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Re: Debian, laptops, and X



On Sun, 25 Apr 1999, Will Lowe wrote:
> I'm looking at buying a pair of laptops which will need to dual-boot
> Windows and Debian.
> 
> I'm not concerned that they be Pentium IV 600 Ghz machines or be huge
> number-crunchers, but I would like them to run X enough that I can use
> emacs and font-lock mode, netscape (with something more that 256 colors)
> ... the standard stuff. 
> 
> 1) Are there laptops which aren't compatible with linux and Debian?
> 
> 2) I understand that laptop video chipsets are wacky.  Which ones work?
> 
> 3) Are there other compatability issues I should be watching for?  I've
> never touched anything with a PCMCIA card in it ...
> 

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/

has tons o' info. You just need to check the PCMCIA drivers list before
getting a PCMCIA card - some of them (notably Linksys) even say "Linux
compatible" on the box though.

I love my little Panasonic CF-M32 subnotebook. It works great, except for
the sound card but that's pretty typical on desktops too. Using the XFree
Neomagic X server which is available on www.xfree86.org (copy the server
binary over the one in the latest Debian package, until the latest X gets
into the official package). Use the "tecra" boot disks to install.

The advantage to this little Panasonic is that it seems to be replaced by
a newer CF-M33 so it's only about $850 on the street. Kicks much ass.
Small keyboard though. :-)

Havoc






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