[TriLUG] Which laptop to buy

[David McDowell]

You can get a T42 with 1400x1050 no prob.  I love mine (I have the
1024x768 model though) and there is no built in firewire, but I have
an Adaptec pcmcia iEEE-1394 card... 3 port firewire 400 and it works
perfectly with WinXP, CentOS 4.x and Ubuntu 5.x.  Nice fast laptop,
solid hardware.  Can't be bought without an XP license on it though. 
They signed a deal with the devil.  :)  Make sure that you burn the
system CDs BEFORE you reformat and repartition the drive, b/c that's
the only chance you get.  Support will not send you a set if you don't
burn the CDs for yourself.  Trust me, I know... :)  It's $45 for the
set, or you can spend half a day online like I did and finally finding
their XP based tool for downloading ALL the M$ drivers and software
which came on the box, except one, the soft DVD player.  I fixed that
problem by using VLC.  http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

I have WinXP and Ubuntu 5.10 dual boot, I can hibernate the XP, boot
into U 5.10 (I think it even hibernates successfully now) and then use
grub to quickly un-hibernate whichever OS I want to use.

The Adaptec firewire card I have is model AFW-1430:
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/product/proddetail.html?sess=no&prodkey=AFW-1430&language=English+US&cat=Products

good luck.
David McD


On 12/16/05, kevin at flanagannc.net <kevin at flanagannc.net> wrote:
> I have a Thinkpad T42 at work, it's really nice, doesn't do the screen res
> that you wanted, just 1024x768 on the screen, but the external port runs
> nicely at 1600x1200.  It's not the fastest, or the sexiest, but it's a
> great system.
>
>
> I just saw a co-worker bought a compaq AMD Turion based system, he's
> really happy with it, but I didn't get a good look.  He did say that it
> was only $850, that's something that the Thinkpad can't claim.
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
>
> > Which laptop to buy, that is the question.  The requirements are built
> > in Ethernet (gigabit would be nice), IEEE-1394 (FireWire) and a large
> > (as in pixels) screen (1400x1050 minimum).  I must be able to boot both
> > Linux and some other well known OS.
> >
> > I do not care who makes the CPU as long as it is x86, sorry no Macs for
> > this one.  I have had less then happy experiences with Dell, and would
> > like to stay away from them.  I also find Dell's Linux support to be
> > about worthless.  I have bought my last Sony anything because of their
> > DRM shananagains.  I have been happy with my IBM a20p Thinkpad and
> > before the my Digital HiNote II, but both are just a bit under powered.
> >
> > Any suggestions on what to buy and where would help.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Charles Fischer
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