[PLUG] Laptop Recommendations

[Rich Shepard]

On Sun, 8 Jun 2003, Carla Schroder wrote:

> Sony Vaio GRX series, many Dells, and most Thinkpads support Linux well. The 
> tricky bits are built-in modems and sound. Power management is a big fat pain 
> in Linux, because it is still a work in progress at the kernel level, but I 
> hear tell some folks get ACPI going OK.

  I've had two Toshibas -- the latest the four-year-old Portege 3025CT which
is the finest notebook I've owned. It's run only linux and the power saving
features (apm) work just fine for me.

  One factor that I suggest be carefully considered is weight. My Portege
weighs about 2 pounds. With AC power brick it's still a reasonable weight to
carry through airports, meetings and all sorts of backing-and-forthing. My
original laptop -- a Gateway in 1992 -- was about 7 pounds by itself. That
got old very fast as I hauled it everywhere. Much better than the original
Compaq suitcase luggables and still better than the Kaypro-2000s, but heavy
as a lead brick.

  When I need the external ports or floppy drive I take those along.
Otherwise I carry the stripped down version with only the Ethernet and
modem/serial pcmcia cards and I've never missed the weight of hardware not
needed.

  So consider the trade of weight for components that you won't need on a
constant basis.

Rich

Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President

                       Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)
            2404 SW 22nd Street | Troutdale, OR 97060-1247 | U.S.A.
 + 1 503-667-4517 (voice) | + 1 503-667-8863 (fax) | rshepard@appl-ecosys.com
                         http://www.appl-ecosys.com/