Re: best laptops for debian linux
On ו', 2003-09-12 at 21:06, Osamu Aoki wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 01:12:47AM -0700, Jon wrote:
> > I'm looking to buy a laptop that can easily be set up to run debian
> > linux. I do not need a high end graphics card, nor is there a real
> > need for a big screen. Being light weight is not a primary factor,
> > whereas rugged reliability would be. Can anyone suggest particular
> > brands and models that fit this description? Top priority is that
> > debian linux can be easily installed on the machine, while the other
> > requirements are less important.
> > Many thanks.
>
> This may sound unintesrting but "Buy most popular PC in your area for
> the class of PC.". First thing to check is screen resolution!
>
> This is how I check.
>
> * Hardware compatibility issue
>
> 1. Is the graphics chip supported by Xfree4.x? (If you upgrade soon to
> Sarge in preparation, it should be quite OK.)
>
> 2. Is your PC has some weired feature to be cheap. Shared memory
> graphics card is first thing I can think of. If you can afford, please
> avoid these. This is usually budget issue and relatively non-issue
> since X should be OK by now.
>
> 3. I will not worry about Linmodem issue. Who use modem. Make sure to
> get one with Ethernet. Also make sure you have cardbus PCMCIA (Most of
> new PC does.). These are feature and budget issues.
>
> When you talk about reliability, buy the big brand. This reaches:
>
> IBM: If you can afford. Their high end are nice.
>
> Sony/Toshiba/...: Pretty good for the price. They are note-PC companies.
>
> Dell/...: It is good for most business so should be OK. (Remember,
> Dell's dominance is only desktop/server PC. They are not the
> performance leader but price leader)
>
> HP: Expensive.
>
> Totally generic Taiwanese PC: Hey, if you get reliable local store, you
> may consider but risky.
>
> FYI: I have following Linux note-PCs:
>
> 1. IBM i486 DX2 50 MHz ThinkPad (Router/Server, 9 year old.)
> 2. Sony UXGA, 2GHz Nice and reliable.
> 3. Dell inspiron (Bought used at 200 Euro, 300 MHz P2/XGA)
> Nice but slow for heavy X apps.
>
> Osamu
I would avoid buying a sony.
I got everything to work under linux, but they customer support is
nonexistent, even for windows.
Tried to contact them several times with problems on my laptop. If I
mentioned I was running linux the immediate reply was they don't support
linux. Otherwise the email replay was call us, which resulted with a
support guy telling me to press the power button for 60 sec and then I
was told to send it in for repair.
Their repair shop did one of the worst jobs I have ever seen, and
changed 250$ for warranty work.
IBMs are good afaik if you can aford them.
Be carefull with no brand laptops.
Also some of the non intel/amd cpus can cause problems. A friend of mine
has a giga-something cpu which apperently doesn't run matlab since it
doesn't support java, or at list matlab's java.
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