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Laptops That Support FreeBSD/Win/Linux/Solaris? 37

Posted by Cliff from the the-classic-many-to-one-relationship dept.
whirred asks: "I often hear about certain laptops being particularly bad or ideal for particular operating systems. I want to purchase a laptop with around 30 gigs of hard drive space, and when I do, I want to be able to use FreeBSD, Linux, Win32, and Solaris on Intel. I would also like to possibly install BeOS or OpenBSD. Not being an expert on any of these operating systems, is there a laptop out there that has hardware that is supported by all of these operating systems?"
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Laptops That Support FreeBSD/Win/Linux/Solaris? More

Laptops That Support FreeBSD/Win/Linux/Solaris?

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  • Well, I hate to say this (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I know it's probably going to be taken as a troll, but if there's one thing Windows does well that other operating systems don't do well, it's support as much hardware as possible. I don't know of any laptop that is supported on all of those operating systems, but for an x86 architecture, Windows really is your best bet for compatibility.

  • Linux laptop information, personal experience (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07, 2001 @11:01PM (#307849)

    Laptops are always nightmares. They contain a great deal of hardware, typically customized in proprietary, non-public ways, that can NOT be swapped out or changed. To make matters worse, Microsoft, being the evil money-grubbing bastards they are, now encourages (or is that requires) laptop manufacturers to distribute win98 (or whatever they are up to now) in a completely-wipe-and-rebuild-the-entire-system cd. So forget about installing windows after reformatting/partitioning the drive. Even if you have a different copy of windows, you'd still be missing all the customized drivers.

    All that said, Linux on a laptop is incredibly, unbelievably useful. My recommendation is that you check out http://www.linux-laptop.net/ [linux-laptop.net]. They are one of the best sources for getting Linux up and going on your laptop.

    One or two other pieces of advice:

    • To get both win98 and Linux on my laptop, I needed to clean-wipe-and-reinstall win98, then BEFORE booting into win98 for the first time, resize the windows partition, and create the linux partitions. Win98 wanted to create a swapfile at the end of its partition, which prevented the partition from being resized. My friends in the windows world tell me there's an easier solution. I just needed to buy certain additional software programs. But, as seldom as I use windows, I was damned if they were going to get any more money out of me!

    • Installing Red Hat 6.2 locked up my laptop's keyboard whenever I hit the second stage install. (I tried every option from ftp to nfs to floppy to cdrom boot.) Solution: In BIOS, I set closing the case lid to suspend the computer, booted Red Hat off cdrom, closed the lid when it froze, reopened the lid, which unfroze Red Hat, and continued the install. Only problem: Forgot I had set this "feature". Later on, tried to ssh into the laptop after I had closed the lid....

  • I have an A20M model and I got the modem running (it's a Xircom) The link is at... http://walbran.org/sean/linux/stodolsk/ the file is called ltmodem-5.78e.tar.gz For my 2.4.2 kernel I think I only had to add an #ifdef statement into one .c file in the kernel source tree to make it compile.

  • An expensive option (Score:3)

    by Paul Carver ( 4555 ) on Sunday April 08, 2001 @07:45AM (#307851)
    If you want to spend the money, www.emperorlinux.com has a selection of pricey laptops with Linux preinstalled. They do offer custom partitioning so you could probably have them leave space for you to add other OSs.

    Forget about the inexpensive laptops you see at Circuit City or similar stores. I don't know whether those won't run Linux, but emperorlinux.com doesn't offer anything under $2200-$2400 and those look a bit weak from a purely numbers perspective.

  • I have a little Acer 312T from a couple of years back (same size and weight as The Perl Cookbook, 233 Pentium, 800x600 screen - does me fine). I tried to put RedHat or SuSe on it when I first got it, but things like the PCMCIA-IDE CD-ROM, APM support, and USB support were a real pain (they worked, but not out of the box, and had odd bugs and needed tweaking).

