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LinuxCertified LC2430 Laptop Review 207

Posted by michael from the still-not-100% dept.
Anonymouse writes "OSNews posted a comprehensive review of the made-for-Linux LinuxCertified LC2430 laptop. They found that all its components are fully compatible with Linux, except with ACPI in recent kernels (which actually affects many laptops recently). The laptop is a desktop replacement with strong performance and some good extra features: Firewire port, 3-1 card reader, combo drive, SXGA+ TFT screen and an ATi Radeon 3D card. Four Linux distributions were tested with it."
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LinuxCertified LC2430 Laptop Review More

LinuxCertified LC2430 Laptop Review

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  • Great, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by michael path ( 94586 ) * on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:31PM (#10739385) Homepage Journal
    Great, but does it run Windows XP?

    *ducks*

    Actually, the prices looked extremely reasonable enough that I'm considering a purchase. The LC2410 [linuxcertified.com] is only $1499. The 2430 [linuxcertified.com], the one in the review, is only $1699.

    I'm rather impressed they can have prices this reasonable, "Windows tax" or not. A similar Dell Inspiron 5160 (a "desktop replacement" as well) configured with WinXP runs around the same price ($1640, though they are offering a free wireless card now).

    • Re:Great, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 0racle ( 667029 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:50PM (#10739783)
      Then instead of being impressed with these 'reasonable' prices for a system with a free OS compared to one with a non-free OS, wouldn't it be more surprising that they don't offer them at lower prices since they didn't have to pay anything for the OS, lowering their costs?
      • Call it a hunch, but I don't think these guys can take the smaller profit margins and make it up in large volume like Dell can.

        The Windows desktop OS, when part of an OEM deal, isn't terribly expensive for the reseller - though it can range from $25-85. If you've ever compared buying a system with Windows vs. Linux (same model, et al.) - they don't give you much of a price break because they're trying to keep their margins intact.

        So, to answer your question - no, it's almost irrelevant. Especially given
    • Actually, the prices looked extremely reasonable enough that I'm considering a purchase. The LC2410 is only $1499. The 2430, the one in the review, is only $1699. I'm rather impressed they can have prices this reasonable, "Windows tax" or not.

      Another cheap machine [walmart.com] (admittedly different specs) can currently be had at walmart for just under $700:

      Mobile AMD Athlon 4 1.1 GHz processor
      14.1" XGA TFT LCD screen
      40 GB hard drive
      128 MB RAM
      DVD-ROM drive
      Integrated 802.11b wireless networking
      Microsoft Windows XP

  • But (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:31PM (#10739387)
    How fast does it compile Gentoo?
    • Better yet, how fast can it download binary Gentoo packages?
    • interesetingly enough, I have one of the amd64 models offered on linuxcertified (although mine came from avadirect... same specs and laptop case...) , it took about 6-8 hours to get KDE up and running from the time I booted the install CD (from a stage 1 install...)

      any complaints about the PC? just the location of the headphone jack...

  • too bad the CPU sucks (Score:5, Informative)

    by Indy1 ( 99447 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:34PM (#10739404)
    the P4 is the WORST possible cpu for a notebook. It needs massive memory bandwidth to perform somewhat acceptible, which most notebooks dont have. It draws a LOT of power, killing the battery rather quickly (90 min run time is pathetic), and all that dissapated power has to go somewhere (aka heat). The Pentium M or Athlon 64 series would of been a far better choice for a notebook.

    • Re:athlon 64 not a good notebook cpu (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      all of the athlon models run at a much lower speed when on battery power. and they're equally as power hungry as a pentium IV.

      Pentium M and Efficeon are the only sane choices for x86 notebook cpus.
    • It'd be a better choice for a desktop CPU, too, if it weren't so damned expensive and Intel would simply admit that the P4 is shit in comparison.
    • Am I the only one who isn't so obsessed with CPU power that I want to see a cheap linux notebook with a weak processor (I'm thinking something like a Celeron 500 here) but amazing battery life? It's not like I need that Pentium-4 or whatever to run emacs on a text terminal the way I usually do.

      Too bad Intel is too busy pushing their 40ghz, +6 v undead Pentium 13370 |)00|)! (tm) to devote production capacity to anything else.

      • Re:too bad the CPU sucks (Score:4, Interesting)

        by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @11:21PM (#10740277) Journal

        Modern processors don't just have higher clock speeds--they have higher bus speeds as well, so RAM access is much faster. So moving to a celeron 500 would be a bigger jump than just 3 ghz to 500 mhz.

