laptop suggestions

[Umapathy S]

Experts,
I am planning to buy a laptop. I want this to be fully linux compatible especially RH. My list is topped by Hp Compaq nx7000.

What are the suggestions? Even I need the internal modem to be linux compatible. Unfortunately I am not seeing any linux laptop in the market. Everything is M$ powered.

Any good suggestions for suitable alternatives?

TIA
Umapathy

[James Specht]

Umapathy,

First off congrats on the climb to the royal court.

Second, I have a Compaq Evo N800c at work that is running great with RedHat 9 and Wine to fill in those times when I need to run M$ apps. Wine works great by the way. All hardward works fine. Nothing weird to report either. It was pretty much a slam dunk. This was my first laptop install of linux and from the reading I have done I expected problems but have yet to find any.

Hope I helped

--Jim

[Jerome Henry]

Hi Umapathy,

I'm running ASUS family laptop. 100% compatible and quite afordable (all 'big names' components, so 'known drivers').

hth

J

[Umapathy S]

Thanks James, Jerome.

J, I havnt heard about the ASUS. Is it good. Besides, I have Dell 8600, Fujitsu Siemens Amilo 8830 under my consideration.

I am very eager to go for a HT enabled processor so that I can play around with SMP Kernel. Besides I wanted to try out Firewire (1394) as well as WiLAN (802.11a). Or there any other hot technologies and that too in linux (budding stage, so that I can contribute some)

The Primary purpose for buying a laptop is to play with linux.

cheers
Umapathy

[Steven E. Protter]

I've converted Toshiba and Dell laptops.

The key issue has been modem and video cards. In each case I've had to get detailed specifications on the machine, contact the manufacturer of the parts involved and get Linux drivers.

Ive found http://www.linmodems.org has solved all my issues with modem drivers.

SEP

[John Meissner]

I have a Dell Latitude (C600 (older model)) and everything works fine for me so far :)

[Jerome Henry · Accepted solution]

Hi Umapathy,

Yes, Asus is good, and real plug and play install, except it does't have smp ready.

Dell has a long story of being ported to Linux, I feel it would be a fair choice. Here is a page on installing Linux (redhat !) on 8600, and doing it sucessfully !
http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/~dgupta/articles/linux-dell-8600.html

Hope it helps you choose.

Friendly yours

J

[Ragu_1]

Worked with a couple of IBM laptops, a T series one had caught my attention. I understand that in a laptop `batteries' should be given a big consideration while making a purchase. Good times....

[Umapathy S]

Raghavendra,
I am not much worried about the battaries since my laptop rarely moves. But it does move otherwise I would have gone for a PC.

If I go for Centrino laptops then the power factor is good I believe.

Umapathy

[Michael J. Sabal]

Try this URL:
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/

It seems that any distro supporting the 2.4.x kernel will work with most chip modems. As someone else mentioned, if you have trouble with that, the linmodem drivers (usually included) have gotten high reviews.

[Lawrence Staberg]

try EmperorLinux

http://www.emperorlinux.com

We have purchased a IBM T31 from him and had some Dell Latitudes configured by Lincoln..

I don't believe he sells HP tho..
Sony VAIO's, Dell Inspiron's and IBM thinkpads.

[Umapathy S]

Guys,
Just now got my Dell8600 Inspiron. Planning to redo the harddisk partitions via partition magic.
I think I will need more help now.
cheers
Umapathy