    After buying a bigger disk for it (you can get into laptops, they're just a little more tricky than most) I did a clean install of SuSE 7.1 and it went straight on like a dream - all those kind developers had contributed code to catch up with laptop hardware - XFree86 4.0.1 supports more video cards, the touchpads are better supported, APM works perfectly (and battery life is much better than with other OSes), USB and PCMCIA are fully supported in default kernels, and I'm even told that the WinModem is supported now.

    So, my advice is, don't buy a machine which has just been released, a machine which has been out for a few months is much more likely to have been sorted out, and I'd recommend SuSE 7.1 of course...

    T
  • it is not that windows supports more hardware but that the hardware devlopers release thier drivers for windows...
  • As much as I hate Compaq desktop machines...I have had really good luck with Compaq Armada laptops. I have an Armada 7400 (PII 300Mhz) for the last year running RH 6.2. A friend of mine has a newer Armada (PIII 500-ish) with DVD and his worked great right out of the box also. He is running Solaris X86 on it now in fact.

  • I've had four Linux Laptops over the years. The first was a Packard Bell 386 with 4 MB of RAM running the first or second release of Slackware (yes, it was a LONG time ago). It was OK, but you can't compare those old systems to today's.

    The second was a NEC. I don't remember the model but I had it for two years. It has 16 MB of RAM and worked well. The sound card never worked quite right (not all features available in windows worked under Linux), but I managed to get it to record and play well enough when I needed it. The keyboard worked just fine and the touchpad was a dream under Linux.

    The third was an IBM thinkpad. I hated it with a passion.

    I currently have Toshiba Portege 3010CT. I've never been happier with a laptop. The keyboard does need a little tweaking, but there is a website (whose URL I don't remember) dedicated to the running Linux on the Portege and it's got all the info you need. It wasnt' hard to get the IR support working (so I can sync my palm pilot to it). I've used RangeLAN wireless ethernet in it, and modems, and ethernet cards too. The Portege is very slim and even the screen is smaller than other laptops it's still quite nice. The battery lasts about 4 hours if you've got no cards plugged in. If you do it's about 2-3 hours (for my modem or ethernet card).

    I've also installed Linux on other laptops. I installed a Travelmate (sold by Acer now, I think originally this line was from Texas Instruments). It was the easiest install I've done but I don't think the user was too picky so I don't know if there were any issues really. It was big and bulky, but had everything built in. The Portege has NOTHING built in... which is the way laptops should be... how often do you REALLY need to use a floppy drive on your laptop?

    Toshiba's might take a little configuration but they do make some of the SLIMEST laptops around and that's a really nice feature; I think how light and slim a laptop is defines how useful it is.

  • right here is a list of things to check

    because EACH model will be differant

    --- Video chipset --- the most important thing as interface can be a hard without good support check that it can do nice Frame buffer and X as well as good vesa for nice text mode (the rage128mobility has good support)

    ---Keyboard --- yes i know but people fail to realize that in the intrests of space they put the windows key where the ctrl key should be check that the keyboard does not put ctrl or alt in strange places

    --mouse --- check that it is supported (all I know are but all I know use synaptics or IBM )

    ---PCMCIA --- check that the root controller is well supported their arnt many so it useally is but some old cheap ones are still sold that are broken and wont work with linux (all the TI ones have worked for me an cirrus one did not though)

    ---USB --- check what kind of root controller it is and wether it is suported (only intel and apple/LSI ones I have work with 2.4.x)

    --eth0/networking--- all built in come from 3com or intel and should work if its not one of these be warey (my advice is get one built in as you only have to buy a PCMCIA one anyway)

    --- modem ---- SOFTWARE modedms are presant on most built in to laptop the only ones that I could get even hafe working was the IBM thinkpads from their softmodem project check the lists (get a real oneI dont use a modem much anymore and have a old PCMCIA 3com wich works well )

    what do you want from the laptop ?

    power house development ?
    processor matters as well as memory

    presentation ?
    PDF /DVI and good X surport

    or cool tool to annoy people on trains ?
    touch screen a must

    regards

    john jones
  • QLITech out of Moline, Illinois recently acquired the Laptop end of Tuxtops.

    They have a nice system the "Emperor" which is the same hardware, and built by the same manufacturer that builds Dell's Inspiron 5000e.

