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Unreal Sorcerer
August 9th, 2005, 09:25 AM
whats a good laptop to use with Linux? (most likely the Ubuntu distro) I won't be doing any gaming on it... I will be doing image editing (Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator) and a lot of programming and studying (its for college).... any one have a recomendation?

at least 512MB ram
60GB harddrive
OS doesn't really matter but if it can come with ubuntu (or an other linux distro) already installed... GREAT!!!
if its a dell or a thinkpad I'm going to have to take off windows and install Linux anyways..

my price range is between $600 and $1500

it doesn't have to be flashy.. just dependable.... especially with photoshop/illustrator, programming, research on the net, and instant messaging.. haha...

I've looked at a bunch and I came across three that I liked....
DELL inspiron 600m - customized
DELL inspiron 2200 - customized
and
ThinkPad R50e - customized

anyone want to point me in which is the best out of those three? or point me into another direction?

thx in advance for any and all help that I recieve.... :)

Alvin

poofyhairguy
August 9th, 2005, 09:43 AM
anyone want to point me in which is the best out of those three? or point me into another direction?


How about a laptop that is meant to support Ubuntu?

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/custom/hplaptops

somuchfortheafter
August 9th, 2005, 01:42 PM
i strongly recommend the toshiba tecra series of notebooks with an nvidia based graphics card. your sd card slot wont wor but boo hoo what can you do. also your function keys work out of the box.

nocturn
August 9th, 2005, 01:55 PM
I recommend going for a machine with an Nvidia card. I did at a much higher cost and I do not regret it (ATI driver often do not work, or do not work well).

luca_linux
August 9th, 2005, 01:59 PM
Yeah, I also recommend going with nVidia.

I suggest IBM among the laptops you have posted.

weasel fierce
August 9th, 2005, 05:42 PM
How much difficulty can I expect if I try to throw Ubuntu on a Dell ?

somuchfortheafter
August 9th, 2005, 06:24 PM
could you post the system specs.

poofyhairguy
August 9th, 2005, 08:47 PM
How much difficulty can I expect if I try to throw Ubuntu on a Dell ?

Sometimes a lot. I recently put Ubuntu on a new Dell laptop the other day only to find out that the bios was buggy frfom the day it was shipped. The version of Windows on the recovery CD was hacked to get around the bug (a new regular copy would fail just like Ubuntu did). I had to download a bios hack off the internet and install it for it to work.

I don't know about yall, but in the past couple years Dell to me has gotten to the point where it means to me "cheapest and crappiest computer hardware you can buy." Which is sad because at one point I used to recommend them for their quality.

weasel fierce
August 10th, 2005, 07:48 AM
Well, basic specs according to their site is:
Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz , 512 MB DDR SDRAM , 60 GB IDE .

Video card is an Nvidia Geforce FX go5200

Nvidia is good right ?

poofyhairguy
August 10th, 2005, 08:39 AM
Nvidia is good right ?

Very good. Sounds sweet.

Knome_fan
August 10th, 2005, 08:50 AM
I can only recommend to take a look at http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/ before buying a laptop.
You'll find about any model there together with the experience people have had running linux on it. Though of course it isn't 100% accurate, for example people using different distributions, it should give you a pretty good idea about what problems you could run into if any.

An other thing I'd always do is google for the specific laptob model +linux. This will usually also give you a lot of information.

@weasel fierce:
Are you talking about a laptop or about a desktop machine?
The one thing that got me wondering was the Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz.

luca_linux
August 10th, 2005, 10:42 AM
Yeah, the battery won't last much with that processor.
Go with another, something more laptop optimized, such as Intel Pentium M (the processor of the Centrino platform) or AMD Turion64.

weasel fierce
August 10th, 2005, 05:13 PM
Laptop. Battery isnt really an issue, as it is perpetually plugged in to a wall socket. My wife just likes to be able to move it easily.

byen
August 10th, 2005, 05:30 PM
Just a note of caution: Please stay away from the Compaq Presario Series. Their hardware is not properly supported for linux and is a pain to fix. Their network cards are broadcom( worst for linux), graphics from ATi (where do i begin) and customer service from Saturn (yeah! - the word linux seems to make em giggle as if it is a joke!). SO if compaq was on your list...please strike it out. You dont need the hassle.
---Just a word of advise from one ubuntu comm member to another.

matthew
August 10th, 2005, 06:06 PM
This is a good place to start to see how others have fared...mine is in the "other" page.

http://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesLaptops

costoa
August 11th, 2005, 06:03 PM
whats a good laptop to use with Linux? (most likely the Ubuntu distro) I won't be doing any gaming on it... I will be doing image editing (Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator) and a lot of programming and studying (its for college).... any one have a recomendation?

at least 512MB ram
60GB harddrive
OS doesn't really matter but if it can come with ubuntu (or an other linux distro) already installed... GREAT!!!
if its a dell or a thinkpad I'm going to have to take off windows and install Linux anyways..

my price range is between $600 and $1500

it doesn't have to be flashy.. just dependable.... especially with photoshop/illustrator, programming, research on the net, and instant messaging.. haha...

I've looked at a bunch and I came across three that I liked....
DELL inspiron 600m - customized
DELL inspiron 2200 - customized
and
ThinkPad R50e - customized

anyone want to point me in which is the best out of those three? or point me into another direction?

thx in advance for any and all help that I recieve.... :)

Alvin


From your list it's an easy choice: get the thinkpad. As for other suggestions check out my previous comment about my Sharp Actius PC-MC24 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=222871&postcount=13) that costs $900USD.

Ken.Lank
August 11th, 2005, 08:21 PM
How about a iBook? It's in that price range and comes w/ OSX.

costoa
August 13th, 2005, 07:20 PM
How about a iBook? It's in that price range and comes w/ OSX.

The iBook and Powerbook are great machines. My wife just got a 12" PB w/dvd burner. Sweet machine , very well designed and IMO Mac OS X is extremely nice. Also sitting five feet away is my eMac (which I use for video). My first Mac was a Mac Plus and that was at least seven macs ago.

Using a Mac is like living in a very nice company town (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town). Everything works great, no messing with drivers, first class bundled apps like iMovie and very little freedom. "What Apple giveth, Apple taketh away". For example:

HyperCard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercard): an really fun programming enviroment. For a while it had a large cult-like following with thousands of "stacks" (HC programs). First Apple gave away HC, then only gave away the "player" (charging for the full version) then they just stopped selling and supporting. DOA.

Newton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton): a PDA well ahead of it's time. Jobs didn't like it for personal reasons and killed it off.

iTunes remote access: last year Apple snuck in a code change that restricted iTunes sharing from any machine to only machines on the same subnet.

Themes: Mac OS 8.x had a nice theme engine with one theme. Two more, designed by Apple, found their way to the net and they freaked. "No themes for you!" Mac OS X gives you a choice of two themes: both the same except one is blue the other grey. I've seen USSR ballots with more choices. =)

The other thing to remember is Apple can demand anyone and everyone to stop using Mac OS X at any time. While very unlikely it's a reminder who owns who.

Macs are great machines but for me I'm take the rough wilderness and true freedom of GNU/Linux over the comfortable "house arrest" of Macs.