Well said, in a way, xLinuxz.

First off... Windows is first and foremost, the best marketing company. Thay have manipulated companies into forcing their OS into consumers... And now those companies have little choice but to offer Windows... Sort of... We all know that what makes hardware companies support what they do is what the computer manufacturers offer...

Make your voice by what you buy... Buy only fully compatable protocol hardware... Buy no brainless 'windows' hardware...

Now for atheist...

As long as you do not concentrate you efforts on gaming, Linux will be the best choice. I never go to Windows unless I play around with a demo game... Everything else is EASILY converted to Linux. If you need advice on what programs you want to change over, let myself, or others here know. We can help.

See my sig for my laptop maker names. Both are fully functional in Linux.

That being said, do any of you have any experience with Acer computers?

I understand they don't manufacture their hardware themselves. Anyone here familiar with the quality level of it? I also understand that their hardware differs alot from one computer to another... Do they just buy what's cheapest at the moment and throw it in their machines? And of course, Acer computers and Linux go together how well?

I saw an entry in HCL that spoke relatively good about a rather new Acer model.

How has your experience been, if you have one?

The reason I'm asking is that there are some pretty good deals available on Acer computers here in Iceland. If you can call them good deals... Computer hardware cost in Iceland is enourmous compared to the states.

Thanks for all the input so far.

I disagree. Anyone is free to use whatever selection criteria he/she chooses when making a purchase decision, however, to totally ignore the intended usage as part of the evaluation could, IMO, result in some pretty poor recommendations. Example: a person is interested in purchasing a new automobile and is seeking advice. For illustration purposes, let's suppose that the choices are the Mini Cooper, a Toyota Camry, and a Ford pickup. Which would you recommend? Considering that the Mini Cooper is the least expensive, has low maintenance costs, and gets the best gas mileage by far, it would likely get the top vote.

Unfortunately, if the person who took this advice was a carpenter, and needed to haul several hundred pounds of lumber, plywood, and tools from one construction site to another during the week, a recommendation to buy a Mini would be laughable -- there's no way that the Mini would be "most compatible" with what the owner needed. In this case, the most compatible vehicle would be the pickup truck. My point: the intended usage does matter, regardless of whatever metrics you are using.

Similarly, if someone is interested in buying a new laptop and is seeking advice about what to purchase, it's equally important to consider how that person intends to use the machine. As an example, if he/she will be doing a lot of multimedia work, then the most compatible laptop would be one with a lot of fast RAM, a large hard disk, and advanced video. A recommendation to purchase a laptop with small RAM, a tiny hard disk, and run-of-the-mill graphics would be a dis-service, even if that laptop scored higher on some sort of abstract "compatibility" scale.

My point is that compatibility is a relative measure, not an absolute, and therefore, how well the laptop performs the tasks the owner gives it will be the main gauge of how compatible it is. I understand your point, and actually agree with it, but the overriding concern here is that an LQ'er is asking for advice about buying a new machine. IMO, it's critical to consider the intended use of the machine in order to make any meaningful suggestions. Just my 2 cents. -- J.W.

ehmmm...... J.W.,

you are comparing the personal needs of the person purchasing the computer with the capacity of that computer satisfying those needs. yes.....But that is NOT the question here, nor what I addressed earlier.

The specific need here, and the first post says it very clearly.... 'The need for the Computer to be Compatible with Linux'

This is the need and issue here....not what he is going to do with the laptop after Linux is installed....that's a different topic completely.

I repeat it, in a different way just in case there is still a doubt, 'On which laptop will Linux install flawlessly'

Again, this is the correct question and what I addressed before as well.

And I repeat again, the laptop on which Linux installs and runs flawlessly has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with what YOU intend to use the laptop for; other than of course using it to run Linux, because that is the 'Need' we are trying to satisfy here.

A carpinter, or doctor, lawyer, hotdog seller, car dealership, prostitute, etc.... has nothing to do with how well a laptop can run Linux.

zLinuxz

I recently bought a Toshiba Satalite A30-141.

To begin with it was a total nightmare tried MDK9.2 and RH9 but hardly anything worked CDRW not recognised, graphics only in VESA mode, no IDE DMA and no sound. Tried compiling my own 2.6.7 kernel and got DMA but nothing else.

