# Most successful laptop configuration

## gramafonov

Hi all,

What was the most successful Gentoo laptop install you've ever done/have been made aware of? I have a Gateway Solo 3300 laptop and I'm wondering whether it'd do for a Gentoo system.

Also, what would be my best for a wireless PCMCIA card? I've skimmed through most HOW-TO's on the Web, but there still exists a reasonable amount of controversy inside my mind. What would you guys suggest?

Thank you.

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## kres

The best? My best came from a Dell Latitude Cpx... Actually all of the Dell Latitude lines have taken well to Linux and Gentoo in particular.

Oh, and as for Wireless cards I've used the Linksys line with great success.

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## chefakito

Personally I'd go with the IBMs -- nothing but smooth sailing on them for myself. managed to get everything detected and running with a standard gentoo stage 1 on an A31 (including special buttons). 

IBM also provides a limited level of driver support for their modem which may not have built in support in linux (possibly other hardware on their laptops as well -- you need to search around on the IBM site)

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## morgap98

i use a sager notebook, and i'm amazingly please with gentoo on it.  i have gotten everything working except my PCMCIA Linksys Wireless B/G card, pry cuz the drivers aren't out yet, but other than that, itz fast and stable.

</P33T>

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## Daganoth

Although I have only installed Gentoo on one laptop, I've had considerable success with it. I'm using a Fujistu S2110 and have everything worker with the exception of wireless LAN, mostly because I haven't had access to an AP.

Many people have recommended anything with a Prism chipset. I believe that is a relatively expensive chipset, compared with Linksys and the like, but I have heard it is worth the money.

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## mpsii

 *Daganoth wrote:*   

> Many people have recommended anything with a Prism chipset. I believe that is a relatively expensive chipset, compared with Linksys and the like, but I have heard it is worth the money.

 

On the contrary, many of the Linksys, D-Link, and Netgear el-cheapo cards are Prism based and from $25 US and up.

As far as laptops, Dells are the best IMHO. I never liked IBMs becaused of their odd shape eliminating them from fitting into "standard" cases. On the other hand, I have like my Sony and my Fujitsu with various linux versions at work (both are portable test stations).

Try this sometime: go into Best Buy, CompUSA, wherever with a Knoppix CD and see what dmesg tells you afterward. If knoppix can do it, any linux can.

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## spooon

I've got an IBM Thinkpad 600e and installed gentoo on it with great success. Everything, including the modem, is supported.

While everyone has their opinions on their favorite brand of laptops, I've got to say that IBMs are among my favorite. They're build like bricks and last forever. IBM's been pouring money into linux support. And, most importantly, the keyboards don't suck. I'm typing on a Dell Latitude cpx and it blows chunks.

I wouldn't recommend a Linksys wireless card. I've used both Cisco/Aironet and Orinoco cards and like them both. Cisco cards are definitely top-of-the-line, but Orinoco cards give you the most bang for your buck.

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## snekiepete

I've got my Dell Latitude 2600 working really well. I love it to pieces!!!!!!!!

I'm using the Linksys WPC11 Wireless PCMCIA.

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## Xargon

My Dell Latitude 600 is working great!  I use a DLink DWL-650 (not 650+) wireless NIC [Prisim2 chipset].

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## checkyoulater

I have Gentoo running on my Thinkpad 770X.  Everything works like a charm.  It suspends and wakes up perfectly.  USB port works perfectly.  Don't run X too much on it but when I need to it is fine.  It has an onboard winmodem, which does work if you are so inclined.  I haven't actually used the winmodem under Gentoo, but I had it working with Redhat 2 years ago.

Only downfall is that my CPU is only a P2-300.  Aside from that, I can't say enough good things about thinkpads.  I don't have any experience with the brand new ones, but any thinkpad should just work.

