Didn't Get That Linux Laptop for Xmas? 87
cvbear0 writes: "You didn't get the laptop you wanted for Christmas, did you? Well, surf on over to the Linux Laptop SuperGuide. The guys from the Linux Hardware Database and ZDNet have build a list of Linux-friendly laptops. Users can also post their comments about their experiences with certain model. Send back those 15 sweaters you received, and find the Linux laptop of your dreams!" My wish is that power management under Linux would be fully supported. Getting four hours battery life under Windows and two hours under Linux is disappointing.
No (Score:1)
No, it's logical. (Score:2)
Since you need twice as much time to get anything done under windows, what else can you expect?
Sweet! Big list of resources too (Score:1)
Interesting to see how I did purchasing without this guide -- turns out "my" VAIO got a 4.5. And of course, Linux compatibility was a _big_ factor in choosing it.
Cheap Laptops (Score:1)
I mean I don't care even if its a 486, I just want something I can carry around. I'm looking in the range of around a 100$, does anyone know where I can get one?
I just want enough to Run Linux and play solataire on road trips.
Of those... (Score:1)
Amigori
-----------
Wishing BeOS [be.com] was used more.
2.4 Kernel is better (Score:2)
Various responses (Score:4)
INFIDEL! MISCREANT! Pustulent bootlicking LAPDOG of WILLIAM HENRY GATES III! Knowest thou not that the WRATH of the PENGUIN shall fall upon thee? May thy hard drive CHIP and SHATTER!
Those who would trade security and essential freedoms for a little power deserve not security, freedom, or power.
D00D! 11|\|UX R00lZ! J00 AR3 A 5UCK0R A|\|D 1 0\/\/|\| J00!
What sort of loser hacker are you? Just buy a bunch of AA batteries at the airport or K-mart or wherevery you are and solder them in series/parallel to meet your laptop's power specs. If you can't get it exactly, try combinations of NiCad and regular batteries, as the
Similar site for FreeBSD laptops? (Score:3)
Is power management a Linux-wide problem? (Score:4)
-russ
Sony VAIOs make good Linux-retrofitted laptops. (Score:5)
As far as the other brands, stay away from Toshiba; they're the manufacturer of the cheapest (and shoddiest) laptops around. HP isn't much better. Only the Compaq Armada series is worth retrofitting with Linux. All Dell systems should work out fine. As for Gateway, those laptops are worth their weight in cow pies.
May I recommend... (Score:3)
You don't need to spend $2000 on a laptop to get one that works with Linux or other free OS's.
Toshiba Satellite Pro 4280 (Score:1)
All it's USB, Parallel, Serial, PS2, 2 Type II or 1 Type III pcmcia slots, cdrom 24x, sound card, video card work perfectly.
The internal modem is a lucent one, it is supposed to work, but I haven't had the time to test it yet, same for the TVout.
Why it is good for geeks? Well, just chek all that you can connect to it!!! I can barely think of two interfaces that lack in this laptop!
The only downsize is weight... it's not very light, but I'm sure that it's 14.1'' and all those interfaces sure must compensate it!
Hugs, Cyke
The Definitive Guide to Linux on Laptops (Score:5)
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-lapto p/ [utexas.edu]
Not only does it have a laptop compatibility list that is twenty times larger than the ZDNet one, but it also has howto's, discussion forums, and much, much more.
Re:May I recommend... (Score:2)
Why is it that people keep recommending the Sony units, despite their incredible number of problems running Linux?
power management (Score:1)
About the only complaint I have about this machine is how it misbehaves when going to "standby mode" with X-Window active. Hopefully, it will go away with X4 and ACPI in the kernel, which I am preparing to switch to in the near future.
If you have any interesting experiences with Dell Latitudes and Linux, post them below. I'd love to exchange some knowledge...
--
Re:Sony VAIOs make good Linux-retrofitted laptops. (Score:4)
On the other hand, my Gateway works just fine. I don't know what it is you're talking about, but Sony laptops are the biggest peices of linux-incompatible cow pies that I've ever seen.
