Suggestions on notebook

[Bill Ricker]

> considering a used IBM thinkpad T42

I'm typing this on a used T42p, quite happy with Gentoo as it came
with for now ... and am eagerly awaiting Ubuntu "Dapper Duck" FRC next
month, as that's my favorite Debian derivative.

> but for the same price I could get a new
> nicely equipped HP Pavilion dv5000 with the Turion 64 Mobile
Processor.

Or for less, get a Turion 64 from Tiger Direct. Their lowest price
Turion isn't the HP-paq, but their HP Turion64 new price may beat a 
used T42. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/search.asp?keywords=Turion&image1.x=0&image1.y=0


> would like to install dual-boot Debian – WinXP. I like the fact that

For buying a current laptop this spring, I'd suggest sticking with the
vendors that Ubuntu "Dapper Drake" is supporting, they're doing a lot
of Laptop installer QA and even if you want pure Debian, their patches
to make drivers work for those laptops will appear at least on Sid
(Unstable) and probable Etch (Testing) fairly quickly.  It looks like
support for HP/Turion64 is almost there.

 https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+ticket/329
 http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-87558.html
  http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=110&page=3&order=desc
 http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=107542&highlight=L2000

Both current HP and IBM/LeNovo business-grade laptops are iirc in the
prime target for "Dapper Drake", so your T42 vs HP-Turion are in my
comfort zone.

--
Bill
n1vux at arrl.net bill.n1vux at gmail.com