DI++++ D G e* h+ r++ y+

Well, since you mentioned it, I haven't updated it in ages, but here's mine
from last year:
Version: 3.12 modified
GCS/M/MU/LS/L/S/TW d- s-: a- C++ UL++++$S P++(---)$ L++' E--- W+++(L++)
N !o !K w++(--) M+ V- PS+ PE@ Y+' PGP+ t@ 5++ X R+++ tv->! b++ DI++++ 
D+(---) G e+ h- r+++ x+++

-* Heather Stern * Starshine Technical Services * star@starshine.org *-


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