Laptops

[bonzodog]

I am looking around at the moment for a Laptop PC that will Just Work with pretty much most flavours of Linux. That *includes* wireless. Out Of The Box. Everything Just Works.

So, along these lines, I have started picking through a lot of makes of Laptop online, looking at specs. I DO NOT want an Intel Celeron processor. Preferably AMD, with Nvidia GPU set. I already know Samsung do this spec of lappy, and they are cheap enough too (750 odd euro here in Ireland).

But it got me to thinking - All the Ubuntu Devs are issued with Laptops by canonical, and I suspect they pretty much are almost totally compatible with linux- But what Make & Model are they?

I asked in IRC, and was told that it could well be IBM Thinkpads, but there is one tiny snag here - you cannot buy IBM Laptops anymore, only Lenovo Products, but it's very unclear what Lenovo Laptops match ThinkPad specs.

[mips]

As far as I know they use thinkpads. Thinkpads use do not use nvidia though, it's either Intel or ATI gfx.

Specs are no different. IBM never actually manufacture the laptops anyway, they outsourced that.

If it does not say 'Thinkpad' in the model name then it is not a thinkpad.

Thinkpads: http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/catalog.workflow:expandcategory?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=8FA114A7D9FF4F38AE8E19B36EC665A7

Non-Thinkpads: http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/catalog.workflow:expandcategory?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=83C6BB3C3335400EB7DF1011B7015A00

[Pikestaff]

I have a Lenovo 3000 C100 that worked 100% out-of-the-box for me with Kubuntu Dapper. (Haven't tried any other Linux flavors with it). Wireless picked up right away and I have had no major problems with it at all.

I don't believe you can buy the C100 new from Lenovo anymore, as it's not on their website, however I assume the C200 would be similar. (Specs are here (http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=BEEC8C6BD4B648BFA0A074AEC15C3E7C))

[jrusso2]

My Thinkpad T43 worked out of the box with Freespire. I have heard it works well with Ubuntu, and Suse also

If Feisty is good I might go with Feisty on it or the new freespire, as Freespire 1.0 is getting old.

Jeanette

[RChickenMan]

Dell Inspiron 700m works perfectly out of the box, with the exception of applying a patch to attain native screen resolution (the patch is just a package... install the package, re-start x-windows, and never think about it again).

[maniacmusician]

are you aversed to the offerings from System76 (http://system76.org)? They're pretty good and come preloaded with Ubuntu. They use special drivers to make some parts of the laptop work, and I'm pretty sure that the modifications that they open-sourced those changes, so you can probably get them to work with other distros as well.

If this laptop is being used for work purposes (school, office work, traveling, etc), then the Darter would be your best bet. Small screen, Intel GPU, 4.5 hours battery life; pretty good.

I don't think any of their laptops carry AMD processors, but they have Intel Core 2 Duos, which I would say are much better for performance at the moment. (Intel Celeron's are really awful, I agree with you. I used to buy AMD all the time as well, until the C2D's came out). The Gazelle and Serval series for Sys76 have nvidia chipsets if Intel is not good enough for you (even though it is pretty good). The best part about buying from them, of course, is that Everything Works. Out of The Box.

[macogw]

Celeron = Pentium with a too-small cache

[prizrak]

ThinkPads have been outsourced to Lenovo for years now they just get to put their names on them. They will work with alot of Linux flavors, ASUS will work with Linux nicely. Just about any Taiwanese laptop will be Linux compatible since China requires it.

AMD while nice sux in laptops and generally speaking you have no idea what wireless card is in there. Your best bet is Centrino machines as they use Intel Wi-Fi that works completely out of the box on any Linux.

[mips]

ThinkPads have been outsourced to Lenovo for years now they just get to put their names on them.

And Lenovo is allowed to still use the IBM brand name on the laptop (Thinkpads only).