Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
One of the staff baught one of these laptops http://www.pioneercomputers.com.au/products/info.asp?c1=3c2=13id=1015 Ive installed Ubuntu on it (Dapper Drake) works fine seems to fit all your specs plus its not expensive. They also have some nice AMD64 units. >From memory you can also order the laptops without windows. On Mon, 2005-11-14 at 22:42 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Here's what I'm after, with the highest priorities at the top. - Working sleep/resume (ie close lid - sleep, open - resume) - 12 or 14 inch screen - 1280 pixels or better horizontal resolution - 60G or larger drive - 1Gig ram - Ethernet - Wireless (source code driver) - USB - Decent sound in and out. - External (preferred) CDROM drive. - Good battery life - Availability of external long life battery. - Firewire Does anyone have any recommendations on machines and/or vendors? TIA, Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo +---+ Religion is a magic device for turning unanswerable questions into unquestionable answers. -Art Gecko, Wombat Discord-1, 128649 Regards Richard Neal Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors than copyright infringement, or even outright piracy. Seen on Slashdot 30-09-2005 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
On Tue, 2005-11-15 at 13:47 +1100, Matthew Hannigan wrote: On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 11:52:43AM +1100, Robert Collins wrote: On Tue, 2005-11-15 at 09:59 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Robert Collins wrote: On Mon, 2005-11-14 at 22:42 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Heres my Dell X1 against your specs I looked on the Dell site and I can't find the X1 anymore. Is that me or is that Dell? http://dellstore02.dell.com.au/public/cart/configurator.jsp?prd_id=421312sr_no=1 Erik, You may be interested that the X1 is a rebadged (repackaged?) Samsung Q30, with added bluetooth. (Rob, correct me if I'm wrong) Repackaged I guess - its got different colours :). I note that the Q30 now has bluetooth as well; ht.com.au have it on their website. DickSmith also have it in their powerhouse stores but don't advertise on their website for some reason. Sweet. I just (like an hour ago) bought a Samsung R50, which meets all your specs, including full 6pin (i.e. powered) firewire and the availability of a long life battery. Memory is default 512mb but expandable up to 2gb. I haven't actually tested the sleep function; I've yet to install Linux. But I'm pretty hopeful. Remind me to let you know. How much battery life do you get ? Curious thing: apparently you cannot get Samsung laptops in the USA. I was wondering if it's the presence of the libdvdcss code in the AVstation software that could be a problem. Although a quick google says it's because they're under contract to HP and Dell. Much less interesting explanation :-) :) Rob -- GPG key available at: http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
On Mon, 2005-11-14 at 22:42 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Heres my Dell X1 against your specs Here's what I'm after, with the highest priorities at the top. - Working sleep/resume (ie close lid - sleep, open - resume) Yes, (the lid close open is signalled to acpi, making that sleep is a configuration choice). - 12 or 14 inch screen Yes - 1280 pixels or better horizontal resolution Yes (1280x768) - 60G or larger drive 60 - 1Gig ram Yup. - Ethernet Yup, Gb. - Wireless (source code driver) ipw2200 - proprietary firmware, GPL driver, project run by Intel. - USB Yes. - Decent sound in and out. Do you mean speaker and mic quality? or chipsets ? You're welcome to play with mine to test. - External (preferred) CDROM drive. Yup, powered-USB. - Good battery life I get a total of 6 hours with my two batteries. (one small @ 2, one large @ 4). - Availability of external long life battery. ??? - Firewire ieee1394 - 4 pin. Does anyone have any recommendations on machines and/or vendors? HTH, Rob -- GPG key available at: http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Hi all, For the last 3 years of so I have had an Apple iBook running Linux about 99% of the time. Before that I had a Compaq M300 which only ran Linux. A recent software upgrade of Mac OSX on the iBook stopped sleep/ resume and CPU frequency scaling from working. This has been a real PITA which means I am now looking for a new laptop and for obvious reasons Apple is not an option this time. I'd really like to go for a vendor that is willing to pre-install Linux and I have looked at: http://www.vgcomputing.com.au/ but they really don't have anything that fits my needs. Here's what I'm after, with the highest priorities at the top. - Working sleep/resume (ie close lid - sleep, open - resume) - 12 or 14 inch screen - 1280 pixels or better horizontal resolution - 60G or larger drive - 1Gig ram - Ethernet - Wireless (source code driver) - USB - Decent sound in and out. - External (preferred) CDROM drive. - Good battery life - Availability of external long life battery. - Firewire Does anyone have any recommendations on machines and/or vendors? TIA, Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo +---+ Religion is a magic device for turning unanswerable questions into unquestionable answers. -Art Gecko, Wombat Discord-1, 128649 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Hi all, For the last 3 years of so I have had an Apple iBook running Linux about 99% of the time. Before that I had a Compaq M300 which only ran Linux. A recent software upgrade of Mac OSX on the iBook stopped sleep/ resume and CPU frequency scaling from working. This has been a real PITA which means I am now looking for a new laptop and for obvious reasons Apple is not an option this time. Fascists. I've got an IBM x31 base model, but they are deprecated by the x40's. You can get x40's at the specs you want. Here's what I'm after, with the highest priorities at the top. - Working sleep/resume (ie close lid - sleep, open - resume) Yes, i've got mine working on Ubuntu. - 12 or 14 inch screen Yes, 12. - 1280 pixels or better horizontal resolution Is that native on the LCD, or VGA out? On the LCD no (1024x768 max), but VGA out yes. - 60G or larger drive Yes. - 1Gig ram Yes. - Ethernet Yes, gigabit. - Wireless (source code driver) Intel ipw2x00, or prism2 - USB Yes, usb2 of course. - Decent sound in and out. Intel AC'97. Not the best, but it'll probably do, then again you do do funky audio work. :-) - External (preferred) CDROM drive. Yes - Good battery life 3 hours on standard battery. - Availability of external long life battery. Battery extender thingys available. - Firewire Yes. Does anyone have any recommendations on machines and/or vendors? Good luck to you! Lindsay -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Robert Collins wrote: On Mon, 2005-11-14 at 22:42 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Heres my Dell X1 against your specs I looked on the Dell site and I can't find the X1 anymore. Is that me or is that Dell? Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo +---+ UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Robert Collins wrote: On Mon, 2005-11-14 at 22:42 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Heres my Dell X1 against your specs I looked on the Dell site and I can't find the X1 anymore. Don't worry. Found it. Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo +---+ Linux: the only OS that makes you feel guilty when you reboot -- Kenneth Crudup in comp.os.linux.misc -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Thinkpad X40, have run both Ubuntu and Debian on it without major problems (also Windows appears to at least boot on it...) This one time, at band camp, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Here's what I'm after, with the highest priorities at the top. - Working sleep/resume (ie close lid - sleep, open - resume) full ACPI support; under Ubuntu close lid just shuts down the display, but this can of course be changed. - 12 or 14 inch screen 12 - 1280 pixels or better horizontal resolution No, 1024x768 - 60G or larger drive I've got a 40G but you can get an 80G option. - 1Gig ram Yep. - Ethernet 10/100/1000G intel - Wireless (source code driver) I have an ATH5212 chip in here, which uses the madwifi driver, so you need to compile from source against Debian kernels, and it comes stock with Ubuntu kernels. I've been feeling massive packet loss with the Ubuntu kernel though, so I've also got a $9 pcmcia prism card which Just Works :) - USB Yup, 2 ports both bus-powered. - Decent sound in and out. haven't tried recording, but playback is beautiful. - External (preferred) CDROM drive. As an option, yep. - Good battery life - Availability of external long life battery. I've got the standard 8-cell, which pokes out a little at the back, and the 8-cell expansion, which sits underneath and raises the keyboard slighly ergo-like, and i get up to 8 hours with the pair. They add about 1/3rd of the weight of the machine though, each, by my arm-scales reckoning. - Firewire Nope. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Jamie Wilkinson wrote: - Firewire Nope. That's odd for IBM to drop functionality from model to model, my x31 has firewire but the x40's don't. Lindsay -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
