Laptop advice
Moderator: Board moderators
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mikeeusa22
Dell does pretty well on the latitude seriies, the inspirion can be trouble.
What model are you looking at, you can lookup success stories?
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/dell.html
The above is slightly outdated..
What distro are you planning on?
What model are you looking at, you can lookup success stories?
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/dell.html
The above is slightly outdated..
What distro are you planning on?
Dell laptops suck; you never know what blows out.
And dont buy Sony either; the power conenctor is screwy.
Get an IBM Thinkpad.
And dont buy Sony either; the power conenctor is screwy.
Get an IBM Thinkpad.
lordyoukai.DA
My wraith is cooler than your dragon.
My wraith is cooler than your dragon.
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mikeeusa22
Most warranties last 6 months, at most a year. They plan on hardware mortality, not badly designed parts that fail after prolonged usage.leaf wrote:Isn't this the case with all hardware?bort wrote:... llaptops suck; you never know what blows out.
And dont buy ... either; the power conenctor is screwy.
Buy based on warranty plan & RMA coverage.
lordyoukai.DA
My wraith is cooler than your dragon.
My wraith is cooler than your dragon.
um, i think i am the perfect guy to handle this one.
Case 1: I own an IBM THinkpad A31
Case 2: My good friend owns a Dell Inspiron **something or another**
Case 3: My other friend got a Dell Latitude from his work.
Thinkpad Issues:
1) ATI Radeon 7500 (I WANT MY S-VIDEO OUT WAAAAA)
2) Built In Mouse (I thank all that are holy and unholy that I don't have to use a touchpad, however, the Middle button to the erason head/mouse buttons combo will not work as a scroll as originally intended. All hail IBM for using Erasorheads....)
3) .. did I say ATI Radeon 7500?
4) ugh....maybe some potential issues with 2.6 kernel?
Inspiron Issues:
1) Wooah, no graphics, Frame Buffer or X would work until I had to find, download and apply a patch that allowed more freedom in the BIOS so that I can change a paramater that was necessary.
2) Volume buttons do not map directly to the hardware as with the Thinkpad, instead you'll have to write a program, say "setvol' and then download another program, say 'keygrab', figure out what keys the sound buttons map to, and finally tell 'keygrab' to run say 'setvol -increasevolume'.
3) Touchpads are from hell....but it seems people other people like em..
4) At least with the 2.4 kernel series, one would need certain things modulated (is that a word?) or built into the kernel and you may find some distro's than don't do this..
Latitude Issues?:
* This particular Latitude is a special case and should not be used to compare other latutudes...or if it is, I feel sorry for latitude users
- Lets focues on what works here
- occasionally, it boots up properly
Sorry I can't remember the specific model names of the Dells, but they aren't next to me..unlike my Thinkpad..
Oh and I almost forgot, as of 1998 I believe it is unsafe to use any non-Dell power cord on a Dell. Dell had purposefully swapped two pins (or something like that) in their powercords that meet the normal standards. This change will cause any non-dell powercord (or possibly and dell power cordd on a non-dell hardware) to fry the machine.
I have no clue whether they stopped doing that. if they did it was probably because of lawsuits..
Bottom Line, there really is no best choice as long as companies deny open source, violation standardizations for their own marketing purposes, and new things always come out.
I say, follow the warrenty advice and pick a machine with specs that are for your own personality. But heres a word of advice, look for every possible part to see if the manufacturer releases "opensource" of their drivers etc. Only try this if you wish to add smoke and lighting effects to your box.
I have had bad experiences with the 2.6 kernel and Notebooks, but so far the 2.4 series has gone mostly faultless. With earlier versions of 2.6 (say 2.6.5?) may be better now..
P.S. Make sure your using ACPI on notebooks and not APM.
Case 1: I own an IBM THinkpad A31
Case 2: My good friend owns a Dell Inspiron **something or another**
Case 3: My other friend got a Dell Latitude from his work.
Thinkpad Issues:
1) ATI Radeon 7500 (I WANT MY S-VIDEO OUT WAAAAA)
2) Built In Mouse (I thank all that are holy and unholy that I don't have to use a touchpad, however, the Middle button to the erason head/mouse buttons combo will not work as a scroll as originally intended. All hail IBM for using Erasorheads....)
3) .. did I say ATI Radeon 7500?
4) ugh....maybe some potential issues with 2.6 kernel?
Inspiron Issues:
1) Wooah, no graphics, Frame Buffer or X would work until I had to find, download and apply a patch that allowed more freedom in the BIOS so that I can change a paramater that was necessary.
2) Volume buttons do not map directly to the hardware as with the Thinkpad, instead you'll have to write a program, say "setvol' and then download another program, say 'keygrab', figure out what keys the sound buttons map to, and finally tell 'keygrab' to run say 'setvol -increasevolume'.
3) Touchpads are from hell....but it seems people other people like em..
4) At least with the 2.4 kernel series, one would need certain things modulated (is that a word?) or built into the kernel and you may find some distro's than don't do this..
Latitude Issues?:
* This particular Latitude is a special case and should not be used to compare other latutudes...or if it is, I feel sorry for latitude users
- Lets focues on what works here
- occasionally, it boots up properly
Sorry I can't remember the specific model names of the Dells, but they aren't next to me..unlike my Thinkpad..
Oh and I almost forgot, as of 1998 I believe it is unsafe to use any non-Dell power cord on a Dell. Dell had purposefully swapped two pins (or something like that) in their powercords that meet the normal standards. This change will cause any non-dell powercord (or possibly and dell power cordd on a non-dell hardware) to fry the machine.
I have no clue whether they stopped doing that. if they did it was probably because of lawsuits..
Bottom Line, there really is no best choice as long as companies deny open source, violation standardizations for their own marketing purposes, and new things always come out.
I say, follow the warrenty advice and pick a machine with specs that are for your own personality. But heres a word of advice, look for every possible part to see if the manufacturer releases "opensource" of their drivers etc. Only try this if you wish to add smoke and lighting effects to your box.
I have had bad experiences with the 2.6 kernel and Notebooks, but so far the 2.4 series has gone mostly faultless. With earlier versions of 2.6 (say 2.6.5?) may be better now..
P.S. Make sure your using ACPI on notebooks and not APM.
Follow the White Penguin
I agreeyerp wrote:3) Touchpads are from hell....but it seems people other people like em..
Finally someone who agrees with me on that Heh, I use the crazy new bleeding edge patchset with fancy things like reiser4 (using it for root filesystem), known as: 2.6.10-rc3-love1yerp wrote:I have had bad experiences with the 2.6 kernel and Notebooks, but so far the 2.4 series has gone mostly faultless. With earlier versions of 2.6 (say 2.6.5?) may be better now..
Though I don't use a laptop
so this is off topic...happily using debian with kernel 2.6.8 on my ibm thinkpad a30 (though i never bothered using the tv-out)
afaik i installed same debian with same kernel on a dell lattitude cpx j and it worked fine too.
There is only the problem i dont trust dells. they feel 'weak' compared to my thinkpad. (though a toshiba feels as was it made from paper, compared with the lattitude)
afaik i installed same debian with same kernel on a dell lattitude cpx j and it worked fine too.
There is only the problem i dont trust dells. they feel 'weak' compared to my thinkpad. (though a toshiba feels as was it made from paper, compared with the lattitude)
Bibendi ergo sum
or rather: sum ergo bibendi
or rather: sum ergo bibendi
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mikeeusa22