What makes the Lenovo Think Pad so special for running a purely Linux and BSD Unix machine - Say if I wanted to run 8 different distributions of both Linux and BSD Unix on a laptop - is it wiser to chose a Lenovo Think Pad for this task ? or would any model or Toshiba or Acer do fine as well ?

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/c...2_446ebc23c550

Just a few reasons.

Thanks for the links

I own 2 thinkpads. One for sale locally.

However

The Acer 5534 I sold was Linux friendly as hell. Atheros wifi chip.
The Toshiba I can't comment on as I have never owned one.

Only laptops I personally may be leery of is Sony,Emachines, and Fujitsu and Macs. Only from what I have read though. Not personal experience.

I own a Chromebook Acer C710 also that I am going to jump through certain hoops also to run my preferred Linux on. From what I read.
The kernel and touchpad are sore points on that piece of gear after
enabling Developer Mode and installing something other than a Kernel
massaged for the touchpad on that Netbook.

IBM has a good track record with Gnu/Linux in my opinion.

I've had excellent success with Samsung laptops. They are truly linux-friendly, very reasonably priced and, best of all, no Microsoft Tax! (they come with something like Freedos installed). I've owned several and all work well.
jdk

I have had more success installing Linux on my laptops (Sony and Toshiba) than attempting to install Linux on my Lenovo Idea S6000 Tablet. I can't even get Fedora to see it--

Some folks have had success with installing Linux on their tablets but some have found that they either have no sound or don't have functionality of the keyboard.

Good luck synchlavier-

@Ztcoracat I wasn't thinking of a tablet which I don't think is suitable to Linux but rather the ThinkPad - specifically this is the guy I had in mind => http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops...540/#techspecs Everyone I ask thinks it's a perfect fit for all Linux distributions as well as BSD - The ThinkPad E540 - if there are any objects in as far as this machine being ideal for running any of the main Linux distributions Debian, Fedora, Mint, Slackware, Ubuntu as well as BSD I'd like to hear them -

The ThinkPads I have owned are great Linux/BSD machines. I currently have a T61, which has run everything I have thrown at it (it stays with Slackware these days). I can't comment on Toshiba, Acer, etc., as I have not owned any of these. I have been so happy with ThinkPads that I haven't really checked out anything else.

In addition to the ThinkWiki link provided above (great resource!), here is a place (along with ebay), that you can find some great deals on ThinkPads.

That Think Pad E540 looks really nice-
I would go with the i7

I remember helping a member that had trouble with Black Opal Ubuntu 12.04 that came with kernel 3.2.0 and that Intel HD Graphics (integrated)card. The kernel didn't provide enough support for the distro to load and the Live CD just hung.

I highly recommend Slackware. It won't hold your hand but you will learn alot.
I think Debian and Mint would most likely run very well on that Think Pad--
I hear the Cinnamon DE with Mint is real nice-

With Debian you might need 'wireless tools' and the driver for your chipset installed along with some firmware; in order to get your wireless working.
https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi
https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/f...-linux-nonfree

-::-Fedora does not work out of the box.-::-
Keep in mind that Fedora is the R&D distro for Red Hat and it's buggy. At least that's been the case for me.
Fedora would be good for just home use. I don't recommend Fedora for a production machine that will be on a server for the enterprise/workplace. RH or CentOS would be the better choices for that-

Good luck on your new purchase.

It doesn't? I've not had to do anything aside from out-of-the-box installs and fedup upgrades of F18, F19, and F20. It's a bit buggy, of course-it's Linux. To say it doesn't work with a standard install smacks me as not quite accurate, however.

Agreed. RHEL 6 or CentOS 6 are ideal for stability.

I have a Lenovo T430S. This is my second one, because the network cards all took a dump in my first one. Not my favorite hardware, but it runs Linux pretty well.

I should of clarified with details about not working out of the box-- Thanks
After a fresh install of Fedora I find it incredibly recursive to install Evince, gcc, c++,VLC, rpmfusion, flash, etc... to have all of the essential software to add to the base system.

I don't like the Midori browser and you?

Thanks for clarifying. I agree with you somewhat, here. I don't know that it's much different with many of the mainstream Linux distros.

I am pretty married to the chrome browser, so no need for midori ;-)

SSince we're on the subject of installing Fedora, I want to mention that fedup network install/upgrades have been flawless since F18. I haven't yet had issues with it.

Your Welcome.

I haven't used fedup but since you have had success with it I might consider it with Fedora 21-

@Ztcoracat there is one last question you mentioned the i-7... I have heard Linux has issues with the i-5 is this true ? In other words I've been told to either use the i3 or i7 but not i5 with Linux

I'm posting from a Dell Inspiron 15r laptop with an i5 processor. I haven't had a single problem with it and the CPU. However, I haven't tried to do anything other than check the temp with lm_sensors.