howdi

wanting to get laptop 4 college

saw linux laptop website - concerned as to power issues of laptops in USA being used in europe

If I got this laptop from states would I need a power adapter
also VAT for buying out side europe is a bit of a dissuader.


alternatively whose a good hardware vendor to go for

been thinking about a 12" portable or 15" 64 bit AMD system

any suggestions welcome

cheers

Rob

Well, I guess just about any laptop will do. If you are looking to save money you might think about getting a cheap no thrills machine with just a bare CDROM and 128MB RAM. Most laptops justify expensive price as they have fancy DVD RW drives, 256MB ++ RAM. Do you need such high specs for college work??

Power really isn't a concern--most laptop power supples take 220/240 just fine. I've traveled in Europe a fair bit with my laptop. Most laptops run linux pretty well. Where you run into problems is on the fringe devices--for example the modem and flash card reader don't work on my machine.

If you buy from a linux vendor then you can be pretty certain that all of the peripherals have drivers, of course.

hi you go for hcl laptop

If you are really trying to 'garauntee' the laptop you get works well with a linux distro, I'd pick a common laptop that people seem to be using, especially for linux work.

One laptop platform that seems to be pretty popular is the dell inspiron 8600. (though my first choice when I was getting a new laptop would have been a Toshiba, but the model I wanted was discontinued ...)

A good place to come up with your laptop platform for linux would be here:
http://www.linux-laptop.net/

If you are really concerned about power, Intel laptops are the way to go. Intel-laptop platforms have been out for 2+ years longer than the first, recent, real lower-power offering from AMD. Since Intel low-power Centrino-based laptops have been out on the market for much longer than the AMD versions, whatever Linux code that has been developed for the Intel platforms will just be that much more developed and stable.

I think it was HP who were promising to bring out a laptop that would be fully supported by Linux and Ubuntu in particular. Might be worth checking if it's been released yet or not. . .

I agree with some of what why2jjj said, but not all of it. The Athlon XP mobile processor has been out forever--I had it in the Emachines laptop that I bought a couple years ago and recently replaced. If you're comparing AMD64 to the Pentium-M then that might be reasonable, but the M is *not* 64-bit so I'm not entirely sure that's a fair comparison. Can you tell I'm an AMD fanboy?

Seriously, though, the Intel machines at the top priceranges are faster because the front-side buses/memory/chipsets have made quicker progress on the Intel side. Nvidia graphics cards (which are usually on Intel laptops) also have better linux driver support.

Bottom-line: If you want almost complete driver support then don't buy the latest laptop--get one that is two years old and everything will be detected and work out of the box, almost guaranteed. If you want the latest-and-greatest then you are going to have less than full driver support out of the box. If speed is your #1 concern then buy an Intel. If having 64-bit capability is a factor then AMD is the only game in town. I personally wouldn't consider a 32-bit machine today, but everyone has differnet priorities.

If you are getting a laptop, do you seriously need 64-bit power?? Unless you are planning on running the latest Oracle database on your laptop, you won't need 64 bits.

Appreciate all the replies

a 64 bit system may not be used by myself to its full capacity
however making hardware purchases Id be concerned about it being a capable off running apps for years to come
They do kill the mobility side of things a bit travel etc for those who Like to carry just 1 bag large machine not so pratical - especially with 12" machines with 4 hour battery lives.

I just want really a modest medium weight machine that is going to recognise the 56k modem and WiFi card etc
something that will allow all the latest development tools etc - graphics card be nice but not essential.

I have a software project this year - been doing java ( made me lazy ) and thought get any suggestion from those whove been down this road b4

Thanks all 4 the suggestions and links.

That really isn't relevant to me. I'm a sysadmin and I need to be up to speed on the latest operating systems and a developer may need to write 64-bit code.

I think HP is the best bet for Linux. Just make sure whatever wireless card comes with it is supported by Linux. Intel's website is giving drivers for their wireless cards.

I went with an Averatec 64 bit laptop. The hardware is pretty good, I REALLY like the 15" widescreen. I can't say I would recommend it though because I can't get ACPI or APM to work at all.

If you can wait in a few months (actually, probably the end of first quarter of 2006?), Intel will have their new Centrino laptop line released. It will be dual-core, 64 bit, and will REALLY be efficient with its ever smaller low-power usage. It will be a kick-a$$ product.