JM Ibanez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Hi,
> Who here runs Linux on their laptops? I'm thinking of getting a laptop > (thinking, mind you-- buying is a different story ;) ), and what to > know what experiences people have installing and using Linux on a > laptop. (I know Dean has a Debian laptop, and Sacha runs it on her > Lifebook, IIRC.) > > Currently, I'm looking at older, second-hand laptops and/or desknotes. > I'm using an IBM Thinkpad T20. Installation of Debian (woody) was painless (upgraded to sid now). Most of the hardware works with the stock 2.6 kernel, though I haven't tried using the winmodem and pcmcia. > In particular: > > * Hardware support issues - What hardware doesn't work? Since I'm > looking into a second-hand machine, in general, how difficult is it to > look for parts? I haven't tried upgrading but you can just probably get parts from IBM. > * Is a Linux laptop suggestable? Depends on what you want to do really :) > * Distro - I'm leaning towards Debian and Slackware, but if you've run > RH or MDK on a laptop, please share your experiences > * Kernel - I'm looking into using 2.6 and not 2.4, since IIRC 2.6 has > better (yet experimental) suspend support, which I definitely need. For the T20, I'm using APM since the hardware doesn't have support for ACPI. APM works really well here. You have to grab the thinkpad tools (tpctl) for more power management fun. One thing to note if you're going to buy an _old_ thinkpad is the vfat partition. If you want/need hibernate, don't nuke it. The IBM tools resides there and you need those tools for hibernate to work. You can get a rescue CD from IBM, but in most cases they won't give it to you. > * Desktop environment - I'm primarily a GNOME user, so I'm leaning > towards GNOME 2.4/2.6, but might switch to using XFCE 4. Then again, I > might drop to using IonWM instead, as I like being (generally) mouse > free. I'm using GNOME 2.6 here with no worries. There is also a tool called 'tpb' which you can use to add functionality to those thinkpad buttons (i.e., launch emacs when you press the ThinkPad Button). HTH. Cheers, -- Jan Alonzo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
