From: jdii1215@INVALIDjohndanielsonii.name   
      
   On 6/21/2012 8:28 PM, Jim Beard wrote:   
   > I have been toying with the idea of buying a laptop for 2 or 3 years   
   > now, and the possibility of Winblows Ate leading to indigestion has me   
   > inclined to buy one sooner rather than later.   
   >   
   > My basic want list is largest screen I can get, multi-core cpu, large   
   > hard drive, DVD R-W, and the usual assortment of connectors (ethernet,   
   > USB, ?anything else I will need?).  Battery life is not really   
   > important, as I expect to tether it to a wallwart for use, but desktops   
   > are too much trouble to assemble/disassemble and haul around in a car or   
   > maybe (if absolutely necessary) on an airplane.   
   >   
   > My don't want list includes anything by Toshiba, Sony, or other Japanese   
   > company, plus Lenovo.   
   >   
   > I looked at an HP DV76C63NR that has an i5 cpu 640GB HD and a Dell   
   > i17RN-2943BK that has an i3 and 500GB, both with 17-inch screens and   
   > Win7 64-bit home edition or some such, which I would likely shrink to   
   > maybe 50GB and keep for dual-boot, just in case I might need Willy's   
   > Wonker software.   
   >   
   > Comments?  Suggestions?   
   >   
   > Cheers!   
   >   
   > jim b.   
   >   
      
   Hmm... Lenovo does not officially support Linux, to look at common   
   knowledge, but they do several things with their Thinkpad line that made   
   me buy one and try Linux dual-booted on it. I now do have a Linux   
   install dual-booted on it with no kernel customizing required. The thing   
   is durable as all-get-out, survived being dropped more than once, and   
   shut its HD down before impact twice when dropped while on.   
      
   I also bought a 3-year warranty for it, which is available for Thinkpads   
   (they are Lenovo's business grade line, and Lenovo for Thinkpads has   
   tried to maintain the quality and feature rep they bought with the name   
   and tech from IBM a while back). The case is a durable aluminum and   
   magnesium alloy. I got only one issue, Linux does not yet check to see   
   if the fingerprint reader has approved a fingerprint.   
      
   Even USB 2.0 and 3.0 work(even my USB 3.0 HD and my USB 2.0 HD are   
   recognized). And Linux and Windows recognize both video heads, one an   
   Nvidia 1000M, one the embedded Intel Graphics.   
      
   My limited experience with Dell and HP and the fact that for laptops   
   neither really supports fully Linux, leads me to not recommend them for   
   Linux. Dell I favor over HP, because Dell offers a util on its XPS line   
   that will happily burn the recovery partition to DVD and then make you a   
   boot disk (Such also came with my Lenovo, on the HD). The boot disk will   
   do a factory recovery for you.   
      
   As to networking, the Lenovo works with b/g/n wireless in both Linux and   
   Windows, and works with Gigabit and down wired connections in both Linux   
   and Windows. I will note that I have a Cisco Linksys router that runs as   
   its embedded core Linux OS, which might have something to do with it.   
      
   I am Linux newbie and never got much Unix experience, but have used   
   laptops for 5 years+. So I need something that works out of the box for   
   both OSs, and works well.   
      
   John- not quite a luser anymore. :)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)