It's very good, except Modem.

I've used slackware 9.1,10 and gentoo on a compaq 2100. Everything works fine, including the winmodem.

I run SuSE 9.1 Pro on my Dell C640 laptop and have no problems with it. The video drivers require the open source ATI drivers, but other than that, it runs fine. The components detect just fine, including the winmodem (haven't used it), ethernet port, USB, etc.

The only thing lacking in laptop support right now with SuSE is the support for suspend to disk. SuSE 9.2 Pro is supposed to fix that. Since I don't care about that functionality, I may very well wait to upgrade when SuSE starts supporting something that is REALLY great,... what that is I don't know.

Well guys,

sure, there are many good laptops around where most of the modern distros just run well (enough). But think about what is called externalities: we want to have a possibility just to go to a shop and buy a laptop with linux pre-installed. Or at least a laptop guaranteed to run with linux. Or what? So guess, how would a manufacturer react if a) you will buy a laptop with preinstalled win which is supposed (but not guaranteed) to run with linux, or b) you buy one with pre-installed linux. I guess the interest for supplying laptops without win and for linux support would be larger in the case b).

Our decisions are not only our decisions, they affect the others too (what is called externalities in economics).

Best,

Ott

I just want to be able to buy a laptop with an empty hard drive guarenteed to work with linux, or atleast one or two major linux distrubutions. I prefer installing OS's my self, that way I get everything I want, and only what I want.

As cheesy as some say it is, Linspire was the only Linux O/S that would work on my Toshiba laptop without locking it up or ignoring vital hardware.

You may know it by its former name, Lindows.

iluzion,

There are companies that are called ODMs, original design manufacturers, they are the ones who actually design and build the laptops that we buy from name brand companies. http://tuxmobil.org/laptop_oem.html and http://tuxmobil.org/laptop_manufacturer.html The trick is to find out actually what the are laptops sold by ibuypower. Then going to Linux on Laptops you may find other peoples experiences. As an example, I have briefly looked for an AMD64 laptop and found multiple resellers like ibuypower listing what appears to be the same laptop. It turned out to be a xxx(I don't remember) and there were accounts of people's experiences with that particular model. Part of the problem is that it disrupts the existing distibution and other's profits when we, the end users, get closer access to the companies that actually make the product. That has been one of the strengths of the web. Shortening the supply chain.

What I have not found, and would appreciate directions from someone who has, is one or more resellers who have good prices, list who makes the product and will sell them without all of the added components, hard drives etc. In short something like a Newegg, who are great for pcs, with laptop components. Hmmm.........

I have an HP w/64 bit Athlon. Setup was not difficult with FC 2.6. I confess that the touch-pad and wireless aren't working. Wired connection works fine and I actually prefer a mouse to the touch-pad so I haven't worked on the touch-pad very much. The wireless I would like to have work but haven't made a serious run at it. Other than that, it works very well.

If you are buying a laptop, I would do some research to insure hardware compatibility.

Check out http://www.powernotebooks.com
My father got one, they'll ship with windows, linux, or no os at all. Its pretty cool, great quailty (certainly better than my gateway) and cheap.
That said SuSe since 8.2 has had excellent linux support. I think I might be able to egt the modem and the wifi to work (I use dsl over ethernet so this is something i havn't been modivated to test)

From what I have heard Sagers have very good Linux support. They are sold by Powernotebooks.com (as mm+ pointed out above) and PCTorque.com as well as others, but these two appear to be the top two in terms of both price and customer service. Both will ship with either XP (extra charge) or no OS. I am currently drooling over the Sager 9860, which I will probably buy from PCTorque in 6 or 8 months once the price has dropped a bit, and the community has had a chance to tweak things so they work right under linux.

HTH,

Louis

edited to add that from all accounts Sagers have *fantastic* build quality, and beautiful displays.

I'm running FC1 on a Dell Inspiron 1100, and it worked pretty well, except for my screen resolution wouldn't set to 1024x768 at first, and there was a black border around the screen because it would only set the resolution to 800x600 at first, but I know a guy who is a (near) Linux guru (although the problem was pretty simple) and he was able to fix it. The only other thing is wireless networking, but Driver Loader from Linuxant.com was able to get it working. Right now, I still have the trial version of Driver Loader, but I'm buying the full-blown version this week.

Do certain laptops work better with certain distro's??

I saw this review of how SuSE 9.2 Profesional runs on a laptop. It sounds like SuSE 9.2 Pro runs great on a laptop. The only problem is that the boxed version costs $90 and I don't know of SuSE has a free download .

Hi Zuggy,

suse.com only has the live & personal edition ISO's available for free download,,
but suprnova.org has the torrent for Suse 9.2 pro disks 1-5 (About 3.1gb)

Im sure that it was on the free DVD's that Novell were giving away...
(Just in case you know somebody who got it)

[Edit]
No Im talking rubbish, The DVD's have Suse pro 8.2 & 9.1 on it
(I cant think why it would have both versions,,, strange)

And there is an 9.2 pro evaluation DVD ISO available from Suse (1.3gb)