Linux Laptops

[sinewav]

Got one? Let me hear about it.

Since my life is starting to get a bit more stable, I've decided I might go ahead and get a newer laptop; maybe something made a few years ago instead of almost 10 years ago. Because playing like this is unacceptable. My lack of proper video drivers also makes Inkscape crash, and hangs up some of my music production software. That's a big, big problem for me too.

I'm probably going to install Ubuntu 10.10 since I'm most familiar with it, and hopefully on a laptop with a nVidia chip. Anyone have a good experience with something similar?

[Word]

this could help you (if you get an nvidia):
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... 77#p204177

[Z-Man]

I'm rather happy with my Dell Latitude D820 right now. They come in different builds, of course, but mine has an NVidia (claims to be a Go 7300) chip and a nice 1920x1200 display. Everything worked out of the box with Ubuntu 10.04 (at some point I had to permanently disable Compositing or X would crash on login already, that's all), Windows XP and 7 also work fine. It's more of a small desktop replacement thing, though and does get a tad warmer on the bottom than I'd like it do. And to let the battery live longer, I usually take it out, which has two downsides: one of the four little nubs the thing rests on on a level surface is on the battery, so without battery, it doesn't sit right on a table, and the power plug has a tendency to slowly unplug itself over time, so whenever I forget to check it for three days or so I mysteriously lose power. Grr.

[chrisd]

I have been using Ubuntu for some time, but I stopped doing that. The problem is that I have found it to be quite unreliable. The package manager crashing on a regular basis is not something I particularly enjoy. I used to be more or less won over by this nice Ubuntu/Debian fairy tale that you can just upgrade to a newer version without doing a new install, but in the real world that never seems to work unless you are quite knowledgeable and prepared to spend hours to make it work again. Maybe it is just that Ubuntu does not work that well on 64 bits. Nowadays I have Debian squeeze on my laptop and Suse on my Desktop. The disadvantage about Suse is that they do not have that many packages, but what I like is that all the multimedia stuff works more or less right out of the box. All the programming tools I want, I can compile for myself, but I don't like spending hours setting up multimedia things, so this kind of works out for me.

[Cosmic Dolphin]

I used to be using an old IBM Thinkpad R40e with Puppy Linux. Worked pretty good for the Internet, but I had to switch over to Windows XP for most applications. The laptop is literally in pieces at the moment (the inverter and the wiring for the screen went out at the same time.) Got a new laptop, planning on switching it from Windows 7 to Ubuntu as soon as my free trial of Norton internet security runs out...I personally can't get it to work, I got a friend named UbuntuRocks that helps me get all the kinks out. Talk to him, maybe?

[sinewav]

...at some point I had to permanently disable Compositing or X would crash on login already, that's all...

I have no idea what compositing is. I may have to ask you about this later. I think I might buy the same laptop you have.

I used to be more or less won over by this nice Ubuntu/Debian fairy tale that you can just upgrade to a newer version without doing a new install, but in the real world that never seems to work unless you are quite knowledgeable and prepared to spend hours to make it work again.

Yeah, I'm experiencing a lot of problems, and trying to be patient about it. A good friend got me into this mess, but I can't see going back now, haha. I need to stick to a system that allows me to be creative as possible, which means I have to run the best graphics and audio programs Linux has to offer. SO far that's Inkscape, Gimp, Blender, and several audio programs like LMMS and Muse.

I used to be using an old IBM Thinkpad R40e with Puppy Linux.

Man, the R40 has the same crap video chip as my T30, haha. That's 99% of my problem. It was great for Windows though. I really got my money's worth out of this box.

[Z-Man]

There are other ThinkPads with similar overall quality and different GPUs, and they're all quite linux-friendly. Just saying. My main reason for not getting one myself when I had to pick was the keyboard layout, specifically the order of the CTRL and FN modifiers.

[sinewav]

My main reason for not getting one myself when I had to pick was the keyboard layout, specifically the order of the CTRL and FN modifiers.

I know, that's totally dumb how they did that. Screws me up a lot. My main reason for looking at different vendors is because I'm not entirely sure I want another ATI chip; I've had bad experiences with just about every ATI product I've owned. A larger percentage of Thinkpads have ATI chips, IIRC.

Can anyone say for sure which is the best video chipset to use with Linux? I guess that's the question I should really be asking. From what I've read so far, it's nVidia. ATI makes Linux users angry it seems.

[Z-Man]

It depends how you feel about the closed source nature of the drivers provided by NVidia. I personally don't mind as long as the interface is open and sufficient support for the various Linux variants and GPU versions is provided. That has worked moderately well. I've stuck with NVidia ever since 3Dfx stopped being good and only had two real problems: 1. The driver didn't support "suspend to disk" on Gentoo with the old GeForce2Go and 2. Support for the GeForce2Go was moved to the legacy driver with limited support, specifically I don't think I would have been able to go beyond Ubuntu 8.04 (there were other reasons for sticking to that, so I never tried). Oh, yeah, and the crashes with Compositing (those are the fancy desktop effects where windows swoosh around as you alt-tab through them) enabled. And, a little annoyingly, they don't support desktop rotation.

[sinewav]

I'm rather happy with my Dell Latitude D820 right now.

I just snagged one of these off eBay for under $250, loaded. Processors are only 1.6GHz, but it's got 3GB RAM and a 500GB drive. This should last me a few years for sure, especially considering how conservative I am with my tech.

[Tank Program]

I'm rather happy with my Dell Latitude D820 right now.

I just snagged one of these off eBay for under $250, loaded. Processors are only 1.6GHz, but it's got 3GB RAM and a 500GB drive. This should last me a few years for sure, especially considering how conservative I am with my tech.

Good deal.

[Z-Man]

I'll say. Please tell me you don't have a super-high-res-screen, or I'll get a case of buyer's envy.

[kyle]

his most definitely is a "super-high-res-screen"

[milan]

I'm using acer aspire 5741G with i5 cpu 4gb ram and nvidia geforce gt320m 1gb mem. Everything works perfectly with ubuntu OS family as well with other distros i have been using. Hope this helps.

[sinewav]

Well, I got the Dell Latitude D820 up and running in no time. The one I got doesn't have the nVidia chip, but instead has an 8MB Intel 945GM. I read that the Intel chips are specially designed to use system RAM up to 224MB and I knew the support was good so I decided to go for it. The system looks sharp after the brand new install.

I had to spend a little time tweaking Armagetron though. And even though it is an incredible improvement over the crap ATI chip I had, the graphics are still a bit choppy at times. I haven't had a chance to look into it, but I'm wondering if there is anything I could do to improve performance, like maybe adding something to xorg.conf. Or maybe someone was written some kind of control panel for the Intel chips?

Looks like I'll be busy researching.