Buying a laptop. (HP, Compaq, or Gateway)

[Rainer Duffner]

Erich Dollansky wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Mark A-J. Raught (from the laptop) wrote:
>
> my ideas of a laptop are on the opposite of your scale (small, long 
> battery life ...).
>


Indeed.


> All I know is that there is also Acer which offers at least three 
> machines in your class.
>
>>
>> Gateway 7405GX (AMD 64 3200+)
>> HP zv5320us (AMD XP-M 3000+)
>> Compaq r3306us (AMD XP-M 3000+)
>>
>> On to the big problem; I can't find any info on any of the laptops 
>> with FreeBSD. I checked the usual compatibility web pages, but 
>> couldn't find 
>
>
> I only have read about the Acer Ferraris.
>


I'd also be wary about consumer-grade laptops.
The customer-service is often non-existant and the low price comes with 
(more often than not) ultra-low quality - just search Google for your 
favourite laptop-brand, together with the word "hinges"...)
My advice, if you need the laptop to earn money, is to set for a 
business-model (like HP NX7010 or so - the FSC E8010 I own will not be 
so easy to get where you live, I'm afraid).
You can buy additional warranty, too.
I've only seen Acer PCs, end they seemed less than stellar.


>> Extra info: The laptop will be wiped (no windows please) and I will 
>> be running FreeBSD. I have no problem replacing a miniPCI card if 
>> need be, 
>
>
> FreeBSD is not as good as Windows in a single point: power consumption.



It's even worse than Linux (SuSE 9.2). At least on my Fujitsu-Siemens E8010.
But SuSE totally drops the ball in the ACPI-departement. I can at least 
suspend-to-RAM with 5.3 (unfortunately not -to-disk), but SuSE 9.2 
doesn't even do that.
Well, it can suspend to RAM, but the SuSE doesn't wake-up anymore. Or it 
wakes up and shows only a black screen.
FreeBSD works very good in that specific area.



cheers,
Rainer

-- 
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~     Rainer Duffner - rainer at ultra-secure.de     ~
~           Freising - Munich - Germany           ~
~    Unix - Linux - BSD - OpenSource - Security   ~
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