hello, I am planning to buy an IBM thinkpad T42 from the US. I have stayed in the southermost part of India and have never moved from here. I intend to ask my wife to get the laptop for me, she has currently gone to the US.
I understand from the IBM website that a sale is going on and the T42 with model number 2379R5U is available for 1099 USD. Is this laptop and the current price a good buy. I would especially like to know if I can install GNU/Linux sarge on it and get all the specific harware like the video card working with the right drivers. I don't want to get stuck up with generic drivers. The below link is that of the T42 am planning to buy: http://www-131.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=8770329&storeId=10000001&langId=-1&categoryId=2049168&dualCurrId=1000073&catalogId=-840 I see that the graphics card is ATI radeon 7500, 32Mb. Does this card have full compatibility with GNU/Linux and is this card suitable and sufficient for me. I intend to use the laptop mostly for programming, C programming mostly and not GUI design or programming. But would like to have 3d because anyway the card does seem to have that capability. I am also concerned whether this laptop is too much out of date and if IBM is tricking people into clearing its prehistoric stocks. I have never owned a laptop like most here and I hope the list understands the relevance of the question. Thanks in advance Justin
