[Techtalk] Laptop recommendations? (was: Random: MS problem, Linux solution...)

[James]

I have a Compaq.  I hate it.  It is almost a year old and isn't holding
up well.  Replaced the floppy drive... And might have to replace the
battery, it doesn't seem to be able to hold a charge.

Also the NIC/modem combo is a Winmodem.  The company who makes it,
Conexion (or something), doesn't even support it beyond WinME.  Doesn't
detect on Win2k and WinXP managles it into working.  No driver for
Linux, even tho one was supposed to be released.  So I bought a NETGEAR
PCMCIA card.

My adopted sisters have IBM laptops (their dad works for IBM).  They
seem to like them, but they are just AIM+Solitare users, basically.

- James


> -----Original Message-----
> From: techtalk-admin at linuxchix.org 
> [mailto:techtalk-admin at linuxchix.org] On Behalf Of Raven, 
> corporate courtesan
> Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 12:18 PM
> To: techtalk at linuxchix.org
> Subject: [Techtalk] Laptop recommendations? (was: Random: MS 
> problem, Linux solution...)
> 
> 
> Heya --
> 
> Quoth James (Tue, Jan 22, 2002 at 09:15:47PM -0500):
> > It has one of those ridiculous touchpads (I use a USB 
> mouse), which I 
> > hate, as my hands always accidentally touch it while typing and I 
> > delete half a page of work.
> 
> 	I hate those too, for the exact same reason.  And it's 
> getting harder and harder to find laptops without them.  I 
> greatly prefer a trackball, but those are almost impossible 
> to find nowadays.  Even the little button-mice in the middle 
> of the keyboard are better.
> 
> > sudo cat /dev/psaux > /dev/null &
> > And it worked =)
> 
> 	Neat; I wouldn't have thought of that.  Thanks, James.  
> I'm more likely to get an external PS2 trackball, though, so 
> I have to remember not to shoot myself in the foot.
> 
> 	In other news -- I will be getting a new laptop with my 
> tax return this year, and putting Debian on it.  Does anyone 
> have recommendations for laptops that they particularly like, 
> or have worked particularly well with Linux?  I'm trying to 
> do some research in advance.  I've had generally good luck in 
> the past with Dells or with IBM ThinkPads, but I've only 
> helped friends with their installs.  I've never gotten to 
> keep the laptop, so I don't know what they're like to actually run.
> 
> 	A good network card is the most essential thing.  (90% 
> of what I'll be doing with it is remote administration, 
> network pen testing, and
> such.)  I don't much care about a nice graphics card (though 
> it has to be able to run 1024x768 X) or super-quality sound 
> card.  Playing MP3s would be good, but I can't even tell the 
> difference between tape quality and CD quality, so I'm not an 
> audio snob.  Lots of hard drive space so I can do forensics 
> on the go would be nice, and lots of memory because I 
> generally have ten million xterms open at any one time.
> 
> 	Any recommendations, horror stories, things to get, 
> things to avoid?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Raven
>  
> "Unrated beta feh. You are alpha bitch queen.  I am alpha 
> bitch princess. 
>  Mwa ha ha."
>   -- Jalen, on pack dynamics 
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