I forgot to bring this up at the cookout last night... I have decided to purchase a new laptop (a first for me - always used older equipment) and was wondering if anyone had recommendations for a model that plays well with Linux. I'm not interested in a laptop with the latest whiz-bang features, just the basics of wireless networking, ability to play/burn CDs/DVDs, enough horsepower & disk to run forecasting models, GIS, database, etc., and a battery that will last for several hours. (My guess is any laptop these days would be sufficient.) I want to avoid having to add drivers or other support for some whiz-bang hardware when something "vanilla" would work just as well for me, and I would prefer a distro that supports the various standard laptop features (e.g., power management) and typical peripherals like DVDs/movies, Burning CDs, etc., "out of the box". Again, this is probably a non-issue, but there could be a laptop using hardware known to be problematic (remember "winmodems"?)... I use several apps that only run on windows (probably forever), so another first for me will be dual-boot. I have done this before on others' systems, but I mention this just in case there is a awareness of issues with certain laptop models. Anyway, thanks in advance for your help! Steve
Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
I forgot to bring this up at the cookout last night...
I have decided to purchase a new laptop (a first for me - always used older equipment) and was wondering if anyone had recommendations for a model that plays well with Linux. I'm not interested in a laptop with the latest whiz-bang features, just the basics of wireless networking, ability to play/burn CDs/DVDs, enough horsepower & disk to run forecasting models, GIS, database, etc., and a battery that will last for several hours. (My guess is any laptop these days would be sufficient.) I want to avoid having to add drivers or other support for some whiz-bang hardware when something "vanilla" would work just as well for me, and I would prefer a distro that supports the various standard laptop features (e.g., power management) and typical peripherals like DVDs/movies, Burning CDs, etc., "out of the box". Again, this is probably a non-issue, but there could be a laptop using hardware known to be problematic (remember "winmodems"?)...
I've been looking at picking up a cheap, less then current model thinkpad from TigerDirect. The prices are pretty good, and the Linux support for ThinkPad hardware is outstanding. Anything that's not a "mobile" P4 will have pretty good battery life... just find the most hardware that fits in your price range. Scott
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Scott Venier wrote:
I've been looking at picking up a cheap, less then current model thinkpad from TigerDirect. The prices are pretty good, and the Linux support for ThinkPad hardware is outstanding. Anything that's not a "mobile" P4 will have pretty good battery life... just find the most hardware that fits in your price range.
Yes, but ThinkPad processors come from the wrong company! :-) Later, Andy - -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFE3S8wHl0iXDssISsRAi23AJ0Tdr43rTpiHbdyMuBx9P1iKzGVUgCdG52Z HwOPAVksZ8/g3ZUcxOiezKQ= =HfAT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Andy Stewart wrote:
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Scott Venier wrote:
I've been looking at picking up a cheap, less then current model thinkpad from TigerDirect. The prices are pretty good, and the Linux support for ThinkPad hardware is outstanding. Anything that's not a "mobile" P4 will have pretty good battery life... just find the most hardware that fits in your price range.
Yes, but ThinkPad processors come from the wrong company! :-)
And they run hot. So hot, in fact, that the one I have now will periodically freeze (melt?) and I have to cycle the power. To get any useful time out of it, I have to create an air space beneath the laptop... I doubt I would purchase another. Steve
Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
And they run hot. So hot, in fact, that the one I have now will periodically freeze (melt?) and I have to cycle the power. To get any useful time out of it, I have to create an air space beneath the laptop... I doubt I would purchase another.
Wow. I've heard of them running warm, but never that hot... which model do you have? Scott
Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
And they run hot. So hot, in fact, that the one I have now will periodically freeze (melt?) and I have to cycle the power. To get any useful time out of it, I have to create an air space beneath the laptop... I doubt I would purchase another.
Wow. I've heard of them running warm, but never that hot... which model do you have?
