On Mon, 17 Oct 2005 15:08:55 +0000 "ed stuckems" <edstuckems [ at ] hotmail [ dot ] com> wrote: > > I'm going to buy my first laptop and I'm looking for advice. When I last looked for Linux compatible laptops (for work) I first found a couple of laptops that I liked. I then googled for "<laptop name> Linux" to determine Linux compatibility. Be very carefull when reading those results. I am amazed at what some people consider "works perfectly." Also be carefull of the age of the document. The more recent the better. From those results I had a better idea of what worked and I narrowed my search. The parts you will most likely have problems with are software suspend, and wireless devices. Software suspend is all over the map. It may just work, work with tweaking, or never work. Google will help you find wireless drivers. Beware of incomplete drivers. (A v0.4 driver from two years ago is probably not very usefull.) Laptop components can change within the same model. Often a laptop will ship with one of two (or more) wireless, ethernet, modem combo cards. One may work perfectly under Linux, but not the other. Ensure that the recomended Foo900 laptop model is the same as the Foo900 that you order. Laptop model names/numbers mean nothing. Just because the Foo900 is a dream under Linux, does not mean that the Foo901 will work. -- sg