LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Andrew Pullin <andrew@hotspurbgc.com.au>
  To  : Steve Nicholls <gl1500@internode.on.net>
        <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 02:51:41 +1000

Re: Laptops??

Hi There,
    Congrats on your changeover to a Linux Office. In my
experience with Linux on Laptops it is better to obtain a
name brand Laptop because these seem to be the ones best
supported. Good second hand Toshiba, IBM or Dell seem to be
the best supported of these. I would suggest looking on the
Linux on Laptops web page (whose URL escapes me at the
moment, but it is easy to find) to give you an idea of what
is easily supported.

    I personally run Suse 7.2 on my Toshiba 4270 and I have
had no problems at all with it. It was easy to install and
Suse auto detected and configured most things (Video, Sound,
etc). You will probably need to configure yourself on most
Laptops the built in Modem (often a Winmodem), and probably
the Network Card.

    As far as recommendations for a specific Laptop goes,
you should be able to pick up a good name brand Laptop that
is about 2-3 years old for about $1500-2000. I know this
sounds a lot, but the name brands seem to hold their value a
lot better than no names, but I have also found that they
seem to be better machines with less problems, and you can
always get servicing if you need it.

    As for specs, I would not look at  less than a PII or
Celeron II equivalent and around the 300-400 Mhz, but you
should be able to get a PIII equivalent at about 500 Mhz for
a good price if you look around. I would not even consider
less than 64Mb of memory, and obviously 128 Mb is better
still, although you may find it harder to get that much on
the older machines. Finally hard drive space. I run (through
necessity unfortunately) a dual boot setup with two 2 Gb
partitions and a 1.5 Gb partition with Linux. I have managed
to get everything I need on the Linux partition (a standard
Suse Office install with Star Office, X, etc), but I find it
a little small as I only have about 100 Mb for data after
the Swap partition is added. I would recommend if you do the
same to have at least a 2 Gb partition for Linux to give you
enough space for data and those other temporary applications
that get loaded up from time to time. This would mean that
if you want to dual boot as I do, then at least a 4 Gb HDD
is needed. I hope this has helped.
    Cheers!
        Andrew.

----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Nicholls <gl1500@internode.on.net>
To: <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 9:08 PM
Subject: Laptops??


> I have basically converted my office desktop to Linux
[using Win4Lin for
> Quickbooks] and would like advice on what I need to run
Gnome and Star
> office or Open office on a laptop.
>
> Basically looking to by a second hand unit that has what
it takes to run
> the above using Mandrake 8.2.
>
> What processor speed, Ram and harddrive size do I require.
>
> Are there any brands that Mandrake works better with. I
say MD because
> I'm just getting reasonably familiar with it.
>
> TIA
>
> Steve.
>
>
>
> --
> LinuxSA WWW: http://www.linuxsa.org.au/  IRC: #linuxsa on
irc.linux.org.au
> To unsubscribe from the LinuxSA list:
>   mail linuxsa-request@linuxsa.org.au with "unsubscribe"
as the subject

-- 
LinuxSA WWW: http://www.linuxsa.org.au/  IRC: #linuxsa on irc.linux.org.au
To unsubscribe from the LinuxSA list:
  mail linuxsa-request@linuxsa.org.au with "unsubscribe" as the subject