Which Centrino 2 laptop for Linux?

I would like a laptop with these specs:

- Centrino 2 CPU

- Nvidia graphics chip (right? I understand ATI is still a royal pain to configure/install)
HDMI or DVI port ('might want to hook up to a LCD monitor or at least, I want the option and don't want only VGA port)

- I am not picky on the size but I guess I am looking at either 13", 14.1" and 15.4" (I have a desktop so I guess I want portability)

- it needs to have compatible hardware, in particular for the sound chip and especially wireless (do the latest Intel wireless chips work in Linux yet?) - I'm not keeping up to date so are the 5100 etc. chips are supported yet?

Are HP, Sony and Lenovo laptops equipped with the hardware specs I request? Which ones?

Any others?

Thanks.

 

I'd say a Lenovo Thinkpad would be a good choice.

 

Which Thinkpad? I thought if one goes for the Thinkpad, you have two choices, the ones with Intel X4500 Graphics (for e.g. T-series) or the SL series that have Nvidia 9300M.

I am not sure which ones have DVI or HDMI but maybe I cannot get all the options I want. I agree, though, Thinkpads have had a good rep with Linux installed.

 

Intel is reworking their Linux drivers and people are having troubles with the new onboard 4500 graphics. This should be very temporary, a month or two at worst.

I've got my eye on this Acer
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115506

Hey! It was cheaper a coupla days ago!

 

Unforunately, I can only order from the Canadian newegg site and there aren't as many choices.

 

If you think you want to do any games ever, the NVidia one (yes, there are games that run on Linux). Otherwise, the Intel graphics based one will run great for you, and use completely open drivers, versus the NVidia proprietary ones.

Either way, I recommend Lenovo highly for their Linux support (typing this on a T61 that runs Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit, XP only in a VM )

 

Sony has decent centrino 2 laptops.

 

Lenovo T400 is a pretty sweet machine.

 

I think anything with an Intel NICs and a Nvidia GPU should work nicely...

 

My Dell Latitude E5400 has a GM45 chipset. I am running Ubuntu 8.10 32-bit, which has the Intel 2.4.1 IGP drivers. The 2.4.x drivers support recognize the 40-series chipsets and should set up the LCD with the correct resolution and enable DRI- they did for my unit and others on the Ubuntu Forums report likewise. However, XvMC is *not* supported on the 40-series chipsets yet and there is a bug with 40-series chipsets and resuming from suspend-to-RAM and suspend-to-disk. The most recent 2.5.0 drivers on Intel's graphics website (intellinuxgraphics dot com) don't seem to offer much more than the 2.4.x drivers do.