On Tue, May 01, 2007 at 03:09:06PM -0500, Eben King wrote:
> >From: William Coulter <wrcoulter33@gmail.com>
> >Date: 2007/05/01 Tue PM 01:56:11 CDT
>
> >A lot of people said that they would not do it but it
> >has happened. At the end of May, Dell is going to
> >offer Ubuntu on some of desktops and laptops. Now me
> >thinks I will be buying a Dell laptop in the near
> >future.
>
> FWIW, I didn't have any significant problem putting
> SuSE on my Thinkpad. Wifi was a "must have" for me.
> I haven't tried to make the modem work.
Speaking of Thinkpads . . .
Thinkpads have been my favorite laptops for a long time. In fact,
they've effectively been the *only* laptops for me. Unfortunately, that
seems to be changing.
Since Lenovo bought out IBM's PC division, the company has seemed to be
angling for emulating most of the rest of the laptop industry. With the
3000 family "notebooks", Lenovo is creating new laptops that look almost
exactly like the main lines of laptops available from HP, Gateway, Dell,
Sony, and others. These other laptops they're emulating look like
fashion accessories rather than professional tools, feel like cheap
plastic toys, and lack the reputation for rock-solid reliability and
quality associated with Thinkpads. I don't know if Lenovo's new 3000
series will be as reliable and high quality as Thinkpads have been, but
from what I've seen so far, they look like fashion accessories and feel
like cheap plastic toys. I don't even know if Thinkpads are going to
continue to be as reliable and high-quality as they have been in the
past.
They also lack the trackpoint mouse that has been a part of every
Thinkpad for years.
I'm typing this on a Thinkpad R52 with FreeBSD installed. All the
hardware was supported without any wierd finagling necessary. I fear
that the next time I want to update my laptop, though, I'll have to find
a new favorite laptop -- and that there won't be anything as good as the
Thinkpads to which I've become accustomed. Has anyone else run across
any laptops other than Thinkpads that might satisfy my needs and
preferences? Should I just resign myself to a future of pining for the
days of yore like some old fart sitting on the porch exclaiming over the
cost of a candy bar?
-- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] Marvin Minsky: "It's just incredible that a trillion-synapse computer could actually spend Saturday afternoon watching a football game."
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