Hello everyone,

My current PC is 6 years old and my laptop is even older. Things don't go as smoothly and fast as I want it to, so I want to replace them both with one shiny, kickass new laptop.

Now that I have made the jump to Linux completely I want to go even further in terms of an open system by getting a laptop that has coreboot or one that is coreboot compatible. But openness is not my only concern because the hell that starts all the Treacherous Computing bullshit is the BIOS. With Coreboot I can safely circumvent that peace of trash, so it is a serious requirement.

The laptop should be laptop, not a notebook. I want to actually be able to sit with it in the backyard on my lap. That means that the laptop shouldn't be bigger than 15,4 inches. Maybe smaller if possible but only if it meets my other requirements stated below.

Because of various reasons I prefer to build the laptop myself but only if that is a possibility (barebone laptop).

My other requirements are:
I have searched as much as I could but I couldn't find anything that comes even close to what I want (that is why I probably should be custom building it by myself). Laptops seem to be a pain on the ass compared to PC's.

I don't care if the parts have to come from all over the globe, as long as I can have the above. Purchasing via internet is no problem. I live in the Netherlands (EU).

So my question is: can any of you please aid me in finding the laptop, or the laptop parts, that I am looking for?

PS: I am going to bed now so I won't be able to respond in about 12 hours.

Well, I can't suggest any systems to you (I am an Eee owner myself...) but I can tell you that you will need to cut short the dream of building your own laptop. There is only one "barebones" laptop I am aware of on the market, and it isn't a particularly good deal.

The problem is that unlike normal desktop machines, there are few standards in place in the realm of laptops. Parts can't be swapped as easily, as all the manufacturers have a different spin on things. For instance, the case is built to fit that specific motherboard and nothing else, the LCD pinout may be different from one model of laptop to the next, etc, etc.

You are going to need to buy something "off-the-shelf" as it where, though most of the manufacturers allow a fair degree of customization at this point.

How about Dell's Inspiron 15xx or 14xx series?

You will get 3 or 4GB RAM, with Intel integrated graphics. Intel is old supporter for FOSS and opened up before ATI. I will suggest to look particularly at Inspiron 1520 model.

I don't have any information about wireless card/chip about the model.

You mean the ASUS C90? There are lots more: ASI, Compal, MSI, etc.

I know all about it. Barebone laptops have everything but a CPU, GPU, RAM, Wireless chip, HDD and OS. That motherboard is basically as limiting your configuration just as much as a regular ATX motherboard.

I cannot find an 15,4 inch AMD+ATI laptop that hasn't got a 2 year old AMD CPU and doesn't have a pre-4xxx series ATI GPU. Let alone a Coreboot compatible one.

My 6 year old ATI Radeon 9800pro is faster than that Intel card and also fully FLOSS supported! No I am more looking for the ultimate 15,4" powerhouse

I know that, and props to Intel for that, but let's face it... Intel GPU's suck :P You won't even be able to run Nexuiz on it with all settings to high. I have bought UT3 (still waiting for the Linux port Epic and nVidia!) and wether it runs under Wine or not, I want to be able to run with everything set to the highest quality.

Agreed!

I am out of idea.
But please do post your decision in the topic. I am also going to buy a new laptop in near future. Your input will greatly help me.
Thanks in advance.

Toshiba Satellite® : A300 : A305D-S6835

I didn't do any leg work to see how Linux friendly this Laptop would be, but it does have your ATI Graphics and Atheros Wireless, as well as 3GB RAM standard..

That's one possible option

Hrm as far as I can see ATI has not released the 4000 series for laptops yet...
http://ati.amd.com/Products/mobile.html

Nor can I find anyone that has the 2000 or 3000 series in the laptops

and I can't even find this line of notebooks from toshiba.. http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/27/t...book-txw-69dw/


AMD Announces PUMA Platform ATI Radeon 3800 AMD64, etc.. June 4, 2008
http://blogs.zdnet.com/processors/?p=178

Puma = Toshiba A305D
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4440

I will post my final decision. I believe that more people than just me will be interested in a small laptop, with great battery life and great performance, fully open source and for not too much money I don't know what you mean by 'near future'? What is new today is old tomorrow I am going on a holiday for twee weeks starting Monday. As soon as I find the right laptop for me I will buy it right away and post my experience here with a tiny review.

