Announcement

**sithlord48** · Feb 12, 2011, 08:02 AM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

the best advice i can offer is to carefully look at the hardware, just to be sure there is nothing you see that don't have open drivers, i got a small emachine em250 netbook (acer makes them) and other the wifi card (that i replaced w/ an atheros card) it was all working out of the box, i got ms.sith a compaq passero that one has a messed with drivers or something cause if you attempt to install the propriatary firmware it hard locks up on power state changes (this was fixed in 10.10 btw) , i have installed kubuntu on a wide veriaty of laptops. and here are my hw suggestsions

processor and ram shoudn't matter but i would get a 64bit chip w/ 64bit os. so you can use more then 4gb ram..
video card : go for ati (they work w the xorg ppl to make open drivers now that amd owns them)
wifi/lan: atheros seams to always have open drivers now for wifi. (they started to release them as of last year.) for wired most chips just work.
sound: sound usually just works.
northbridge and southbridge: chips shouldn't be to important as long as they didnt come out yesterday.

good luck

**arochester** · Feb 12, 2011, 10:52 AM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

If you can, take a Kubuntu Desktop (LiveCD) to a shop where they will let you boot and try the laptop.

**askrieger** · Feb 12, 2011, 03:14 PM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

You might find some useful information on the Linux on Laptops site. The site is organised by brand and model. The result is that it's a good place to verify that you're not making a horrible mistake, but you need to have an idea of what you want before you go there. My laptop is about five years old, so I don't know how up to date they are on current models.

**axel668** · Feb 13, 2011, 03:39 AM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

Most critical parts are indeed wireless and graphics - I have 2 acer laptops where any newer Linux distribution runs out of the box. Acer is selling Linux laptops in Germany, too. By any means you should google for the specific box you're interested in.

By no means you should get a machine with ATI graphics, the FOSS drivers suck and the official ATI drivers are always several Kernel versions behind, so if you want to run anything newer than Debian Stable you're pretty much stuck. If you don't need high end graphics, go for Intel, otherwise Nvidia is the weapon of choice, as they offer very good proprietary drivers.

**sithlord48** · Feb 13, 2011, 07:54 AM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

Originally posted by axel668

By no means you should get a machine with ATI graphics, the FOSS drivers suck and the official ATI drivers are always several Kernel versions behind, so if you want to run anything newer than Debian Stable you're pretty much stuck. If you don't need high end graphics, go for Intel, otherwise Nvidia is the weapon of choice, as they offer very good proprietary drivers.

the foss driver work just fine on my 4830HD ,4200HD, 3200HD, (enuff for me to play oblivion on highest settings on wine.) also UNLIKE nvidia , the open drivers are improving because ati helps make them by providing info on the chips (again unlink nvidia who will only provide proprietary drivers, and don't care if we get open drivers) the ati drivers have made leeps and bounds in the past two years that i have been running that 4830HD.

**Jonas** · Feb 14, 2011, 04:09 AM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

Thank you all for the replies, indeed very helpful.

Originally posted by axel668

Acer is selling Linux laptops in Germany, too. By any means you should google for the specific box you're interested in.

This is what I like to support, and hopefully Acer refund me for the windows license I wont use.

Originally posted by axel668

... otherwise Nvidia is the weapon of choice, as they offer very good proprietary drivers.

Originally posted by sithlord48

the foss driver work just fine on my 4830HD ,4200HD, 3200HD,/.../ also UNLIKE nvidia , the open drivers are improving because ati helps make them by providing info on the chips (again unlink nvidia who will only provide proprietary drivers, and don't care if we get open drivers) the ati drivers have made leeps and bounds in the past two years that i have been running that 4830HD.

The old battle of the Graphics ....I can't decide on which is better, nor seem the FOSS community

TBH I think Nvidia seems better - but I regard ATIs (read AMDs) FOSS support much higher. I did see the ATI-FOSS driver improvements when they dropped my prop.driver support for a old card I had but the open driver improved rapidly over 6m -1y

This is what I had in mind (and the W-lan card, invilink,seem to work with linux)

Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG http://www.inet.se/artikel/1969638/a...melinex-4820tg

Another machine I looked at; ASUS U36Jc 13,3" HD LED http://www.inwarehouse.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=613038#extra - this one comes with 2 GPUs that seem to have caused some trouble in linux. A reason I consider avoiding Nvidia.
Comment on this machine here though in swedish..."...and there is a special button for running Linux as secondary OS" - (http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?o=758825 ) whatever that means?

