After recently posting to another thread, I noticed a link to post my hardware to a HCL (Hardware Compatibility List). Unlike those of you tied to a desk, us laptop users are rather confined to what is inside the custom built cases of our machines. We can't go switching out an ASUS motherboard for a Tyan or SuperMicro. We can't replace our GeForce with an All-In-Wonder. We are pretty limited to whatever we can put into a PCMCIA slot, connect via serial, parallel, USB, or Firewire.

I was surprised then, that there was NOT a category for laptops. Particularly nowdays, when most new machines are coming with built-in modems and NICs, it would seem pretty elementary that laptops have their own category.

In my own case, I have an IBM ThinkPad 600E. It's built-in MWAVE modem is one of the few Winmodems that can function under Linux, but there are things that must be done to make that happen. Other newbies coming to this forum might just want to know about that, or about the 600's ALSA sound drivers. Let us not forget too, the ThinkPad Utilities, which can be accessed on a Linux equipped machine either through the use of a specially assembled PS2.EXE boot CD (I'm still trying to find info on this), or through the use of the utility "tpctl".

Being the owner of two ThinkPads, I have specifically sought out info regarding them. Having recently run into major issues when upgrading Dell Lattitudes at work (loaded with the Evil Empire's XP), I am sure other manufacturer's laptops have similar "peculiarities".

Oh yes, a category for PCMCIA might also be helpful. Some card modems work, while others do not. Will my PCMCIA driven external laptop hard drive work under Linux? Should I destroy its existing NTFS5 formatting to find out? These are the types of things that I want answers to as a Linux Newbie, and this is why I came to this forum.

While a laptop category is in consideration for a future version of the HCL you can feel free to enter the individual components of the laptop into the current HCL (the mwave would go under modems and the PCMCIA driven external hard drive would go under external storage for example).

--jeremy

I second the request and I certainly hope the consideration is moving forward. I think with newbies it's an excellent chance to circumvent many problems, sometimes based on distribution choice, sometimes specific hardware. A lot of questions on the HCL could be avoided if someone considering buying a Dell Latitude C640 could see that it works perfectly with Mandrake 8 - 10, Fedora Core 1, etc., but has had many problems with the latest SuSE, etc., or at least be prepared for certain hiccups.

... and even more posts like "I hate linux! I dumped my windows installation and put (x) on it and it won't boot! How do I get my windows back? Stupid linux." would be avoided.

On a side note, though, I love LQ! Keep up the most excellent work, Jeremy and crew.

The Laptop section is almost done and will be live "Real Soon Now".

--jeremy

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=160987

--jeremy