Linux-ish Laptop Question

[Robert Krawitz]

On Fri, 08 Apr 2011 07:48:30 -0400, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> On 04/08/2011 12:19 AM, David Kramer wrote:
>> Adding my experience, a lot has to do with which Dell line you get.
>> Like many companies, there's a big difference between their
>> light-and-cheap line, their multimedia-gaming line, and their business
>> line.  I always buy from the business line, and have been very happy
>> with the construction (and full linux compatibility).  For instance, the
>> business line has a metal chassis instead of a plastic one, and are more
>> powerful.  I have a Latitude D820 and my wife has a D830.
> I agree, except my experience is more with HP. My HP laptop has got to
> be 7 years old, and I only use it at the installfests to burn DVDs, but
> I used to bring it to work and BLU meetings. It is an early 64-bit AMD
> Turion processor. It was also certified for LInux by HP. At the
> installfests it seems we always had some issues with Dells, but the
> lower end laptops are very cost reduced  for any brand. I'm not sure if
> this is still true, but you could get 2 identical  Dell desktops, and
> look inside and they might have different chips and boards. Again, I'm
> not sure if this is still true. WRT Installfests, I still tend to favor
> Lenovo Thinkpads. But my Acer Aspire One netbook booted up with Ubuntu
> nearly perfectly the first time. After the initial installation, I had
> to install b43-fwcutter, but in Ubuntu, the installation of b43-fwcutter
> also gives you an option to download and install the firmware where
> other distributions do not. (Mint Linux, for instance I had to install
> b43-fwcutter from the Ubuntu repositories). In other distros you
> download the appropriate Windows Broadcom driver and use fwcutter to
> isolate and install the firmware.

I've always had excellent luck with Dells.  I've had an Inspiron 8000,
8200 (actually, a couple of them -- I always buy used and the first
one had some problems I could never fix), and my current 9400/E1705,
and I've never had problems running Linux on them.  The only things I
don't like about the 9400 is that it has a limit of 3.3 GB of RAM and
will not enable AHCI on its SATA controller.  Otherwise, it's great.
Finding a WUXGA screen (as opposed to 1920x1080) is getting a bit
difficult these days.

-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <rlk-FrUbXkNCsVf2fBVCVOL8/A at public.gmane.org>

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