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## Valorin

I also have to say that IBM thinkpads are the way to go. I have a T30 and it worked almost flawlessly, along with my netgear pcmcia wireless card (prism based as well). All the power stuff works as well, suspend and such. I don't think the modem works but I'm not too concerned about that. Also, as mentioned above, the IBM keyboards are the best in the business, they top every other laptop I've ever used. I'm not sure where the above comment about the weird shape of thinkpads, because mine is almost perfectly boxy and fits snugly in every case I've ever had. IBM is also very Linux friendly (compared to the other MS controlled laptop companies).

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## chris`

Inspirons all seem fine for me, also.

I've ran RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, and also Gentoo now on a Dell Inspiron 8200.  Plenty of useful Linux guides for them on the net too.

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## pi3k

I have a great Sony Vaio Z505SX that I love! It's amazingly small and weighs nothing, so I can carry it around in my backpack for school. The only issue I had was that the Gentoo 1.4 cd I used didn't support the pcmcia cdrom, so I just used the 1.2 cd and emerge -u system. Worked great!

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## wilburpan

I have a Dell Inspiron 5000e that has almost everything running that I could want except for syncing with my Handspring Visor, which I suspect is more of a software issue.

Having said that, I would not get another Dell laptop again due to the shoddy construction of my laptop.  I wound up having to replace most of the case due to stress fractures, even though I don't travel much with it.  My laptop basically sits on my desk.  Since it's a work machine, everything is taken care of under the service contract, but I shudder to think what will happen in November when the contract expires.

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## dalamarian

I have only setup gentoo on my Mitac 7321 (yeah yeah, it was a good deal when I got it :O) ).  But it was really easy to do, much easier and reliable than some of the other bigger distros.

I currently have wireless Inet working, full recognition of my hardware, just need to figure out how to disable tapping.

From my friends I definitely have to say that the del lat's really respond well to Linux in general.

As far as wireless inet goes..... Orinoco all the way!  They are high performing, reliable wireless-nics that also have a good price (got mine for 50 about half a year ago).  The best thing about Orinoco is I haven't found a sys yet that required much effort to install/configure them.

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## ZennouRyuu

Just a slight word of caution to any of you looking to buy a new laptop and install some linux distro on it. Be sure you know what the Manufacturers guarentee allows for. In most cases, changing the OS voids it indefinately. I have a Toshiba Satellite 1415-S173 laptop and that was the case for me, which is why i opted to purchase an extended guarentee from my retailer (CompUSA). 

As for the success with this laptop I am pretty pleased with the exceptoion of power saving features like i have in windows. I loose rouughly an hour of batter time or more in linux compared to what i would have in windows, and no suspend to disk or sleep states seem to work for me. But other than that, everything but the special buttons (like media control and quick access buttons) works fine, even wireless networking using a NetGear MA401 card.

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## hulk2nd

i have a sony vaio z1sp and gentoo works great. ok, it is a centrino notebook and until now i cant really use the centrino and pentium-m advantages but besides that, everything worked from the beginning. but they sell these centrino notebooks very good and i think it is just a matter of time until everything is supported by linux.

i have a wireless siemens 11 mbit i-gate pcmcia card because the integrated intel wlan card is not supported yet and it works great. i paid 19. i think the only important thing is the chip. the manufactor is unimportant. i would look after a prism based card

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## plate

Two weeks ago I had a short email exchange with the tech support at Intel about the Centrino's wireless device. Here's what they said: *Quote:*   

> Intel(R) Centrino(TM) Mobile Technology-based systems include integrated 802.11b wireless LAN capability, requiring particular drivers, which currently do not run on Linux.  Intel has no plans at this time to write Linux drivers for the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 LAN MiniPCI Adapters.

 

I've been using Vaios for the past 5 years, but I'm not going to buy a Z1 until further notice...  :Evil or Very Mad: 

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## kicker69101

I have a Dell laptop and I have both a 3com 10/100 (3c575, I think) and  a linksys wpc11 (but I had to manually install the driver, the emerge only wanted to do a pci card). Both of these work like champ.