Re:Cheap Laptops (Score:3)
Dollar Computer [dollarcomputer.com], a frequent advertiser in the back of Computer Shopper, has made finding a laptop in your price range rather simple. Just go to their site and input the price range that you are willing to pay. I did a search for models costing between $0 and $150 and came up with three (one 386 and two 486s).
The minimum requirement for running Linux is, of course, a 386. I would suggest, however, that if you are going to run Linux on these low-end machines, that you do so without X. X Windows is a big time resource hog that you can live without so long as you are willing to "go primitive" and use a command line. There a solitare games that can be played in text mode and SVGAlib, so you have alternatives to going with a full GUI environment.
Most of the old hardware will be supported under Linux, but you might want to look at the Linux Laptop pages [utexas.edu] before you buy.
I hope this helps.
Re:Merry fscking Christmas (Score:1)
Please, I'm really happy for you, as this is an important holiday for you, but why not accept that in an international forum there will be plenty of people not sharing your set of beliefs?
Compaq 1800 (Score:2)
Dive Gear [divingdeals.com]
Re:Similar site for FreeBSD laptops? (Score:2)
Linux works great on my Laptop, but I haven't take the time to check out FreeBSD.
Re:Compaq 1800 (Score:1)
My laptop came with a CD that has a "battery learning tool" I usually run this about once a month as the battery life seems to drop from 4 hours to 30 minutes over the course of two months. Just a wierd quirky thing I guess.
X is *NOT* a resource hog (Score:1)
Why Not Use the Source? (Score:1)
My wish is that power management under Linux would be fully supported. Getting four hours battery life under Windows and two hours under Linux is disappointing.
Why don't you just read the source and program in a better power management? I was under the impression that everyone who used Linux looked at the source and improved it. It's like that bizarre cathedral!
I have to admit, reading the source and improving Linux (which doesn't really need any improvement, especially in UI) is much easier than using Windows. And let's face it, with Windows you have a hard time finding the newest software.
Good luck!
GenChalupa
Re:Similar site for FreeBSD laptops? (Score:3)
With PAO in particular, a lot of the work is now going to go into developing the FreeBSD PCMCIA framework, so eventually, no special distro required - just wack in the CD and 20 minutes later boot into 5.x-STABLE!
Re:Sony VAIOs make good Linux-retrofitted laptops. (Score:1)
Hopefully soon I'll try FreeBSD on mine.
ACPI4Linux (Score:1)
Some more... (Score:1)
Sure, but in those four hours a Winblows user has to reboot an average of 36,211 times.
Sniff, sniff. Smells like another MICRO$HIT A$troturfer to me! Don't these M$ employees have anything better to do?
Download the latest Mozilla nightly. It's _much_ more power efficient than the previous nightly.
The Transmeta chip would give you all the time you need except the laptop makers are all too stupid to use them properly.
Or you could get a PowerBook and get EIGHT hours.
Go generic (Score:1)
Screw them over? Huh? (Score:2)
Of course, why buy from Sony, the near-monopoly of the movie industry? So you can screw them over by not registering or using their provided software.
The above logic, "buy Sony hardware but screw Sony by not using their provided software" made me laugh.
Hardware enjoys a hefty markup over the price that covers COGS (cost of goods and services) plus NRE (non-recurring engineering). They tack on US$35 or so, about 1%-2% of the total retail price, to include software made by other companies. They value your registration card somewhere between $0.05 and $5.00 in marketing, which is about 0.3% max of the total retail price.
Oh, Sony's quaking in their boots! Sony is in the business of making hardware and media. They outsource the software and content. If you don't use the software they provide, they frankly don't care .
Re:May I recommend... (Score:1)
I hate these damn sites that want to know about me. I use my laptop in my home on the sofa, in my home office for home video and mp3's, in my home office for work, I run a small business, we work for midsized and large businesses. How do I order a pc from Gateway? I just want a list of their products, but they instead want to tell me what they want to sell me.
