Comment laptop advice (Score 1) 732
Toshibas and Thinkpads seem to be the most full-featured laptops. IBM gets points for having lots of bonus options, like firewire, builtin ethernet and modem, etc. And Thinkpads are pretty sturdy. Toshiba is preferred if you want a stable, moderately full-featured machine for reasonable cost. If you can afford it, the Thinkpads are nicer. Both will be pretty good as Linux laptops (exception for the winmodem bits, as previously noted).
I'm much more wary of Dell, after seeing all of my friends' Dell laptops be extremely unreliable. I distrust ATI graphics drivers, and the only audio option is the ASS Master sound card (ESS Maestro). But at least the cases are solid.
We have a few Vaio XG-28's in my office. I think the cases for these are horrible. They're too flimsy, and the ventilation flap on the back breaks easily. Be wary of the newest models. You will have difficulty getting drivers for platforms other than the preinstalled OS. The models have different serial numbers for preinstalled 98 vs. 2000, so drivers for the other line will not install. We had to use a bunch of early-release Japanese-only drivers before Sony allowed us to install 2000 on our win98 vaios.
I'm much more wary of Dell, after seeing all of my friends' Dell laptops be extremely unreliable. I distrust ATI graphics drivers, and the only audio option is the ASS Master sound card (ESS Maestro). But at least the cases are solid.
We have a few Vaio XG-28's in my office. I think the cases for these are horrible. They're too flimsy, and the ventilation flap on the back breaks easily. Be wary of the newest models. You will have difficulty getting drivers for platforms other than the preinstalled OS. The models have different serial numbers for preinstalled 98 vs. 2000, so drivers for the other line will not install. We had to use a bunch of early-release Japanese-only drivers before Sony allowed us to install 2000 on our win98 vaios.
