# recommendations for a laptop supported 100% by gentoo?

## dj_olsen

hi folks,

i want to buy a new laptop that is supported 100% by gentoo. do you have any recommendations for me?

important for me is:

screen resolution more than 1024x768 pixels

usb2.0

gentoo should work out of the box (i.e. graphic card support, power management)

processor speed 2600+ or above (and centrino equivalents)

at the moment i am using a hp pavilion ze4417... not that great - can't finish the instalation, there are always problems (doesn't boot latest gentoo cd, acpi not supported, 3d not supported, ...)

thank you for your help!Last edited by dj_olsen on Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:51 am; edited 1 time in total

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## Jake

I'm having a hard time thinking of things not supported in Linux. 802.11g and winmodem support are poor, but I think these days all the IDE chipsets and USB interfaces are supported. If you want 3D accelerated graphics, get nvidia or ATI. Both will also support TV out with the closed-source drivers, but as a general rule, nvidia Linux driver support is better than ATI.

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## theDreamer

i fully recommand IBM laptops.

i have IBM R40 and it works excellent with gentoo.

the only thing that require manual configuration is working with docking station which requires two X server configuration (for monitor and mouse configuation.

i also worked for a while with T41 which also worked excellent.

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## korpo

I run Gentoo on my (work's) Dell C840. Not exactly the specs you're looking for, but it works fine anyway.

P4-M 1.6Ghz

NVidia GF42Go

1600x1200 resolution

USB 1.1 only

ACPI and APM both work fine

I've never tried configuring the dock station or the volume buttons or anything like that working. But it does everything I need and has good battery life (thanks to the fact that it has two batteries and weighs as much as a bag of bricks).

-Kris

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## butters

I agree that its hard to find incompatible hardware these days, especially since Gentoo allows for the easy configuration of some hardware setups that the more "polished" installers can't properly detect.

However, I would second the recommendation of IBM laptops, especially the T series.  Also, I would stay away from Dell Inspiron laptops, since they tend to have broken BIOS calls and ACPI features.  In the past, I needed to patch XFree86 to allocate shared video memory and recognize video modes higher than 640x480.  This was because the BIOS call that reports video memory was broken on my Inspiron 500m.  Even that issue was fixed in the first Xorg release, which detects my broken Inspiron BIOS.  The only remaining problem I have is that my current open tty is not saved when I close the lid of my laptop, so when I reopen it I need to press CTR-ALT-F7 in order to get my X session back up.  Not too much of a hassle if you know to expect it.

Yeah, I recommend IBM, Sony, or custom-built.  You can install Gentoo on an Apple Powerbook as well, but when you have OSX, why would you?

Good luck, you'll get just about anything to work eventually, though.

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## Wonkey_Donkey

My 2 penneth here too.

I run a Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop with 1920x1200 display with no problems. Everything on it works just fine.

The only thing I can't comment on is the bluetooth, which I didnt go for when I ordered it.

Performance is quite nippy as well.

 :Smile: 

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## Miles

I recently setup Gentoo on an IBM Thinkpad T30, everything is working. I even have hibernate working.  :Shocked: 

In the past I've also had Gentoo running on a Thinkpad A30p. If you want full compatibility go for IBM.

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## mikegpitt

I think I heard of some problem with the network card in an Intel Centrino, so you may want to stay away from one of those.  Then again, I'm not sure if this was resolved by now.

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## teedog

 *mikegpitt wrote:*   

> I think I heard of some problem with the network card in an Intel Centrino, so you may want to stay away from one of those.  Then again, I'm not sure if this was resolved by now.

 

The IPW2100 now has native Linux drivers.  IPW2200's native driver is not mature yet but it runs fine using Ndiswrapper.

Gentoo Linux runs fine on my Dell Inspiron 600m and Inspiron 8600.

You might want to consider getting an laptop with an NVidia graphics card despite ATI's dominance in the mobile market.  NVidia's drivers more than make up for the performance difference.  Besides, the big difference in performance is mostly in Direct3D performance I hear.

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## Cheesepie

I've got power management (ACPI) and everything on an IBM T41.

Bought it off Ebay and saved the big bucks.

I'm totally and completely in love with this lappy- its the power combination of size, power and durability for my needs. The only downside is that the model I bought doesn't have an internal wireless card. Thats ok though; I hear the intel centrino chipset is ghey on nix.

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## butters

with regards to ipw2100 for the centrino wireless chipset, it has now come down to installing a 2.6.x kernel and typing

emerge ipw2100

no need to even know what ndiswapper is... great job to everyone involved in that project and to Intel for being so forthcoming with the driver, even if some proprietary parts could not be open source.

The IBM Thinkpad T41/42 is truly an awesome series, as long as you don't mind the "hard, black, techie" aesthetics.  The only laptop that garners as much respect IMHO is the Apple 15" Powerbook, and that is a bit pricier.  Also the Apple is not as Linux compatible as the Thinkpad, and that was the point of this thread....

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