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## longodj

Dell Inspiron 7000 with Linksys WPC11...took 7 days for a full install with kde....i learned the hard way how little you get from kde for the amount of work you put in   :Smile: 

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## ScubaStreb

My most successful was the Toshiba Portege 7200Cte. Everything on this laptop and the DVD docking station worked.  It was a one spindle, 650Mhz, 1 inch thick machine.  I recently replaced it with a new Pentium-M (it's not a Centrino anymore because I replaced the mini-pci card with one that works!) but still kind of miss that little guy.

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## gkmac

Compaq Armada 7800 made in 1999 (I think) with Pentium II 300MHz, bought secondhand a few months back. Everything works except the WinModem, but being a broadband user I don't care about that! 

 *ZennouRyuu wrote:*   

> I lose roughly an hour of battery time or more in linux compared to what i would have in windows

 

Strange, I've heard from some sources that Linux actually makes the batteries last longer, something to do with processor idling. Never used Windows on my laptop so I can't be certain about that.

Got a brand new battery for it and when fully charged, from mains disconnection to auto-power-off on maximum drain was 3 hours. I don't know if that's good or bad compared to others.

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## jarrett

I realize that this forum will probably forever keep getting longer and longer, but I just have to add something.  I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 and I've gotten everything to work, excepting the buttons and the modem.  I use ethernet everywhere I go and I just haven't had time to play with the buttons yet.  I highly suggest Dell, especially the I8200.  I spilled an entire glass of water on it one time and it's still running perfectly, not even a hiccup.  I did yank the power and the batteries as quickly as possible when it happened, but I noticed the LCD flickering before I got to the batteries  :Shocked: .  I called Dell and they said that since I had CompleteCare I basically had nothing to worry about if it didn't come back up.  I guess whatever laptop you get, make sure you get good insurance on it.

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## swingarm

Well I never had problems with the Inspirion 8000 and 8200 I had, both were smooth installs.  I just installed Gentoo 1.4 with the 2.6 beta4 kernel and it went pretty good on a Toshiba 1135-S125 Laptop.

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## Sequentious

I have a gateway 450x (centrino). I've had alot of success with it so far.

Dispite all my "computer savvy" friends laughing at me buying a gateway computer, I've really enjoyed it so far.

Have a look at my howto for more information if wanted: http://tuxmobil.org/gateway_450x.html

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## Diezel

No Compaqs? I myself use Gentoo on a Compaq EVO 800v. Had some problems with it when I was using kernel 2.4, didn't get the battery states working nor the thermal sensors. But since 2.6 everything works just fine. I'm really pleased with this one. The only thing I miss from 2.4 is the Synaptics driver, on my 2.6 I can't get the "scrollbuttons" working. There mught be an update or a solve for this already, but I just haven't had the time to try to fix it.

Otherwise I think my Compaq was a good buy.

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## Sequentious

 *Diezel wrote:*   

> No Compaqs? I myself use Gentoo on a Compaq EVO 800v. Had some problems with it when I was using kernel 2.4, didn't get the battery states working nor the thermal sensors. But since 2.6 everything works just fine. I'm really pleased with this one. The only thing I miss from 2.4 is the Synaptics driver, on my 2.6 I can't get the "scrollbuttons" working. There mught be an update or a solve for this already, but I just haven't had the time to try to fix it.
> 
> Otherwise I think my Compaq was a good buy.

 Have you tried using the event interface for your touchpad? That's what I'm using with 2.6 and it is working great (i never had scroll buttons with 2.4)

"CONFIG_INPUT_EVDEV=y" in .config, or "event interface" under input device support in menuconfig.

For your touchpad, be sure to have the synaptics driver installed for X, and put:

```
Driver      "synaptics"

Option      "Protocol" "event"

Option      "Device" "/dev/input/event0"
```

There are also approximately a million other things you can put in the mouse section to define the edges, sensitivity, etc.

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## vertex

Gentoo runs fantastic on this old goat.  I have a PII/300 Dell Latitude CPi.  All basic hardware works fine(sound, video, power management, case fan).  Currently using orinoco(patched) based pcmcia wifi card.  I got gprs network support working a couple of days ago using my motorola c332. I wrote a quick how-to, which I'll post as a seperate thread.  Oh yeah, if your running gentoo on a laptop this old, I would highly suggest using distcc.