Scott It is an A20m. My wife got it a number of years ago so she could be away from the office more easily... When this problem first began, I
Scott Venier wrote: thought it was windows so I blew everything away and reinstalled (twice over a 6 month period). Didn't make a difference. I have heard from others that this is known to happen, from time to time, with some thinkpad models. I found it interesting to note a review of one of the new IBM laptops as stating that "it runs hot". Steve
Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
Scott Venier wrote:
It is an A20m. My wife got it a number of years ago so she could be away from the office more easily... When this problem first began, I thought it was windows so I blew everything away and reinstalled (twice over a 6 month period). Didn't make a difference. I have heard from others that this is known to happen, from time to time, with some thinkpad models. I found it interesting to note a review of one of the new IBM laptops as stating that "it runs hot".
I've had both a T23 and a T42 and the only time I had a heat problem was when the fan on the T23 died. And generally, the fan only runs when under heavy cpu load. Scott
On Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 09:31:59AM -0400, Scott Venier wrote:
Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
Scott Venier wrote:
It is an A20m. My wife got it a number of years ago so she could be away from the office more easily... When this problem first began, I thought it was windows so I blew everything away and reinstalled (twice over a 6 month period). Didn't make a difference. I have heard from others that this is known to happen, from time to time, with some thinkpad models. I found it interesting to note a review of one of the new IBM laptops as stating that "it runs hot".
I've had both a T23 and a T42 and the only time I had a heat problem was when the fan on the T23 died. And generally, the fan only runs when under heavy cpu load.
I haven't had any issues with my T42p either.
<quote who="Stephen C. Daukas">
I forgot to bring this up at the cookout last night...
I have decided to purchase a new laptop (a first for me - always used older equipment) and was wondering if anyone had recommendations for a model that plays well with Linux. I'm not interested in a laptop with the latest whiz-bang features, just the basics of wireless networking, ability to play/burn CDs/DVDs, enough horsepower & disk to run forecasting models, GIS, database, etc., and a battery that will last for several hours. (My guess is any laptop these days would be sufficient.) I want to avoid having to add drivers or other support for some whiz-bang hardware when something "vanilla" would work just as well for me, and I would prefer a distro that supports the various standard laptop features (e.g., power management) and typical peripherals like DVDs/movies, Burning CDs, etc., "out of the box". Again, this is probably a non-issue, but there could be a laptop using hardware known to be problematic (remember "winmodems"?)...
I use several apps that only run on windows (probably forever), so another first for me will be dual-boot. I have done this before on others' systems, but I mention this just in case there is a awareness of issues with certain laptop models.
Lenovo seems like a natural choice because they sell laptops with Linux pre-installed. For those looking at used laptops (Stephen says he's buying new), I installed Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron 8200 recently. It was painless, and everything seems to work, including the PCMCIA 802.11G card. -- Rich
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 10:08:43 -0400 (EDT) From: "Richard Klein" <rich@richardklein.org> Lenovo seems like a natural choice because they sell laptops with Linux pre-installed. For those looking at used laptops (Stephen says he's buying new), I installed Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron 8200 recently. It was painless, and everything seems to work, including the PCMCIA 802.11G card. I've had a pair of Dells (Inspiron 8000 and what I guess is basically a C840, equivalent to the Inspiron 8200). Both work very nicely under Linux without any major problems. I like the 1600x1200 screen. -- Robert Krawitz <rlk@alum.mit.edu> Tall Clubs International -- http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2 Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf@uunet.uu.net Project lead for Gutenprint -- http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net "Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works." --Eric Crampton
I've had some problems in the past with wifi hardware. I had one laptop (Compaq Evo N600c) where the wifi driver worked, but is not maintained and only available from svn (orinoco_usb). My newest laptop that I got last week (Dell D620) is too new for the driver to have been well tested (ipw3945) and I'm only getting about 20K/sec throughput (vs my normal 180K/sec). Its a good laptop other than this one issue - and since the driver is maintained by Intel directly I imagine that it won't be too long before this is fixed. Needless to say, one thing I would recommend is finding a laptop with wireless hardware that has a driver that's well tested and well supported. You might be better off just buying from a place that pre-installs Linux. http://www.pcsforeveryone.com has a Thinkmate Z33A that they will install Fedora Core 5 or Suse 10 on for no extra charge. Also http://linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html has some custom built Linux notebooks and offer a variety of distro choices. -Jared On 8/11/06, Stephen C. Daukas <scd@daukas.com> wrote:
I forgot to bring this up at the cookout last night...
