[vox] Re: Laptop purchase recomendation

Thu Sep 28 08:50:21 PDT 2006

Wow. Whitelisting sounds like crap--why oh why oh why?! I think these
manufacturers forget to take into account what the end user wants.

Well, I'll weigh in with my 2 cents worth.

I own an HP Pavillion zv5000 laptop that I bought for a good price
through costco. It has 512 MB of ram, 60GB harddrive (I upgraded to
80GB) and has an AMD64 processor.

The downside is that the built-in wireless card (good ole Broadcom) is
not natively supported under Linux, but ndiswrapper works great. The
other thing I never could get to work correctly is suspend to ram (I'm
running Kubuntu Dapper). but suspend to disk (if you use Software
Suspend 2) does work flawlessly.

Having said that, Linux otherwise runs fantastic. One of these fine
days I'll actually install 64bit linux. I have been hesitating because
ndiswrapper won't support that (but that has changed as of late, if
I'm not mistaken).

Another benefit: the laptop is well built, and I think this is
something to consider if you're a college student. I keep my laptop in
a backpack, that I place in an old child's seat mounted on the rear of
my bike. Last spring, I collided with another bicyclist on one of
Davis' many bike paths and was sent over my handlebars. I broke my
right pinky in the fall, and my laptop went flying several feet. I
thought for sure my laptop was toast, but it has never worked better.
HP makes 'em tough.

On 9/27/06, Joshua Morris <bullring at gmail.com> wrote:
> And in the case of the HP laptop I was considering. They use a Broadcom
> mini-pci wireless card which has no Linux support, I would rather use an
> Atheros card since they openly support Linux with drivers and regular
> updates.  The thought of paying $2600 for a laptop that I cannot use the way
> I want to is sickening.  I mean sure they could update the Bios later and it
> could fix all of this,  or I could use a Atheros PCMCIA card like I
> currently do. But it is the idea that i cannot have the choice of what
> mini-pci card to use if i don't like the one it came with.  As long as it is
> a standardized card in a standardized slot it should work in my opinion,
> that's the whole point of standardization. It just seems to me that
> white-listing is actively working against that at the customers expense.
>
> Joshua
>
>
> On 9/27/06, Justin Cummins <sul3n3t at gmail.com> wrote:
> > BIOS whitelisting is the practice of having a coded list of wireless
> devices which will be _allowed_ to run in a given system. The whitelist
> contains the device and subsystem IDs of only permitted cards. For wifi
> cards, this includes stock cards and generally hyper-overcharged cards from
> the system vendor.
> >
> > The problems with BIOS whitelisting are that it perverts the notion of a
> standard interface (miniPCI in laptops), locks in only vendor
> upgrades/modifications, and forces the system to remain obsolete when the
> vendor doesn't allow newer technology devices in the whitelist.
> >
> > The workarounds for the BIOS whitelist include risky measures such as
> modifying and reflashing your BIOS and modifying a non-whitelist card to
> have the device ID of a whitelist card (which confuses drivers, etc).
> >
> >
> >
> > On 9/26/06, Bill Kendrick <nbs at sonic.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > Another RoseLUG list Cc...  (I'm happy to pass them on to vox :) )
> > >
> > > -bill!
> > >
> > > ----- Forwarded message from vox-bounces at lists.lugod.org -----
> > >
> > > Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 16:43:10 -0700
> > > From: Anthony Fortenberry <anthonyf at chronica.com>
> > > Subject: Re: [roselug] Re: Laptop purchase recomendation
> > > To: roselug at roselug.org ,  vox at lists.lugod.org
> > >
> > > Joshua Morris wrote:
> > > >On 9/25/06, Joshua Morris < bullring at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>Hi Everyone,
> > > >>
> > > >>I am shopping for a new laptop and am looking for suggestions on
> laptops
> > > >>that work well with Linux.  I have been looking at HP's dv9000t  with
> > > >>the
> > > >>core 2 duo chip set.  At < $2,800 i'm scared to exaust my student
> > > >>budget on
> > > >>it if it is not going to do what I am looking for.  This is the
> > > >>configuration I am looking for:
> > > >>
> > > >>HP Pavilion dv9000t customizable Notebook Pc
> > > >>EZ379AV
> > > >>
> > > >>   - ? Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor T7200 (2.0 GHz)
> > > >>   - ? 17.0" WXGA+ Ultra BrightView Widescreen (1440x900)
> > > >>   - ? 512MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) Go 7600
> > > >>   - ? HP IMPRINT Finish + Microphone + Webcam
> > > >>   - ? FREE Upgrade to 1.0GB DDR2 SDRAM (2x512MB)!!
> > > >>   - ? 240 GB 5400 RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (120 GB x 2)
> > > >>   - ? FREE Upgrade - LightScribe DVD+/-RW w/Double Layer
> > > >>   - ? Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network w/Bluetooth
> > > >>   - ? HP ExpressCard Analog TV Tuner w/remote control
> > > >>   - ? Two High Capacity 8 Cell Lithium Ion Batteries
> > > >>   - ? HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope
> > > >>
> > > >>If you use any other brands that have similar specs let me know.  If
> you
> > > >>have had any good/bad experiences with Linux on a hp that too would be
> > > >>greatly appreciated.
> > > >>I looked around on Google to see if I could find any websites that
> might
> > > >>have more information, but there wasn't much available becuse the
> > > >>laptop has
> > > >>only been out a few months.
> > > >>
> > > >>Joshua
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > >Thank you all for your input.  After looking over the websites you
> > > >have all
> > > >posted and the points you have all made.  I have decided not to buy
> > > >the HP
> > > >because of their use of BIOS white-listing noted by some of you( I even
> > > >called hp customer service and the sales rep hesitated but did confirm
> > > >that
> > > >this model has the same bios white-listing "feature") in the websites
> > > >that
> > > >were mentioned.  It is a shame that computer manufactures like HP want
> to
> > > >cripple their products in this way.
> > > >
> > > >Joshua
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > What is "BIOS white-listing"?  I'm unfamiliar with that term.
> > >
> > > On the laptop issue, I've had good luck running SuSE Linux 10.0 on an
> > > IBM/Levono Thinkpad T43.  Configured to dual-boot XP and SuSE (some
> > > installation details need to be attended to preserve the original
> > > restore/repair partition).  The T43 was a great little laptop; good
> > > keyboard with no Windoze keys.  (I think the newer T60 has added Win
> > > keys.)  Oddly, the T43 had a few bugs in the version of Windows that
> > > came pre-loaded (IBM adds several applets), but I never had any problems
> > > using SuSE.
> > >
> > > Also, I'd like to echo the suggestion by Paul to consider a Mac laptop.
> > > A peer at work has good luck using his MacBook with Parallels VM to run
> > > Ubuntu, FC5, and SuSE.  Wonderful screen on that that little MacBook,
> > > and you can't beat the size/weight for portability.
> > >
> > > Anthony
> > >
> > >
> > > ----- End forwarded message -----
> > >
> > > --
> > > -bill!
> > > bill at newbreedsoftware.com
> > > http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > vox mailing list
> > > vox at lists.lugod.org
> > > http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
>
>
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-- 
R. Douglas Barbieri
doug at dooglio.net