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## luis

Hi all,

I have Gentoo running on my HP OmniBook XE3. 

I just installed Gentoo 1.4 kernel and it went pretty good on Laptop.

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## mark_wales5

I'm getting a Multivision Nexus 8010 - Multivision Website. Has anyone installed Gentoo on one of these? And can anyone suggest how successful I might be in attempting to please, because I've never tried installing Gentoo on a laptop before. Thanks.

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## -Anders

I saw some time ago that lindows.com were selling some subnotebooks preloaded with lindows.

http://info.lindows.com/mobilepc/mobilepc.htm

I would never run lindows (hehe) but i'd figure that the hardware would be compliant with linux, and at the low-low price of 777 US$ (Low?   :Shocked: ) i am considering to buy one of theese, as my old 75MHz 486DX IBM 701c isnt exactly capable of running gentoo, thus suffering from debian.

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## jbc42

I'm currently running Gentoo on an Apple iBook.  All the hardware (including the software modem) is supported.  The only problem I have with this laptop is an overheating problem, which is a hardware problem common on a lot of Apple stuff.

I also have Gentoo on a Dell Latitude CPi (PII 266) which workds fine - using a Xircom 10/100 + modem card on that which works fine.  I've also had Gentoo on an Inspiron 8200 and Latitude C600 in the past with no problems (except the software modem wasn't supported).

All of the following cards work fine for me in Gentoo:

* Cisco 350

* Orinoco gold

* Dlink DWL650 (not 650+)

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## Sieg

I've had it running perfectly fine on a Dell Inspiron 3800, as well as an Inspiron 5500. The 5500 at the time required some patches for the network card to work, but I think it's in the kernel now (don't have that Laptop anymore unfortunately). I remember having a lot of issues at the time with an IBM laptop that had an ALi chipset (forgot the model), but that was about 8 months ago. Driver support must have also gotten better for that since then.

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## friday

My HP Compaq nx9000 is doing pretty fine.

But I have some things left to test...

For some help with ACPI have a look at this thread:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=80077

Check out my homepage for more info  :Smile: Last edited by friday on Tue Nov 11, 2003 1:17 am; edited 1 time in total

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## zojas

what about battery life? I'm really curious as to which laptop has the the longest battery life!

my 700MHz ibook got 4.5 hours when new, I haven't checked in a while. Right now, it's estimating 4h25m with 96% charge.

my old ibm thinkpad (450MHz P3) would kill a battery in 8 months. after 8 months, I could only get 30minutes. (brand new battery was around 4 hours I think)

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## chostrander

I have now installed Gentoo on a Dell Inspiron 8200 and a Dell Inspiron 2500 series with no problem.  I also have installed Gentoo on a Compaq Presario 18XL380 Model.  I also have worked with IBM's thinkpads but not attempted Gentoo Install.  Personally I love Dell Laptops.  This is the 4th one I have purchased and absolutely nothing has gone wrong with them.  

The only problem if you want to call it that is that the modems they install are WINMODEMS.  I have a wireless network at home anyways so this isn't a problem.  I use Linksys line of wireless cards.

Just my two cents...

Carl

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## jspectre

I just wanted to say that Gentoo runs just fine on both my ThinkPad R30 and my Apple PowerBook G3 (Firewire) aka "Pismo".. My ThinkPad runs only Gentoo but my PowerBook triple-boots between MacOS 9, MacOS X and Gentoo thanks to yaboot.

-js

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## kpoman

Hi!