        What about a really fast processor with a huge bus speed, but radically underclocked? This would solve a lot of heat and power issues at the same time, and wouldn't reduce performance as much.

        In fact, I doubt performance would be affected too much at all. If the system used a small form factor (2.5") SATA hard drive instead of a notebook drive, it could run the hdd at 10k rpm.

        Or am I crazy?

        • That would be nice, but 10k rpm drives have three disadvantages.

          #1 They consume much more power.
          #2 They make more heat.
          #3 The majority are quite loud. (Doesn't mean all) But unless you buffer the sound a lot, which insulates the drive more, compounding #2)

          On a friend's brand new dell (1.5GHz P-M, Radeon 9600, the thing that gets hot to the touch is not the chip or radeon (when playing something 3d), it's the hard drive.

          Another thing is modern moble processors will clock down that far already, (assuming t

          • That would be nice, but 10k rpm drives have three disadvantages.

            #1 They consume much more power.
            #2 They make more heat.
            #3 The majority are quite loud. (Doesn't mean all) But unless you buffer the sound a lot, which insulates the drive more, compounding #2)

            Yeah, good point. A 7200rpm would give significant gains--I wonder how hot it would get. Laptop hard drives get pretty hot too--I was under the assumption that the heat was pretty comporable, and size/power were the issue.

            On a friend's brand n

      • I want to see a cheap linux notebook with a weak processor (I'm thinking something like a Celeron 500 here) but amazing battery life
        May I suggest a Transmeta [ebay.com] laptop. That should be slow enough for anybody :)

  • ACPI (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mdalek ( 702460 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:39PM (#10739428)

    ...and when is ACPI going to be working in 2.6.x, so far the hibernate and suspend functions crash my laptop (toshiba satellite 18xx - even toshiba_acpi doesn't do much (fan status + brightness).
    • Agreed, this is something of a must have feature these days IMO.
      The convenience of hibernate is hard to live without.

    • Re:ACPI (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:19PM (#10739631)
      Get used to it, ACPI will always be a world of shit for anything non-Microsoft. This was by design. ACPI is complex. Remember that somebody at Toshiba or whatever laptop manufacturer is actually qualifying their ACPI implementation with a Microsoft OS. It is the vendor's responsibility to ensure that the ACPI system works...with Windows XP. The fact that ACPI works as well as it does in Linux and *BSD is due to a large number of volunteers.

      Your choices are either to: a) fix it yourself and submit patches b) wait til someone else fixes it c) punt and use Microsoft Windows XP. I know a lot of people in the community that choose option c and I am not one those that would fault them (or you) for it if a and b are not practical.
      Complaining on slashdot is definitely not going to help you though.

      In 2002 when I bought a Compaq it was pretty much assumed that you would have to hack AML. Things have improved much since then, and the 2.6.x power interfaces and implementations are vastly superior to anything previous. The core kernel support for power support is excellent (the part that is not ACPI specific). ACPI sucks ass as a complete design, although the linux kernel implementation is decent and contributors are working to get a bug for bug compatibility with AML written for Microsoft Operating Systems.

      When I first got by IBM T40 a few months ago the thing would lock up on power down and sleep (ie, if you powered down the screen would blank but the thing was actually still running). This required some troubleshooting and some code changes in the relaxed AML interpreter, and now it works.

      • Re:ACPI (Score:5, Insightful)

        by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @01:33AM (#10740594)
        The fact that ACPI works as well as it does in Linux and *BSD is due to a large number of volunteers. From what I've seen it doesn't work well enough to be at all useful.
        Your choices are either to: a) fix it yourself and submit patches b) wait til someone else fixes it c) punt and use Microsoft Windows XP.
        Punt in the other direction and use APM instead of ACAPI. IBM laptops (like the T40 you mentioned - I'm using one right now) seem to work decently well with APM, at least once you figure out all the gotchas, such as it will lock up if you suspend to RAM while the AGP modules (necessary for OpenGL accel) are loaded.

        Fact is getting laptop features to work on Linux is rough going and I haven't noticed any improvement in the past 2 or 3 years.

    • Re:ACPI (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Are you running 2.6.9? A lot of ACPI fixes made it into 2.6.9, with even more coming for 2.6.10. I have a Sony Z1-series laptop, up through 2.6.8, I could not resume from suspend, and the laptop would hang on shutdown when acpi_power_off was called, forcing me to hold the power button to shut it off. Now with a 2.6.9 kernel, both issues are fixed - I can suspend and resume perfectly without having to unload any modules (including USB and ipw2100 wireless) and shutdown works as it should now.

