Linux Notebook - advice wanted

I'm thinking of buying this notebook (link in french, but its pretty easy to guess the configuration):

http://store.mandriva.com/product_info.php?products_id=211&osCsid=e1cf189c90948cb84e3a1f811d9cd384

Price is EUR 750 / US$ 960 / GBP 513. I think its a decent deal.

I have experimented with a few linux distros on a borrowed notebook, and while I'm determined to stick with linux it is has been too hard to get a completely working computer out of it.

And now that I have thinking that I may end up buy one which linux is even harder to install on (I was looking at this one http://www.whichlaptop.co.uk/html/view_product.php?id=58).

So I decided to try to find one with linux preinstalled.

Anyway that is the problem. The only really decent offer I found was the Mandriva HP notebook, in France. Getting it there is not the problem, even a version running in english and with english documentation is available, but the keyboard will have a french layout (z where the w is or something like that).

Someone told me not to worry, notebook keys pop off so I can change them and then alter a few configurations (in windows and linux, since its a dual boot!).

Anyway this sounds to me like taking the concept of hacking too literally. Can anyone tell me if this is crazy or is it actually practical?

 

Don't do it. Just get a regular notebook from your home country and install Linux on it. It's not all that difficult (but it can be annoying to make sure that all the hardware is compatible).

What country are you from? Have you looked at lists such as these http://www.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed ?

 

I'm in the UK, which unfortunately isn't on the list. Thanks for the link though. I have found one pre-installed linux workstation vendor in the UK but nobody that does notebooks.


If I was getting a desktop I would be less concerned but with notebooks, getting wireless/bluetooth/"sleep" mode/and all that working can be a major project, I've already tried it with not much success.

 

The problem isn't so much with configuring the system, but picking the hardware that can be configured. For some parts, there just are no drivers or support.

 

Ehhh most popular hardware is now supported by linux. Configuration is easy as shit if you're using like RedHat or something along those lines. In fact, there is no configuration for most systems when using RedHat.

 

That's what I kept hearing and then I tried it myself. Mandrake 10.1 failed to install. Fedora and Fedora based distros (BLAG) wouldn't let me keep windows NT and dual boot. Reformatted the hard drive, put on XP and tried Mandrake again. It worked but sleep mode wouldn't work and I couldn't get my wireless cards to work. Most software I tried to install didn't work. And it was pretty slow considering a PIII 128MB should be good enough to get a reasonably fast Linux system.

Maybe it was bad luck. But sinking money into a computer that Linux may or may not work on... just wish there was a better way.

 

Yea that sounds like bad luck... but what do you mean that fedora wouldn't let you keep windows nt?

 

It was having problems recognising the partitions I think, so it wouldn't give me the option of setting up a dual boot with NT, it wanted to wipe the drive. It may have had trouble reading NTFS or something, although in the end I did get an NTFS formatted XP/Mandrake system running, and Mandrake is more or less Fedora anyway. In the end I couldn't figure out what I did differently that worked.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I should just buy this system in France. Who cares if the W key says Z, not the hardest thing to work around.

 

Yea that does suck. I've been working with various flavors of unix and linux for a while now on my own, professionally for a couple of years... Once you start to get more experience, you'll be able to work around strange obstacles like that.

 

Definitely - but you only have to set up a system once, so I'm hoping to find a reseller than can save me the trouble.

Another question - 64 bit linux is a bit of waste of time, right? I mean 64 bit AMD chips are all over the place, but 64 bit linux is only just coming out and as far as I know 64 bit home user type applications are somewhere between pretty scarce and nonexistant. So even though the price may be the same, aren't I just asking for more trouble trying to run a 64 bit operating system which will be using 32 bit programs 99% of the time? Or would you go to 64 bit now since everything is going to be 64 bit soon enough?

Funny how I feel the need to complicate things when I can't even handle the basics. I also want to run two monitors? Why? Why not.

 

ah, the chant of tech nerds everywhere....

"Why not?"

/what do you mean I don't need to see my screen on the tv, the monitor, and another monitor? 5.1 split into 15 speakers and 3 subs? why not? two keyboards, 2 mice? why not?

//we're a bunch of nerds.
///i need a girlfriend.

 

I guess the 64 bit kernel is getting pretty reliable- but I can't speak from experience as none of the servers here that I am in charge of are 64 bit, save a few SPARC's. I don't have the money to be even thinking about 64 bit anything right now, so I haven't really even research much of it, just read bits here and there.

 

I'm sure the kernel is stable, but trying to manage a mix of 32 bit and 64 bit applications and their extensions (e.g. flash players are only 32 bit) seems like trouble. It would be a bit unfortunate to buy a 64 bit system (and Althon is no longer high end, so it's what I'd be looking at) and run it 32 bit but I guess I can always upgrade in a year when the software catches up with the hardware.

Trotsky, are you saying a 64 bit linux system with two monitors isn't going to magnetically attract laydeez? Build it and they will come!

 

not until you've got surround sound with a knob that goes to 11!