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

[Raven, corporate courtesan]

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