At some point in the distant past you said:
> I need some advice before I buy a laptop. I want to dual boot 98 and
> Mandrake 6 Venus. I have never installed Linux on a lap top
> and I would like to know which models are most compaitable since I really
> want it to work well. I need x to work and prefer KDE.
> Does anyone have any experience with Laptops who can give me some good
> choices.
Most of the ThinkPads are pretty well behaved, at least as far as laptops
go. I've installed on the following IBM models;
365XD; P5-120, 24MB, .7GB, 800x600 (everything worked although X
took some effort)
380D; P5-150, 48MB, 2.1GB, 800x600 (worked after Neomagic released
API to XFree)
600; P6-300, 64MB, 4.3GB, 1024x768 (everything except modem works)
770X; P6-300, 64MB, 8.4GB, 1024x768 (wonderful machine with a BIG
price tag)
I'm currently using a Toshiba Satellite 4030CDT, 64MB, 4.3GB, 1024x768. The
internal modem is hopeless, PCMCIA was somewhat of a pain to set up, and I
had to patch the Xserver, but since I only paid $1800US, it was an excellent
deal. Very stable and reasonably quick, fairly good active matrix screen
although the backlighting is a bit uneven. Mandrake installed nicely with a
couple of required adjustments to the BIOS.
I haven't had many comepletely failed installations on laptops, but almost
all of them have been a little tricky. I know a guy with an old Fujitsu
Lifebook that has a different problem with each new release of RedHat.
Another friend has this monstrous Prostar notebook with a 15.1" screen,
everything works fine but the thing weighs as much as a large dog., and the
installation was a nightmare.
What's your budget? If you can afford a decent ThinkPad, they're great
machines. Maybe you can catch a good model in a closeout sale.