  • Special Price? Rather poor deal! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:39PM (#10739432) Journal
    It looked like then "special" price was higher than the "normal" price, then I looked again:

    The price appeared as $1099 (struckout) and $1699 as the "special" price. I guess "0" and "8" look similar if they have are struck through.

  • From a purely hardware standpoint (Score:5, Informative)

    by pat_trick ( 218868 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:41PM (#10739443)
    I recognize that laptop case from when we used to sell them at my last job. They were notorious for the hinges breaking very easily under repeated openings of the display. Be wary of weak components!

  • No ACPI? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jwr ( 20994 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:45PM (#10739455) Homepage
    This is a joke, right? Linux-certified laptop, no ACPI support?

    ACPI support is absolutely essential on a laptop.

    • Re:No ACPI? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The problem is not 100% with the laptop. MOST lapstops with recent kernel distros get BROKEN acpi, because of acpi/other-modules bad interaction. From a standpoint, it's the kernel that's broken lately, not the laptops.

      • Re:No ACPI? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @10:25PM (#10740123)
        I think that was the parent's point. A laptop is certified to run linux, but linux can't interact with the hardware as well as windows.

        Someone waiting for a linux certified laptop might think:

        "So the best thing they could come up with still doesn't work right!"

    • Re:No ACPI? (Score:5, Informative)

      by slashdot.org ( 321932 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @12:58AM (#10740535) Homepage Journal
      ACPI support is absolutely essential on a laptop.

      I suppose, but ACPI is also an gawdawful piece of shit. I did BIOS development for a while. Imagine that (how to put this nicely) a lot of BIOS developers are, let's say, 'stuck in their ways'. Not all BIOS guys are like this, but to be a good BIOS person, you'd need a fairly large amount of experience, and it being BIOS and all, this results in a lot of people that think DOS is still a Pretty Neat Thing(tm). Assembler programmers who think that coding in C has too much of a performance hit. (again, this is a generalization, not all BIOS coders are like this at all, but still)

      So along come a bunch of assholes who decide that the best way to get this power management thing going is to do it by creating an entirely new language/syntax. It's almost like a programming language but not quite. Bottom-line, my guestimate is that there are about one persons out there that really like the ACPI language. It's not very obvious, you probably really need some training before you should be allowed to mess with it.

      Practically it goes more like this: the board manufacturer buys a reference BIOS for a certain reference board. The thing is, most boards end up being a little different from a reference board _especially_ in the power management section. So now the BIOS engineer needs to modify the ACPI code to match the board. Great, so (s)he goes ahead and does that. Then installs Windows XP, tests a couple of things like hibernate, or god forbid, stand-by. didn't crash? Ship it.

      There are no proper regression tools to make sure ACPI is implemented correctly. It's very hard to debug/test/insure any changes you make to reference code, because it's like a bytecode language (imagine debugging Java with all you have is bytecode). Even worse, a lot of ACPI code runs in SMM mode, which is hard to work with and debug (even some of the hardware ICEs don't really support SMM mode properly)

      And then managers tend to not understand why you'd all of a sudden have to spend 40 hours extra just to test this one little item on the requirements list called 'ACPI'.

      In other words:
      - management doesn't understand that ACPI support requires probably almost as much effort as the rest of the BIOS.
      - BIOS engineers tend to not really like dealing with ACPI in the first place, so they are not going to bring this to managements attention.

      Result:
      ACPI support is just one big hack, in a lot of cases just copied straight from the reference design and the engineers are only going to work on it when they get dragged into it kicking and screaming (when the support people start to complain about ACPI related issues).

    • Re:No ACPI? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by xgamer04 ( 248962 )
      The NAME OF THE COMPANY is LinuxCertified, inc. They sell computers and do linux training. It's not some sort of certification.
      • And if I had mod points, I would give them to you sir. This is all about BRANDING - not whether the latop and software actually work any good together or not.

        I almost wonder if Linus needs to have a word with those guys about their brandname and possibly misleading use of his trademark.

