On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 09:13 -0700, Bdale Garbee wrote: > On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 07:33 -0500, Stuart Brorson wrote: > > > So, does anybody in here have recommendations for a good laptop? Or > > do you have any laptops to avoid? > > I'm a gEDA user who happens to work for HP in a relevant role. See > www.gag.com/~bdale for details if you wish.
Cool. My HP Compaq nc6320 works nicely with recent kernels, suspends, resumes and everything! +points: well built - has survived multiple strip-down / repairs - I managed to blow a chip in its PSU due to one of the -ve points below. I did notice on last dis-assembly that one of the screen hinges had partly broken though. Spare parts are easily (and for items like KBD, fan etc., _cheaply_) available, identifiable, and supplied without fuss through a number of distributors. -ve points: I've got through 3x power adaptors now due to "wiggle" faults, and managed to spike the data / feedback line on the feed during a quick bodge type repair, and ended up having to rework the mother board. ACPI support was a little crufty, but that ought to be better now Vista is out, and demanding better ACPI implementations for full compliance. Screen died :(.. Don't think we can blame HP for that one.. blame LG +Philips. > All of the notebook computers in the business series from HP are tested > for use with a couple commercial Linux distributions. If you pick one > of the units with Intel graphics and wireless, which means you'll also > be getting an Intel CPU, then you're likely to be very happy with the > resulting experience using Linux. Mine is from the commercial series. Much of the consumer range I saw at shops sadly followed a growing trend to be _hideously_ ugly, and adorned with pointless stickers (advertising features) over every square inch of spare chassis. > My best advice, regardless of which vendor you choose, is to troll > interesting looking models, then do some web searching to see if people > have reported good or bad experiences loading and using Linux on that > model. And if you end up buying something retail, take a live-boot CD > along and see if the sales people will let you try it on a demo unit > first. You might like to download the bootable test-suite from http://linuxfirmwarekit.org/ and confirm how well the firmware does. -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user