Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

As part of the company's desktop replacement strategy, I'm being given
an effectively unlimited budget to purchase a laptop. After trawling
the various vendors websites, I'm confused as ever.

Here are a list of my wants, and your comments would be very much
appreciated.

Must Haves

* 15" or larger screen, widescreen preferable
* Dual bootable Linux (any major flavor) and Windows XP (for work
compatible things), with solid linux support for USB, Video and
Networking.
* Fat processor (ie, not Celeron)
* Serial port, possibly via USB-serial converter, for Cisco, Sun,
Brocade etc diagnostics.
* DVD reader that can be made "region free"
* 802.11b/g
* 1GB RAM, 80GB HD or better
* On board ethernet, VGA port, USB 2.0, etc.. but these look pretty
standard on everything.
* Solid as a rock

Wants, but can live withouts

* DVR+/-RW (region free reading)
* Dedicated graphics memory
* DVI port
* Linux compatible in-built modem
* 5.1 sound
* headphone jack

I'd love a Mac, but most of the in-house applications are strictly
Windows only, and given that this is desktop replacement, I don't have
the luxury of both platforms.

I'm looking at the Toshiba Satellite P30, but their Linux support
doens't seem too great. What's everybody else using?

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

yamahasw40@latinmail.com wrote:
> I'm looking at the Toshiba Satellite P30, but their Linux support
> doens't seem too great. What's everybody else using?

IBM Thinkpads, of course.



--
When you say: "I wrote a program that crashed Windows",
people just stare at you blankly and say: "Hey, I got those
with the system -- for free."
- Linus Torvalds
(remove _eh to email)

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

yamahasw40@latinmail.com wrote:

> As part of the company's desktop replacement strategy, I'm being given
> an effectively unlimited budget to purchase a laptop. After trawling
> the various vendors websites, I'm confused as ever.
>

ThinkPads tend to be good. I've got an R31 and everything works in it,
including WiFi, modem and IR.

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

johnny bobby bee wrote:
> yamahasw40@latinmail.com wrote:
>
>> I'm looking at the Toshiba Satellite P30, but their Linux support
>> doens't seem too great. What's everybody else using?
>
>
> IBM Thinkpads, of course.
>
>
>
As long as you do not object to IBM giving away the ranch to China ...

--
John Doue

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

John Doue wrote:

> As long as you do not object to IBM giving away the ranch to China ...

You'd have a tough time, finding any notebook that's not substantially made
in Asia.

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I have a R40 and it works like a beauty.

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 21:28:54 -0800, yamahasw40 wrote:

> As part of the company's desktop replacement strategy, I'm being given
> an effectively unlimited budget to purchase a laptop. After trawling
> the various vendors websites, I'm confused as ever.
>
> Here are a list of my wants, and your comments would be very much
> appreciated.
>
> Must Haves
>
> * 15" or larger screen, widescreen preferable
> * Dual bootable Linux (any major flavor) and Windows XP (for work
> compatible things), with solid linux support for USB, Video and
> Networking.
> * Fat processor (ie, not Celeron)
> * Serial port, possibly via USB-serial converter, for Cisco, Sun,
> Brocade etc diagnostics.
> * DVD reader that can be made "region free"
> * 802.11b/g
> * 1GB RAM, 80GB HD or better
> * On board ethernet, VGA port, USB 2.0, etc.. but these look pretty
> standard on everything.
> * Solid as a rock

The fastest laptop (from a CPU speed standpoint not from a graphics
processor standpoint) is a Compaq R3000z/HP5000z with an Athlon64
processor. I have one with the 3400+ but they offer the 3700+ also. I
have the 1680x1050 screen which works fine with the Xorg drivers but not
with the current Nvidia drivers (an older generation worked and I expect
the next release will). you can get up to 2G of RAM, I have 1G. You can
get an 80G 5400 RPM drive or a 100G 4400RPM drive, get at least 80G if you
are dual booting, I only have 60 and it's tight. The 802.11b/g chip is a
Broadcom 54G which has no native Linux driver however it does work with
Ndiswrapper but that requires that you run a 32 bit kernel because there
are no 64 bit XP drivers and Ndiswrapper won't run a 32 bit driver on a 64
bit kernel.