  • nice review, a few flaws (Score:5, Informative)

    by hdd ( 772289 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:47PM (#10739466)
    "The laptop will automatically shut down if the battery goes below 10%, sometimes without a warning (which is actually a good thing, because users should never leave batteries drain below ~20%, as this damages all batteries in general)."

    ahr, wrong...it's true that if the voltage does fall below a certain level copper would start deposit on the electrode, and the li-ion can never be recharged again, but all laptop uses Lithium-ion battery now a day, the "smart" battery tech built-in automatically takes that into consideration. So 0% doesn't not necessary mean the battery is completely empty, just mean it's near the recharging voltage limit. If i remember correctly apple actually recommends ipod users to drain the battery till the device "die" once every few months.

    As for many other types of rechargeable batteries, it's actually better to discharge them completely before recharging, because of the so called "memory" effect.

    • If i remember correctly apple actually recommends ipod users to drain the battery till the device "die" once every few months.

      As manifest37 noted in this comment [slashdot.org], Apple has a page with advice for managing your batteries. Here's the appropriate quote:

      For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it's important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month. If you use your iPod infrequently (gasp), you might want to add a reminder to your

    • Being a desknote P4 (not even a P4m), I'd call it a shitty system anyway, although the run time and weight are the better of P4 based desknotes. Only 1.5 hours of run time? Weighs 7lb for a 15" screen? With a Pentium M (or Athlon XP-M), you could expect maybe about 4 hours of operation in 4 to 6lb weight range, and probably 1/4" or more thinner case.

      The problem with battery dying could be a miscalibration.
    • As for many other types of rechargeable batteries, it's actually better to discharge them completely before recharging, because of the so called "memory" effect.

      For the last time, there is no memory effect [dansdata.com].

    • besides than that, the 0-100% indicator should be calibrated so that at 0% it goes off(not at 10 or 30 or 50).

  • Who would buy LinuxCertified? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:59PM (#10739530)
    LinuxCertified is their name? Certified by whom - their marketing department? Wouldn't older, more popular models on eBay be cheaper and more compatible, since they've been around longer and have been tested by a larger population?

    Aren't thse LinuxCertified laptops kind of expensive compared to competing laptops? I got my virtually silent Mac laptop for less than a grand months ago. If you're not going to be running Windows, then get something better. If you're going to be running Windows, then get something better. Sounds like a Lose-lose for LinuxCertified.

  • What's the point of "desktop replacements"? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:01PM (#10739537) Journal
    The laptop is a desktop replacement

    In other words, it tries to be just as big, hot, and power hungry as a desktop... While being cramped, using propritary parts, and being just as expensive as a notebook.

    Wonderful! The worst of both worlds.

    Seriously, folks. What is the point of desktop replacements? Who in the world buys them? What possible purpose can they serve?

    • Re:What's the point of "desktop replacements"? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Doomdark ( 136619 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:09PM (#10739579) Homepage Journal
      • The laptop is a desktop replacement

      In other words, it tries to be just as big, hot, and power hungry as a desktop.

      Huh? I thought all that means is that it would replace main _function_ of a desktop system, while providing the benefit of being portable. But without completely sacrificing ergonomics, or reasonable performance. Just like mobile phones can be replacements of regular wired phones.

      I think you may have read too much into that one sentence there.

      • I have a dell 'desktop replacement' and bought it because it was marked down to a point I could easily justify the purchase. Its a 8.something lbs monster that gives me MAYBE 60 minutes (around 45 of light use and 30 of hard use) of battery life.

        What the grandparent is saying is that the shif away t from the portable low power and lightweight laptop which gets battery life just sucks. I see people dragging their 7-9lbs monsters all the time, most of them have a desktop at home and don't need a 'desktop rep
        • I hate my Dell 8lb budget DTR (Uninspiron 1100). P4, of course, and the fan is on the bottom, so the laptop has to be unbalanced to not choke the CPU and chipset (in fact, I let the laptop sit slightly off of my desk, as I've had (on desks) chipset-related crashes while playing games (damn i845) - there's also it doesn't fit on my desk right, but...)

          I would LOVE a P-M in this. Hell, I'd love it if they just made a Socket 478 P-M without SpeedStep (no BIOS support in this), and I'd replace the P4 with it. T
      • But without completely sacrificing ergonomics, or reasonable performance.

        In order to not sacrific ergonomics, it has to be BIG, and I mean BIG.

        In order to provide desktop-like performance, it has to have a full-fledged desktop chip... In this case, a P4.

        I think you've misunderstood the meaning of the term, not I.
        • You think? A P-M can do pretty damn well against a P4 or A64, and it's a LOT lower power, which means less thickness necessary, less weight necessary, less power consumption, less heat. You can have your big (wide, deep) laptop, but it doesn't have to be thick (observe 17" PBG4s).
        • In order to not sacrific ergonomics, it has to be BIG, and I mean BIG.

