Good Experiences?

[Randomskk]

Well, I went laptop hunting today, and I grabbed a Ubuntu live disk before I left - just in case.
In the end, I went to three different shops, tried out a fair few nice laptops, and on each one I asked if I could try out the Ubuntu live disk - and to my suprise, they all said yes!
As a result, I'm 100% sure my new laptop not only has out-the-box X, it also has sound and wireless! :D

Turns out one of the people I spoke to has a linux server himself at home, as well :)

What other good experiences have you guys had while buying computers etc? I have to admit, trying out laptops and such in the store is much nicer than buying it online.

By the way, this was in the UK, at PC World, Bentals, and Curreys.

[adamkane]

This is the site to check, whether someone has had success with Ubuntu on a particular laptop:
http://www.linux-laptop.net/

[skippy81]

I've never actually bought a PC complete, I normally put the stuff together to save myself a bit of money. I find this actually helps with linux compatability though, since I know exactly what is going in and what isn't. Of course you are sticking your neck out a bit, because if you do order the wrong thing, you end up having to pay the postage to send it back - never happened to me yet though.

My usual technique is to just get the model of the motherboard, and google it for linux issues. Good on PC World and Currys for letting you run a live CD though, you never know, maybe one day they'll be handing out free Dapper discs at the doors :)

[fuscia]

i'm waiting for my system76 laptop, with ubuntu installed, to arrive. i can't wait.

[gborzi]

I bought recently a used Compaq evo n610c in a small computer shop in Catania that sells new and used hardware. They take the used hardware from companies, so they had about 12 laptops like mine. I was able to check the laptop with the live Ubuntu DVD. Generally a try is possible in small shops, but not in large computer store, at least in my zone. There are also some computer shops where you can ask if an hardware component works with GNU/Linux and get an useful answer.
May I ask which laptop models you checked ?

[Randomskk]

In the end I got a Philips Freevents X61, which worked perfectly. The Freevents X52 worked, but X wasn't out of the box. Didn't check wireless on that, but the ACPI was picked up as was bluetooth.
Fujitsu Siemon's AMILO S1520 again didn't get X out of the box, but no other errors. Wireless didn't seem to be detected out of the box, but it's an intel chipset, so could probably be made work.

Can't remember the model numbers of the others I checked, I only remember these as the S1520 I was looking at online, and I ended up buying the X61 :D

Also, if you happen to have some cash, the Samsung Q30 looks *lovely*, although sadly the CD drive was external and not on the demo unit, so I couldn't try it.


For my desktop computers I put the parts together myself, but with laptops I'd rather get it all assembled :P

edit: just remembered, after buying the laptop the sales person was about to offer me Norton AV, then said "actually, I don't suppose you'd be wanting that?" and I was so glad I was using linux :D

[gborzi]

Thanks for your prompt answer. I didn't know Philips is in the notebook business.

[Randomskk]

Nor did I, up to today :P
It's a really nice portable laptop, 1.4KG odd and pretty small. 5 hours battery life too, or so it says, so it will be perfect for school :D

[polo_step]

Taking the Ubuntu Live CD with you doesn't really assure you of that much in terms of full hardware compatibility of a notebook.

One thing in particular to be aware of is that almost any video will "work," but only with the VESA drivers, which do not give proper hardware support. For example, the UniChrome Pro video is very common in new notebooks, but despite there being numerous Linux drivers for this, none seem to be fully integrated into current distributions.

Likewise, wireless devices may be recognized and installed, but do not work with full native functionality -- at least not without a great deal of fiddling about.

I found all this out the hard way -- caveat emptor!

[mostwanted]

I ordered my new asus v6j laptop from the Internet partly based on the components inside it and a vague two line review I could find using Google that said "Works good but the ACPI implementation in Linux could use a little work" or something like that.

Now it's ordered and the Ubuntu laptop testing site was updated shortly afterwards telling stories of how everything works great out of the box. Makes me so relieved.

http://mdessus.free.fr/Divers/Asus_v6j_linux.html

[mostwanted]

i'm waiting for my system76 laptop, with ubuntu installed, to arrive. i can't wait.

Isn't that a paradox?

[Randomskk]

Taking the Ubuntu Live CD with you doesn't really assure you of that much in terms of full hardware compatibility of a notebook.

One thing in particular to be aware of is that almost any video will "work," but only with the VESA drivers, which do not give proper hardware support. For example, the UniChrome Pro video is very common in new notebooks, but despite there being numerous Linux drivers for this, none seem to be fully integrated into current distributions.

Likewise, wireless devices may be recognized and installed, but do not work with full native functionality -- at least not without a great deal of fiddling about.

I found all this out the hard way -- caveat emptor!



I'm getting the laptop for school and such, not games, so as long as X shows *something* I'm happy. Interestingly, most of the videos didn't work completely out of the box, although I imagine they could with a little positive encouragement. The wireless was an Intel 2200BG, which I've had experiences with before, and intel release full linux drivers for it. I wasn't able to test WEP or the likes, but I'm fairly sure all of intel's drivers functionality will work on it.

With the Live CD, I can at least ensure some things do work somewhat, which is better than not knowing at all, surely?


I ordered my new asus v6j laptop from the Internet partly based on the components inside it and a vague two line review I could find using Google that said "Works good but the ACPI implementation in Linux could use a little work" or something like that.

Now it's ordered and the Ubuntu laptop testing site was updated shortly afterwards telling stories of how everything works great out of the box. Makes me so relieved.

http://mdessus.free.fr/Divers/Asus_v6j_linux.html
Out of interest, where is the Ubuntu laptop testing site? If my laptop's not on it, I may as well add it once I've had a chance to play around some.

[mostwanted]

Out of interest, where is the Ubuntu laptop testing site? If my laptop's not on it, I may as well add it once I've had a chance to play around some.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesLaptops?highlight=%28laptop %29

[cbudden]

If you wanted to test 3d accell you could use the correra live cd (the XGL one) and that has the drivers already installed on it. http://kororaa.org/index.php

[polo_step]

The wireless was an Intel 2200BG, which I've had experiences with before, and intel release full linux drivers for it. I wasn't able to test WEP or the likes, but I'm fairly sure all of intel's drivers functionality will work on it.

This is the big problem with Linux wireless. Getting full functionality is difficult. WEP is grossly unsafe and totally obsolete, but all Linux that I've tried fails to easily support native WPA2/AES capabilities of current devices, which are absolutely essential for an even moderately secure network. With enough fooling around, you can get it set up for a single net, but there are no integral frontends that make using multiple WPA2 access points transparently easy, and the whole point of a notebook is to be able to use it in a lot of different places.

[Randomskk]

I know what you mean, but my home wireless has to be WEP anyway - my Nintendo DS, just about the only thing that uses it, is WEP only.
However, I've also stopped it broadcasting the SSID, changed channel, setup a MAC ACL, and you can only connect to anything through my hardware firewall.
It's not ideal, but it works with the devices I have, which is what I need. Not to mention the fact that, as far as I know, there are no people anywhere near my house who even know what WEP stands for, let alone how to brute force it.

Plus my road is a private one with a dead end, and I'm RIGHT at the dead end. Have fun wardriving that :P