I'm using Fedora Core 3, both 32 and 64 bits, on the system. Both are
solid as a rock. Mandrake 10.1 doesn't work on this system, don't know
about other distributions.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com> wrote in message news:<a4idneZZjOam-63fRVn-rA@rogers.com>...
> John Doue wrote:
>
> > As long as you do not object to IBM giving away the ranch to China ...
>
> You'd have a tough time, finding any notebook that's not substantially made
> in Asia.

What I'd really like to know is if there are any early indications whether
service under warranty is going to still be as good as it has been. Does
anybody know how that is affected by the deal? Are the service reps being
outsourced overseas? Any good experiences, or horror stories?

Rick Carter
carterrk@despammed.com

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:28:32 -0500, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:

>The fastest laptop (from a CPU speed standpoint not from a graphics
>processor standpoint) is a Compaq R3000z/HP5000z with an Athlon64
>processor. I have one with the 3400+ but they offer the 3700+ also. I

Is the battery drain as fast as that processor?

Considering the way a desktop amd64 can heat a room, I be surprised if an
amd64 laptop could run an entire hour on a charge.

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 23:28:31 -0600, TCS wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:28:32 -0500, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>The fastest laptop (from a CPU speed standpoint not from a graphics
>>processor standpoint) is a Compaq R3000z/HP5000z with an Athlon64
>>processor. I have one with the 3400+ but they offer the 3700+ also. I
>
> Is the battery drain as fast as that processor?
>
> Considering the way a desktop amd64 can heat a room, I be surprised if an
> amd64 laptop could run an entire hour on a charge.

I never use the battery so I don't know how long it lasts, however Cool &
Quiet is well supported by the kernel. The fan almost never runs on either
my 3400+ laptop or my 3800+ desktop which is an indirect measure of how
little power is consumed by the Athlon 64 when it's not heavily loaded.

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Nvidia has released new drivers which I've got working on my Compaq
R3000z. The graphics performance is now pretty snappy.

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

TCS wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:28:32 -0500, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The fastest laptop (from a CPU speed standpoint not from a graphics
>>processor standpoint) is a Compaq R3000z/HP5000z with an Athlon64
>>processor. I have one with the 3400+ but they offer the 3700+ also. I
>
>
> Is the battery drain as fast as that processor?
>
> Considering the way a desktop amd64 can heat a room, I be surprised if an
> amd64 laptop could run an entire hour on a charge.

I've got an Averatec 5428hx, which has an Athlon XP-M 2800+ (1.6GHz).
The only thing I can say is, the fan runs a good bit. ;-) I'm going to
be getting one of those laptop cooling pads, with the 4 fans. Wouldn't
want to set my bed, dresser, or table on fire. Actually, I think my
power supply needs the cooling fan more than the laptop itself does.
The power supply for my Averatec/AMD is pretty big.

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:03:31 -0500, Donn Miller wrote:

> TCS wrote:
>> On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:28:32 -0500, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The fastest laptop (from a CPU speed standpoint not from a graphics
>>>processor standpoint) is a Compaq R3000z/HP5000z with an Athlon64
>>>processor. I have one with the 3400+ but they offer the 3700+ also. I
>>
>>
>> Is the battery drain as fast as that processor?
>>
>> Considering the way a desktop amd64 can heat a room, I be surprised if an
>> amd64 laptop could run an entire hour on a charge.
>
> I've got an Averatec 5428hx, which has an Athlon XP-M 2800+ (1.6GHz).
> The only thing I can say is, the fan runs a good bit. ;-) I'm going to
> be getting one of those laptop cooling pads, with the 4 fans. Wouldn't
> want to set my bed, dresser, or table on fire. Actually, I think my
> power supply needs the cooling fan more than the laptop itself does.
> The power supply for my Averatec/AMD is pretty big.

Which kernel are you using? I'm using the 2.4.10 kernel with the ondemand
speed governor. The 64 bit Fedora kernels have the usermode power governor
included but not ondemand, the 32 bit Fedora kernels don't have any A64
power governors. I built my own 32 bit and 64 bit kernels with all of the
available power governors. On boot up I select ondemand in /etc/rc.local

echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

My fan doesn't run unless I'm doing something like a simulation.

