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On Wednesday 26 October 2005 10:04, James wrote: |
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> John Jolet <john <at> jolet.net> writes: |
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> > I need to have my company order me a new laptop, but obviously, i'll be |
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> > putting gentoo on it. Does anyone have a recommendation for a very small |
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> > 'n' light laptop known to be pretty much a slam dunk to get gentoo on |
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> > (with sound and wireless, etc)? |
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> |
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> It's easy to get a machine that has updated (newer revisions) of critical |
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> chipsets, which may or maynot work with linux drivers. |
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> It's best to get a 2005.1 install CD and try to boot the machine up, before |
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> purchase. Often I go to a big store and test things out before purchase. |
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That's a great idea. I'll take my knoppix cd. I've never had that fail to |
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work on a strange pc. |
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> |
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> You may what to ensure that critical tools 'lspci' and 'lshw' are on the CD |
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> before trotting off to the store. Also, if the critical hardware is |
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> usb basd, make sure you have the appropriate discovery tools on the CD |
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> or a companion CD. Folks at Best Buy (USA) are always curious to let |
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> me experiment with their windoz offerings. I've snagged a few gentoo |
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> recruits this way. They offer to purchase the CD before I leave, and are |
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> quite astonished when it is gifted to them. They look at Gentoo, as |
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> a treasure revealing deep secrets about the hardware they are selling. |
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> However, more often than not the discounted machine I'm looking |
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> at has weird hardware or something that I do not like. For instance |
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> using hdparm to profile the hard drive performance is another good |
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> idea. Bargain bozes often have substandard HD, or wireless chipssets |
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> that are mostly disfunctional, even under winblowz. |
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> |
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> Warning, I'm not sure why, but some of these aforementioned diagnostic |
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> tools are not part of the standard gentoo install CD.....Let me know if |
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> you find an install CD that has lots of hardware diag tools as |
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> part of the CD. I never seem to get around to building a customized |
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> CD, just for this purpose, but surely someone else has created |
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> a boot/diag/install version of 2005.* ???? |
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> |
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> HTH, |
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> |
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> James |
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|
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-- |
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John Jolet |
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Your On-Demand IT Department |
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512-762-0729 |
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www.jolet.net |
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john@×××××.net |
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-- |
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