Suggestions on notebook

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu (dsr at tao.merseine.nu)]

On Sat, Mar 04, 2006 at 06:02:54PM -0500, James Kramer wrote:
> I need to purchase a laptop replacement in the near future. Initially, I was
> considering a used IBM thinkpad T42 but for the same price I could get a new
> nicely equipped HP Pavilion dv5000 with the Turion 64 Mobile Processor. I
> would like to install dual-boot Debian ? WinXP. I like the fact that the HP
> is 64 bit so that I can migrate in the future. I like the fact that both HP
> and IBM supports Linux. I also like the fact that AMD has made a commitment
> to Linux and LinuxBIOS. I am willing to wait a year or so for all the
> components of the new HP to be configured properly for Linux. I am leaning
> in favor of the HP.  Are there any big disadvantages that won't be worked
> out by tweaks to the software or configuration?  Also, It has the option a
> selecting either an ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M or NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400. I was
> thinking about selecting the ATI.  I would welcome any suggestions about
> choosing the new HP with the AMD Turion 64 Mobile for it primary use as a
> Debian workstation.

I have had great luck with some HP laptops (like the dv1000 I am
currently typing on) and lousy experiences with others. Across
the board, I can report that support for the latest video cards
under X is sorely lacking unless you are willing to use
proprietary binaries. Even then, you will need to run
bleeding-edge X releases.

My requirements for a laptop may be different from yours. I need good
battery life, support for hibernation, wireless and wired ethernet, a
spare PCMCIA port,  a good screen and not too much weight. Modern hard
drives are essentially all much larger than I need, because real work
gets done on other systems.

Can you articulate you requirements?

-dsr-