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:03:31 -0500, Donn Miller wrote:
>
>
>>TCS wrote:
>>
>>>On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:28:32 -0500, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>The fastest laptop (from a CPU speed standpoint not from a graphics
>>>>processor standpoint) is a Compaq R3000z/HP5000z with an Athlon64
>>>>processor. I have one with the 3400+ but they offer the 3700+ also. I
>>>
>>>
>>>Is the battery drain as fast as that processor?
>>>
>>>Considering the way a desktop amd64 can heat a room, I be surprised if an
>>>amd64 laptop could run an entire hour on a charge.
>>
>>I've got an Averatec 5428hx, which has an Athlon XP-M 2800+ (1.6GHz).
>>The only thing I can say is, the fan runs a good bit. ;-) I'm going to
>>be getting one of those laptop cooling pads, with the 4 fans. Wouldn't
>>want to set my bed, dresser, or table on fire. Actually, I think my
>>power supply needs the cooling fan more than the laptop itself does.
>>The power supply for my Averatec/AMD is pretty big.
>
>
> Which kernel are you using? I'm using the 2.4.10 kernel with the ondemand
> speed governor. The 64 bit Fedora kernels have the usermode power governor
> included but not ondemand, the 32 bit Fedora kernels don't have any A64
> power governors. I built my own 32 bit and 64 bit kernels with all of the
> available power governors. On boot up I select ondemand in /etc/rc.local
>
> echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
>
> My fan doesn't run unless I'm doing something like a simulation.
>

I was using the 2.6.10 kernel that's included on the Gentoo install CD.
Thanks for the advice, though. It'll come in handy when I install
Linux on this laptop.

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

In comp.os.linux.portable Donn Miller <hackr_d@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I was using the 2.6.10 kernel that's included on the Gentoo install CD.
> Thanks for the advice, though. It'll come in handy when I install
> Linux on this laptop.

Did you read and follow the power management guide ?
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/power [...] -guide.xml

Followups set to c.os.l.p since this is becoming Linux-specific.


--
pa at panix dot com

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

In "Re: Linux Laptop suggestion wanted - money no object!", John Doue
<notwobe@yahoo.com> wrote:

> As long as you do not object to IBM giving away the ranch to China ...

Well, my Thinkpad was assembled in Greenock just a wee bit "doon the watter"
from me here in Glasgow, almost certainly from components that were all
manufactured in Asia. So just what "ranch" are you talking about, dude...?

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

>> Is the battery drain as fast as that processor?
>> Considering the way a desktop amd64 can heat a room, I be surprised if an
>> amd64 laptop could run an entire hour on a charge.

> I've got an Averatec 5428hx, which has an Athlon XP-M 2800+ (1.6GHz). The
> only thing I can say is, the fan runs a good bit. ;-) I'm going to be
> getting one of those laptop cooling pads, with the 4 fans. Wouldn't want to

I'm not sure I'm following: what's the connection?
The XP-M is not an amd64, it's just a very different processor.


Stefan

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Stefan Monnier wrote:

>>> Is the battery drain as fast as that processor?
>>> Considering the way a desktop amd64 can heat a room, I be surprised if
>>> an amd64 laptop could run an entire hour on a charge.
>
>> I've got an Averatec 5428hx, which has an Athlon XP-M 2800+ (1.6GHz). The
>> only thing I can say is, the fan runs a good bit. ;-) I'm going to be
>> getting one of those laptop cooling pads, with the 4 fans. Wouldn't want
>> to
>
> I'm not sure I'm following: what's the connection?
> The XP-M is not an amd64, it's just a very different processor.

However the Mobile Athlon 64 _is_ an AMD64 and I have plenty of battery left
after watching a movie. If I set the clock to run full speed all the time
then battery life goes down of course.

Don't know where everybody gets the idea that AMD64s take a lot of power--in
a recent test an AMD64 machine drew less power than a similarly equipped
Pentium M. And that wasn't even the mobile version of the AMD64, that was
the latest _desktop_ version.

> Stefan

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Archived from groups: comp.os.linux.portable,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On 2005-03-10, yamahasw40@latinmail.com <yamahasw40@latinmail.com> wrote:
> As part of the company's desktop replacement strategy, I'm being given
> an effectively unlimited budget to purchase a laptop. After trawling
> the various vendors websites, I'm confused as ever.
>
Well without question, although it will not meet all your specs below (and I
hope exceed a few specs below you *need*:

http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/htm [...] frog-dual/

For the shear reason that you will have the best laptop on the block...for a
long time You must promise to let us all have a play on it though once
you purchase this.

> Here are a list of my wants, and your comments would be very much
> appreciated.
>
> Must Haves
>
> * 15" or larger screen, widescreen preferable
> * Dual bootable Linux (any major flavor) and Windows XP (for work