Notebooks that work well with Puppy?

Message

Minx · #1 Post by **Minx** » Thu 09 Aug 2007, 22:19

I'm planning to buy a notebook in the next few months and one of the big priorities (besides Portability, Price and so on) is that it should work well with Linux, especially Puppy. I'm planning to use it with a Windows XP/Puppy Linux Dual-Boot setup, mostly using Puppy and only using XP for games and so on.

So, any recomendations? Any brands that genmerally work well or that I should absolutely avoid? Any personal experiences and potential pitfalls?

(One thing that's not absolutely necessary but that I'm kinda-sorta hoping for is finding a game-worthy nootebook that also works with Linux. But we'll see wether that's possible...)

Aaron

jonyo · #2 Post by **jonyo** » Thu 09 Aug 2007, 23:59

Any lap that'll run winx will blaze away with pup. Main thing to look out for I guess is making sure that sound on the lap is not a prob with pup.

Onboard wifi card issues can be easily resolved with use of a usb wifi dongle instead.

Acer travelmate 2420 with an onboard intel ipw 2100 card (i think) runs with pup 2.12-5 live cd with no issues, outa the box.

HairyWill · #3 Post by **HairyWill** » Fri 10 Aug 2007, 07:58

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LaptopsWorking
might be helpful, though it doesn't seem to get much added to it any more.
Are you buying new or reconditioned?

It is probably best to avoid cutting edge models(the extra power is a waste of money anyway).

Intel ProWireless works well.

I use a reconditioned Thinkpad X30, 1.2 MHz processor, 512 MB RAM, this runs very well

Lobster · #4 Post by **Lobster** » Fri 10 Aug 2007, 09:03

At the moment Dell and Lenova are offering Linux laptops.
Redhat is working on a generic OS for 'White goods' (unbranded) PC's and laptops.

If it was me I would buy the same laptop as Barry (for obvious reasons) It is an Acer. Anyone know the model?

If you have a big store such as PC World. Bring a CD and ask to boot with Puppy. That is what you wish to run after all.

cthisbear · #5 Post by **cthisbear** » Fri 10 Aug 2007, 09:27

" I am very disappointed that Sage has not replied to your query..ha! ha!

Acer or Toshiba are better setup than most.
512 memory should be the minimum now...any less and they are having you on.
And memory is dirt cheap now.
Vista needs 1 gig.....2 gigs sweetspot...4 gigs memory to really run.

Dell .....no.
Compaq...HP...no.
Maybe Lenova...haven't come across one. "

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=20334

Chris

msumner · #6 Post by **msumner** » Fri 10 Aug 2007, 21:41

Lobster, I tried that in pc world and was told it was against company policy.........

Chris, I have been running puppy since 2.13 on my Dell inspiron 6400. Although it only runs on one CPU core, it is way faster than windows xp using both cores. I adopted puppy because at the time, it was the only distro that supported my wifi out of the box. Even the cardreader works now with 2.17. I am looking forward to the SMP version.

Mike

jonyo · #7 Post by **jonyo** » Sun 12 Aug 2007, 13:56

Which wifi card? (EDIT - think I found it.. intel)

This fella lilkes 'em so much started selling on ebay..
http://tinyurl.com/3d3nry

Good deal.
http://tinyurl.com/ysqown

This too though dunno what wifi card is used..
http://tinyurl.com/2ps4bx
http://tinyurl.com/2gewss

Bill_Gates · #8 Post by **Bill_Gates** » Sun 12 Aug 2007, 16:32

Minx, I run Puppy v2.16 on a Dell D600 from a 2gig usb stick. Puppy picked up the sound card, NIC and wireless with absolutely no problem. The only thing I haven't got to work was the modem but I really haven't tried very hard.

Sage · #9 Post by **Sage** » Sun 12 Aug 2007, 17:31

Just for you, ctb!

