On Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 05:39:29PM -0500, David Smeeton wrote: > I'm looking around for options in terms of buying a notebook without > paying the Microsoft tax. I've run into the following difficulties: > * VA Linux got out of the hardware business > * Penguin Computing doesn't have any notebooks > * TuxTops dropped its business to QLITech (which now has only two > ~$1650 models) > * Dell says they can't do it > * Gateway (Ha!) nevermind > * IBM supposedly has two models with Caldera preinstalled, but their > online sales site doesn't match the information on their linux > pages, and I'm not sure I want to pay that much > * Compaq doesn't sell any laptops with Linux > > Anyway, you get the idea. I've even looked at Apples, but they're > simply too expensive. For around $1000, the best deal is an iBook from Apple. The only drawback I see are the only mouse button and the white keyboard. Other than that they are good value at $1300. > Any ideas where I can get a laptop without > Windows? Ideally Linux would be preinstalled, but that's not a > requirement. Mainly I'm looking for cheap (the closer to the $1000 > mark, the better) and good battery life (I'll spring for the heavy > duty batteries if they're available)...and naturally hardware support > for Linux is a good thing. > > Am I overlooking any obvious options? Are there any local shops that > can do this? Am I doomed to pay MS for the privilege of having a > notebook? On the other hand you might get a refund directly from M$: http://www.netcraft.com.au/geoffrey/toshiba.html but don't base you decision on that alone. A cheap notebook is more likely to give you headaches and it's far harder to fix than an ordinary desktop. Choose wisely, florin -- "If it's not broken, let's fix it till it is." 41A9 2BDE 8E11 F1C5 87A6 03EE 34B3 E075 3B90 DFE4 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 230 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20011026/c87bbd47/attachment.pgp