In the end i bought Suse 9.1 Pro and it fixed all my problems.

One word of warning stay away from ATI mobility graphics cards, I still haven't got 3D acceleration working properly yet.

zLinuxz - as I said, I get your point, but I am only saying that IMO the intended usage is important. If you are of the opinion that the intended usage is totally irrelevant when making a purchase, that's your call.

One other comment that I think is useful to make is that the term "compatibility with Linux" can be defined multiple ways. What I mean by this is that for most people, "compatibility with Linux" really just boils down to "compatibility with the distro I want to use". There are any number of distros out there, each using a different version of the kernel and coming with a different set of packages, and depending on the specifics, distro A may work really really well but distro B has a lot of problems. To illustrate, the hardware detection capabilities in Knoppix 3.4 are excellent, and if you installed it on a given laptop it may easily detect and enable the onboard LAN port, and you could be surfing the Internet within minutes. However, another distro running a different version of the kernel may not be able to detect the onboard LAN port right out of the box, and the only way to solve it might require that the user spend hours and hours of time downloading drivers, recompiling the kernel, etc, etc, and even after all that, may not succeed in getting it to work.

Now, how compatible with Linux is that laptop? Well, it depends - the first person would say it's highly compatible, the second person wouldn't. As I said, compatibility is a relative assessment, not an absolute.

You rephrased the original question as
which is entirely valid, but that prompts the following questions:

1. What's your definition of Linux? Are you talking about a specific distro or a specific kernel, and if so, which one?

2. Which laptop (make and model) would you personally recommend as being the most compatible with Linux?

-- J.W.

Off topic - I notice you are from San Diego - what a great city. A few years ago I participated in a half marathon in La Jolla, and spent a couple of days in that area. Wow! It's a great town, plus it's got perfect weather 365 days a year.

J.W. I see that you have a very valid, important, and applicable point which I had failed to see. I think you are very much right.
The distro one uses can really determine a lot of the auto-dection portion of the installation of that Linux distro on a given computer.

That is very interesting to hear, that you participated in the La Jolla half-marathon. I see that you are from Cali as well, where abouts?... I can guess from 'northen' california....since any more Southern california and you'll be in Mexico, hehehe.

see ya around,

zLinuxz

zLinuxz - actually I'm from the East Coast but I moved out here to CA about 15 years ago. Originally I was living down in Manhattan Beach, then moved up to the Valley, then moved back to Hermosa. I had been working for a dot com company at the time, but it totally imploded in early 2001, and long story short, now I'm up here in NoCal. I do miss the beach though, and although I've never lived in SD, as I mentioned before I think it's just an excellent town. You're lucky.

Anyway, judging by your sig it sounds like you may be off on summer vacation, so I hope you're making the most of it. Best regards and good luck with your classes next semester. -- J.W.

my laptop is Toshiba Satellite s1800,and my linux is Redhat 9.0,the sound-card was not supported well by rh9.0,so I have to install alsa,now everything works well.

glad to hear your card is now working nickhx, what card was it by the way? and which driver did you need?...just in case someone else may need that info if they have the same sound card, thanks!

J.W.,
yes, I'm studying abroad for the summer, an intensive 6 week course at the University of Beijing. Lots of fun, but a lot more work! heheh, and I am enjoying it to the fullest, , thanks for asking.
Hope you visit more often SD, since it's so nice and you like it very much too!
Have a good summer you too, see you around,

zLinuxz

zLinuxz, hey. Just out of curiousity. What is it that you're studying in Beijing?

Chinese

http://www.laclinux.com/en/Start - Las Alamos Computing

I do not work there, and there is not benefit to me to post this. These guys just seem to have the best prices I have seen with GNU/Linux pre-installed and supported. I have heard nothing but good things (the send full documentation on the model you buy, and how to get all of the hardware working), and I plan on buying my next notebook from them.

Right now I have a T-40 which is nice, but waaay overpriced and it requires a proprietary kernel module to get the wireless working.

hey, cool site you found there. YEah, the prices are okay.

zLinuxz, figures. :P

Chris Parker: Damn, there are some really nice deals on that site. I only wish I could order from there. I live in Iceland and hardware here is way expensive. I'd probably end up paying huge amounts of money if I was able to order from that site... damn toll fees.

I'm thinking about an Acer TravelMate 803LCI