          Nope. It's input (keyboard, mouse) and output (display) devices have to be well designed. That need not make it huge; and especially, not heavy. It does generally make them more expensive, however.

          In order to provide desktop-like performance, it has to have a full-fledged desktop chip... In this case, a P4.

          I didn't say "desktop-like", I said reasonable. And any current mobile chip is plenty fast. At work I have 450 mhz desk top

    • What's the point of desktop replacements? I buy them, for one. It's nice to have the same documents at home as at my office desk. I went so far as to purchase 3 docking stations (ok, 2 stations and 1 port replicator) so I can recreate a "Desktop" experience at all of the locations I frequently work.

      I've had one of these no name laptops before though. Not nice. It was the first time I strayed from Thinkpads, and also was the last. Be wary of cheap computers.......they're cheap.

    • Re:What's the point of "desktop replacements"? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:22PM (#10739645) Journal
      Although I totally get where you're coming from, there IS a market for "desktop replacements". For starters, the gaming community.... Even if your laptop is a "brick", it's magnitudes of order easier to take it to and from LAN parties than lugging around a tower case with seperate display, keyboard and mouse.

      Another group of buyers are folks who don't really travel much, but simply want the ability to use their computer in "non-traditional settings". Many of these people are trying to completely get rid of a desktop system and have something portable that compares favorably in overall system performance to their former desktop PC. Power-hungry isn't that much of an issue if you're just going to sit on the couch in the family room, or temporary set up the system on a kitchen counter while you're fixing dinner....

      I had this whole debate with one of my best friends when I chose an Apple Powerbook 17" and he chose (for about the same price) a Sager "desktop replacement" laptop. Eventually, he sold the Sager - and has decided to go back to an old Dell Inspiron he owned before. The graphics capabilites on the Dell make it unsuitable for some gaming, but I think he finally realized what I kept trying to tell him. When I'm doing things that require hard-core CPU power (whether it's gaming or video editing from camcorder footage or what-not), I'm more comfortable just sitting down at a desk, in a good computer chair, anyway. I'd rather have my portable be as portable as possible (without sacrificing too much screen real-estate, which is why I still went with the 17" PB).
      • Another type of person who goes for a desktop replacement is people like my father. He wants to use the same machine in both the office and at home, or occasionally at a hotel, but doesn't really need to use it elsewhere (he's got a Palm Treo for all the little things). Desktop replacement is perfect for him, especially since he can use the nice high-res LCD without having to buy one for home and one for the office.
        • That's exactly why I got a desktop replacement laptop. I own a dell inspiron 8200 I bought over 2 years ago. It's fast and I can use it at college and bring it home without a hassle. It's big, heavy, and a shitty batter life, but I always keep it plugged in anyway so I don't care. I also don't have that much room at school, so it fits nicely on my small desk. It's also got a UXGA 1600x1200 screen that is beautiful.

          There is definitely a niche for people who want a fast computer, want to travel with it,

      • Even if your laptop is a "brick", it's magnitudes of order easier to take it to and from LAN parties than lugging around a tower case with seperate display, keyboard and mouse.

        If that's the market, then why haven't Compaq's all-in-one units sold like hotcakes?

        It also wouldn't be too difficult for a company to make a pizza-box ATX case, with a built-in LCD on the side. Should suit gamers far better, if lugability is the issue. After all, I haven't yet met a notebook user that doesn't carry a mouse with t

        • Well, many companies make them, it's just they cost $1000+, because they're "industrial grade".

          Myself, I carry a mouse [jascoproducts.com] with my 8lb laptop. This is a cheap retractable mini-mouse (I paid $13). It works great, and doesn't take up much space (unlike the Dell/Logitech basic optical mouse that came with it - important when there's a bulky power adaptor in there too).
      • Another one to remember is people who do travel a lot. My job has sent me on road trips that are literally months long, and for a situation like that I really don't want to make do with a dinky little super-portable notebook.
    • People who want to put their computers on different desks every day. Business people who travel frequently like to pull out their desktop-like computers and use them in their hotels. People like to take them to cafes and use them there. People sometimes bring their work machines home. Gamers take their machines to other other's houses, etc. I actually know someone who uses his laptop without a battery and plugs it into a UPS.

