Laptops

[Gordon]

I'm considering buying a laptop from PC World. Could anyone recommend one which they sell which will work well with Linux?

[shifty_ben]

This comment may seem terribly unhelpful, but trust me in a few months time if you don't listen to it you will likely wish you had.

_dont_ buy from PC World, I bought a rather nice PC from there, got home (after some problems instore I might add) off comes XP, on goes Linux Hard drive died within months (and no i didn't accidentally break it with hdparm ) so I contacted them and said my HD's died, got receipt etc. Like a tit I said the fact I put Linux on there doesn't effect my warranty does it?
Moral of the story is, if you do buy from them and it breaks don't tell them you put Linux on there, especially if its something like the hard drive - because with a bust hard drive they would never know - Most laptops are fairy well supported, if you see something by IBM then its probably your best bet although i have heard that Toshiba are quite well supported. If your not sure then your best bet is too look at the demo one, use the windows device manager to make a note of all the hardware in it, come home and google the night away before going back the next day and buying it (if the hardwares supported of course )

Incidentally if you do get one and find that it needs a bit of tweaking, i have found a good cure for that I-can't-be-bothered feeling. Wipe the harddrive and put W2k on there, by the time you have finished installing your anti-spyware and anti-virus tools et al not to mention office etc. you find yourself much much more motivated

[spottedcat]

Have a look at: http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/
Under Hardware, they list the IBM laptops they supply, preloaded with Linux.
I've noticed that these people do the same IBMs (with Windows, of course ) cheaper.

The wireless cards the linuxemporium sells have the Ralink chipset which I've only been able to configure under WEP in Linux. My Sony Vaio (bought in Currys, actually) has the Intel Centrino thingummy, and WPA works fine with this with SuSE 10.0. As does most of the rest. If you're considering a Sony (they're expensive), I'll give you more details.

Edit: Oh, btw, I've read (but can't confirm) that it's best to avoid ATI graphics chipsets in laptops. My only experience is with a desktop with an ATI AGP card. OK-ish, but the desktop fonts looked nasty. Changed it for an NVidia - instant improvement. My Sony laptop has the Intel 915GM graphics chipset and this looks fine.

[nelz]

I didn't buy mine from PC World, although they were nice enough to let me play with one before buying elsewhere , but my iBook G4 works very nicely with Linux, now there are OSS drivers for the built in wireless.

[spottedcat]

...and I've heard that the IBM-chipped iBooks are being sold at a discount (in the Apple shop?) in anticipation of the new Mactel ones.

[Gordon]

Thanks folks. My idea is to also get an external USB hard drive as well and put linux on that so if anything goes wrong PC World won't know

[towy71]

I would not buy anything from PCworld because, corporately, they seem positively against the free software movement, although I know of Linux users working in stores.
I honestly think you could buy better computers cheaper elsewhere.

[Nisky]

Consumer law mean PCworld will have to replace your hard drive under warrenty as it's faulty. Do not take their first response quote the sale of goods act. It like Dixons selling you a washing machine and saying they won't replace it under warrenty because only white washes are supported!

[shifty_ben]

Without a doubt its not technically legal for them to say that, but that won't generally stop them. They seem to see changing the operating system as a major change.
Thats why I always build my own (PCs not Laptops) its just so much less hassle

I would not buy anything from PCworld because, corporately, they seem positively against the free software movement,

At least they sell Mandriva and SuSe, there are companies who do a lot less. Having said that I do not doubt their reasons for doing so is not to support OSS but in fact to line their pockets a bit more (but then dont most companies do that)
With regards to wireless and Linux, I may be lucky but I havent had any problems with it (well apart from faulty hardware) I bought a belkin card from ebay, it turned up and it was actually made by Mercury or someone like that. Thankfully its based on a Texas Instruments chipset so it works.

Hardware support is certanly getting better

[spottedcat]

At least they sell Mandriva and SuSe, there are companies who do a lot less. Having said that I do not doubt their reasons for doing so is not to support OSS but in fact to line their pockets a bit more

True enough. In my local PC World they've got copies of SuSE 9.3 on the shelves - still at the original 80-90 quid or whatever it was . No sign of 10.0. And there's still some copies of 9.1 too, but they are selling them off at less than £10 (still more expensive than downloading an ISO.)

But in their favour, I've bought most of my Linux books there, including recently "Running Linux" by Dalheimer and Welsh. (O'Reilly). £35.50 and worth it IMO. They have a good selection of Linux books. Also "HTML and CSS in 24 hours" this morning. It's either them or Waterstone's if I want to browse the bookshelves.

[towy71]

At least they sell Mandriva and SuSe, there are companies who do a lot less. Having said that I do not doubt their reasons for doing so is not to support OSS but in fact to line their pockets a bit more

Not down here they don't, they do have a couple of books but I buy books from a bookshop and computers in pieces