[luau] laptops

[Warren Togami]

Charles Lockhart wrote:
> I'm looking for a laptop that'll run linux really well, is pretty 
> powerful, and has a BIG screen, something like the new Vaio 16" laptop 
> monitor.  I seem to be finding a lot of info, but none that I really want.
> 
> Anybody know of an info source for laptops that could help me narrow it 
> down some?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -Charles

Before you buy anything, you will want to check a few sources to make 
sure it will run Linux well.

* http://linux-laptop.net
List of many brands and models of laptops and experiences of many people 
using those laptops.

* http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpi/
Any modern laptop NEEDS ACPI for power management or you will quickly 
eat battery power and always run at 100% power (HEAT!).  Unfortunately 
ACPI isn't mature yet, although the ACPI kernel patch from this site is 
approaching that goal.  Read through the acpi-devel mailing list 
archives looking for success/failure stories about laptops you are 
looking at.  Most laptops do work well now with this ACPI kernel patch 
and tools, but you will need to build your own kernels as currently no 
Linux distributions ship with ACPI kernels.  (Red Hat 8.1 beta has ACPI, 
but it is an older version that generally doesn't work properly on many 
systems.)

* Video card should ideally support 3D hardware acceleration. 
Surprising few laptops support 3D hardware acceleration in Linux.  I 
*think* all nVidia Geforce Go graphics can be made to run using nVidia's 
proprietary drivers, but that probably would have problems with custom 
kernels with big changes like ACPI.
Currently the only laptops that I know support 3D hardawre acceleration 
with Open Source drivers have integrated i815 chipset video.  This isn't 
  very fast but at least compatible.  Perhaps there are some Radeon 
laptops that can do 3D hardware acceleration, but I don't know which.
On the bright side if you have no intention of running 3D games in 
Linux, you can probably save $500-$1,000 dollars and buy much cheaper 
laptops whose components all work fine with the kernel ACPI patch.
(Also look at the DRI homepage for a list of video cards that support 
open source 3D hardware acceleration.)

There are a few more things to think about, but I can't remember them at 
the moment.

Warren Togami
warren at togami.com