Choosing a Laptop for Gentoo

maddoc · n00b Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 1

Which brand and model would you recommend? The one that Gentoo would perfectly work with? They say Toshibas are good for Linux. Or may be the question should be "what is your laptop model"?

Currently I have an HP Omnibook 4150 running Redhat 9
(which is alright except being a bit slow), and I'm thinking
about buying a new laptop. What I want from my new laptop is that all of its devices must be supported by Gentoo and should not require any additional setups except when installing the OS.

hgomersall · Posted: Wed May 28, 2003 10:22 pm Post subject: well

My Dell Inspiron 8100 works perfectly. Although it's over a year old now. If I bought again, i'd have no quarms about a Dell (although i did and would check at http://www.linux-laptop.net for any issues).

All my hardware i've tried works perfectly, including ieee1394. I haven't used the (win)modem though, although apparantly it works.

hen

int1 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 08 Nov 2002 Posts: 139

The Dells are nice. I've used Linux on a Dell Inspiron 8100, 8200, and 8500. The Precision work well also.

See this thread for more info (specific to the 8500):
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=56419

int1

Troggy · n00b Joined: 28 May 2003 Posts: 56

I have it running on my Toshiba Satellite 2410-404. I'm running on gs-sources 2.4.21rc2 and everything except the Touchpad works - but I think that is my own stupidity :oops:

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awalp · n00b Joined: 29 May 2003 Posts: 73

I have a Toshiba 5105-S501, and everything works perfectly. I can even turn the internal fan on and off, thanks to the toshiba laptop support module in ACPI. :roll:

paleck · n00b Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Posts: 37 Location: The US

I have gotten everything working on this laptop except the built-in modem, but I have an external one that works better anyways. Also It has a built-in Intel Ethernet 10/100 Pro or something like that. The current Linux sources don't have a working driver for it. It will work for about 10 minutes then stop working. Intel provides replacement sources for it on their website. I think this may have been fixed in a new version of the sources.

hyades · n00b Joined: 28 May 2003 Posts: 4

Well, it depends what you want in a laptop. If you want a "portable desktop" (big screen, fast processor, 2-3 hours batterie life), then the suggestions above are good ideas.

If, on the other hand, you want a true laptop, I'd strongly suggest checking the Fujitsu Lifebook P Serie. I have a P2040 and it's by far the coolest piece of hardware I ever owned. Their latest model, the P2120, is even cooler: 933MHz Crusoe (from Transmeta, the company Linus works for), 10.6" screen (1280x768x32), ATI Mobility Radeon, DVD/CDRW combo, WIFI card, etc. But the best thing about it is that it's so small (about 25cm x 17cm x 4cm), very light (1.5kg) and has nearly 12 hours of battery life! Hell, it's even more sexy (insofar as anything computer-related can be considered sexy) than an iBook or a Powerbook.

There's a very devoted community of Lifebook-P owners and everything except the modem (but who needs a modem in this day and age?) works perfectly (and without trouble) with gentoo. Plus, there's plenty of linux documentation available.

I just love it!

[img:11d6e53797]http://math.ucsd.edu/%7Ebond/Fujitsu_P-2040/images/p2040-1.jpg[/img:11d6e53797]
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jagerman · Posted: Sat May 31, 2003 9:57 pm Post subject:

I should be getting my new Dell D600 laptop in the next week or so. The specs on it are pretty nice - 14.1" SXGA+ (1400x1050) screen, Pentium M 1.4GHz - and rated at under 5 lbs.

I bought it with the bare minimum in hard drive and memory (20GB and 128MB respetively) and bought my own upgrades - a 512MB memory chip and a 40GB Hitachi "GNX" hard drive. Dell charges scandalous prices on memory, and their hard drive prices aren't so great (I ordered the 512MB and 40GB for $99 and $145, respectively, from transintl.com). The week after I ordered, Dell adjusted their hard drive prices, so if I was ordering now I'd probably just get the 40GB from them (which is the same drive I ordered).

I plan to completely document everything with this notebook - first impressions, exactly how I get everything working with Gentoo, etc. The one thing I'll say that is very BAD about Dell is their order time - I ordered this May 15th, and the expected delivery is "between 6/5/2003 and 6/9/2003."

If money was no object, I probably wouldn't have gotten the Dell - there are some nicer notebooks around, but for the most part at substantially higher prices. So, if money is a consideration I have to say the Dell is one of the best around. That said, my friend has a Fujitsu notebook - a P3 1GHz - and I must say it's pretty nice, albeit a little too small for my taste with its 13.3" screen.

JohnnyGTO · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 20 Apr 2002 Posts: 91

Run away from the Toshiba Satellite 2435-s255 ! It is a great windoze machine for the money but I can't get mine to boot 2.4 kernels so far. Seems to be something with acpi from what I have read. Toshiba doesn't care so this will be my last Toshiba.

d3c3it · Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2003 7:13 pm Post subject:

well im using gentoo on a toshiba S1800-354S without a problem. using the gentoo-sources 2.4.20-r5
ive got acpi working, well as far as i know, i dont use suspend or hibination so i dont really care about those things but it shutsdown and boots fine. everything is faster than win2k that i had on it before gentoo and its rock stable. 1thing thou it doesnt restart well, just kinda suspends and have to hard boot. cant get everything i spose:)
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