 I installed gentoo in my Panasonic CF-B5 R ...

it is a Japanese notebook, here is some of it's hardware:

```
pana root # lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82440MX Host Bridge (rev 01)

00:00.1 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82440MX AC'97 Audio Controller

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicGraph 256AV] (rev 20)

00:04.0 Communication controller: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.: Unknown device 8317 (rev 02)

00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82440MX ISA Bridge (rev 01)

00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82440MX EIDE Controller

00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82440MX USB Universal Host Controller

00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82440MX Power Management Controller

00:09.0 Modem: PCTel Inc HSP MicroModem 56 (rev 02)

00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 08)

00:0c.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1450 (rev 03)

00:0c.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1450 (rev 03)

pana root # 

pana root # lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted

i810_audio             26376   1 

at76c503-i3861         29632   1 

usbdfu                  8044   0  [at76c503-i3861]

at76c503               55840   0  [at76c503-i3861]

usb-uhci               24428   0  (unused)

pana root # 

```

I am using a Netgear MA101 WiFi card, with the new gpl drivers at76c503-i3861 ... works great, I am able to watch divx with xv acceleration, sound is working great (although I did not try alsa yet)

 ...

I dont know how to put the laptop in hibernate / standby mode yet, I didnt try but if someone knows how to do this I could greatly appreciate ...

 For the installation, I had to take the HDD out of the box, because the panasonic doent have cdrom nor floppy, so I put the hdd on my other box (with an amdtbird) had to take a compatible stage, compile with compatible cflags to be able to test it under the wmd box, and everything worked this way  :Smile: 

c ya!

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## BigBaaadBob

I've run both Gateways and Dells with Linux.  Both of these laptops had lots of stuff crap out, and I've had to go through hoops to get stuff replaced, because the CSR guys say, "start windows, click this, push that" yada yada. 

My current 5000e does everything I ask it to (including wireless on a symbol 24), and the rage128 graphics are pretty quick.  I've replaced the memory and the hard drive.  It's days are numbered.   I'll probably go with a new inspiron.  Dell sells so many that you always get Linux stuff to work on it.

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## sputnik1969

I'm using Gentoo on my Thinkpad 760XL. It works fine, the only problem was the gfxchip, which isn't correct supported by the framebuffer-device or XFree86 newer than 3.3.x, but this isn't just a Gentoo problem, it also happend with SuSE (which was installed on it before) so i have to load a vesa-extender using dos before booting into Linux.

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## ChopChopMasterOnion

Mine works fine for everything:  Thinkpad 600e.  Pentium II 400, maxed out the RAM, tossed in a 30GB TravelStar drive.  This includes the winmodem.  The only things I haven't tested out are docking port capability, since I don't have one, and Infared port, since I heard around 2.2 kernel that it could potentially kill your motherboard on thinkpads and I don't really need it anyhow.  I use a Xircom 10/100 NIC during install, and an orinoco based Addtron PCMCIA afterwards.  Newer liveCDs may have drivers for orinoco and other wireless.

My wife has a Thinkpad 600 Pentium II 300 with similar RAM and a 20GB TravelStar drive.  Same results, but has had the sound go skitzo on her twice, which blew the speakers.  I'm not sure if she has something unknown wrong with her motherboard or whether it's something with the actual model.  My guess is the former.  She uses a prism2 wireless PCMCIA.

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## jcosters

I installed gentoo on a Toshiba Satellite 2060CDS (AMD K6 3D, 64K (!) cache, 192 MB RAM). It is an OLD laptop (about 6 years or something), and I also have had RedHat, Debian, Suse, Mandrake, Slackware, LFS and Windows 98/2000/XP on there.

Everything works fine in Windows and also in GNU/Linux (with toshiba-utils I even get the legacy power management working), except for the hardware acceleration for my S3 Virge MX 2MB video adapter.  I never got it working like it should in any Linux distro. Windows works fine, and that way I know it isn't a hardware problem, but probably a driver (s3) problem.

An example: 

In X, I get scrambled patterns on my LCD screen when I open the xscreensaver dialog (with a preview of the chosen screensaver), or when I scroll down in Mozilla. It seems to me the refreshing of the screen doesn't occur like it should.

Does anybody have an idea on how to fix this? (I already threw in a Option "NoAccel", which did the trick but obviously I really don't want that option)

Thanks people

Nice thread BTW!

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## MacFlecknoe

I bought a Compaq 2176RS and had a HORRIBLE time; the video card wasnt supported, I could get neither APM nor ACIP to work and getting dma going left me battle scarred.