      Essentially, some people like to move their computers from place to place, while n
    • People who travel often from one point to another and don't have a computer at both places, but always have a power point. Probably said person can't afford or doesn't want a fully fledged desktop. You may also get people who want it for the aesthetics or the meaning; a desktop replacement laptop can be moved around a lot easier than a desktop, so rather than going to the computer, you can bring the computer to you.

      I have little desire or need for an über-portable laptop, but a desktop replacement ful

  • compare to a Mac: (Score:5, Informative)

    by Johnny Mnemonic ( 176043 ) <mdinsmore@@@gmail...com> on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:03PM (#10739553) Homepage Journal

    Review says: sleep doesn't work, bad placing of the PCMCIA card slot wrt the optical drive, and a funny sound card. When the battery gets to 10%, it just shuts off, instead of sleeping--which I guess is related to the first issue. I have to say, that as noble an attempt as this is, if I purchased a new computer with any of these issues I would send it back. Is it right to cut them this much slack? Oh, and it's 7 pounds and get 1.5 hrs of usage. Let's compare to an iBook:
    • 1.33 Ghz G4
    • 14" display with 1024x768
    • 512 RAM (upgrade)
    • 60GB HD
    • 802.11G installed
    • DVD CD R/W
    • ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 with 32MB of RAM.
    • 6 hour battery life, but Apple lies so lets call it 4 hrs.
    • Firewire, USB 2.0, 10/100 ethernet--both have these, though.
    • With the RAM upgrade: $1,399.

    So the reviewed laptop costs $300 more, + wireless card, and sleep doesn't work? Plus the HD is smaller, weighs a pound more, and gets 1/3 of the battery life? You can put Linux on the iBook [yellowdoglinux.com], even, if you don't like the UNIX part of OS X.

    While there's a place for Linux on a laptop, I don't see this as an iBook killer. Get it below $999 and I'd be interested--if you're going to pay a premium I think this laptop has some competition.
    • Johny says: --Microsoft is to OSS as Evian is to tap water

      Cute saying, but unfortunately it makes no sense. What was he thinking? Who knows - possibly, tap water might represent the public domain? But that's a very different thing from the GPL.

      Hmm, come to think of it, it actually makes more sense to say that Linux is to microsoft as aquafina is to tap water, since tap water has viruses, everybody uses it, and aquafina just tastes a lot better. I work with windows a few times a week (I actually take mone
      • I don't think you want to go there...
        Isn't Aquafina the Coke (tm) company that poisoned a major english water supply? No wait... that's Daisani, ain't it? grrr...time to google...
        "Analysts said there was a similar reaction in February when CSE said it had found unacceptable levels of pesticide in several bottled water brands, including Coke's Kinley and Pepsi's Aquafina."
        in New Delhi...From (newspage) [indiatimes.com]
        or...HA- here's what i was thinking of... Dasani... [corpwatch.org]
        From the rest of the google results, it look
    • I came to the same conclusion when I was looking into buying one of these. When I decided to replace my current G3 iBook, I was looking at one of these laptops, since I thought they might be more economical, but I realized that really, they are not much cheaper than even the powerbooks, and have a few serious problems. I've also heard that these things have a lot of hardware problems. My iBook is build like a tank. it's been stepped on by kids, dropped from a table, and knocked around countless times, w

  • A little biased.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by todesengel ( 722281 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:10PM (#10739585)
    It feels to me that this review is a little biased. For example, the authoer says that this notebook shuts down "sometimes without warning" if the batteries get too low, and he says that this is a good thing! I can't imagine this "feature" succeeding on a more mainstream laptop...

  • I had one of these - it breaks easy (Score:5, Informative)

    by DunbarTheInept ( 764 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:13PM (#10739603) Homepage
    I had one of these. At first I couldn't be happier - it was awesome that all the components worked with linux, and when ordering it you can ask them to partition the hard drive however you like (so you don't need partition magic to put something else on it - you can tell them to leave an unused partition for you to put something else on later), but then I discovered one really dissapointing problem with it: On the physical quality side of things, it is extremely fragile. For one thing, some screws came loose inside that part of the case that you aren't allowed to open without voiding the warranty - I could hear the screws rolling around in there, but to fix it I'd have to mail the thing back in since I'd void the warranty, and that would be a huge delay and I *needed* this thing daily. So I decided to wait until it was out of warranty anyway, and then open it up to fix it myself. If anything broke while it was under warranty, then I'd ship it in.

