Hey everyone

I am planning to buy a laptop but as far as i am concerned i want linux on it instead of windows. as a result I am not sure what to buy.
i have a small list of things that i want:
1. wireless b/g
2. 14/15in monitor
3. 1.5GHz + cpu
4. expandable ram to 2GB
5. good to have a ATI 200M graphic card

on the side of this list i am also concerned about 64bit. is it a good idead to buy a AMD 64 now or a 32bit centrino is better?

i am looking forward to everyone's advice and thanks in advance.

Actually, I reccomend NVDIA for gfx cards. Their linux support is a lot better than ATI's. As for the rest of your requirements, a Dell Inspiron 600m is quite nice. Everything works well, except for the modem. It's a Conexant, so you'll have to fork over cash, or do some heavy hacking on the free drivers (if you can find em). But otherwise, it's nice. All the powersaving functions work, the wireless card works fine with the IPW2200 drivers, and the network card (BCM 57xx) works with the tg3 driver which is supported natively by the kernel. They cost anywhere from about $1,300USD to over $2000USD, depending on your configuration. (Mine was a custom config.)

thanks for your advice linuxgeekery.
so i have one last question:
so how about the 64bit vs 32bit? does it worth the extra money to buy a turion or the Dell 600m is exactly the same?

check linux-on-laptops dot com to see whether a particular model of notebook will run linux nicely.

I don't recommend buying a Centrino with integrated graphics if you think that you might someday upgrade to MS longhorn/Vista which is coming out for laptops sometime in 2007. The next MS OS is designed for 64 bit (althought there will be a 32bit version). The only integrated graphics card which will be able to handle the evil empire's next OS is possibly the Radeon Xpress 200m.

I have a compaq Presario v2410 (AMD Turion ML-30) and it sucks too much power. Try to get the MT version rather than the ML version because it only uses 25W and you get longer battery life. 64 bit Linux is a tad faster in my experience, but it will give you hassles if you want to install any 32 bit program outside the repository of your distribution, such as Suns' Java, Realplayer, most proprietary multimedia codecs, etc. I ran into trouble when I decided to install the latest versions of OpenOffice and Wine which only come in 32bit versions. You have to install a chroot environment and it is a real hassle. I installed ubuntu AMD_64 on my laptop, but it has been a painful process. I wrote out instructions, but I can't post the URL because this stupid website blocks it.

Also I forgot to add that the Centrino/Pentium M beats the Turion in most of the benchmarks when running Windows XP--only in a few types of tasks is the Turion better. I have no idea how the turion with 64bit Linux benchmarks against the Centrino with 32bit Linux.

I think it is a real toss-up between the two. My recommendation is to buy a Turion MT because it is cheaper and install 32bit Linux on it for the minimum hassle today. Then upgrade to 64bit Linux in a year or two when everyone will be making 64 bit versions of their software.

I have the Compaq Presario v2413us with Turion AMD 64bit ML 30, 1 GB RAM (2GB max), 80 GB Hard drive, ATI 200 graphics with 128 MB "shared" RAM. It runs OEM 32 XP Pro, XP 64 bit, and Mandriva 2006.0 x64 very well. Installation was flawless. Even the Logitech v500 mouse works natively in all three O/S's as well as sound, video, and wireless G with the Acer Broadcom 64 bit drivers. It is a great idea to run 64 bit. 32 bit Centrino is old news. Centrino is just a pumped up Pentium III:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...2/b3966010.htm

AMD is coming out with faster, lower power consuming, dual core mobile CPU's. How far is Intel from that. The future of O/S's is 64 bit as it can address > 4GB of memory, why not start now.

thanks for all your advices everyone.
If AMD is planning to ship out cheaper and better cpu in near future then i prefer to wait for those to comeout
after all i am spending money so i prefer to spend extra and get a better thing.

once again thanks to all your recommendations