I took it back and bought an Averatec 3150 and it's been a near dream... everything works out of the box with the exception of the video card (a Savage8) and I just read S3 has released the source code for their drivers to facilitate getting it going under Linux.

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## ozonator

A couple of people have mentioned the Apple iBook, a recommendation I'd also make.  Everything works -- sound, airport, video, etc. -- without much hassle, in a well-built, very compact, inexpensive machine with excellent battery life.  And, one advantage unique to ppc:  http://www.maconlinux.net/; I boot into Linux most of the time, but if I need to use OS X for anything, I can have it running without rebooting, and switch easily between the two.

On the point about heat, raised by jbc42 above:  yes, the iBook gets rather warm during high CPU usage, like long compiles (the first time the fan kicks in is a surprise!), but otherwise, managing the CPU frequency makes a big difference to heat.  Having tried cpufreqd, I'm now using cpudyn (http://mnm.uib.es/~gallir/cpudyn/), with great success.  My 800 MHz iBook drops to 400 MHz when the CPU isn't busy, saving power and cutting down on heat.

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## NewBlackDak

Here's what I do.  DL and burn the latest version of Knoppix.  If you can boot Knoppix, and everything works then you can be assured you can make it work with Gentoo easily.  

Every IBM I've ever installed Linux on has been a breeze.  The Compaqs have been jokes, and the Dells land in-between.  I have an Alienware now, and everything loaded on it with no problems also.

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## StoneChucker

I hate to say it, but at the moment, I'm running a SuSE 8.2 installation on my Dell SmartStep 200N because the 3 times I've tried to install Gentoo, it just hasn't completed the stage3.

Now, I am a newbie, and I haven't had much of a chance to really do any trouble shooting.  I will be trying Gentoo again.. in fact the 1.4 install CD is only 3 feet away from me.

As for the wireless card, I've got a Linksys WPC11 and simply love it with SuSE, and that "other" OS from Seattle.

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## optilude

I've got an Evesham Voyager Xi-1.6, which is basically an ASUS M3N; 1.6GHz Centrino, 14" screen, 80Gb HDD, builtin Intel Graphics etc., 4+ hours battery life.

Things that work:

* CPU, including heat sensor and speedstepping

* ACPI (though you need kernel 2.6.0-test8 or later)

* APM (allegedly, I just use ACPI)

* FireWire (no idea how much I struggled with this on my old VAIO)

* USB2 ports

* ASUS ACPI extensions - this basically allows me to use the hotkeys, set the screen brightness, turn the LCD off etc. through /proc/acpi/asus.

* Synaptics touchpad, including scroll buttons

* PCMCIA slot

* DVD-RAM/-RW/-ROM/CD-R/-RW/-ROM drive

Things that don't work:

* IR port (tried very briefly and gave up since I have no use for it)

* Intel integrated WiFi (going to try Linuxant DriverLoader tomorrow, though!)

* Modem (not tried to use it - even in Windows; it may work, who knows?)

It only weighs 2.2Kg, looks sleek and feels solid. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Martin

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## cult hero

I have an Inspiron 8000 and with a little time and elbow grease everything is working just fine. I'm using also using the 2.6 kernel. The Geforce2go and the 1600x1200 display make things look very nice.

I got mine used for a pretty good price. 

http://stores.ebay.com/id=30734292

I saw a reference to this place on Slashdot and ended up buying mine there. It's a pretty decent place to find off lease dells and the best thing is that a lot of them ship without an OS at all so you don't have to pay the infamous MS tax.

Mind you, I didn't do the builds from that machine. I've seen a few people mention the huge amount of time. After it took AGES to bootstrap I opted to start things over on my desktop, tar up an image, jump it over a network and then just run grub. It was MUCH easier than trying to compile everything on the laptop.

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## joetech

STAY AWAY FROM COMPAQ...ahhhh the terror...

But seriously my little presario runs like a champ but installing and configuring anything on compaq hardware is one of the biggest pains in the arse that I've ever experienced.

