I have been looking into buying a laptop and I want to know what everyones opinion was for the best and worst companies that make Linux compatible laptops?

Thanks

i'm using a Dell Latitude laptop and dual booting win2k and slackware. not probably the one u want. no problems with video and network h/w support (using Xircom combo pcmcia card).

I use a Compaq Evo N610v and there seems to be no issues. Dual-booting with Win XP. Need to get the Linuxant Conexant modem drivers though...

I'm using a DELL Latitude CSx 500mhz with a 5gig HD and 256M RAM. The only OS I have intalled is (you guessed it) Linux -- Mandrake 9.2 to be exact. I purchased the laptop used from Ebay about Oct. '03 and still running strong (knock on wood). All of the drivers and such worked on install. The only problem that I had with installing was a bad disk 2, but it still installed okay. I'm not a huge gamer, however, 'frozen-bubble' works great (even with sound)

Now, all I need is a larger HD, because currently any music or videos have to be on my other [networked] WinXP laptop.

Hope this helps...

Good luck

I can't remember which model it was, was some IBM for a friend, but what I did was to take a knoppix CD with me and boot it on that laptop in the shop to make sure the hardware works fine with linux.

cheers
bareego

I have an HP ze4125 that was a bear to get everything to work until the Mandrake 9.2 came out. It loads with everything recognized and working. Even the 3D acceleration.

I have a Toshiba 1905-303 that works fine with the exception of the Winmodem (no surprise there) and the lame glidepoint that you can't turn the tapping off on.

HOWEVER

The WinXP recovery disks erases all of your partitions when you do a reinstall -no more linux-.

You have to either jump through hoops during the rebuild process (stop the rebuild, create your DOS partitions, restart the rebuild), or buy a program such as Partition Magic. I bought Partition Magic so that I can simply resize the partition AND use it to convert the partition from NTFS (your only choice during the reinstall) to FAT32. Highly recommended.

From there I used the "sysresccd" from http://www.sysresccd.org/ to create an image of my XP partition for the next time it goes south (think Norton Ghost). This works really well with the exception that NTFS support simply is not ready yet (captive reads NTFS just fine, writing NTFS is a whole different matter). With the exception of having to use the boot options to keep the kernel from looking for hardware (fb800 noapic nonet noscsi nodetect), it worked great. Hats off to the sysresccd boys.

Once I get all of the $*%&#( Windows patches downloaded (dialup no less) I will make a backup of that.


Okay, this wasn't meant to be a HowTo


The upshot is that if you intend to use the laptop for Windows as well as linux, then pay attention to how the manufacturer makes you do a re-install.

Compaqs for example have that brain-dead recovery partition that is hidden on the drive. Lose this and you've lost your recovery. Just for this reason alone (not that there aren't a whole lot of other reasons to avoid HP/Compaq) I would avoid these laptops.

I probably won't be getting another Toshiba, the recovery method borders on the spiteful. But I can't complain about its linux performance. It only sucks when I use Windows.

I also have a Gateway that dual boots as well. Works very nicely, and uses normal installation disks.


I should have looked at IBM first (duh!)


John

I've successfully used the following:

Toshiba Satellite Celeron 1.8GHz with SuSE 8.2

Dell Latitude D600 Pentium M 1.3GHz with Slackware 9.1 (using now).

I will put a review up of the D600 Soon

Peace,
Whitehat

I use 2 laptops, a Toshiba 1905 S303 and a Sager 8777v. The Toshiba has 2 Ghz P4, 512 DDR, 40 GB harddrive, CD-RW/DVD Rom combo drive, floppy and a 1024 x 768 15 inch display. It is currently running Slackware 9.1. However, I have also run Redhat 9, Mandrake 9.2 and Fedora Core 1, all without issues (except for the win-modem).

My Sager is a 3.06 Ghz P4 HT, 1GB DDR, 80 GB harddrive, 2 x CD-RW/DVD-Rom combo drives, integrated Sony memory stick slot, removable MP3 player that uses SD/MMC cards, ATI Mobility 9000 Graphics chip with 128 MB ram. I use XP with a persistent Knoppix folder on the SD Card for backups of my settings. I also use Netgear MA401 802.11b cards on both laptops. They connect to a wireless netgear router/print server. I am still unable to use the print server with linux. I had it working and printing when I used Redhat 9 but haven't been able to figure it out for the others yet. I also ran Slackware 9.1 on a Panasonic Toughbook CF-47 without any problems wither but I recently sold that laptop.

It is much easier today than it was 2 years ago to install Linux on a laptop. I do love it however having to freedom to dual boot or run Knoppix and have it setup without a hitch and have a usable Linux box you can take with you anywhere.

Good Luck,
Ken Gutkowski

I use a Thinkpad T22 and have run Mandrake starting with 8.0 and now up to 9.2. Runs great using a Netgear wireless ethernet card can't remember the model number. It dual boots with Win 2000 Pro.

Good Luck!