    So before going with Dell, and their "piss-poor" Linux Support give these guys a shot.

    There was a big announcement here on slashdot awhile back regarding the acquisition too!

    *(Normally I don't plug too many companies, but these guys are the real deal.)




    "Fortune, Fame, Mirror Vain, Gone Insane..... But The Memory Remains...
  • While I agree that this would be the best bet for full hardware compatibility under linux, how do you propose he run Windows and Solaris on this? Please don't tell me you want him to try to use VirtualPC. That would be a nightmare.
  • i've found that some companies, like dell, ibm, hp, are pretty good at allowing you to download their drivers for any of their systems. i used to completely reload w98 on laptops from those manufacturers (to get all the cr@p they had pre-loaded off of there) and rarely had a problem.
  • It might not be flamebait, but it's certainly offtopic. The question is very clear about requesting information about compatiblity of laptops with Unix-like operating systems. Bringing windows into the discussion in this manner is clearly outside the topic, and either uninformed, or rude.

    - Mike

  • I currently have Linux, BeOS, and Win2k on an IBM Thinkpad A20m. All the hardware (video, sound, nic...) except for the modem seems to work across the operating systems, and there might even be support for it under Linux.

    I did install Solaris on there once, but it does not support the ATI Rage Mobility video card, so you either have to buy a commercial X server or use XFree86, if you want a GUI. But if you get it with the Intel PRO/100+ MiniPCI network card, that is supported in Solaris. Only one pcmcia nic is supported, and I am not sure it is readily available.

    For Linux, the Linux on Laptops [linux-laptop.net] site is a good source of information.

  • I've had good luck with the 505 series from Sony, however, to say their customer service sucks is the understatement of the decade. I bought my and pretended I didn't have ANY support; it's easier that way. That said, they run well, get decent battery life, and don't weigh too much.

    Others had had good luck with the IBM Thinkpads. I also hear good things about the G3 Apple notebooks, but I don't know about the new titanium G4, it's a little bit, ugh, large for my tastes anyhow.

    Someone, pretty please, release linux on a HP Jornada 720.. :)

  • Check LinuxCare too... (Score:3)

    by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <jason.nashNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday April 08, 2001 @01:16PM (#307863)
    I just ordered an IBM X20 for work. I wanted the lightest one I could find. One thing that LinuxCare offers is their labs where they test systems for Linux compatibility. If they have to do anything special, such as compiling a new kernel or using a non-provided driver, they tell you exactly what they did and where they got it.

    It definately helped me pick out my new Thinkpad.
  • Their Inspiron and Latitude laptops will support RedHat, at least according to this [dell.com] page. IIRC, you can order the machine with Linux pre-installed.
  • another word: PowerBook.

  • Dell (Score:2)

    by mduell ( 72367 )
    Dell sells laptops preloaded with Linux. Loading Windows would be trivial, but im not sure about Solaris. See http://www.dell.com/html/us/segments/bsd/choose_in spn_8000l.htm [dell.com].
  • The Inspiron will definitely work with Linux. They can also be had with a 30GB disk as the original poster mentioned. Only problem is that they're really heavy. There are a couple of sites with information about getting Linux working if you don't order with it pre-installed: http://www.usmedia.nl/joel/inspiron.html and http://orion.chem.vt.edu/i8000/

  • Solaris 8 has very minimal support [sun.com] for graphics cards. You'll almost certianly want to replace Xsun with XFree86 [xfree86.org]. Do a search on Google for "solaris xfree86" and you'll find several useful HOWTO-type documents.

