Think I FINALLY decided on a laptop

CptnObvious999 · Post by **CptnObvious999** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:50 pm

Tsuroerusu wrote:
Wally Balljacker wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote:And oh by the way, did I mention SUSE is good for laptops?
I don't believe so.
Well, then I'll do it

By the way, that MacBook won't run Linux just yet, because we don't have an x86 bootloader for the EFI firmware thing that it uses. If you decide to get a standard Centrino laptop, check out SUSE 10.0 (10.1 should be out in the middle of March), very good for laptops, it includes the firmware for the Intel wireless card and sets it up automatically and good stuff like that....

Didn't Intel release a bootloader for EFI? ELILO I think...does that work? or is it just not supported by anyone yet?

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:23 pm

Looks like the Acer is sold out everywhere. I'm gonna go with this HP Pavilion for $1,700.

AMD Turion 64 @ 1.8 Ghz
1GB RAM (2GB Max)
160GB Hard Drive
17-inch screen
8X DVD+/-RW Drive
ATi RADEON XPRESS 200M IGP

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:49 pm

When dropping that kind of cash you should really make sure that it either a) has an ironclad return policy, or b) is certain to work well with linux. I've had and seen way too much heartburn caused by lappys which simply suck with linux.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:50 pm

CptnObvious999 wrote:Didn't Intel release a bootloader for EFI? ELILO I think...does that work? or is it just not supported by anyone yet?

ELILO is for the Itanium processors, which is a lot different from x86.

Wally Balljacker wrote:Looks like the Acer is sold out everywhere. I'm gonna go with this HP Pavilion for $1,700.

AMD Turion 64 @ 1.8 Ghz
1GB RAM (2GB Max)
160GB Hard Drive
17-inch screen
8X DVD+/-RW Drive
ATi RADEON XPRESS 200M IGP

Be careful with Turion laptops, a lot of them have that stinking Broadcom wireless chipset which is a little flaky on Linux, and you get better battery life going with a Centrino laptop.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 12:38 am

Snarkout wrote:When dropping that kind of cash you should really make sure that it either a) has an ironclad return policy, or b) is certain to work well with linux. I've had and seen way too much heartburn caused by lappys which simply suck with linux.

I think the guy from HP on episode 118 of TLLTS said all HP laptops are certified for Linux, so I'm hoping there won't be any issues. HP and IBM seem to be the most Linux friendly laptop companies. I'll probably take some live CDs and do alittle testing beforehand as well.

Tsuroerusu wrote:Be careful with Turion laptops, a lot of them have that stinking Broadcom wireless chipset which is a little flaky on Linux, and you get better battery life going with a Centrino laptop.

I know the Centrino stuff is probably alittle better on battery life, but that Turion 64 has gotta be smokin' fast. It's basically a desktop replacement and I'm not going to be lugging it around all the time, so I'm not too worried about it.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 6:53 am

Wally Balljacker wrote:I think the guy from HP on episode 118 of TLLTS said all HP laptops are certified for Linux, so I'm hoping there won't be any issues. HP and IBM seem to be the most Linux friendly laptop companies. I'll probably take some live CDs and do alittle testing beforehand as well.

Hmmmm, I don't really believe that all modern HP laptops work great with Linux, because that Broadcom chipset man, it's just a big pain in the butt!
But as you said, test with some LiveCDs before buying, or ask the guys in the store if you can return the laptop if it doesn't work (Like Marcel Gagné suggested when he was on the show).

Wally Balljacker wrote:I know the Centrino stuff is probably alittle better on battery life, but that Turion 64 has gotta be smokin' fast. It's basically a desktop replacement and I'm not g oing to be lugging it around all the time, so I'm not too worried about it.

Even the Pentium M CPUs are great for a desktop replacement, more effiecient than a Pentium 4 in a lot of cases, and also good for gaming if that is in your interest. But if it's a desktop replacement, go for it with the Turion, in that case you will be getting a single core CPU, so you basically just install any Linux distributions and it will work (Maybe even BSD for that matter

).