I have decided to purchase a new laptop (a first for me - always used older equipment) and was wondering if anyone had recommendations for a model that plays well with Linux. I'm not interested in a laptop with the latest whiz-bang features, just the basics of wireless networking, ability to play/burn CDs/DVDs, enough horsepower & disk to run forecasting models, GIS, database, etc., and a battery that will last for several hours. (My guess is any laptop these days would be sufficient.) I want to avoid having to add drivers or other support for some whiz-bang hardware when something "vanilla" would work just as well for me, and I would prefer a distro that supports the various standard laptop features (e.g., power management) and typical peripherals like DVDs/movies, Burning CDs, etc., "out of the box". Again, this is probably a non-issue, but there could be a laptop using hardware known to be problematic (remember "winmodems"?)...
I use several apps that only run on windows (probably forever), so another first for me will be dual-boot. I have done this before on others' systems, but I mention this just in case there is a awareness of issues with certain laptop models.
Anyway, thanks in advance for your help!
Steve _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug
Anyone have thoughts on acer? "Linux on Laptops" lists just about every acer notebook... A consultant friend of mine sells these "on the side" and thought I might be interested in one of these as they are around $1k: Acer Aspire AS5672WLMi Acer Travelmate TM4672WLMi Acer Travelmate TM4222WLMi All are Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Technology, All have 1gig ddr-2 RAM All have 15.4 WXGA, All have DVD-RW(+/-) dUAL lAYER, All have at least 100gig hard drive (Aspire has SATA drive 120 gig) All have XP Pro The Aspire has 128meg ATI X1400 video card the others have the built in Intel Accel 950 chip Not bad for the money... 1280 x 800 resolution strikes me as "different" though - perhaps for DVD wide screen? Steve
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
Anyone have thoughts on acer? "Linux on Laptops" lists just about every acer notebook... A consultant friend of mine sells these "on the side" and thought I might be interested in one of these as they are around $1k:
Acer Aspire AS5672WLMi Acer Travelmate TM4672WLMi Acer Travelmate TM4222WLMi
All are Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Technology, All have 1gig ddr-2 RAM All have 15.4 WXGA, All have DVD-RW(+/-) dUAL lAYER, All have at least 100gig hard drive (Aspire has SATA drive 120 gig) All have XP Pro The Aspire has 128meg ATI X1400 video card the others have the built in Intel Accel 950 chip
Not bad for the money... 1280 x 800 resolution strikes me as "different" though - perhaps for DVD wide screen?
Steve
I've noticed many people at work with their laptops, and they seem to have an LCD which has wide screen dimensions. This might be fine for viewing DVDs, but having not used one, I'm not sure how I'd feel using one for daily work. Its not like you can rotate the LCD on a laptop to "landscape mode" like you can with some other LCD monitors (which seems like a nice feature!). Later, Andy - -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFE3db5Hl0iXDssISsRAjPtAJ9MaAFhuBzFHBYrQt/k6b9/JutokACfSX/j h+iuTo9A7SENkhqHiAZ0g8U= =Zp8Z -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 09:26:17 -0400 From: Andy Stewart <andystewart@comcast.net> I've noticed many people at work with their laptops, and they seem to have an LCD which has wide screen dimensions. This might be fine for viewing DVDs, but having not used one, I'm not sure how I'd feel using one for daily work. Its not like you can rotate the LCD on a laptop to "landscape mode" like you can with some other LCD monitors (which seems like a nice feature!). I'm not a fan of widescreens myself. For things like text editing it's useless, and it's none too helpful for web browsing either.