  • All I can really tell you is stay away from Toshiba, I had a sat pro 445cdx that when I installed redhat linux it remapped the keyboard when I ran X, all the letter keys were the same but symbol keys ex.';][\=."{_ were all diffrent, never was able to get them corrected.
  • I'm going to reply to my own post because so many people have responded with good thoughts about toshiba that I couldn't respond to them all, I noticed all of you use newer versions of Toshiba laptops, it looks like they have cleaned up there act, I had found alot of sites with adjustments/drivers for the 440cdx but at the time I never found a word on the keyboard remapping. And trust me I tried looking, but this was a while ago, Maybe I was just missing something at the time. I still love toshiba laptops to this day, but I just could never get linux working on that one.
  • I have an Inspiron 8000 with 192Mb RAM, DVD and 32Gb HDD which I boot into Linux, ME and 2K. As I knew I wanted to migrate to linux I opted for a PCMCIA modem and not an internal one. As I already had a PCMCIA ethernet card I was set.
    It came with ME with one big partition, so I repartitioned it and installed 2K which allowed dual boot to ME, and then installed RedHat 7, lilo lets you choose linux or windows and the latter lets you choose 2K or ME.

    BTW I can't stand RH and have now installed SuSE 7.1 and am happy.

    One *MAJOR* tip installing linux on Inspiron - bypass PCMCIA support during boot and install the latest package from sourceforge.

    There are a couple of discussion groups on yahoo for this which are very helpful.
    ----

  • There's a good chance that a 'new' laptop will be too new to get a perfect install with the latest RedHat or whatever. You'll have to futz with the X config, or the audio, or APM, or something.

    That said, you probably won't be the first and someone will probably have posted the answers you need on the web. My last 3 laptop installs went like this. Search google for your model name and "linux".

    You might want to pick a major brand name to increase your odds. Or do the search before you buy.
  • I LOVE my Inspirion 5000e with 1600x1200 screen
    and 802.11 networking. I highly recommend Orinoco
    for the wireless bit. But 2.2 Linux kernels stink for laptops, as the USB and PCMCIA support is poor.
    The Inspirion is great because you can swap a second
    battery, a DVD, or a CD-RW in the middle bay, and
    the resolution is actually good enough to *enjoy*
    DVD video. I never boot Windows anymore. When I
    need to do a windows compile to confirm portability,
    or need to check a page in IE, I use VMWare to
    run W2k.

    Make sure to get your WinME refund! Don't even
    boot the pre-installed OS, or you lose your right
    to a refund.
  • VMWare [vmware.com]

    -JPJ
  • I just went through the same experience. I shopped around for MONTHS looking for the ultimate notebook. My needs were:
    -Can run almost any OS (linux/bsd) -Full hardware support (ethernet,56k,all the goodies) -Preinstalled linux would have been nice, but no big deal. It'd be nice to know the hardware is supported before you bought it, but after doing some searching on the web that no customer should have to do, I already knew what was supported. Also I didn't want to pay for my 'nth' winblows license.
    After an extensive and frustrating! search I came down to basically 2 different options: Dell and IBM. I extensively researched the models I was considering, the IBM Thinkpad A21 and the Dell Inspiron 8000. Both had been certified by Linuxcare labs, and I read generally positive stuff from people who had them on the Linux for laptops webpage. (Someone else quoted it above). Unfortunately both companies had TERRIBLE customer support. I could not get out of a windows license if I wanted to, nobody knew what linux was. I originally wanted to buy from IBM because it seemed like they were doing something positive in the community but it was clear that their salespeople did not know or care about linux. It's not like I didn't try either, I contacted them on several different occassions, even different offices in different countries!
    Dell was just about as useless. I had other problems with them, unanswered emails etc. I ended up swallowing my pride and buying my notebook from them (Dell Inspiron 8000) despite their useless customer skills. Apparently now you can get red hat preinstalled but when I bought it (a few month ago - not in the U.S.) You couldn't get this option. Also the modem is a winmodem, but it's the lucent one and works well enough with the linmodem drivers.
    The whole experience was a complete turn off and clearly something needs to be done to address this within the community. I consider it unacceptable that linux users should have to go to this much trouble to ensure that their built in ethernet or sound card will work right or whatever. It's not like I bought this system to use Windows with it and changed to linux. Yet I was forced to buy yet another windows license...
  • It's relatively easy to get those keys remapped to whatever you want. I had to do it for my Iopener. If you search for Iopener and keyboard, you might turn up something.

