Re: Toshiba laptops & Debian
On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 02:20:40PM +1000, Pisut Tempatarachoke wrote:
>
> Hi everybody,
>
> I am very very new to Linux, and hoping to buy a laptop that is most
> compatible with Debian. Could anyone please provide me with comments on Debian
> GNU/Linux and Toshiba laptops (or more specifically Tecra S1 1.4 GHz)
> compatability, and perhaps suggest which laptop I might consider apart from
> Toshiba.
>
> Once I buy a laptop, I am planning to partition its hard drive so I could use
> both Windows XP and Debian. Are there any special specifications
> or configerations of the laptop that I should look for when I shop around?
>
> Thank you very much folks.
>
> Cheers
>
> Tempo
Well, I would definitely pay attention to things like the video display
adaptor and perhaps take a look at what the current X release in the
version of Debian you are planning on installing supports. If you want
to use things like wireless that are built in you may want to locate the
specifications for the new laptop and google around a bit on the specs.
I would also check out the Linux Laptop website
(http://www.linux-laptop.net/) and see what they have to say about close
matches to your laptop. I personally think there are two or three main
issues with laptops. Video, sound, and networking. A second set of
things which seem to get people are ACPI and APM support in laptops
these days.
I have a Dell Inspiron 4100 which is actually working very well these
days but it took a little work. One of the issues I found with earlier
BIOS revisions were issues with APM suspend events. I moved up to a
later bios rev and it works very nicely now. There are also groups of
simple tricks you could try to find. An example... On many of the Dell
Inspiron models, when the laptop comes out of a suspend event, the fan
takes off. After some searching on google's usenet archives, I found
the simple little trick of doing Fn - Z to get the fans back into shape.
I think you should also read about different ways and means to do the
dual booting. Are you going to use LILO or the NT bootloader? I used
to use the NT 4 bootloader and it worked. I don't do dual boots any
longer so I don't know about XP but I think it would probably work about
the same.
--
Michael Perry | Do or do not. There is no try. -Master Yoda
mperry@lnxpowered.org | http://www.lnxpowered.org
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