Need a new laptop what to get?

[Guest salan]

Hi All,

My Toshiba laptop (one of the last pcs I own with Windows on) is terminally ill.

So I want to get a new laptop. I have an Asus EEEPC with EEEubuntu on it and a 'man eater' of a desktop with more flavourse of OS's on it then I can remember lol.

But I do use my laptop to surf/email/msn play vids etc.

I would like to NOT have to go to Windows for this and I dont want to pay lots (£3~400).

So Anyone any reccomendations for a laptop that will just work with a flavour of Linux?

I am not too particular on which Linux but prefer a debian style one (happy with Fadora or SUSE as well).

I don't want something thatI am going to have to spend ages 'tweaking' to get going. Not special hardware requirements might need wifi but don't use it as such.

Reccomend away!

Alan

[powdarrmonkey]

My HP 6710b plays happily with Debian Lenny, just had to do something with the wlan drivers - I think b43-cutter worked it out.

 

I don't know of any laptops that aren't bundled with a Windows license though, which kinda sucks.

[soapyfish]

I would always suggest a X or T series lenovo I have never had any issues getting them to work and there are some great Thinkpad how tos like these

 

Installation - ThinkWiki

Linux on IBM Laptops & Notebooks (Thinkpads)

[tmcd35]

Well, er, since you are looking for a *nix laptop It'd be a bit wrong of me not to suggest the gorgeous MacBook seriously OS-X + X11 + fink = 1 good unix distro.

 

Other whys, I'd go Lenovo. If you've got time to kill setting up and getting 'just how you like it' NetBSD is an interesting option. Otherwhys it's OpenSuSE all the way for me. Each time I try a Red Hat based distro I find somethinf I don't like about it and keep running back to the comfort of SuSE.

 

The N500 series are cheap, powerful and good alround laptops. Would run OpenSuSE just fine.

[matt40k]

Openbsd works on my Dell's I've tried AND best of all, you can get them without Windows COA!!

[Ric_]

+1 for the ThinkPads and ThinkWiki (mentioned above) rocks!

[EduTech]

+1 for Dell and Lenovo

 

I like how Dell Now offer linux as a pre installed OS, makes it cheaper and more ideal for someone like yourself.

 

James.

[Guest richard_s]

I have never had any real problems with Acers. I have installed various distros on various models over the years and apart from the the usual issues with wireless adaptors which you get with any make and model the only thing that has caused a problem has been a lack of support for the Ricoh xD card reader.