[gentoo-user] Re: laptop

[James]

John Jolet <john <at> jolet.net> writes:


> I need to have my company order me a new laptop, but obviously, i'll be
> putting gentoo on it.  Does anyone have a recommendation for a very small 'n'
> light laptop known to be pretty much a slam dunk to get gentoo on (with sound
> and wireless, etc)?


It's easy to get a machine that has updated (newer revisions) of critical
chipsets, which may or maynot work with linux drivers.
It's best to get a 2005.1 install CD and try to boot the machine up, before 
purchase. Often I go to a big store and test things out before purchase.

You may what to ensure that critical tools 'lspci' and 'lshw' are on the CD
before trotting off to the store. Also, if the critical hardware is
usb basd, make sure you have the appropriate discovery tools on the CD
or a companion CD. Folks at Best Buy (USA) are always curious to let
me experiment with their windoz offerings. I've snagged a few gentoo
recruits this way. They offer to purchase the CD before I leave, and are
quite astonished when it is gifted to them. They look at Gentoo, as 
a treasure revealing deep secrets about the hardware they are selling.
 However, more often than not the discounted machine I'm looking
at has weird hardware or something that I do not like. For instance
using hdparm to profile the hard drive performance is another good
idea. Bargain bozes often have substandard HD, or wireless chipssets
that are mostly disfunctional, even under winblowz.

Warning, I'm not sure why, but some of these aforementioned diagnostic
tools are not part of the standard gentoo install CD.....Let me know if 
you  find an install CD that has lots of hardware diag tools as
part of the CD. I never seem to get around to building a customized
CD, just for this purpose, but surely someone else has created
a boot/diag/install version of 2005.*  ????

HTH,

James



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