A total mess: cannot get any Linux-compatible laptop

Eric Buist · #1 24th June 2006, 06:39 PM

Hello,
I started looking for a laptop for a week, and I find nothing at all that suits me, only frustration and technical limitations. I would like to get a machine that works perfectly with Fedora Core 5 (or any other Linux distribution at worse. In fact, this would be a dual boot system with Windows XP Pro and Linux), but it seems that there are many many unsolvable problems.

First, many if not most brand-new laptops come with a sucking ATI Radeon Mobility graphic card which is pain to configure with X.org. If I could at least get 2D acceleration WITHOUT ATI's messy proprietary driver, I would be happy, but even that is not guarenteed at all! Laptops with NVIDIA cards are rarer while there are a few models with Intel GMAs. Intel graphics sometimes works, sometimes not, as I read on the Web. Why so many ATIs? Is it technically better than other laptop cards? Is it the only brand to support PCI Express in laptops?
Wi-fi seems to cause problems, but they can be solved by installing a driver. Intel Wi-fi is a good guess since there is a driver for this, although surprisingly not integrated in the kernel.
Sound has a great probability not to work, but this is not a big deal. I suspect I will have to make some sacrifices to get a working laptop. If I must sacrify something, sound will be the thing.

To complicate matters a bit more, I would like a processor other than a Celeron, for example, a Core Duo or Solo, while some laptops still come with a dumb Celeron. I want a medium-sized screen, 15" for example, not too big because it wastes battery life. I would like to pay 1000$-1500$ canadien (not USD!) for the machine.

I found that the best solution is to buy my laptop from the Internet, since this will give me access to a wider range of possibilities. If I go to a local store, I will have to choose between three or four brands, with maybe one or two models in each brand. If I am unlucky, no one of the candidate laptops will be there, and I will have to restart investigations with the laptops available in store.
But I live in Canada and many Canadian Web sites seem not to work well at all. Dell.ca is the best site I found so far. I can get the full configuration of the laptops offered and customize them. But ibm.ca does not display me any laptops at all (I have to go to ibm.com and get all prices in US dollars, so my total price in canadian dollars will be an approximation). Finally, toshiba.ca does not let me customize the laptop, and I need this to adapt the crap to my needs. And again, most Toshiba models come with an ATI graphic card, and at best an Intel graphic card.

I found Linux-Laptop to be a very good source of information, but many newer laptops are not listed there. For example, the Dell Inspiron 640M (a candidate I retained), and all Toshiba Satallite Pro's (A110, for example) are not there.
I also found Emperor Linux to be a good alternative, but this is rather expansive for a laptop that will be a secondary PC.

So I am completely puzzled, and the only solution that is left to me is to give up and not buy any laptop at all. Is there a chance, in some years, that a standard form factor will come up for laptops, e.g., a somewhat micro-micro-ATX or BTX? I think more and more that this would be the only way to go, a totally custom laptop, with only Linux-compatible components.

landoncz · #2 25th June 2006, 06:23 PM

A custom laptop is probably your way to go. I think Asus is probably the most popular option for builiding your custom laptop. I chose a 14" widescreen Asus case, popped in my Pentium M, HD, and RAM, and was ready to go. I ended up saving about $200 or so probably. I would just choose a custom case that seems to use the most popular hardware compontents. All of my components are working (except for the built in card reader), and aside from the video and wireless, all were working out of the box... Good luck

Beachside · #3 25th June 2006, 11:58 PM

I am using a Gateway MX7527 got it at best buy in Myrtle Beach for $1100 USD. AMD 64 bit @ 2.6 ghz, 1 gig RAM 120 GB hard disk, and yes ATIGraphics, broadcom wireless. Had to fdisk the disk, put XP Pro on (not the Gateway shipped OS) and Fedora 5 which works really well on it, a lot better than XP does, anyway.

treak007 · #4 26th June 2006, 03:03 AM

hmmm, maybe check out http://emperorlinux.com/ for compatible notebooks. While those notebooks bought directly from emperor-linux cost a lot of money, you can always buy the exact same laptop from the oem (emperor-linux puts linux on lenovo, dell, toshiba and sony notebooks) and then configure linux yourself. Personally those have the greastest chance of working in my opinion because emperor-linux tells you in the item description which components have linux support and which ones dont.