  • Randall Lawrence Waterhouse can do it... (Score:3)

    by grammar nazi ( 197303 ) on Saturday April 07, 2001 @11:46PM (#307877) Journal
    Randy Waterhouse had Windows, WindowsNT, BeOS, and Finux on his laptop. This included full support for a wireless NIC and a built in camera.

    I'm not sure what the exact model and make of the laptop was, but Neal Stephenson might be able to tell you. Try sending Neal an email.

  • No FreeBSD support on IBM [slashdot.org] :-(. I love thinkpads though.
  • I own a Dell Inspiron 7000, which I bought when I thought I still needed Windows (I haven't booted into Windows in many moons now), and I love it. The memory is fast and the ATI chipset rocks.

    However, everything said in the other replies basically mirrors my experience: The Dell sales staff is clueless clueless clueless when it comes to Linux. At the very least, they should train a subset of their sales force in Linux and direct you to them when you have a question.

    They also limit your hardware options in ways that I don't understand ... they won't sell boxes with some things that I know there are drivers for.

    So why not get the benefit of the Dell manufacturer and a sales and support staff that really knows their biz? QLITech would be my first choice.

    That said, you also gotta give Dell many kudos for its support of Linux. If you want to buy from a big name, go with Dell.

  • From my research on the net, I've discovered that Dell laptops have a quite decent track record with linux.

    Here's the system I recently configured and bought on the Dell website [dell.com] (it's an Inspiron 4000):

    700 MHz Celeron

    14.1" XGA TFT

    128MB SDRAM

    Internal 56k Modem (supported!)

    Internal 10/100 ethernet (supported!)

    10GB HD

    8X DVD

    Modular Floppy

    100MB Zip

    I especially like the fact that onboard modem and ethernet are supported, so I don't have to waste PC card slots for my network access. Check out the Linux on Laptops [linux-laptop.net] site to see how others have tweaked out their laptops for linux.

    I've met some Dell tech support people in the past, and they seem to know their chicken. Between that and the 3-year warranty I purchased, The only thing I expect to have trouble with is my wireless network at home (There are no linux drivers for Acer Warplink cards *sigh*)

    (And no, I don't work for them, so don't flame me...:-)

  • idiot he says windows as well as unix like os's.

    I personaly want to try a vaio but I need to get it running win2k/freebsd/redhat or debian.

    But a good question is: What laptops have modems BUILT in that work with linux/*bsd?


    Fight censors!
  • Toshiba's are the same. I've got a Tecra 8000 that I've reloaded off a reset disk for a Tecra 8100 (lost the original) and then replaced the broken drivers from their website. Their reset disk even lets you prepartition *before* doing the restore; so I used a DOS boot disk to layout my file systems, installed Windows onto the first partition and let Linux do the rest.

    Best of all it runs Linux like a charm; I've even got a bunch of 1024x768ish text modes to work for things like 128x49 text mode - which is *superb* for text editing, although it does glitch occasionally requiring a "clear" at the shell.

    The only problem I had with it is some distros (Mandrake being the one that leaps to mind because it's the one I wanted to run) freeze on shutdown if the floppy is not connected. RedHat 6.x and 7.0 are all fine though, and even support the internal ZIP drive.

  • I LOVE my Inspirion 5000e with 1600x1200 screen

    How do you feel about the screen? I'm currently looking at replacing my current "TuxTop" with a better model and was a bit unsure about the new super-high res options. I was going to go for a 15" 1400x1050, because that seemed reasonable based on my current 13.3" 1024x768. Here in the UK there just isn't anywhere I can go at present to see what a 1600x1200 looks like.

    A hardware anti-aliased 800x600 option has obvious potential for watching DVDs though... I want to see how GeForce2GO based models perform before I buy though - anyone tried actually Linux on one yet?

  • I got a Sony vaio PCG-C1VE running with some microsoft muck, and redhat 7.0 under a 2.4.2 kernel, virtually everything working, or solutions for problems available (I'm too lazy to fix stuff). Got some help from a dude called Steve Barr - www.stevebarr.com - which filled in the blanks. Machine runs ever so sweetly under the new kernel with the right patches. Linux is slowly taking over all my machines at home, and sneaking into my place of work..... Linux rocks... End of Story

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