Whatever you do, avoid Dell. Indeed, avoid any branded machine. If you must, get a clone with an AMD cpu. Best bet is to contact Snowdog (where is that guy??? - but he does have his own website, anyway). He will GIVE you a shedload of older laptops in various states of undress, many of which may be suitable for repair and use with Puppy. An old Compaq Armada is ideal - everything works for Linux, they can be upgraded with standard SODIMM, most have a DVD drive and their Li-ion battery is superior to any that I know (the Dell ones are liable to catch fire - see pictures on the Net). If you are determined to throw $$$ away unnecessarily, ask Snowdog to rebuild you one and to install Puppy for you.

http://www.histocsindustries.ca/

KF6SNJ · #10 Post by **KF6SNJ** » Tue 04 Sep 2007, 03:17

As far as laptops go, I don't dual boot, as it is waste of time for me. However, I have found that for exclusive use as a puppy system, the Gateway 2000 Solo seems to work alright. About the only problems I've had are getting wifi to work and the pdf viewer is a touch slow (then again, it works very well other, even the audio is awesome). I heard that the Sony Viao laptop works pretty well if you must dual boot win and linux. Personally, I don't know. Still that is my two mites worth.

Lobster · #11 Post by **Lobster** » Tue 04 Sep 2007, 04:18

msumner wrote:Lobster, I tried that in pc world and was told it was against company policy.........

What a bunch of Muppets!

A lot of geeks boycott PC World because they are incompetent. I tend to go to Maplins for computer info and supplies. Not sure they do laptops though . . .

mmm . . . being In London I can go to Computer fairs.
There is a good one, once a month at Crystal Palace.

russ · #12 Post by **russ** » Fri 14 Sep 2007, 00:48

My laptop is a refurbished Toshiba M35x-S311. I run the puppy livecd 2.14 version. The laptop is a centrino pentium M 1.5ghz with 768mb ram, intel2200 wifi. The modem, internal wifi, ethernet card (NIC) 15.4" (1280x800) LCD are all picked up with no extra packages installed. It seems like this puppy(2.14) was made on this laptop for this laptop. This mouse pad with "tapping" is also working with no setup. The only thing that I setup on this computer was the battery monitor (batmon pupget). I boot with the livecd with all of the settings on a flash drive. I can and have gone to the local wifi cafe and browsed the web with only the laptop (without the hard drive), the cd and the flash drive never fearing a virus. The flash drive is 2gb's. I am able to download a new version of puppy to the drive, then blank a cd-rw and burn the "iso" to the cd-rw and test it at the wifi cafe using only puppy.
Thanks Barry

SirDuncan · #13 Post by **SirDuncan** » Fri 14 Sep 2007, 01:12

I run Puppy on my IBM Thinkpad T40. It also ran well on my R32. However, I had problems when trying to make it run on my dad's T60 (Lenovo by this point). But it runs great on both of the other machines.

#14 Post by **Pizzasgood** » Fri 14 Sep 2007, 02:47

I have a used Dell Latitude C640 with a 2.4gHz processor, 512mb RAM, and 20gb HD. CD burner too. $200-250 from Ebay (I forget the exact amount). Works great, at least as a solo Puppy machine. I bought it without an OS so I have no idea how it handles Windows.

The only issues I have with it are that it only has one USB port and the battery only gets an hour and forty minutes max, usually only an hour if you leave the screen bright.

But otherwise, it has a great screen, it feels sturdier than I expected, the track pad and track stick both work right, and the ACPI stuff works (as in I can modprobe thermal, processor, and power, then use Conky to monitor it.) And it supports processor throttling which is handy if you don't want it getting hot. Even the graphics card is decent, at least for small time use (I used it with Blender okay, and did some 3d programming). I think it was 32 mb, but I don't remember.

And as for being a Dell, I stuck a sticker of my university's mascot over the stupid round Dell "button" on the lid, so now it's okay. In seriousness, I haven't had any problems in the six months I've had it. And it already had some mileage on it to begin with.

Laurelwinn · #15 Post by **Laurelwinn** » Mon 17 Sep 2007, 06:30

If your going for newer laptops, the only "new" laptop I've used puppy with is a Dell D620 laptop. Sure it didn't use both cores, but when you have a light OS like puppy, doesn't really matter much. The gig of ram really helped. ^^ The wifi was picked up (intel Pro), and aside from the proprietary bio-metric device, everything else ran well. Screen started out a lil funky, but got it looking pretty by fiddling with X. Only thing I can think to add is ask a friend to test it on their machine. If your friends are no help, try a linux group in the area. If that busts, you could always try reading the specs of your prospective puppy-top first, and see if the hardware is known to run on puppy. But if you've already gotten this far, you probably don't need me to remind you of that stuff. ^^; Oh well, good luck on your laptop search!