As for wireless...d-link seems to work quite handy for me.

joe

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## melted_stencil

Compaq Evo N800c

Under 2.4.21+ I've gotten everything including the winmodem, wireless, and IR working with roughly 1300fps in glxgears as well.  All the multimedia keys, ACPI functions, etc.

Currently reinstalling with 2.6 and so far I've had luck with everything I've tried so far (DRM + synaptics touchpad + multimdeia keys)

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## wokno the sane

I have had good luck on my compaq armada e500. buttons work fine with xbindkeys, suspend to ram works with APM, winmodem appears to work fine ( haven't tried it) only thing i couldn't get working properly was APCI, but i'm going to upgrade to 2.6 and see if that helps.

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## gkmac

 *joetech wrote:*   

> STAY AWAY FROM COMPAQ...ahhhh the terror...
> 
> ...installing and configuring anything on compaq hardware is one of the biggest pains in the arse that I've ever experienced.

 

...so you've never installed Linux on an Acer then!

Due to a serious screen-smashing accident my old Compaq Armada 7800 laptop was written off. The insurers replaced it with an Acer Travelmate 243 (not my choice).

For some reason the vast majority of Linux CDs will not boot on it (Gentoo & Knoppix CDs stall at "booting the kernel", RedHat CDs just don't work at all, only Mandrake 8.0 worked) and initially the hard drive wouldn't boot because Grub wasn't on the main MBR, and when I did get it to work the existing installed 2.4 kernel would hang after a few minutes with no apparent reason...

But a 2.6 kernel compile later (carefully avoiding stuff like SMP and APIC) and it all works properly now, including the ACPI, Intel 852 graphics chipset and the processor speed-switching.

The only thing that doesn't work is the hotkeys, even the ones that change the volume, disable the Synaptics or put the machine to sleep mode (and no they don't show keycodes in xev or showkeys).

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## 50cc

I installed Gentoo 1.4 on my Mitac 7321. I'm using fvwm and Opera 7.23 to type this post. ACPI is working, so is PCMCIA.

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## thechosen0ne

Got my IBM Thinkpad 600x all pimped out.

The hard parts (probably for most laptops)

-Getting suspend to work. I am now using APM and it works like a charm.

-Getting DVD playback. Requires a bit of learning about your videocard.

-Figuring out USB. I now have a USB key working nicely.

-Wireless setup. Check out  UberLord's scripts, they are awesome and will hopefully be integrated into the Gentoo baselayout soon.

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## kanzelsberger

I've installed Gentoo with 2.6.3 kernel successfully on a Acer TravelMate 233FX laptop.

CPU: Intel Mobile Celeron 2.0GHz

Sound: intel810

Graphics: intel810

Network: Realtek + Orinoco WiFi

Everything works like a charm including USB mouse and keyboard, and HP DeskJet 845C.

Long live Gentoo!!!  :Smile: 

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## kanzelsberger

I almost forgot... I also got following hardware to work with Gentoo:

- USB keys

- USB digital cameras (Sony, Trust)

- Wacom ArtPad II tablet (serial)

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## kanzelsberger

I almost forgot... I also got following hardware to work with Gentoo:

- Synaptics TouchPad

- USB keys

- USB digital cameras (Sony, Trust)

- Wacom ArtPad II tablet (serial)

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## cmack

Just my $0.02 - although I haven't experienced their laptops, I would say that if you have the choice, do not buy a compaq/gateway.  My dad won a compaq as a draw prize at some event, and although it was good because it meant I could have my own computer, whoever designed the hardware on this thing must've not made it out of diapers.  Something as simple as installing an IDE burner became a week-long stress fest because it involved removing the motherboard to access multiple needless screws.  In short, if you plan on doing anything but installing the latest version of windows and never touching your hardware, don't get a compaq.

[/rant]

-Cam

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## smadasam

I use a Sony Vaio VGN-S170 for my work programming.  I got it because I wanted a laptop under 5 lbs, but still have a full power processor.  Most of the stuff worked right after the initial install.  The only exceptions would be that I had to emerge the ATI and ipw2200 wireless drivers.  Just make sure you add all of the required power management stuff in the kernel so you can do the power management stuff.

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