on Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 01:06:22AM +0200, bounce-debian-user=kmself=ix.netcom.com@lists.debian.org (bounce-debian-user=kmself=ix.netcom.com@lists.debian.org) wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I plan to purchase a notebook that shall run debian GNU/Linux. My
> question: do I have to take care on special features? I do not expect
> to get all running, but I require X-Window and Ethernet to run on my
> Linux box, perhaps sound. Any comments basing on your experiences?
> What products/single compnents to avoid???
>
> Two in my closer choice (the products names are for germany, I dunno
> foreign names for equal models):
>
> Toshiba Satellite 3000-100 with nVidia Geforce 2 GO, PIII
> Compaq Presario 1211EA with ATI M1, Athlon4
No specifics on your candidates.
General issues with laptops from my and anecdotal experience:
- APM and power management features. I've not been able to get
sleep/suspend to work since tweaking my box at some point, it comes
back up. I've also found I had to disable "SpeedStep" (aka
Geyserville) CPU speed stepping, which lets the CPU run more slowly
when on battery than AC. This was causing kernel panics and hard
lockups.
- Modems. The Lucent WinModem chipset *is* supported, but with a
binary-only AFAIK. I've opted for a PCMCIA modem instead.
- USB/FireWire. You can probably get them to work, but may have to
tweak things a bit.
Those were the biggies. 98% of what I want to work, works. Having
GNU/Linux with me wherever I got simply rocks.
My hardware: the Compal 20U OEMed by TuxTops, now available via QLItech
(http://www.qlitech.com/) or ChemBook. Aside from a flakey power port,
no problems with the unit, and it's an excellent mix of small and light,
but still full-featured with a reasonable (1024x768) display and good
keyboard feel.
Cheers.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal
http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
Are these opinions my employer's? Hah! I don't believe them myself!
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