On 11/14/05, Erik de Castro Lopo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi all,A recent software upgrade of Mac OSX on the iBook stopped sleep/resume and CPU frequency scaling from working. This has been a realPITA which means I am now looking for a new laptop and for obvious reasons Apple is not an option this time. Care to expand on that? Several updates pushed out by Apple for OSX haven't affected my wifes machine from sleeping and resuming etc. I am a little curious to your problem, as if it was as you said then I'd expect alot more people complaining about it not working, which somewhat indicates maybe your particular install has some issues. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Michael Fox wrote: Care to expand on that? Several updates pushed out by Apple for OSX haven't affected my wifes machine from sleeping and resuming etc. You might have been lucky. Sleep and resume still works for OSX as does CPU frequency scaling. I has been broken on Linux ever since I did an upgrade about 2-3 months ago. Previous to that sleep/resume worked like it shoud 99.5% of the time. I am a little curious to your problem, as if it was as you said then I'd expect alot more people complaining about it not working, which somewhat indicates maybe your particular install has some issues. I complained: http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2005/07/msg00172.html I know of at least one other person who has had problems (Ian??). It does affect all iBooks, just some models. The weird thing about apple is that the release a bunch of machines under the same model name G3 iBook but they can have a range of different hardware internals. Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo +---+ Every time microshaft's stock price drops again, I rejoice. I want to see that bunch of criminals brought to their knees. Preferably at the chopping block. -- rixt in http://linuxtoday.com/stories/20659_flat.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
On 11/15/05, Erik de Castro Lopo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Michael Fox wrote:I complained:http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2005/07/msg00172.htmlI know of at least one other person who has had problems (Ian??). It does affect all iBooks, just some models. The weird thing aboutapple is that the release a bunch of machines under the same modelname G3 iBook but they can have a range of different hardware internals. Well the G3 iBook is certainly pretty old, atleast it wasn't a current G4 iBook. Certainly explains it. Bummer. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
On Tue, 2005-11-15 at 09:59 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Robert Collins wrote: On Mon, 2005-11-14 at 22:42 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Heres my Dell X1 against your specs I looked on the Dell site and I can't find the X1 anymore. Is that me or is that Dell? http://dellstore02.dell.com.au/public/cart/configurator.jsp?prd_id=421312sr_no=1 Their website sucks, really. Rob -- GPG key available at: http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Michael Fox wrote: Well the G3 iBook is certainly pretty old, What disturbs me the most is that the OSX upgrade made a working reliable Linux machine into a bucket of crap. atleast it wasn't a current G4 iBook. Certainly explains it. Bummer. Well the current iBook have problems with unsupported wifi under Linux and some problems with video drivers. For me those are two more reasons not to go with Apple this time. I was really happy with mine until it all turned to shit. Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo +---+ The RIAA is obsessed to the point of comedy with the frustration of having its rules broken, without considering whether such rules might be standing in the way of increased revenues. Indeed, Napster and Gnutella may turn out to be the two best music-marketing gimmicks yet devised, if only the RIAA would take its head out of its ass long enough to realise it. -- Thomas C Greene on www.theregister.co.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