dmizer · #5 26th June 2006, 08:10 AM

try here: http://system76.com/ ... they come with ubuntu preinstalled, but if it works in ubuntu it'll work with fedora core with little or no hassle. <-- whoops, just noticed that they don't offer free shipping to canada.

or here: http://mcelrath.org/laptops.html

Stevenjd · #6 26th June 2006, 10:03 AM

I have Toshiba M30 15.4 wide screen with in built WIFI Intel 2200bg, an Nvidia fx5200 It works great, just 2 probs, 1 the modem is a soft modem it does work but is un stable. And the SD card reader does not work - which I have heard that it a properitry issue. Otherwise it works great!!!

Stevenjd · #7 26th June 2006, 10:07 AM

To follow - to get a machine that suit your needs, 1 try toshiba or better yet try HP's web site they have a list of supported Linux PC's/Laptops - (RedHat mind you). But if it is supported for RedHat you should have no probs with FC5

brandor · #8 26th June 2006, 02:09 PM

IBM, technically Lenovo now I guess, does a great job at linux. They are a little more pricey than some of the others. But honestly, you get what you pay for.

Eric Buist · #9 26th June 2006, 02:57 PM

Thank you for this information. So several laptops work with Linux, but problems always happen with the wi-fi, the sound, the card reader, and sometimes the video.

Eric Buist · #10 26th June 2006, 05:03 PM

I tried to look for Asus custom laptops, but Asus.com only propose prebuilt laptops, and even no option to order online. I then looked again on EmperorLinux, and they only propose laptops with custom names which cannot be linked to the models by the manufacturers.
My conclusion is that a Linux laptop requires extensive customization of the hardware and the Linux kernel which can be done only by specialists, and I cannot find any online buying option in Canada. The only simple solution is to buy a brand-named laptop, try, and forget (after great frustration and loss of time) about Linux if too many components do not work.

treak007 · #11 26th June 2006, 07:03 PM

emperorlinux does give you the manufactor's name for the laptop. For example an lenovo t60 thinkpad, would be under the tucan name, but after you click that youll see it says t60. Also, it tells you the name used by the manufactor in the product desciption. ie: http://emperorlinux.com/mfgr/lenovo/toucan/ the numbers after the name tucan is the model number used by ibm.

Eric Buist · #12 26th June 2006, 07:30 PM

Yah, that's right. So I looked at that, and I am still very disappointed. If I restrict my selection to what EmperorLinux recommends, I have to choose between a small and slow 40Gig/4200rpms hard drive or an ATI Radeon Mobility, unless I pay more than 2000$ for my laptop! I don't understand why EmperorLinux sells laptops with ATI cards, dince the proprietary driver, almost always needed to get even basic 2D acceleration, sometimes works, sometimes not.

d3viant · #13 26th June 2006, 11:38 PM

I would either recommend an IBM, or a Sony - the vaio range doesnt usually do too badly with Linux. I think all Sony laptops have Nvidia cards aswell....

These options are both slightly more expensive, but it's better to pay slightly more to get something that'll definitely work I think.

treak007 · #14 27th June 2006, 12:55 AM

take a look at the dell latitude d820, thats a rather powerful notebook for a decent price if purchased from dell.com

dmizer · #15 27th June 2006, 01:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric Buist

My conclusion is that a Linux laptop requires extensive customization of the hardware and the Linux kernel which can be done only by specialists, and I cannot find any online buying option in Canada. The only simple solution is to buy a brand-named laptop, try, and forget (after great frustration and loss of time) about Linux if too many components do not work.

there's lots of laptops out there that work just fine in linux, wireless and all (and without a great deal of headache). they may not have the exacting standards you're looking for, but we're talking about a laptop here, not a desktop. you can only customize a laptop so much because the form factor is limiting. everything is on board. you can't just slip a different video card into your machine and have an amd laptop with an nvidia video card ... this requires a whole new main board.

there are exceptions to the above, but when you're looking for 100% custom design, you are looking at 100% price increase.