I think I have more or less settled with the Acer

thanks again and best regards
Jonas

**toad** · Feb 14, 2011, 05:07 AM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

Okay, here goes my Thinkpad sell:

I just bought a 2 1/2 year old T61 (still under guarantee) on ebay for EUR 300. Linux Thinkpad support is unparalleled - you can talk directly to the hardware and the best thing is that they are extremely solid and the nearest a laptop can get to a desktop, i.e. you can chop and change hardware relatively easily. There is also a great thinkpad forum for support

**Jonas** · Feb 15, 2011, 08:46 AM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

I think I'll decided on something more then with a intel GPU, and it seems like the dual-GPU is more or less standard and GNULinux issues has been fixed with 10.10 kernel. I've been reading thru this thread ( http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1495123 ) and I like what I hear about ATI/AMD and Acer concerning Linux-friendly, in this thread. Which was the main purpose of this thread, but all input very appreciated

The Acer machine have my requirements - hardware that will last more then a year, a optical drive and multitouch.

thank you all for the feedback

Jonas

**toad** · Feb 15, 2011, 08:49 AM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

Glad the thread helped you.

fwiw

toad@archtop 514\14 /etc > cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz
stepping : 10
cpu MHz : 2201.000
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips : 4390.28
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz
stepping : 10
cpu MHz : 1600.000
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 1
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 1
initial apicid : 1
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips : 4390.86
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Goes like @^i! off a shovel

**Jonas** · Feb 15, 2011, 06:40 PM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

Originally posted by toad

Glad the thread helped you.

Please tell me when and where a post in this great fora isn't helpful

(even rant-posts are encouraged with help )

Cheers all .. think I fell in love with this one http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=610601#extra ... tbh, I think the -20% made it extra sexxy

I didn't say that I bought it cause I need to write a essay (among other things) for intellectual history, as subject I thought about free software/open source

I'll post a thread on that as I may need some input on some reading about it, going thru Raymond, Stallman, Torvalds and a very interesting book by Pekka Himanen, (and listen to this now http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/audio...AndAfterIP.ogg )

B.R

Jonas

**Detonate** · Feb 16, 2011, 07:46 AM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

When shopping for a laptop, don't let the wifi card be a deal breaker. If you find the machine you want, and it does not have a compatible wifi card, this is easily remedied by replacing the card. They are not terribly expensive and, unlike the graphics, easy to replace.

**jeremy1701** · Feb 16, 2011, 08:07 AM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

I'll pipe in for my Dell... I have an Inspiron 1564. Nearly every option on it worked out of the box (for 10.10); web-cam, wifi, sound, card reader, media buttons, etc... Even suspend works!

I did not get a refund for Windows. I left it on and dual boot (in the rare event I choose to Windows).

**Jonas** · Mar 01, 2011, 02:31 PM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

I bought the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820.

VERY happy with it so far. Most things work OTB, Wifi I had some trouble to find the driver but all worked out. Juice out about 4 hours with all settings running high in Ubuntu which is the main OS now, mainly due to that LibreOffice and OOo work without any trouble and that's why I bought it. (I know .. compiz ain't needed running OOo/LibreOffice

)

Set up 3 partitions, one for Ubuntu, one for Kubuntu and one for files. Thinking about putting Kubuntu Natty instead of the 10.10 I run now.

As for the Windowz "tax" .. Acer offered me €40 as a refund (after 2 days), but then I have to ship it to Germany which would cost me € ~60 .. so time to build a case

thank you all for the replies

Jonas

**GreyGeek** · Mar 01, 2011, 02:57 PM

Re: Laptop brand/OEM question

What's the rest of your model number? 4820T-

??

Checked the comments at Amazon on several of the 4820T series and ALL were highly rated by users.