When I ordered my Compaq laptop 18 months ago I got different prices depending on wether I indicated that I was a small business, home office or large business. What horse crap!
ARG!
Joe
Thinkpad anyone (Score:3)
Installation of Linux on IBM ThinkPad is pretty painless. IBM is well known for his support to Linux community, and it reflects on every model of its ThinkPad.
There are ThinkPad Configuration tools [csustan.edu] if you are interested
Above all, ThinkPad is reliable. You can see from the fact that second hand ThinkPad sell at pretty good price at Ebay [ebay.com].
Disclaimer: I'm an ex-employee of IBM and I really hate IBM but I still think ThinkPad is a great product.
Re:X is *NOT* a resource hog (Score:2)
The version of X that is running on the Linux iPaq is nowhere near as bloated as the one that typically ships with a Linux distribution. And it is not necessarily X that eats away your resources... it's the programs that typically get run under X. Like Netscape.
Right now, I am running X and it is using 3.36% of my processor time on a Celeron 366. Imagine what that would be if you were running X on a 386 or a 486. I also have about 11.5 megs of RAM allocated just to X. That's fine on a machine with over 32 megs of RAM but we're talking machines with 4 or 8 megs and very little hard disk space to allocate to a swap partition.
Sure. You could run X if you wanted to on an old 386 or 486... many of us have done so. But I stick by my original post. If you want to run Linux on low-end hardware, I would recommend running it without X.
Re:Sony VAIOs make good Linux-retrofitted laptops. (Score:1)
I have to disagree with this. I have a Toshiba Portege 3025CT and it runs great. I've had it for over a year now and haven't had a problem yet. Everything it came with is supported under Linux. As for Sony Vaios, the only one I would consider buying is the new one with the transmeta chip in it. And the only reason I'd consider it is the size.
c.
Re:May I recommend... (Score:2)
Re:Sony VAIOs make good Linux-retrofitted laptops. (Score:2)
Re:Variable speed CPUs and Linux. (Score:1)
Re:X is *NOT* a resource hog (Score:2)
Keep in mind that the only way for a program like X to communicate with the framebuffer is to mmap() the whole of the buffer into it's memory space, which seems to inflate its consumption. In reality, it's not using all of that.
If you're running GLX, X may even be mapping stuff more than once, and be mapping an MTRR region. Don't trust what top, ps, and friends tell you about what X is consuming. It's really not.
*Ahem* and Linus ran X on a 386, too. I've run X on a 486, and it's really not that bad.
Re:Sony VAIOs make good Linux-retrofitted laptops. (Score:1)
OS/2 (Score:1)
The OS/2 community is alot like the Linux community, except the OS isn't open sourced. Thats actually one thing I liked about it, because people ran it because they liked it, unlike your typical Windows user who uses it because it came with their computer, and they think Windows is their own choice.
That reminds me... (Score:1)
For the first time ... EVER ... I did not receive any hideous clothing from any of my relatives this year. In fact, the closest thing to clothing that I received was a belt that I desperately needed. However, I did sort of receive a laptop. My best friend's laptop's (AMD K6-2 300MHz, 3GB HD, 32MB RAM) screen went nuts on him the last couple of weeks of school, and since he absolutely needs a laptop for school, his dad ordered him a new one. The day his new laptop came in, his old laptop's screen suddenly started working again! So, temporarily permanently I have myself a kickass laptop! However, Linux is not included, since my school revolves around Microsoft Office, and I kinda need to have it installed. :-) Maybe next year!
What about PowerBooks? (Score:3)
The only page you'll need (Score:1)
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-lapt
Definitive guides on Linux/BSD laptops (Score:4)
Linux:
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-lapt
http://www.linux.org/hardware/laptop.html [linux.org]
FreeBSD:
http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/~dkulp/fbsd/laptop.html [ucsc.edu]
http://www.jp.freebsd.org/PAO/LAPTOP_SURVEY/index
OpenBSD:
http://www.openbsd.org/i386-laptop.html [openbsd.org]
http://www.monkey.org/openbsd-mobile [monkey.org]
NetBSD:
http://www.reedmedia.net/misc/netbsd/laptops-and-
http://newsletter.toshiba-tro.de/netbsd/ [toshiba-tro.de]
X window system LCD configs:
http://www.sanpei.org/Laptop-X/note-list.html [sanpei.org]
http://www.sanpei.org/Laptop-X/Laptop-X/ [sanpei.org]
Notebook survey for graphics/PCMCIA
http://hci.ucsd.edu/dsf/notebooks.html [ucsd.edu]
If anyone has any other links for other free software OSes, please post them
--posted anonymously to avoid karma whoring.
