[PLUG] Want old-but-good Linux laptop

[Keith Lofstrom]

I would like to buy a used-but-good midcapability laptop,
known-Linux-compatable .

One of you may be thinking about upgrading to a newer/faster/
smaller Linux laptop, while already having a perfectly usable
older machine that works well with Linux.  My wife makes
frequent trips back east to visit her family, and is getting 
tired of hauling her IBM Thinkpad T30 all the way there and
back.  Best to leave something there.

On my last trip east, I took her father's broken emachines
windows laptop (the BIOS was deranged and would no longer access
the disk properly) and put Linux on it.  That got it working
(though it took about 30 seconds to load the MBR).  Linux is
a great way to work around some bad BIOS problems, and squeeze
more performance out of old hardware.

Then my brother-in-law, a "Windows expert", broke it again
trying to restore Windows - without reading instructions,
notes (I spent most of a day determining Windows would not
run properly), or taking out the carefully optimized Linux
drive and putting in the smaller drive that Windows was on. 
But then, I already said he was a Windows expert, implying
a special way of "thinking".  Grrrr...

So, no more "family" machine;  she gets her own laptop back east,
and we lock it up when she isn't there.  She doesn't need much
when she is remote - documents in Open Office, web surfing,
printing, and a lot of xterm stuff.  VPN access for email and
backups.  I can set all that up, if the machine is capable.

I figure a 1GHz+ 512MB+ 1024x768+ decent-sized screen laptop
with a couple of PCMCIA slots will do it.  USB2 preferred,
USB1 acceptable.  Built in ethernet would be nice, though I can
use a PCMCIA slot for an ethernet card.  At least half an hour
of battery life.  A DVDreader CDwriter drive is a plus, but we
can get a USB one or just use thumb drives.  Built in Wifi a
slight minus, I prefer PCMCIA wireless, but I can pull the
internal card.  In other words, a 2002-2005 era high-quality
laptop.  A slight preference for IBM T series or something
with a trackpoint, but she can use a mouse.

What I don't want is driver hassles, poor quality, or other
headaches.  No lemons.  A known good machine running Linux
well, being replaced for upgrade reasons.  After I see the
laptop demonstrated, I will even let the original owner
keep the hard drive, we will add our own.

Contact me off the list with the make, model, and type number,
and what distro it is running now.  We can dicker from there.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs