Shopping for my first laptop and hoping for something which
I won't have too much trouble installing linux on. My favorite
distros are Fedora, Centos and Gentoo. One thing I'm worried in
particular is the wireless driver--alot of people complain about
having to use ndiswrapper or some such thing to get it to work.
As far as specs I'm looking for something with at least
2Gb of RAM, 15 inch screen, g/n wireless, 160Gb HD, DVD burner, and 3 hr
battery life.

thanks for all the good advice.

In news:487e94d9$0$7344$607ed4bc@cv.net,
asdf typed on 17 Jul 2008 00:39:53 GMT:
> Shopping for my first laptop and hoping for something which
> I won't have too much trouble installing linux on. My favorite
> distros are Fedora, Centos and Gentoo. One thing I'm worried in
> particular is the wireless driver--alot of people complain about
> having to use ndiswrapper or some such thing to get it to work.
> As far as specs I'm looking for something with at least
> 2Gb of RAM, 15 inch screen, g/n wireless, 160Gb HD, DVD burner, and 3
> hr battery life.
>
> thanks for all the good advice.

Thought about buying a computer that already has Linux installed? I mean
people buy computers with Windows installed because it means that it works
with Windows. And others buy Macs because it works with Mac OS. So the same
thing applies with Linux, right?

--
Bill

asdf wrote:
> Shopping for my first laptop and hoping for something which
> I won't have too much trouble installing linux on. My favorite
> distros are Fedora, Centos and Gentoo. One thing I'm worried in
> particular is the wireless driver--alot of people complain about
> having to use ndiswrapper or some such thing to get it to work.
> As far as specs I'm looking for something with at least
> 2Gb of RAM, 15 inch screen, g/n wireless, 160Gb HD, DVD burner, and 3 hr
> battery life.
>
> thanks for all the good advice.


I don't know if this is common to linux too, but on Solaris x86, the
fingerprint reader and camera I've not managed to get drivers for. WiFi
worked as soon as I installed Solaris. Laptop here is a Sony VGN-SZ4XWN/C.

So if you want a camera or fingerprint reader, I would worry more about
that, as I think that is more difficult to get working. I would think in
this day and age, WiFi should be quite easy.

Dave wrote:
> asdf wrote:
>> Shopping for my first laptop and hoping for something which
>> I won't have too much trouble installing linux on. My favorite
>> distros are Fedora, Centos and Gentoo. One thing I'm worried in
>> particular is the wireless driver--alot of people complain about
>> having to use ndiswrapper or some such thing to get it to work.
>> As far as specs I'm looking for something with at least
>> 2Gb of RAM, 15 inch screen, g/n wireless, 160Gb HD, DVD burner, and 3
>> hr battery life.
>> thanks for all the good advice.
>
>
> I don't know if this is common to linux too, but on Solaris x86, the
> fingerprint reader and camera I've not managed to get drivers for. WiFi
> worked as soon as I installed Solaris. Laptop here is a Sony VGN-SZ4XWN/C.
>
> So if you want a camera or fingerprint reader, I would worry more about
> that, as I think that is more difficult to get working. I would think in
> this day and age, WiFi should be quite easy.

Depends on the distro and the wireless card (chipset). For me the
wireless worked right out of the box with PCLinuxOS 2007. The wireless
configuration was performed during the initial setup through an easy to
use setup program. Despite all of the bally-hoo surrounding Ubuntu, I
was never able to get the wireless to work, at least not natively.

On 17 Jul 2008 00:39:53 GMT, asdf <asdf@asdf.com> wrote:

>Shopping for my first laptop and hoping for something which
>I won't have too much trouble installing linux on. My favorite
>distros are Fedora, Centos and Gentoo. One thing I'm worried in
>particular is the wireless driver--alot of people complain about
>having to use ndiswrapper or some such thing to get it to work.
>As far as specs I'm looking for something with at least
>2Gb of RAM, 15 inch screen, g/n wireless, 160Gb HD, DVD burner, and 3 hr
>battery life.
>
>thanks for all the good advice.

As one other responder recommended... purchase a laptop with Linux
already installed and working. It will cost a little more but if
you're new to Linux it will not be much more and save lots of
headaches.

I believe HP is selling laptops with pre installed Linux and I've had
lots of good luck with both HP and Compaq laptops (all HP now). I had
Kubunut running on my Compaq Presario until an HP upgrade and then
I've never been able to get the wireless (Broadcomm) working again.

Do a google search for laptop+linux.

Good luck and enjoy!