I'm looking for a good laptop for etch, note that this laptop will stick to etch. I'm looking for something with good hardware, but not cutting edge. When you can run testing on a pentium 3 why spend lots on hardware power that won't get used And naturally I want all hardware to be fully supported, with a strong preference on Open Source, Linux native drivers.

durability, and battery life are also important.

I am sure you will get many answers. One must-have for me would be a three button mouse/trackpad/pointing stick. I use all three buttons all the time in Linux, and can't stand have to chord two buttons to emulate a third.

That said, IBM/Lenovo makes/has made some nice laptops. You might want to start by looking at the T30. Great resources are
http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki
and
http://forum.thinkpads.com/

Good Luck!

-Ben

I had a look at the T30, it looks nice, the eraserhead combined with the touchpad is a lovely touch . However the hard drive is a bit on the small side and it has an ATI card. Definitely an option though currently I'm leaning to a T40, did they ever fix the garbled screen problem?

But that thinkwiki is the perfect website for research. Thanks for it!

Btw, I know Intel have open source drivers for their graphics cards, is there a list of graphics cards, and the first kernel with it as standard somewhere? [edit] opps that should be Xorg not kernel shouldn't it. I'll learn but I found that the ThinkWiki has details on the graphics cards so no need to find a list. I really owe you one for that link bendb

If the hard drive seems small, that implies to me you are planning on doing a lot of storing and watching of videos, so it might not satisfy on that basis either.

I am *not* the person to ask - I am new to the world of thinkpads, have just gotten a T23 for a good price. I would like to point out the talk page for the wiki page you mentioned:
http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Probl...en#VESA_Driver
From this "talk" page, I wouldn't buy an A30. I am puzzled though - the page you referenced refers to the T40 being subject to the problem, but on the talk page it seems to be mainly A30 owners having problems.

If I were in your place I would go to the forums link I also gave you and read a lot in the T40 section of the forums. If you still have questions, they seem fairly receptive to new members who appear to have done some basic research.

I really like the idea of open source firmware and drivers. In any case, you are welcome and good luck!

-Ben

Actually it is's mostly just an instinctual reaction from the fact untill recently *all* my computers have run windows, and I used up lots of space installing piles of games.

When I actually think rather than just go by instinct the hard drive will be fine.

BTW I've found little trouble playing videos on my Pentium 3 with 380 meg ram and an old nvidia card

Thats good to hear

I use a Gateway MX6425 notebook. I've run Sarge, Etch and currently Sid on it just fine. Takes a few tweaks to get certain things to work right, but nothing too hard. I even compiled a walkthrough (which is currently offline) linked from www.linux-on-laptops.com on how to get Sarge working. Etch is similar, only the video is slightly different (Xorg instead of XFree86). I'll try to get that back online in the next 24 hours. I'll post here when its up.

looking forward to it.

I've used bith a Dell C600 and C610 with no issues. Sarge and Etch have both ran great. The touchpad worked, sound, video, cdrom and wireless (wireless on Etch). I'd hold hardly recommend a C600 series for either.
I'm also inth eprocess of setting an HP Pavilion ZE4125. The few issues I"m having I think are related to bad hardware but I'll soon know that for certian. The issues I"m having with it that are Etch related is the touchpad does NOT work at all. I don't remember about the sound. THere's no wireless card so I can't tell you about that. The other issue that may or maynot be related to Etchis the PCMCIA slots do not appear to be working but I haven't had th etime to trouble shoot them yet.
Hope this provides some help