Laurelwinn

mbutts · #16 Post by **mbutts** » Mon 17 Sep 2007, 10:08

For durability I like Panasonic Toughbooks, but they do not work for multi session.

If multi session is important to you here is a quick tip to use to find if a PC will work with CDRW or DVDRW. Take a new copy of a Puppy disk and when you close it the first time write to the disk to make a multi session disk. Even if it does not work in your present PC if it boots in a computers cd drive that will be a quick "go or no go" test to see if it will work for multi session. I do that test for anyone I'm introducing to Puppy. That way I know quickly whether it will work. That would be a great way to test any laptop some of your friends might have that you might be interested in.

Also check to make sure that the audio works as I have found one or two that don't although its rare.

I agree that if you should get one with 512 memory of ram if possible.

Durability is an important feature for laptops. I stay away from those single middle hinges that allow the screen to turn around 180 degrees for presentations. It's been my experience with having owned close to 25 laptops over the years that hinges can be a real weak link. I primarily use laptops so I use them all day, every day. They get opened and closed lots of times over the course of a day.

Another thing to consider is where the power cord goes in. Either the back or side. For some applications one can be more preferable than others.

Removable bays for cdrom drives make it easier to upgrade or replace bad ones.

Finally decide if you would like one that can use a docking bay. That can make hooking up multiple peripherals a lot easier and save wear and tear on usb ports.

jonyo · #17 Post by **jonyo** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 00:00

One prob with some acer model laps is they can be finicky in that they don't lite up (or can be problematic) the onboard wifi card with pup on boot.

Minx · #18 Post by **Minx** » Sat 22 Sep 2007, 21:28

Been a while, I know, but without money, ooking for a laptop is kinda, well, you know...

BUT next week I will have the money so this has become relevant again.

At another, german, forum (notebookcheck.de) people recommended me the Dell Vostro 1500, though more for the general abilities (it's a game-worthy business notebook with ok battery lifetimes) then anything regarding Linux.

Here's what I know about its components:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7100 Prozessor (1,8 GHz, 800 MHz, 2 MB L2-Cache)
Genuine Windows® XP Professional - German
15,4-Inch Widescreen Display with WXGA (1.280x800) and TrueLife™

2048 MB 667 MHz Dual-Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2 x 1024]
Hard Drive 160GB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
nVidia® GeForce® 8600M GT with 256 MB
8x DVD+/-RW
9-cell 85WHr Li-Ion Battery
Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth® Module (2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate)
Intel® Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-Karte - Europa

Obviously, this is way more power then Puppy needs, but I intend to run it as XP/Puppy dual-boot (I like my gaming) so that will be usefull anyway.

Anything that screams THIS WILL NOT WORK IN PUPPY at you? Like, are there drivers for Nvidia cards or the Intel Pro wireless card?

M

rarsa · #19 Post by **rarsa** » Sun 23 Sep 2007, 00:05

Definetivelly dells models C6xx or D6xx (I'm using a D610 right now).

They have several advantages:

a) They are sturdy. They are business oriented laptops so I've dropped them and once I almost broke my elbow hitting it accidentally. It kept working OK.

b) You can find them very cheap as they are used by big corporations and come out of lease very frequently

c) Parts are easy to find as... well, a lot of big corporations use them.

d) I've been using Puppy in these models (I'm on my 4th laptop) since I started using Puppy and I've NEVER had a HW problem. Sound. wireless, video, boot from USB, etc, all works out of the box.

msumner · #20 Post by **msumner** » Thu 27 Sep 2007, 10:47

My Dell 6400 is very similar to the vostro and works well. 3945 Wifi is fine, it works better in linux than in windoze. Mine has integrated video so dont know about the nvidia card. Would be interested to know, as I may upgrade, but I fancy the AMD version and would really be swayed if it came without windoze, saving me the £60 windoze tax.

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

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Notebooks that work well with Puppy?

Notebooks that work well with Puppy?