On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 19:44:43 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> __/ [ Kier ] on Sunday 30 April 2006 17:59 \__
>
>> On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 04:35:46 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> Even laptops which are "designed
>>> for Windows XP" appear to work fully 'out of the box', with Linux. People
>>> are just scared to have a go at the setup, due to stereotypes.
>>
>> Some laptops do work OOTB, but not all, or at least, not perfectly. My old
>> Compaq Presario does, though for a while it had problems with Mandrake and
>> Fedora (down to that particular version of Xorg, I think). My mother's new
>> Dell works with SimplyMEPIS, including wifi. But my Toshiba doesn't like
>> Mandriva at all, and though other distros will install, only SUSE and
>> MEPIS will recognise the ethernet hardware properly (that said, it *is* a
>> somewhat uncommon NIC and Toshiba is not the most Linux-compatible of
>> manufacturers).
>>
>> Everything else, bar 3D graphics, does work well out of the box with SUSE
>> on the Tosh, though. The real downer is its poor battery life. Otherwise,
>> it's really not a bad laptop, but if I have to replace it in the future,
>> I'll go for different manufacturer.
>
> Hi Kier,
>
> In that case, _in the future_, put the horses before the carriage** and pick
> a laptop which you know will work with your favourite distribution. A quick
> Web search, as well as the extensive documentation about particular laptop
> models and Linux distributions, will make this trivial. Distributions tend
> to be hardware-backward-compatible (I came across some exceptions involving
> the suSE 9.3->10.x migration), so it's a rather safe bet.
Call it an impulse buy. Well, nearly.
>
> The Dell models appear to be fairly Linux-friendly. Whether they confirm the
> arrival of their Linux laptop at France, we are yet to find out. There has
> been no official announcement, yet. Only the Inquirer had a blurb, which
> seems rather reliable.
I'd probably buy a Dell, next time. They're good value.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Roy
>
> **Have you ever purchased a ticket to a metal concert and had regrets when
> you found out that no classical music was contained therein?
Can't say I have :-)
--
Kier
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