On 11/15/05, Erik de Castro Lopo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Michael Fox wrote: Well the G3 iBook is certainly pretty old,What disturbs me the most is that the OSX upgrade made a working reliableLinux machine into a bucket of crap. atleast it wasn't a current G4 iBook. Certainly explains it. Bummer. Well the current iBook have problems with unsupported wifi under Linuxand some problems with video drivers.For me those are two more reasons not to go with Apple this time.I was really happy with mine until it all turned to shit. If they had wireless drivers available for linux it would be good, maybe one day the information will be available until then I guess we have to wait. Which sucks I must admit too. I noticed when my wife got her machine the mac address on the wireless interface had changed a bit, which lead me to believe the manufacturer must of changed or a revision had been made to certain chips etc. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
This one time, at band camp, Lindsay Holmwood wrote: Jamie Wilkinson wrote: - Firewire Nope. That's odd for IBM to drop functionality from model to model, my x31 has firewire but the x40's don't. My x40 is a lot smaller than your x31, though; I also don't have a CF slot, though I do have an IR port and a SD card slot. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 11:52:43AM +1100, Robert Collins wrote: On Tue, 2005-11-15 at 09:59 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Robert Collins wrote: On Mon, 2005-11-14 at 22:42 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Heres my Dell X1 against your specs I looked on the Dell site and I can't find the X1 anymore. Is that me or is that Dell? http://dellstore02.dell.com.au/public/cart/configurator.jsp?prd_id=421312sr_no=1 Erik, You may be interested that the X1 is a rebadged (repackaged?) Samsung Q30, with added bluetooth. (Rob, correct me if I'm wrong) I note that the Q30 now has bluetooth as well; ht.com.au have it on their website. DickSmith also have it in their powerhouse stores but don't advertise on their website for some reason. I just (like an hour ago) bought a Samsung R50, which meets all your specs, including full 6pin (i.e. powered) firewire and the availability of a long life battery. Memory is default 512mb but expandable up to 2gb. I haven't actually tested the sleep function; I've yet to install Linux. But I'm pretty hopeful. Remind me to let you know. It's ALSO got this cute thing called AVStation which is a pre-installed linux (presumably on flash memory) to allows you to play dvd's, mp3 and do picture slide shows without booting into XP (or any other OS). Quick test shows that it works quite well! Complete specs on the net. But note there's a few variations. e.g. mine has ATI Radeon x600, but some have Intel video card. Curious thing: apparently you cannot get Samsung laptops in the USA. I was wondering if it's the presence of the libdvdcss code in the AVstation software that could be a problem. Although a quick google says it's because they're under contract to HP and Dell. Much less interesting explanation :-) -- Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Matthew Hannigan wrote: Erik, You may be interested that the X1 is a rebadged (repackaged?) Samsung Q30, with added bluetooth. (Rob, correct me if I'm wrong) I note that the Q30 now has bluetooth as well; ht.com.au have it on their website. DickSmith also have it in their powerhouse stores but don't advertise on their website for some reason. Thanks Matt, thats really good to know. I would much prefer a place where I can walk in and run a knoppix CDROM to test a machine. Dell makes this a little hard :-). I just (like an hour ago) bought a Samsung R50, which meets all your specs, including full 6pin (i.e. powered) firewire and the availability of a long life battery. Memory is default 512mb but expandable up to 2gb. Where did you buy? Somewhere in the city? Complete specs on the net. But note there's a few variations. e.g. mine has ATI Radeon x600, but some have Intel video card. Once thing I fogot to mention is that I'd quite like to get some decent accelerated 3D graphics as well. Is hardware acceleration available on any of these machines? Cheers, Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo +---+ It is grossly irresponsible to connect a Windows machine directly to the net. ;-) -- John Wiltshire on the Sydney Linux User Group mailing list -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Thanks Matt, thats really good to know. I would much prefer a place where I can walk in and run a knoppix CDROM to test a machine. Dell makes this a little hard :-). There is a Dell stand in the Bondi Junction Westfield in front of JB Hifi or the floor above/below it... they might let you reboot a laptop with Knoppix. Complete specs on the net. But note there's a few variations. e.g. mine has ATI Radeon x600, but some have Intel video card. Once thing I fogot to mention is that I'd quite like to get some decent accelerated 