On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 09:40:19 -0400 Robert L Krawitz <rlk@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 09:26:17 -0400 From: Andy Stewart <andystewart@comcast.net>
I've noticed many people at work with their laptops, and they seem to have an LCD which has wide screen dimensions. This might be fine for viewing DVDs, but having not used one, I'm not sure how I'd feel using one for daily work. Its not like you can rotate the LCD on a laptop to "landscape mode" like you can with some other LCD monitors (which seems like a nice feature!).
I'm not a fan of widescreens myself. For things like text editing it's useless, and it's none too helpful for web browsing either.
How so? I've been using my girlfriend's new light-n-mobile-style laptop off and on, with a widescreen LCD with a native resolution of 1280x800. I haven't found it to be any different than my 1280x1024 or higher desktops' LCDs other than having slightly shorter web browser windows. Brian J. Conway bconway(at)alum.wpi.edu "LINUX is obsolete" - Andrew S. Tanenbaum, creator of Minix - Jan 29, 1992
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 10:48:58 -0400 From: "Brian J. Conway" <bconway@alum.wpi.edu> On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 09:40:19 -0400 Robert L Krawitz <rlk@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 09:26:17 -0400 From: Andy Stewart <andystewart@comcast.net>
I've noticed many people at work with their laptops, and they seem to have an LCD which has wide screen dimensions. This might be fine for viewing DVDs, but having not used one, I'm not sure how I'd feel using one for daily work. Its not like you can rotate the LCD on a laptop to "landscape mode" like you can with some other LCD monitors (which seems like a nice feature!).
I'm not a fan of widescreens myself. For things like text editing it's useless, and it's none too helpful for web browsing either.
How so? I've been using my girlfriend's new light-n-mobile-style laptop off and on, with a widescreen LCD with a native resolution of 1280x800. I haven't found it to be any different than my 1280x1024 or higher desktops' LCDs other than having slightly shorter web browser windows. Think about what happens if you're using emacs with a 6x10 font. -- Robert Krawitz <rlk@alum.mit.edu> Tall Clubs International -- http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2 Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf@uunet.uu.net Project lead for Gutenprint -- http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net "Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works." --Eric Crampton
Wide screens are nice when you are doing IDEs or Visual Modleing tools. Usually, on the left or right hand side, there is an explorer pane that is used to display different kinds of hierarchies or tables. The extra width allows you to have the explorer and a decent sized diagram on the screen at the same time. -David ========== Robert L Krawitz wrote:
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 09:26:17 -0400 From: Andy Stewart <andystewart@comcast.net>
I've noticed many people at work with their laptops, and they seem to have an LCD which has wide screen dimensions. This might be fine for viewing DVDs, but having not used one, I'm not sure how I'd feel using one for daily work. Its not like you can rotate the LCD on a laptop to "landscape mode" like you can with some other LCD monitors (which seems like a nice feature!).
I'm not a fan of widescreens myself. For things like text editing it's useless, and it's none too helpful for web browsing either. _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug
On Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 07:05:27AM -0400, Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
The Aspire has 128meg ATI X1400 video card the others have the built in Intel Accel 950 chip
Not bad for the money... 1280 x 800 resolution strikes me as "different" though - perhaps for DVD wide screen?
I would pick the models with the built-in Intel Accel 950 chip or equivalent. There are open source 3D video accelerated drivers for those. You might need a little open source utility to set the VESA BIOS video resolution table for WXGA, though. I recently worked on one and had to get a program called "855resolution" or "915resolution", which runs at bootup. Xorg worked fine at 1400x1050 after that. http://www.geocities.com/stomljen/
participants (9)
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Andy Stewart -
Brian J. Conway -
Chuck Anderson -
David Glaser -
Jared Greenwald -
Richard Klein -
Robert L Krawitz -
Scott Venier -
Stephen C. Daukas