    Well, the fateful day came, the warrany passed, and I opened it up. Inside I discovered, much to my dismay, that not just one or two, but an entire 9 different screw holes were missing their screws. I only ever found 6 of them in the case. Some were for the heat sink. The heat sink was held on by only the gooey thermal gell and pressure from the back of the case. None of the screw holes for the heat sink were still fastened. No wonder I occasionally got shutdowns with "hot cpu" messages in the logs (I had thought it was because I might have been covering the vent with my leg when I had it on my lap).

    Also, Xfree86 had started behaving badly (dying at random times) and I found out why when I opened the case - the ATI video card (which was also supposed to be protected by that unscrewed heat sink - it covered video card and CPU) had a few spots where the soldering had apparently melted and I could see brown burn marks near it.

    So here I was stuck with a computer that was broke, a day out of warranty, because it hadn't been screwed together very well, and since it's a laptop, trying to go to a third-party for a replacement video card is totally impossible - they're all unique.

    Sigh. They're software setup was good, but my experience with their physical durability was piss-poor - and that's an important factor for a laptop.

    • FWIW, most laptops aren't made by the companies that claim to make them, especially when it's a whiteboxer, like LinuxCertified. (as for big companies, Alienware is a major manufacturer that does this (they use Clevo laptops), and I believe Dell does, too) When I saw this site, I wondered who made them, to know who to avoid (it sounded pretty crappy to me).

  • Linux certified? RADEON, anyone? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't know about you lot, but I can't really extend the "linux certified" qualification to the radeon series, on account of those bloody drivers..

    I can't help feeling that nvidia would have been a better choice here, on account of ease of use (I know, I know, both ATi and Nvidia drivers are binary-only, but the nvidia one is so much more reliable, and the Ati driver's a bitch to get working)

  • Possibly nice (Score:4, Interesting)

    by InternationalCow ( 681980 ) <mauricevansteens ... m ['mac' in gap]> on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:38PM (#10739729) Journal
    But it still will not give me what I need. And I think many others out there have the same needs (yeah mod me redundant for saying it again :)): - WORKING ACPI support (it's a laptop, right?); - Most importantly: a decent reference manager. Lots of potential Linux users are scientists and they may even make up some really critical mass. But as long as we science types all have to use Lyx and LaTeX to handle bibkiographies (and yes, I know about sixpack and pybliographer - I tried everything to get them running on three different *NIX platforms but no go - maybe I'm stupid but I gave up for lack of time), instead of just grabbing EndNote for Linux and use it to insert references into OpenOffice we're not going to use Linux (or any other OSS OS) on a daily basis. Science these days is about content creation as much as anything else and in my experience OSS isn't very good about that yet. And Lord knows I tried. And don't tell me I have to use a Mac then. I USE a mac every day (PB G4 w/ 1GB RAM) and its performance is piss-poor when browsing and opening pdf's and the like, which is what I do all day. Windows is way faster at those tasks on comparable machines. Having Linux certified laptops is a decent first step, but it will not do for those who really need their laptops for actual work - see the above. Until that time comes I'm going to get me a really fat Voodoo laptop with XP to write my papers and make my figures (yes, I'm disappointed with the Mac's performance. I hate to switch but speed is everything these days).
    • bibtex?

      Since I (and I know I am a dinosaur) do my papers in troff (groff), I use refer.

      I really don't know TeX, so can't comment on bibtex, but it seems to do the same job.

      refer allows me to collect my references, and put them away into flat-file databases. I refer to them later by author name and year, and bingo! it does the rest.

      How easy is that?

      And, really, I find that vi *is* the fastest way to revise documents. pic handles most of my drawing, eqn for my equations, and standard macros (styles) for

  • Hellooooo VAIO (Score:3, Funny)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:41PM (#10739743)

    Am i the only one who looked at the beveled base, the color of the plastic, the three buttons in back with the mech grill...and thought..."Oh, it's a Sony VAIO"?

    So...um...what's the point, when you can just go out and buy a Sony VAIO, probably for cheaper, since it's not being sold as a niche product? I'd also be amazed if whoever actually made that laptop gave Linux Certified a better price per unit than Sony...so they're making less of a margin than Sony or they've passed that price increase right along to you.

    • 30% Funny
      40% Informative
      30% Overrated

      Okay. Someone want to explain how "why should we buy a sony vaio rebranded instead of just a regular sony" is a)funny b)not a valid question?

      I ask, as someone with excellent karma and the holder of 4 mod points right now, if I'm missing something as a moderator and slashdot user, because I just don't get this.

