[techtalk] laptops

[Saska]

Helena,

I do know that the Sony Vaios can be loaded with Linux without a hitch.
I know several people who dual-boot their Vaios in Win98 and Linux (both
Debian and RedHat).  I also recently purchased a Dell Latitude from
their refurbished stock that's a real screamer for the $2200 and runs
RedHat 6.2 successfully.

If you don't need sound and serial support (just need application
support) you might look at Win4Lin (www.trelos.com) as a way to run
Windows apps with full commercial support, without having to dual-boot.
I won't get into a holy war about the virtues of WINE vs. other
solutions, but I personally use Win4Lin so that I can maintain all of my
files on my Linux filesystem and have access to them even when I'm not
running the Windoze emulator. :)  Since it just runs a shell with Win95
or Win98, I don't have to worry about porting individual apps or running
them each in their own memory space.  (I'm running Outlook Express in
RedHat right now, as a matter of fact.)

-Saska

From: Helena Verrill <verrill at math.ku.dk>


| Hi,
|
| I just joined this list, and so I hope this is an appropriate
| question to post here - if not let me know!
|
| I've decided to buy a laptop which I want to use with linux.
| (and keep windows on as well, since unfortunately I still
| would like it for things I can't do with linux).
| I've been reading the linux for laptops page, but there are so
| many entries there it is still a difficult decision to work out
| which one to get.
|
| Is it correct that just about any laptop can be made to work with
| linux, so it doesn't really matter too much which one I get, and
| I might as well make the decision first, and just check the linux
| lap top page at the last minute, just to check it won't be an
| exceptional case where everything is impossible?
|
| I have a friend who strongly recommends a Sony Vaio, - he uses
| Sony Vaio PCG-505TR, with linux, of course, and recommends I get
| the newer version, Sony Vaio PCG-Z505S.
| However, I also thought the Toshiba Porteges (any of them) looked from
| the descriptions on the linux laptops web pages that they would work
| well with linux.
|
| I would like to know if anyone has any additional comments on
installing
| linux on these laptops, especially if you've done it on both; or if
you'd
| particularly recommend something else.
| This would help me make up my mind faster.
|
| Thanks very much!
|
| Helena
|
| PS.  Since this is the first time I've posted to this list...
| I've used linux for about 2 years, and Unix for about 8 or 9 years,
| but I'm just a user, and there's a lot more I'd like to learn,
| which is why I joined the list.
| If anyone wants to know more about me, my home page is at
| http://www.math.ku.dk/~verrill/
|
|
|
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