First of all thanks a lot for your research and those of others! It sucks that ATI hasn't released the 4xxx series yet That explains the lack of new AMD+ATI laptops...

ATI has had a major performance depression compared to nVidia for a while now so maybe they didn't want to take the risk of trying to sell mobile GPU's with bad performance. Luckily for ATI and fans, like me, nVidia has production and financial problems associated with their new and upcoming graphic series. And the ATI 4xxxx series beats the living crap out of nVidia cards on every front.

Thanks for the info. Luckily june 4, 2008 lies in the past and so hopefully the Phenom+ATI 4xxxx comes soon!

I doubt with the announcement of the PUMA platform barely a month past you will see anything in the 4000 series for quite a while..

If I were you I would follow up on that Toshiba A305D. some of the articles indicated the tested Laptops that had better specs than the one I found on the Toshiba site, which leads me to believe there are higher spec A305D laptops in the works now. It was also the ONLY laptop I was able to find that is listed as having the PUMA designation.

Best of luck in your search

I don't. ATI has finally delivered a series of cards that are faster than nVidia again with less power consumption, insanely cheaper production cost (minus $250) and way lower failure rate (percentage of bad production (google for nVidia warned for high mxm 8x00 failure rate EDIT: every single G84 and G86 chips is broken -> article) and longer lifetime). If they release that new platform they will blow away competition (CPU+GPU consuming less power than Intel+nVidia).

Wow! I just found out that that thing acts as an USB charger when powered off! That is both a plus (vacation) and a huge minus (mouse still plugged in? Screwed! ^_^). Still very cool though for iPod users (which I am not though). However... and here comes the insanely huge drawback: it has a ATI Radeon x1250. That is actually a x700 card which is (smack in the face) about 3 years old and has no onboard memory. I don't like the price of it... et al! For $100 less one can get a dell with a GeForce 8600m GT (not that I am going to buy that, but it shows that this Toshiba is a rip-off).

Once again; thanks a lot

Your way of specifying is strange. One side you are looking on the user level (battery life, speed, fast graphics, size), at the same time you are specifying on the technical level (AMD CPU, ATI graphics, etc).

That makes it kinda hard to find something which is both perfect form a user point of view and a technical point of view.

Why ATI? Although they do support FOSS, Linux support by NVIDIA is very good as well, although not open. AMD instead of Intel? Maybe the AMD product line has changed, but Intel delivered quite some energy efficient powerful processors for notebooks recently.

And would you like to trade in, say, a non-functional wireless adapter for your ATI and AMD processor?

I don't think there is such thing like a perfect notebook, that is one which complies to your specs and contains the components you want.

I would first spend a considerable amount of time at linux-on-laptops.com and tuxmobile.org to see which laptop complies with your (user side) specifications and is Linux compatible, and THEN look in that selection for AMD/ATI manufactured hardware.

I am very happy with my Lenovo laptop (http://pdis.rnw.nl/~hansl/linux/T61/T61.html), and I recently turned away from HP/Compaq. (http://pdis.rnw.nl/~hansl/linux/nc62...ex_nc6230.html). I also installed an ACER 5315, but that's not quality.

jlinkels

Everyone wants a laptop with good battery life, speed, fast graphics (if not for games then for a responsive OpenGL KDE4) and one which you can actually be mobile with. I want AMD for their support for Coreboot (on some MB's, but they actually took the step) because I want an open system that boots fast. I want ATI for their fast graphic cards and their commitment to FLOSS. Intel produces crap GPU's (which are not fast and lack important and critical feature, so who wants that? You can't even fully power the KDE4 desktop with it (shaders)) and they don't open up documentation.

It makes it perfect for a FLOSS user who wants a fast portable (no desktop replacement) laptop with a beautiful OpenGL desktop and can also handle the latest games with nice graphics. This would be the perfect laptop for everyone here who likes to play videogames.

Once again ATI (that means AMD) has released as much documentation as they possible can without NDA's. Intel only makes their driver FLOSS but that doesn't solve anything because no one but Intel knows how to fix bugs because the complete lack of documentation. Also: ATI 48xxx/49xxx cards can power every game ever released for Linux, while the latest and 'greatest' Intel card can't even fully power an OpenGL KDE4 desktop...

As long as there is a PCMCIA card slot for my Linux supported ASUS card, then yes. Mind you; I have wireless internet.

