As for my last questions - OK search the forums etc, right? So I have. Here are the results of my googling for general information.
I suppose I'd be right in concluding that widescreens are almost unknown territory as far as DSL goes? I did find this on the "linux on laptops" site if it helps anybody, which includes XFree86 configuration information. Looks like something of an unpredictable, difficult hack and definitely not for me right now. Also, it's hard to tell sometimes exactly what the install reports mean by it "works". I don't think I'm in the mood to f*k around with hardware issues when paying out for a new machine.
As much as I love linux, this must be one of those issues to which Jason Perlow in Linux Journal is referring when he says that configuration of stuff in linux has to become a "no brainer" to enable widespread adoption, not an obscure hack with some "half baked script" only for those in the know.
In short I lean back towards the IBM. No dvd+/-rw, awful unergonomic nipple thing, unattractive but tough IBM body, and -worst of all - no widescreen movies in my crappy hotel room when I'm away (sigh)......
There's also a detailed report of debian/knoppix (hence dsl) on the IBM R50e here claiming almost everything works out of the box EXCEPT eg wlan and the modem - I think he has fixes for these. Also I can't seem to see if it's the same Celery chip as what I'm looking at though - the r50e is also available with Pentium M/centrino.
Another link re Debian on R50 is here and appears to be the same page as a link that has gone dead on linux on laptops.
There's also a webring and mail list dedicated to linux on Thinkpads, so there's probably no shortage of places to seek assistance.
EDIT: Just found this outfit in Australia ship the Celeron r50e with a choice of a just about any linux distro you can think of preinstalled (also a French mob offering dual boot r50e Celeron. There's even one in Romania .....) And a "Keylabs linux compatibility" test certification report here
So all in all the r50e Celeron appears to be eminently doable with dsl.well... there are a couple problems with both... both laptops are running off of p3 era celerons which if im correct maxed out at 1.2 ghtz, so inorder to make them faster than that they have to be overclocked, which generally isnt too great in a laptop.
as far as brands go, ive never been pleased with ibm they've never gotten there bios right. i rember about 20% of the computer had a "keyboard lockup screen" at my ibm infested school.
i think that acer is a japanese brand which generally tend to be a bit better, i would go for the acer even tho it has the widescreenI am a thinkpad believer. I currently own two of the pentium II gender. Both are rugged and have been long lasting. Both work with dsl cdrom and a pen drive with a boot disk. To old for self boot. I will buy another one if the oppertunity arises.
David Thanks v much to you both for the feedback and for bearing with my thinking-out-loud.
As far as both laptops having unremarkable crunchy salad processors, I guess I accept that's all you get for the low price tag. I would have thought, though, that dsl running toram would decide it's the space shuttle taking off on one of these, as opposed to being rooted and green. I'm used to running dsl toram on a p3 ~860Mhz desktop with lots of RAM, on which it seems fast indeed.
...bear in mind that the cheapest processor you can buy new today is plenty fast enough for Linux. So if dropping back a speed level or two brings you in under budget, you can do it with no regrets.
This same guy also says that front side bus and disk I/0 are far more important than the processor itself for linux. Both laptops are supposed to have 400Mhz FSB. I'm still very green about the ears (probably the testicles as well) about such things -- is this ok?
It seems that the beef with Celeron M's is their 512kB cache (still better than the early ones) and lack of Speedstep. I note the posters here seem to see no noticeable performance difference as compared to the desktop Celeron D 2.6-2.8 in non-intensive type applications (still Celery) but one says the mobile AthlonXP will "whoop" the Celeron 330.
I imagine the hd seek times are poor though - haven't tried to find out about this yet.
But if Celeron is a particularly bad piece of vegetable for the $, then please let me know ....
I recall seeing other complaints about the big blue BIOS elsewhere, but neither that nor the vegetable seems to deter these commercial outfits from shipping them with linux.
There seems to be a consensus that IBM laptops are generally physically among the most durable around (their hinge design in particular is strong, apparently).
I'd still prefer a widescreen though (to be honest, only for movies) if I could be convinced dsl could be made to look sharp on it.
According to linux on laptops, you fix the horizontal stretching (part of the problem with the Acer 1414) by increasing the horizontal frame length etc etc, which means changing some timing numbers in Xconfig.
No-one has any experience of this type of adjustment?
original here.