3D graphics as well. Is hardware acceleration available on any of these machines? The Intel cards although not breaking any land speed records are accelerated using open source drivers from Tungsten Graphics and Intel, the new Radeon X300/x600 type cards have closed source fglrx drivers from ATI (mostly correct rendering, not always stable) or open source drivers (reverse engineered, can play quake 3,not always stable but getting better), I bought an Insprion 6000 a while back and it had an x300 and I had to go write the PCIe support for the cards myself, but I've committed it all to X/kernel now so nobody else should need to feel that pain.. Dave. -- David Airlie, Software Engineer http://www.skynet.ie/~airlied / airlied at skynet.ie Linux kernel - DRI, VAX / pam_smb / ILUG -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
Dave Airlie wrote: There is a Dell stand in the Bondi Junction Westfield in front of JB Hifi or the floor above/below it... they might let you reboot a laptop with Knoppix. Oh cool, thats really near to me. Brilliant. The Intel cards although not breaking any land speed records are accelerated using open source drivers from Tungsten Graphics and Intel, the new Radeon X300/x600 type cards have closed source fglrx drivers from ATI (mostly correct rendering, not always stable) or open source drivers (reverse engineered, can play quake 3,not always stable but getting better), I bought an Insprion 6000 a while back and it had an x300 and I had to go write the PCIe support for the cards myself, but I've committed it all to X/kernel now so nobody else should need to feel that pain.. Great to know. Thanks David. Cheers, Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo +---+ The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who don't have it. -- George Bernard Shaw -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations
On Tue, 2005-11-15 at 03:24 +, Dave Airlie wrote: There is a Dell stand in the Bondi Junction Westfield in front of JB Hifi or the floor above/below it... they might let you reboot a laptop with Knoppix. And another in chatswood. The chatswood booth let me play with a live CD. That said, they don't carry demo units of the X1, so it wasn't that useful :). Rob -- GPG key available at: http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations?
On Sun, 2005-05-15 at 22:17 +1000, Chris Deigan wrote: quote(Michael (Micksa) Slade); - 1600x1200 display. I've been spoiled. I'd prefer something with ATI, for decent 3D graphics, but it doesn't have to be the very latest radeon or whatever. I'd just mention that from everyone I've heard, the nvidia propietry drivers really do kick arse. More than I think ati's open drivers seem to be (hurray for powerpc). To be clear, ATI don't have any open drivers, neither do Nvidia. There's the proprietary closed-source no-support-from-the-kernel-guys drivers that give you access to your nice vertex shaders etc, and there's the open source not-associated-with-ATI drivers that would love to do that if only the vendors would give us the specs to the hardware we paid for. J. -- Jan Schmidt [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations?
I'm just comparing the spec against my Toshiba A10 which is probably obsolete but no doubt similar models are available. My main criteria were price and Linux compatibility. On Fri, May 13, 2005 at 09:46:13PM +1000, Michael (Micksa) Slade wrote: - good linux compatibility. I want to be able to suspend-to-ram/resume. Overall the Toshiba A10 is pretty good. I was wondering why the wireless LAN was incompatible until someone from Toshiba who knew these things pointed out that the really cheap model (that I bought) comes with the case switch and lamp for wireless LAN but does not come with any actual wireless LAN (costs more to make two different cases than it does to just leave chips off the board). - 1600x1200 display. I've been spoiled. I'd prefer something with ATI, for decent 3D graphics, but it doesn't have to be the very latest radeon or whatever. Bit of a downside here, the A10 is only 1024x768, very clear and crisp, good wide angle, not so good outside on a sunny day. Better models are available than mine. I've found that the intel graphics chips are pretty good, very compatible, play tuxracer and similar things very nicely. - at least 512M memory comes with 256M but all laptops are expandable these days - at least 5 hours of battery life (normal use, ie 0 CPU, display on, HDD spinning). 