There will not be a modern AMD+ATI 15,4" laptop with an (optional?) 9-cell battery and an supported wireless card or PCMCIA slot? If it doesn't have enough RAM than I can swap it in myself. AMD has supported Coreboot on some systems already so they will not do that for upcoming laptops? Doesn't sound that impossible to me...

I know that website. I use it everytime I think I see an interesting laptop. However there is not always the latest (if any) Ubuntu-like distro listed, and it's not updated that well.

Lenevo for customers sucks (build quality is the same as a Compaq). Lenevo for business rules, but is not available to customers. Lenevo is way too much overpriced. Lenevo is not geared towards high graphic cards. Lenevo laptops are designed for Windows and so the "if this laptop falls you will have HDD protection"-drivers will not work on Linux which take away these awesome advantages. It has just 2GB of RAM which makes it a bottleneck for the specified CPU (you bought a CPU that is now going to be just as fast as it's 1 year old counterpart (not enough RAM = 20% decrease in performance). You have to pay extra for the Ulimate edition of Vista while it is going to be replaced by Linux. No, I would rather buy that 3 year old technology Toshiba Satalite laptop (which is an awesome laptop, but not fast enough for what I need).

Thanks for the help though

My two cents about Lenovo.

I used Lenovo 3000 N100 with dual-boot fedora and other distro for last 1 year, now I sold it. Wireless, fingerprint and webcam never worked out of the box. It has infamous broadcom chipset and microdia webcam. One of my friend's Dell is happily powered by Ubuntu at the same time.

I agree Lenovo is good for business portables, but they are beyond common man's purchase power. In India, good Dell or HP laptop costs around $1100, but same config Lenovo will cost $300-400 more.

And for good reasons. Lenevo (previously IBM) computers are build to last. Especially the laptops. It has all sorts of technology that expends the lifetime. If you drop it, the HDD stops before the laptop hits the floor, etc. Other laptops, like Dell and HP for example, are build with a 'predictable failure'-mindset. It is meant to die faster than normal so people buy more laptops. This makes their laptops cheaper because they will sell much more of them and in the end, if you are a Linux user that doesn't play the latest OpenGL games, you are paying more for using laptops while you think you are paying less.

Props to Lenevo for building laptops that are not meant to break. However, only business laptops are build that way and not the consumer laptops, so that's why Lenevo for consumers sucks.

My 7 year old Dell laptop with nVidia graphics controller is still strong and kicking, so I'd have to call bunk on this statement. plus with the options for dual optical drives, or Dual batteries, as well as a floppy drive, TV out, and the easy to swap Hard Drive caddy so I can switch drives in the blink of an eye. I'm rather fond of my Dell. Lots of features, good performance and a reliable system.

Lenovos are built in China like so many other laptops, and quite frankly the two Lenovos I purchased recently are nothing to brag about. yes they have the accelerometer to park the HD, and a fingerprint reader, but that's about it.. Their performance is not any better than my old Dell, and quite frankly I think it's worse..


Noteook repairs conmparison

It is a well-none psychological property of human beings to be more postive than justified about a recent purchase to show that they have made the right choice. (Farslayer, I said recent don't feel attacked). So any postive remarks about Lenovo might be due to this behaviour.

There is about a twofold difference in price between consumer notebooks and business notebooks. I did not check today, but for my feeling there is a range of (consumer) notebooks in the $700-$1000 range and another in the $1500-$2200 range. That price difference must have a reason.

One thing is for sure, if a company sells notebooks to professionals, it cannot afford too many failures. It is simply not accepted. No professional would accept a notebook failure on a business trip. It would mean bad publicity and in no time the notebook sales of that company will stall. Like I said, I have experienced two failures of this generation of HP/Compaq notebooks in my department and HP is out. I don't think any company will take chances on that an try to program a predictable failure.

On the other hand, I can imagine that for consumer notebooks the situation is different. First price is even more important, and that might influence the design, both on specifications and quality. Secondly, many consumers make their decision based on other criteria than professionals. There is much less rationality in such decisions, and might consumers might be focused on screen size, megapixels, gigahertz, blue-ray and whatnot. Third, I assume all notebook manufacturs might have the same attitude meaning that they all might have there turn in experiencing mass failures and bad press.

I am not sure whether the article pointed to by Farslayer made this distinction as well. There is a difference between manufacturers, not based on components, but on production accuracy and quality.

And yes, my Lenovo is from the higher price segment.

jlinkels