Which laptops are most Linux compatible?

Hello!

I'm in the process of looking for a new laptop. I have switched recently to Ubuntu and therefore I want to buy a machine which would be as compatible as possible with Linux.

The programmes I use most on my present laptop, an Acer Travelmate 803, are Firefox, Thunderbird, OO and, under Windows XP, specialised software for a Garmin GPS and for genealogy (Heridis). In addition, I plan to use my new PC to transfer our Hi-8 video cassettes to DVD and then edit them. If you need to know more about what I am looking for, please see my previous post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=179658

At this point in time my short-list is made up of, in order of preference, Acer Aspire 5920, Dell Inspiron 1520 and, possibly, a Sony FZ.

I am hoping that in buying a machine with an NVidia Go Force graphics card and an Intel Wifi card I will be able to avoid the main compatibility problems, but I would like to benefit from the experience and expertise of you guys out there!

Thanks in advance for any advice you might be able to give me!

Eamann

 

Any recent notebook is Linux compatible. The question is, is each part you care about supported by the Linux community, and is the driver for each part proprietary or open source and Free. You have the right idea, checking on the parts you care about.

Anything to do with graphics or wireless networking can be a headache if you get the wrong parts. NVidia for graphics and Intel for WiFi are reasonable choices. NVidia drivers are proprietary, but they are very good. Practically, you can't do better than NVidia right now.

Looking at the Acer Aspire 5920, it looks like it should be compatible for the most part. It should be a breeze with Ubuntu. I don't know much about transferring Hi-8 video, but I would assume the software exists. Check to see what you would need for that specifically, both in terms of hardware and software, just to be sure.

 

I have my new 1520 setup dual bootable Vista/ 64bit Ubuntu 7.04 and it is running great. I pretty much have everything working stable on the linux side, although I have not tried out the bluetooth or firewire yet (nothing to test with.)

Granted not everything worked out of the box. I had to do some tweaks to get the video card and dvd/cd burner to work. WiFi worked out of the box (many people seem to have problems to get this to work.) But nothing was painful or had me beating my head against the wall. I did have to install off the alternate cd instead of the live cd though.

Overall it is running very stable, and I am very happy with my setup. I'm holding off upgrading to Gutsy 7.10, it seems alot of people are having problems getting clean installs, and I would just as soon not mess with it until they get some more bugs worked out.

I would give you a screenshot but i'm booted onto the "dark side" at this moment.


basic system specs:
Inspirion 1520
T7300 processor
2 Gb ram
Nvidia GF 8600M GT
160 GB 7200 HD
Intel 3945 ABG wireless card
Bluetooth
8x DVD/CD RW

 

Sorry for the delay in replying! I have been snowed under for the last week.

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply to my query! I will bear your suggestions in mind.

May I ask you both some questions that are not Linux connected?

Do you think that a laptop like the Dell Inspiron 1520 or the Acer Aspire is perhaps too powerful for just word processing, e-mails and surfing the Web? Would I not be spending money on specifications which I would not use? (Bear in mind that editing the videos is a limited and one-off task.)

Would having a 7 200 hard disk make a noticeable difference to the speed of programmes like OpenOffice, Thunderbird, Firefox, etc.?

With 1400 x 900 resolution, is text not too small on a 15" screen?

Is there any justification in buying a 17" laptop just to do the sort of humdrum tasks I do? And how does text show up on a 17" screen with WUXA resolution?

(Bazald, what brand of laptop do you have? The reference number in your signature does not mean anything to the newbie that I am.)

The more I surf the forums and read reviews, the harder my choice is becoming! There are obviously a lot of (very) good laptops on the market, but I do not see that any one is generally considered THE best.

Looking forward to hearing from you both,

Eamann

 

Dell also sells the Inspiron 1420 with Ubuntu pre-installed. I'd make sure you put extra RAM in there, but probably not go overboard with the CPU. Aim for a mid-level CPU, and you should be able to do video editing fine without wasting a lot of money. I personally think that 1400x900 is too big for a 15" screen... you can always increase the DPI settings My girlfriend is running Ubuntu 7.10 on a Dell 1520, and everything works perfectly with the very latest updates. She doesn't have a webcam, though.

 

Thanks for your input, Pitabred, especially as regards optimal resolution and the use of the DPI settings.

As regards preinstalled Linux, Dell has yet to offer it in continental Europe (I think that it is planned to put it on sale in the UK).

The Dell Inspiron 1520 seems increasingly attractive.

Eamann

 

Whenever I make a new computer purchase I typically set a budget of how much I want to spend +/- a couple hundred dollars, then I will try to find the the best/fastest/powerful most up to date system that will fit into that budget regardless of whether it "might" be beyond my actual needs. In 6 months the hardware will be obsolete anyways, IMHO. It seems that there is always new software coming out thats requires more ram, cpu power etc. so why not get the best system available that fits into your budget.

As far as the 1400x900 res on a 15" screen, the text is definately smaller, but i'm starting to get used to it. Although my wife has to ask me what i'm doing on the occasions i'm sitting on the sofa in the evening holding the laptop 3 inches from my nose.

Overall I have been quite happy with my 1520, Ubuntu is running fine, and I don't find Vista to be quite the horror show that many are making it out to be.

 

You could just go to the Dell US site, config a preinstalled notebook, and compare hardware to the options given on the UK site. The Dell linux install disk images are available on the web, so if you have identical hardware, you could set it up just like the pre installed models.

 

I'll put in another vote for the inspiron 1520. There are sites with configuration details for 7.04 (Feisty) and 7.10 (Gutsy).

You can never have too much RAM or CPU. Seriously though, if you will be doing video capture and conversion, I wouldn't get less than about a 1.8 Core2Duo and 2GB RAM. 7200RPM HDD would not be worth it for what you do. 1400x900 is fairly small, but very sharp. I like it, but my eyes are only 25 years old. It doesn't sound to me like you would benefit from a 17", which is horrible if you travel with it at all. Hope I was some help.

BTW AtomicDad, bluetooth worked out of the box for me on Feisty. I hear firewire does too.

 

Thats good to hear, eventually I want to pick a bluetooth mouse, and if I can ever find my firewire cable for my video cam I should be good to go.

 

Any that would run well with openSUSE?