6 would be cool. I don't mind if I have to have 2 batteries at once in the thing, but would prefer not to have to remove the CD/DVD drive to get the 2nd battery in. That will be very difficult on a modern laptop. My old gateway could do it no problems, the A10 gets 2 hours. All the CPU clock tweaking that you hear so much about doesn't actually get you much (maybe another half hour). From asking around, a lot of other people find battery life pretty poor on modern laptops. I hate to say it but Apple is ahead in this area (provided you don't buy the fastest models). Note that the A10 is a Celleron, not a Pentium-M (which is better), but the Celleron does have clock adjustment and those advanced features so I'm not sure what makes it bad. I think that part of the problem is that the graphic chipset consumes a lot of power even when it isn't doing anything more than displaying a static picture. - at least a DVD-ROM That's standard on the A10 and just about everything else. - decent keyboard and touch pad. The keyboard and touch pad on the inspiron 8000 were fine. fastest keyboard I've ever used. On the 8200 they sucked. The keyboard was too stiff, and the touch pad had this neet smoothing feature which delayed its response by about 1/2 a second and made it feel awful. I like the Toshiba keyboard feel and so far I have been unable to destroy it (which is impressive). Some of the keys have been moved around to make it all fit, so the Windows keys that no one uses are tucked away in the corner (and one is the ratpoison command key on my box), the tilde, insert and delete are all down next to the space bar (you get used to it). I'd prefer a keyboard that had the cursor keys and the 6 navigation keys in proper groups, much like some IBMs and Dells do. tilde and backslash MUST be in sane locations. That's narrowing the field a bit... the A10 has backslash above the ENTER which I personally find sane but preferences vary. Putting the tilde next to the spacebar is obviously a trade-off just to square up the keyboard module and make packaging easier. The cursor keys are good. Yes, I really do want a touch pad. I don't mind them either, I just hate the touch to click feature and haven't figured out how to switch it off :-( - built-in wireless OR 2 PCMCIA slots The higher models of Toshiba have built in wireless. Can't say how well it works with Linux. - Tel -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Laptop recommendations?
On 5/16/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm just comparing the spec against my Toshiba A10 which is probably obsolete but no doubt similar models are available. My main criteria were price and Linux compatibility. On Fri, May 13, 2005 at 09:46:13PM +1000, Michael (Micksa) Slade wrote: - good linux compatibility. I want to be able to suspend-to-ram/resume. Overall the Toshiba A10 is pretty good. I was wondering why the wireless LAN was incompatible until someone from Toshiba who knew these things pointed out that the really cheap model (that I bought) comes with the case switch and lamp for wireless LAN but does not come with any actual wireless LAN (costs more to make two different cases than it does to just leave chips off the board). Does the machine have a miniPCI slot and internal antenna installed, as you could just buy a miniPCI wireless card and install it. Then have internal wireless lan card -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Laptop recommendations?
This list seems to be well populated so I may as well post here too. My laptop died. again. GOOD FUN. So I'm in the market for a new laptop. These are my requirements: - good linux compatibility. I want to be able to suspend-to-ram/resume. - 1600x1200 display. I've been spoiled. I'd prefer something with ATI, for decent 3D graphics, but it doesn't have to be the very latest radeon or whatever. - at least 512M memory - at least 5 hours of battery life (normal use, ie 0 CPU, display on, HDD spinning). 6 would be cool. I don't mind if I have to have 2 batteries at once in the thing, but would prefer not to have to remove the CD/DVD drive to get the 2nd battery in. - at least a DVD-ROM - decent keyboard and touch pad. The keyboard and touch pad on the inspiron 8000 were fine. fastest keyboard I've ever used. On the 8200 they sucked. The keyboard was too stiff, and the touch pad had this neet smoothing feature which delayed its response by about 1/2 a second and made it feel awful. I'd prefer a keyboard that had the cursor keys and the 6 navigation keys in proper groups, much like some IBMs and Dells do. tilde and backslash MUST be in sane locations. Yes, I really do want a touch pad. - built-in wireless OR 2 PCMCIA slots any suggestions? Mick. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
