Re: What's your favorite inexpensive Linux laptop?
Having passed through several laptops and installed for friends over
several years, my bias is that there are only 2 Important things:
1) Unless you want to separately buy a PCMCIA card modem, make sure any
built-in modem is of
a) older controller based type
b) the Lucent chipset type which has developed good support under Linux,
start at http://linmodems.org for winmodem info.
2) Overall reliability of the brand name, because you PAY a high price
for repairs.
If you don't need fast graphics, older laptops are fine though heavier.
As an inexpensive (not to be mugged for) laptop for a son visiting
Russia, I bought an ancient NEC Versa 486 V50 mH, refitted with a 2 Gig
drive. After the 12ish floppy Debian install (no CDROM), ppp was
established through PCMCIA modem. Apt-get installing all needed
including Xwindows was straigth forward after that.
Anything newer is bound to be simpler.
Very CARELY examine the hinge region for hairline cracks. Hinge cracking
is a common laptop problem.
MarvS
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