[TriLUG] WTB linux laptop

[Neil L. Little]

I had a pleasant buying experience with WARP Computers on Capitol Blvd. 
They promise getting
one in within a week if you do not see what you want. Best of all the 
guy who sold me mine "spoke"
Linux.

73,
Neil, WA4AZL
JARS Forever!!

Tom Roche wrote:
> summary: I wanna get a laptop (probably also a second, as backup) for
> school/development use. If you've got one you wanna sell, or you
> would care to recommend one, please lemme know either via this list or
> directly.
>
> details:
>
> I lost my ThinkPad last week. I did the police report, but am pretty
> sure it's not coming back :-( OTOH I'd been meaning to put a linux on
> it (I got it to be my backup laptop when I was working at a place that
> only supported win32, but I only used open software, more below) so
> now I don't need to to that :-)
>
> I need to get a replacement pretty quickly (preferably this week), and
> possibly 2 (it'd be nice to have backup hardware).  I'd like to get a
> laptop with {linux preinstalled, hardware working under linux}, and
> used equipment is fine with me. I'm currently trawling through
> linux-laptop.net, but would appreciate advice.  Basically I'm looking
> for a box (or 2) to get me through grad school, during which I'll
> probably be doing a lotta modeling (e.g.  land use, atmospheric
> chemistry), software development, and paper-writing.
>
> My TP had a 2 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM, 100 GB 5400 rpm disk, and 14" screen
> running 1280x768. I'm looking for something similar, but could
> probably sacrifice some graphics resolution (1024x768 should be fine
> with a real window manager) and CPU speed since I don't game or watch
> DVDs on the box (or at least didn't do that on the TP).
>
> hardware support desired:
>
> * wireless networking. My TP could use a variety of consumer-grade
>    802.11b/g routers as well as the public networking @ UNC, Duke,
>    Weaver Street Market, et al. I want to retain that capability now,
>    and I'll want to use the authenticated networking @ UNC once I start
>    grad school in the fall.
>
> * audio. I didn't play much music via my TP, but I played a lotta
>    spoken-word streams. (When available I usually download via USB to a
>    cheap MP3 player, but there's still a lotta content that's only
>    available via Real Audio et al.) Must minimally be able to connect
>    to externally-powered speakers.
>
> * print. My TP connected wirelessly to my housemate's HP Photosmart
>    C7280, and I'd like to continue to do that if possible. (Worst case
>    scenario I could probably samba to a shared drive on his PC and
>    print that way, though.) I also have an ancient HP Laserjet 4P to
>    which the TP could print via USB/parallel cable.
>
> * backup. Alas my current backups are 3 months old :-( mostly because
>    life has been hectic recently, backups from the TP to DVD were
>    pretty slow, and I am a moron. I got an external HD which connects
>    via USB, but I'd also like a box that backed up to DVD more quickly.
>
> * camera. I have a Canon Powershot A620 which of course comes with a
>    lotta win32 software, but I mostly just connected it to the TP via
>    USB and copied files that way.
>
> software support desired: I was using mostly open apps on the TP,
> notably development tools (apache, emacs java, mysql, perl, python)
> via Cygwin plus Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Dia, and GIMP, so
> I'm assuming that'll be no problem.
>
> If you've got a laptop to sell, or advice regarding what to buy or
> where, please lemme know, either via this list or directly.
>
> TIA, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox.com>
>