Best Laptop for Gentoo

gentoowanabee · Guest

What's the best, sub $800, laptop that won't have too many hiccups with gentoo and will still run KDE3 well?

huw · Apprentice Joined: 13 May 2002 Posts: 220 Location: UK

Basically any Laptop with reasonably standard hardware should be fine. Look at major distributions compatablity lists like http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/?pagename=hcl as a start and also check out http://www.linux-laptop.net for tips once you have a model in mind.

katakombi · n00b Joined: 03 May 2002 Posts: 27

beware of winmodems.
some are supported, most are not.

information can be found under http://www.linmodems.org

cluster2600 · n00b Joined: 11 Jun 2002 Posts: 16 Location: paris France

i know i sound like a commercial but i quite like dell laptops i think they are realy cost effective and the support is ok

:roll:

please excuse my english :mrgreen:

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alec · Apprentice Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 270 Location: Here

Check out ebay!

masseya · Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2002 5:42 am Post subject: Compaq..

I feel I have to stick up for my fav. brand here: Compaq. I haven't had a serious problem with a Compaq laptop. They have a lot of really good features and most of their laptops have great travel in their keys. I love their high end screens and the ATI Radeon Mobility graphics fly and don't drain the battery. Also, I like the fact that they aren't Intel only. I don't have a laptop with an AMD chip, but I think it's a little upsetting how Intel can basically buy Dell and eliminate AMD as an option.
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jadenjahner · n00b Joined: 04 May 2002 Posts: 28

alec · Apprentice Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 270 Location: Here

klieber · Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 12:37 pm Post subject:

Might also ask in the PPC forum what peoples' experiences are with Gentoo on powerbooks and ibooks. Apple makes kick-ass laptops with nifty things like gig-E, firewire, etc. You can usually get a good deal on a used one via eBay as well.

--kurt
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littlekif · n00b Joined: 01 Jul 2002 Posts: 9 Location: TX

i've had serious hardware problems with my older toshiba (~2yrs) with just about any distro of linux out there.

AutoBot · l33t Joined: 22 Apr 2002 Posts: 968 Location: Usually Out

I can tell you the easiest thing to do when looking to buy a laptop your wish to run linux on, download and burn knoppix, take it to your local computer store, pop the disk in, reboot the laptop and see what happens. I just got a Sony Vaio PCG-FXA32 slapped my knoppix disk in and it auto-detected everything then proceeded to boot xfree (Mobile Radeon) automagically with sound, usb, pcmcia, and firewire support.

.: Knoppix has the best hardware detection I have ever seen.
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EvilTwinSkippy · Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2003 1:13 pm Post subject: I'm a Fan ov Vaios, but...

The best laptop I've ever installed linux on we my 200Mhz Cyrix based laptop from CTX. They don't make laptops anymore, unfortunately.

I have also had very good experiences with IBM Thinkpads. If you can find one of those on sale, scoop it up.

Old Sony's make great laptops. We have a bunch around the office that we have been converting over to Linux as the Win98 OS crufts into uselessness. They hold up well and are very hard to kill.

It is a bitch to get some of the quirky things the sony builds into them to work, but so many Linux users love Vaios that sooner or later SOMEBODY writes a driver.
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samppa · n00b Joined: 15 Jun 2002 Posts: 69 Location: Finland

I haven't had problems with my Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo D 8820 (P4-2800, 512MB, ATI Radeon Mobility 9000, 40GB HD). This thing is very stable.

rhennig · n00b Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 1

I love my IBM ThinkPad T30, though it has Lucent WinModem but I don't care.

All other hardware is supported (Radeon 7500, Intel(R) PRO/100 VE, Toshiba DVD/CD-RW, PCMCIA, etc.).

deviljelly

IBM laptops are a bit boxy but if your budget is big then at least you know that around 10,000 IBM'ers are also running linuz on them and some develop drivers.....

Or a cheapo generic laptop, based on very very common components might be a better bet, nothing facy or vendor specific.

Paul

deviljelly · Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2003 5:33 pm Post subject: Re: winmodems

klieber · Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2003 5:34 pm Post subject: Re: winmodems

deviljelly · Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2003 5:39 pm Post subject: duh

Oh I get it now!, it's fake teeth on the back of the dummy (british word for a pacifier)

:oops:

qwkbrnfox · Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2003 6:01 pm Post subject: Re: duh

mb4guns · Guru Joined: 04 Dec 2002 Posts: 300 Location: Netherlands

I would go for dell or ibm.
I've been around linux and laptops past few months now doing some projects with them (all gentoo), my worst experience is hp, they use exotic hardware many suffer from bugs(hw).

Watch out for exotic or brand modified hardware, then ur save....
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sys1: Dell inspiron 4100 PentiumIII-mobile@1000 512mb ATI Radeon mobility m6 30gig, gnomed

gwydion · Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 2:50 pm Post subject: HP Pavilion xh535

I haven't seen anybody mention HP yet, so thought I'd chime in. I have an HP Pavilion xh535 running gentoo, and it was a fairly painless install. I had a slight hiccup with setting up xwindows, but all in all, not too bad.

[EDIT] Ok, so I skipped mb4guns post before I wrote this. I have not had any problems with my hp, maybe it depends on the model?

Specs:
amd athlon 4 950
256MB ram
20gb hdd
dvd
ess winmodem (haven't looked to see if it's supported yet - I have no need for a modem atm)
ess sound (maestro something)
onboard nic (tulip driver)
trident cyberblade xp

the video was tricky as I couldn't find any info on the screen, and couldn't get the 1024x768 mode to work. Eventually I remembered that knoppix had detected/configured x correctly, so I used it's config file. No worries since.
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tirantloblanc · Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 4:58 pm Post subject:

I got everything to work on my IBM Thinkpad T23: sound, network, usb, dvd/cdrw... Even the hotkeys and the winmodem work!
You can make the winmodem to work with the lucent drivers. The only thing it lacks is 3D Support for the SuperSavage chipset, but it's in the works: http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html

tirantloblanc · Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 5:27 pm Post subject:

There's also the new lindows laptop, gentoo shouldn't have any problem to run on it:
http://info.lindows.com/mobilepc/mobilepc.htm

biosx · n00b Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 7 Location: chicagoland

I had the same question back when I was shopping for a laptop.

I emailed Chris Dibona (sourceforge/linux nut) and asked him what his opinion was. I lost the email but he said that IBM and Dell are probably the best. He has an IBM Thinkpad that runs Debian. As for me, I have a Dell Inspiron 2650 that ran Slackware for a while and as of recently, Gentoo.

HP is probably a safe bet as well because for a while they were all pro-linux.

So my recommendations:
IBM, Dell, and HP (in that order).
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bryon · Apprentice Joined: 14 Feb 2003 Posts: 163

I would have to say to go and get a think pad, they might be a little more expensice but they are worth it. I have a A30 that has the hot buttons and one of the most useful features is it's buit in light. Oha yaha the ultrabays are also great also, I can switch the drives, or putt in diffrent ones all toghter. Say I want to take a DVD and ZIP drive with me or jsut take a floppy and CD burner with me it is all possible with thinkpads, the ethernet, pcmica, and the winmidem is supported under linux but I have not gotten it working yet.

thinkspads rule!