      I suppose I need to metamoderate more...
      • If, after selecting your moderation, you use up or down arows to page the screen, it will instead change your moderation selection. I have almost done this a few times...
        • The scroll wheel on your mouse will do the same thing.

          But I don't think that's the issue. Off Topic and Overrated are typically overused by people who didn't like what you had to say in another thread and follow you around to "punish" you with their mod points. I know of at least one other person who has logged in to his personal page only to see his five most recent posts modded Overrated. Most metamods won't bother reading the context to mark this Unfair, they're just metamoderating hoping to get mor

          • Attacking somone with multiple overrated mods? Boy, some people need to get a life (as I type on /. on a sunny Saturday afternoon). So we need meta-meta moderation, to catch lazy meta-moderators? Well, hitting the same person multiple times could be caught algorithmically, at least. And over-rating a funny mod shoudn't take off any kharma (maybe it doesn't already). It would be nice to personalize what moderators you trust, some button that had the effect of, whoever modded this up, set my account to ig

  • Why not nvidia? (Score:3, Informative)

    by incom ( 570967 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @09:05PM (#10739832)
    I've been searching for a windows free laptop with an nvidia gfx card, but they seem to be a mythical beast indeed. I'm not willing to pay for a GPU that I don't get to fully utilize.
    • A friend of mine recently bought one of those middle-class Dell laptops with an GeForce FX Go 5200 64MB. Linux runs absolutely great on it. No ACPI problems, everything works, and, of course, video drivers that don't suck.

  • bah, get an IBM (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @10:10PM (#10740084)
    Bah, get an IBM Thinkpad. They're superior, cost about the same amount (or as little as half as much), come with a standard 3-year full parts warranty, have customer-replaceable parts (they ship you the easily-replaceable part, you replace it, and ship the broken one to them), don't use shitty and unstable hardware, have high-quality keyboards (I'm sure you've seen some shitty, untypeable laptop keyboards before) and all work with linux perfectly (in all cases I've seen, and ot the best of my knowledge).

    I prefer the X series - they've got good battery life (4+ hours for P-M based models), weigh hardly anything (my P3-M X30 weighs 3.4lb - I'm typing on it now), and are well built and sexy. IBM Thinkpads have the geek appeal, minus the goddamn trendy/yuppy factor that powerbooks have that results in every idiot art geek coming up to you to start a conversation. That, and IBM kit have always had techie appeal in general - they're well built and don't fail.

    Oh, and IBM at least supports Linux commercially, as opposed to this company which seems to want support from the Linux community. Ie, milk the community with shitty products.

    In my opinion, the best thing you could do to get a quality laptop manufacturer to produce "made for Linux" laptops would be to buy an IBM laptop, and then write their corporate office and tell them that you really, really appreciate their high-quality laptop hardware, and that you only wish you weren't required to pay for Windows. If you're in charge of a network install base (and in association, the responsibility of making choices on kit - I know, this is slashdot, that's a bit of a stretch) or any other situation where money is involved, let them know - they'd likely care a good deal that their customers aren't entirely satisfied with their products.

  • The laptop will automatically shut down if the battery goes below 10%, sometimes without a warning (which is actually a good thing, because users should never leave batteries drain below ~20%, as this damages all batteries in general).

    Without warning!? What kind of usablility is that. At 10%, it has plenty of power to tell you that the batteries are running low and ask if you want to save. And if it needs to shutdown, it better hibernate instead of closing my unsaved documents. Further more, all this n

  • Nice...but too much money. My HP 800CT is getting slow and dog-eared, and I am thinking about replacing it. I want something linux-compatible, light, cheap, and with good battery life. Yea sure, everyone wants that...what I am willing to sacrifice is CPU performance (I don't see myself doing lots of compilation on this. No, I won't run gentoo), 3D graphics capbility (I am not really that much into action games), and screen size (I have good eyes...to a point). What I cannot abide is unreliability. Since lap
  • Note: subject line is deliberately provocative. I don't actually want a Commodore 64. I want most non-poweruser, non-gamer computers to go to the Commodore 64 form factor, though.

    Basically, I want all major manufacturers to build something like the Zero Footprint PC [cybernetman.com]. This is where the "desktop replacement" market should be going -- not towards this silly idea that everyone should have a laptop. Look at what Apple and others are doing: every time you upgrade your computer, you have to throw away a perfe

  • Ati? (Score:2)

    by Britz ( 170620 )
    I read and thought great! Then I read further (no ACPI?) and thought mmhh. Then I read even further and read Ati. I don't think I will get one of those soon. :-(

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