Re: [TCLUG:22137] Linux laptop questions

[Ben Kochie <ben@nerp.net>]

I just rolled out 23 new dell latitudes running linux.. they didn't come
pre-installed, but other than the sound card (had to buy OSS/Linux) and
the winmodem.. things worked great.  (and i'm happy to say, the sales
guys havn't been able to break linux yet :)
i had a couple DOA's tho.. not happy about that.. tho the dell service guy
(unisys) was quick, and fixed the problem.. next day service worked
exactly as it was supposed to.  personaly, if i had the budjet (major
motivating factor in the laptop buy) that wasn't so restrictive, i would
have gone with IBM thinkpad A20's with linux pre-installed.. but it's not
a perfect world.. by the way.. the insperon systems are not as nice as the
latitude.. I like the latitude's dual pointing device tho.. nice to be
able to change between stick, and pad mouse.

Thank You,
        Ben Kochie (ben@nerp.net)

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 "Unix is user friendly, Its just picky about its friends."

On Wed, 4 Oct 2000, Mark Phillips wrote:

> 
> I'm in the market for a fairly high-end Linux laptop.  So the
> first question is: any recommendations?
> 
> Specifically, I've had a Dell Inspiron 3000 (with Windows, not Linux)
> for several years and have liked it a lot, so I was thinking about
> getting an Inspiron 7500 from Dell, preloaded with Linux, so that I
> don't have to spend much time setting it up, and because of my good
> experience with Dell in the past.
> 
> The problem is that for reasons that no one at Dell can tell me, 
> they won't sell a Linux laptop with a hard drive larger than 6GB.
> The same laptops with Windows can have hard drives up to 20GB
> or maybe 30GB.
> 
> Other vendors that sell laptops preloaded with Linux do offer larger
> disk drives.  Does anyone out there have any idea why Dell might have
> this restriction?  Are the Linux drivers for larger laptop hard drives
> less stable, for example?
> 
> A couple of related questions:
> 
>    1. If I got a Dell Inspiron 7500 preloaded with Windows (and with,
>       say, a 20GB hard drive), and then tried to install Linux on it
>       myself, can anyone tell me what kind of experience I'd be in
>       for?  I've installed Linux on a lot of desktops and servers but
>       never any laptops, so I'm OK with putzing with it a bit, but if
>       it'll take me a week to get X up and running, for example, then
>       I'd rather pay someone else to do it.  Also, I don't want to
>       have to spend a lot of time in advance checking and
>       double-checking the specs to make sure that all the hardware
>       will work with Linux.
> 
>    2. Does anyone have any experience with support from some of the
>       other Linux laptop companies, such as ASL or Tuxtops?  Are
>       they dependable?  Can I be confident that they'll still be around
>       to service the thing if it develops problems in a couple of years?
> 
> I'd appreciate hearing any thoughts about any of these things.  Thanks!
> 
> --Mark
> 
> Mark Phillips @ Geometry Technologies, Inc.
> Suite 550, 413 Wacouta St., St. Paul, MN 55101
> Phone: 651-223-2884  Fax: 651-292-0014
> mbp@geomtech.com       http://www.geomtech.com
> 
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