* justin joseph <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2006 May 12 23:26 -0500]: > 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.
I had a T42 from June of last year to February of this year. I had KNOPPIX and Debian Sid installed and used Sid the most. Everything "just worked" and it took a little effort to get ACPI working the way I wanted it to, but it wasn't too big of a task. The modem worked well with the non-free Conexant driver and the wireless worked great with the Madwifi driver. > 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 >From what I see, this model is slighty faster than the one I had. > 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 had Xorg 6.9.0 installed and 3D worked flawlessly. > I am also concerned whether this laptop is too much out of date and if > IBM is tricking people into clearing its prehistoric stocks. For me it had plenty of power (my personal laptop is a T23) and is in no way prehistoric and I think would be a reliable machine for several years. It is a nice unit, strongly built, quite light weight considering its strength and durability. > I have never owned a laptop like most here and I hope the list > understands the relevance of the question. As for installing Linux, I would advise getting a second hard drive as a warranty claim will most surely require the machine have the original XP load installed. Based on my experience the odds of a warranty claim would seem to be low, but one never knows. At some point I plan on buying a T42 and I still have my hard drive with Linux on it that I can drop right in. HTH, - Nate >> -- Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB | Successfully Microsoft Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @ | free since January 1998. http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/ | "Debian, the choice of My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @ | a GNU generation!" http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/ | http://www.debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