Re:X is *NOT* a resource hog (Score:2)
And yes, I have run X on 386s and 486s myself, and sure, it wasn't all that bad. But when you step away from a high-end machine and sit down at a machine running X on a 386, you suddenly realize that you have been spoiled. I used to think that waiting 5 minutes for Summer Games to load on my Commodore 64 was pretty darn quick, but now I get impatient when Netscape take more than 20 seconds.
Five years ago, running Linux and X on a 486 was great, but now that I have a Celeron 366 with 96MB of RAM, I don't even have the patients to run X on my Pentium 100 with 48MB of RAM (both machines are laptops) the Pentium 100 now serves a my commandline only machine, and I do all my graphical tasks from the newer machine.
I am sure that once I upgrade to something better than I have now, I won't be patient with my current machine either. Let's face it, we get spoiled.
It is still my personal recommendation NOT to run X on a 386 or 486 laptop. And if you are going to run X, don't run it unless you absolutely need it for a particular application.
That is simply my personal recommendation. Take it or leave it. If you want to recommend running X on a 386, feel free to do so.
Don't pay Microsoft Tax! Buy pre-installed Linux! (Score:2)
ebay (Score:1)
Unfortunately, a week ago sunday it got stolen. I hope whoever stole it knows how to crack root. ;)
have a day,
-l
Re:Sony VAIOs make good Linux-retrofitted laptops. (Score:1)
Toshibas are total ass, even their high-end corporate laptops. The Tecra 8100, current top of the line, has no proper linux driver support and freezes HARD in Ghost Enterprise. Truly a pain in the ass to deploy large numbers of them for an enterprise.
Re:X is *NOT* a resource hog (Score:2)
Re:Compaq 1800 (Score:1)
Re:Cheap Laptops (Score:1)
Linux 2.2.18 rocks ! (Score:2)
> would be fully supported.
> Getting four hours battery life under Windows
> and two hours under Linux is disappointing.
I use a Gericom [gericom.de] Overdose 2 laptop and I had 3 hours with Linux, BeOS 4, Win2k and Win98.
I therefore have to say I had a wonderful surprise when I switched between kernel [kernel.org] 2.2.17 to 2.2.18.
This is more a matter of stability (no more crash during blanking) than of durability.
--
Re:X is *NOT* a resource hog (Score:1)
As for the nitpick... it's the SVGA Server running the Neomagic driver. My punishment for this offense is to use Windows 95 for five minutes (AHHHH!!!)
Re:Thinkpad anyone (Score:1)
Is there any hope in getting at least a Linux/Doze dual boot going on this machine?
---- Hey Grrl Geeks! Your very own geek news site has arrived!
Re:X is *NOT* a resource hog (Score:1)
Gateway 2500 here.
New laptop alright (Score:1)
My 'new' laptop is a Toshiba T2000SXe 386SX 16Mhz 2.62 BogoMips :)
2Meg RAM argh! (640K base, 1408K extended) almost the same as this [serverfabrik.de] but without 2Meg mem card and no Win3.1.
Battery life is about, 5 min? :)
the previous owner said it was a nice machine with harvard graphics, msword excel and stuff under win3.1 but I when I boot it, nothing. fdisk p? nothing so I just install linux.
Linux? yes kernel 1.0.4 runs smoothly. slip/plip only networking.
Re:Thinkpad anyone (Score:2)
"That fat, dumb, and bald guy sure plays a mean hardball."
