[lug] Cheap laptop for a neophyte

[Michael J. Hammel]

On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 09:08 -0600, Steve Sullivan wrote:
> What would you recommend for a not-so-newbie looking for a more
> full functioned laptop - DVD RW, wireless, larger screen and
> keyboard?
> 
> My main concerns are:
>   - I install my own Debian, so don't want a machine that
>     requires much customization when installing Linux.
>     For example, hopefully no vendor-supplied custom drivers.

I've never *had* to install vendor supplied drivers.  The only time this
was a concern was when the old xorg nv driver didn't support a
particular NVidia based card (in a desktop) that I had at work.  I don't
do 3D stuff (no games, etc), I just needed dual monitor support.  

Since F10, however, I don't even need that driver.  I can just use what
comes with F10 and associated repositories.  NVidia does have their
drivers in the repositories now (RPM Fusion) but you don't have to use
them.

One problem you may have is with extended video support with the Intel
9xxGM graphics chips.  These chips are very common on laptops - in fact
you can't get them anywhere *but* on laptops (no PCI-type cards use
them).  Normal video on your LCD is fine.  But when you try to get it
working with a TV-out port, HDMI, or even dual monitors with an external
VGA you *may* have problems.  This is because the intel xorg driver is
the first to be ported to a new architecture and it's in a bit of flux
as they work out the kinks.  This is in preparation for a new xorg
architecture, I believe.

It's gotten much more stable these days but based on the hits to my blog
on the subject I'd say many people are still having issues.

>   - In particular I'm interested in the wireless adapter.  Many laptops
>     don't handle wireless well under Linux.

My 5-year old Acer Aspire has Intel Pro/Wireless which uses the ipw2200
driver, I believe.  Works fine.  You'll also want to look at the support
provided via the MadWifi project.  

What doesn't work fine are the desktop tools for configuring wireless.
They never seem to work right and I always end up having to write shell
scripts and wpa-supplicant configurations to get it working at various
places (work and the library, though at home with my Linksys router it
worked through the desktop tools).  This has nothing to do with the
wireless drivers, however.

>   - And of course how well does the vendor support it.

Can't help there.  I never really ask about my laptop.  I expect it
*NOT* to work and hope some clever person has the drivers working for
it.  When I bought my laptop I just looked for a sub-$1000 box with
supported X and a wired network.  Minimum requirements for the time.
Some of the other stuff worked out of the box while bits and pieces
(like SD card support) came along over time.  I just didn't need it
right away.

I can say that with F10 the Aspire I have has all the bells and whistles
working, including TV/SVideo out (even using the intel driver) and SD
card slots.  

Hope that helps a little.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel <mjhammel at graphics-muse.org>