Sony Picturebook (Score:1)
thanks for the links, but I can't really find some infos on the Sony PCG-C1VN, I ordered it, but I still have to wait...:-(
I thought this would be the only reasonable laptop for an Linux only user, like me. First I was not impressed you have to pay this M$ tax. Second I heard, that you have to fidle around with X and compile it new to get it running with the strange screen resolution the Picturbook has.
If anyone has some links or hints, I would be very thankfull, I asked google, but it didn't find much usefull...
Michael
Re:Toshiba Satellite Pro 4280 (Score:1)
-Al-
Re:Cheap Laptops (Score:1)
Reason #2: You'd rather pay the M$ tax when you don't have to? A $100 laptop + $100 'doze fee... that's steep.
hey! (Score:1)
-CoG
"And with HIS stripes we are healed"
Re:power management (Score:1)
To get around the whole WinModem issue I also bought a XirCom RealPort and that rocks too. I dock it at work and that's some 3Com or another. I also bought the extended battery. I flew New York to Seattle non-stop and I still had enough juice to boot up and do some surfing via the cable modem.
(now lest anyone think I am terribly wealthy and/or lying: I am the Sys Admin for a Corporate Travel Agency...)
My machine is also not "suspend" friendly. Suspending usually means pulling the battery and rebooting.
I have W2K on the other side and it doesn't last as long and ODDLY the sound is nowhere near as good as it is in Gnome. I am using the OSS sound thingy but it won't play MP3s in Xmms, if I dbl click them (the only way I can get them to do anything) they do play.
Anyone know a better sound "thingy" (I only use technical terms here) for the ESS Maestro?
Re:Sony VAIOs make good Linux-retrofitted laptops. (Score:1)
Re:May I recommend... (Score:2)
Re:X is *NOT* a resource hog (Score:2)
rebooting (Score:1)
--
Re:X is *NOT* a resource hog (Score:1)
I would like to compare notes on your laptop's configuration. I have issues with the soundcard, for instance. Sounds great, but I can't record a drop of audio through the microphone.
I am using Mandrake 7.2, which should be pretty close to your RH7.0, although when I tried installing XFree86 4.0 manually in Mandrake 7.1, I was unable to get the video card to work with the right driver. I haven't tried it with 7.2, but I will the next time I reload my system (I am constantly playing around with beta software and messing with the location of libraries, yada yada, so I have a tendency to reload my system ever two or three months, if not sooner.)
More relevant (Score:1)
Re:That reminds me... (Score:1)
Go Mandrake (Score:1)
When I first got this laptop, it wouldn't run anything but Windows. The sync rates for the LCD, the sound, the network card... none of them were installed correctly. Now with Mandrake 7.x in particular, the install runs great... and I'm sure Dell made little effort if any to help them out.
shopping for thin-and-light linux notebook (Score:2)
2000.dec.19 - dec.23
dell seems to offer some redhat models [dell.com] on their website, but the links fail if you try to buy.
dell sales-people (on the phone) say linux is not available.
dell's Inspiron 4000 [dell.com] comes very close to how i'd like to see my machine, at $2350.
compaq 1.800.888.0220: (don't have any linux notebooks at this time)
compaq is the reason why i want the manufacturer to install the OS for me -
i spent 2 days in 2000-may failing to become friends with compaq's graphics chip.
fujitsupc.com 877-372-3473 (don't sell linux.)
gateway.com 800-846-4208 (we don't offer that operating system)
toshiba.com 1-800-316-0920 (runs on eastern time or something?) no linux
ibm-direct: yes they have linux pre-installed but the price seems to be about 60% higher
than dell+windowsMe
--- some lesser-known retailers and re-sellers:
tuxtops: don't have "thin-and-light" models
enpower: "thin-and-light" model coming soon - that may be worth the wait.
here in LA, some PC Club employees said they would put linux on there for me.
necxdirect.com (failed - no phone number listed)
microwarehouse [warehouse.com] 1-800-397-8508 "sorry, we don't carry any."
elinux [elinux.com] has some 20 models of older yet pricey notebooks, nothing juicy.
--- places that I didn't get through ---
nec 888-632-8701 just rings and rings
sony 1 800 352-7669 (will try next week)
CDW 800 850 4239 (closes early?)
Don't trust Dell (Score:1)
Re:What about PowerBooks? (Score:1)
AND your battery life will double!
Re:What about PowerBooks? (Score:1)
It's not that the powerbooks are great, it's that other laptops suck badly...
Linux on laptops the truth (Score:1)
The model laptop I used was a Toshiba Satelite 1550 which is a "education" model (very basic, passive screen etc) k6-2-366mhz 64mb ram 4.8gb hdd, 2mb s3 video card. (this model is called a 2100 outside of Australia)
I instantly noticed that there where a lot of drivers / applications which supported Toshiba laptops such as a appliction to turn the fan on and off,
The power management settings built into the rh 6.2 kernel where beautiful I recieved up to 4 hours battery life when In linux, not bad for a reported 1.3hour battery (lasted about 1 hour in windows)
The laptop came with a built in lucent winmodem which as many of you know now has a linux kernel module avaliable.
I also used a Xircom Re-100 realport card.
The laptop was soo easy to setup and configure I had it totaly setup in much less time than a desktop machine.
And the best part was with Xfree4.0 multimonitor support allowed me to use the external screen and the lcd screen at the same time, SO I could run VMWARE on the LCD panel (had to run windows because of the lan at one of the sites(and for minesweeper)with Pine and Star Office on the CRT.
Well thats about that if you have any queries about linux on Toshiba laptops feel free to contact me on sfalz@stpaulswgl.vic.edu.au
Cheers
Re:Don't pay Microsoft Tax! Buy pre-installed Linu (Score:1)
Laptop for PHP/MySQL dev/demo use (Score:1)
The FOSA and Ashton notebooks being advertised on Egghead.com seem interesting, but I've never heard of these names, so I'm a little concerned about putting down my hard earned cash on them.
Re:Merry fscking Christmas (Score:1)
echo $email | sed s/[A-Z]//g | rot13
Re:Compaq 1800 (Score:2)
From what the links there said, you need to turn off PCI power management, and use the alsa drivers.
Re:rebooting (Score:1)
--really?
--Ooh I can't wait to try that!
(there is no sarcasm in this post, it is a SFZ)
Re:shopping for thin-and-light linux notebook (Score:1)
preinstall (Score:1)
Thanks,
Ben
Re:Laptop for PHP/MySQL dev/demo use (Score:2)
------------------
Re:Sony VAIOs make good Linux-retrofitted laptops. (Score:1)
Re:shopping for thin-and-light linux notebook (Score:1)
/gg
Re:OS/2 in the jargonfile (Score:1)
The same could be said of any of the OSes in the first five years of existance. Windows, that lame dog of an OS from 1984, did not mushroom until after vers 3.x, and Linux did not go anywhere until about 5 years or so later.
I know OS/2 has some bad things about it, but in the main, its quite usable. When you run allocmem it gets rid of the unnecessary dll files that load (specifically, pages them out to swapper.dat). This gives you heaps of core for the apps.
Interesting note: {flamebait}Windows NT derives from v 1.3 of OS/2, and its still there in W2K. I mean, the IBM OS/2 1.3 cmd.exe and rexx runs natively under it. [I've done this, based on a thing in Technet.]{/flamebait}:)
The real reason for wanting an OS/2 laptop is that we can force open standards and a universal installer. For everyone.
Compaq Laptops (Score:1)
Re:Compaq Laptops (Score:2)
You can try Tuxtops [tuxtops.com]. The Linux Store [thelinuxstore.com] also seems to stock some pre-loaded laptops.
Note I have never done business with either of these companies. I just recall them advertising Linux laptops in Linux magazines.
In all cases, though, these seem pretty expensive. It seems to me that you could find a better deal somewhere else, then load your own distribution. I tend to customize and tweak so much, I can't imagine having someone else load my system for me. But YMMV.