The friendly folks over at LinuxCertified.com were very gracious to send us over their latest laptop, LC2210, loaded with Xandros Desktop 2.0. Here is what we think about the product and the integration between the hardware and software.
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LC2410 is Linspire certified as well! Please specify your choice of distrubtion while ordering the system.
I find it unfathomable that a company can release a product without completing integration of basic laptop functionality like the sleep button or wifi connectivity.
I have exactly the same unit. Works great with Fedora. I guess they did better integration with this distro...
Yes, indeed. I was told that Fedora 2 (and new 2.6-kernel distros) should support every bit of the components on this laptop.
what was the price again? if it is price competitive with iBooks I might try that suckers younger brother out in 3 years.
It's all on the page I link:
Price: $1399 (Special until 5/15/04, then it goes back to $1599)
(Optional integrated 802.11b Wireless card (mini-pci): $89
Optional SXGA+ (1400x1050) Resolution - $60)
Are there any laptops with Linux pre-installed that are better? I looked around the IBM site, assuming that would be the best big name manufacturer, but no such luck. Are there any other suggestions from the crowd?
Now this is a nice notebook, and I think it'll be the next on my list:
http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?pro...
A tad expensive though...
I looked around quite a bit before purchasing my LinuxCertified laptop. I believe IBM, Toshiba, etc. laptop sales people are trained to start saying NO as soon as they hear Linux....
I looked around quite a bit before purchasing my LinuxCertified laptop. I believe IBM, Toshiba, etc. laptop sales people are trained to start saying NO as soon as they hear Linux....
I said it was a nice notebook, not that it was "Linux certified."
does anyone know what kind of kernel there is in xandros desktop 2.0? the only info i find on the page is that its based on debian sarge but that dont tell me mutch as its a moveing target...
dont want to be peaky, but eugie (can i call you that? 
if not sry), lindows changed brand name to linspire, m$ preciousism, i just thought would be worthy to remind that. (hey at least for me, pinching lindows.com redirects me to linspire.com)
the note: i dont get
LC2410 and LC2210 are rated @ 1399 until 15/5/04, both have the same tag price, but the difference is enormous
Processor Intel Pentium M (Centrino) - 1.4 GHz
Processor Intel Pentium 4 - 2.8 GHz
Display 15" XGA TFT LCD
Display 14" XGA TFT LCD
Weight: 7.2 lb
Weight 5.5 Lbs (approx)
Price: $1649 $1399 (Special until 5/15/04)
Price: $1599 $1399 (Special until 5/15/04)
...
whats the catch here? the weight?
despite, both are fine lappies and its great to see more and more OEM/manuf shipping hardare "windows free" putting the choice on the client side and not almost impling willingnesses
AFAIK, 2.4.22 for the Deluxe and Desktop version, and 2.4.24 for the Business desktop.
>whats the catch here? the weight?
Both laptops are on the same range, they have features that outweigh each other. For example, the 2410 has more slots/card reader, the other one is more compact and lighter. Both have XGA screens, and both are of similar speed (Centrinos are fast despite their smaller Mhz number), however the 2210 has better battery life. So, depending what you need, each one has an "answer" for the other ones' feature, hence the similar price.
>but eugie (can i call you that? )
No.
>lindows changed brand name to linspire
We know.
Also amazing when a company releases hardware and fails to support it for a year (centrino); since we are on the full support issue.
from what I understand Centrino based laptops are more expensive in general. In any case 1MB cache on the centrino far out-weighs the MHz difference.
unless you like being connected to a wall socket.
anyway,
1599 regular price for that thing? seems a tad expensive doncha think?
1499 or 1450 would be a better price.
no wonder then that it kinda breaks. i have a feel that if you toss a 2.6 kernel at the laptop it will work nicely (as pointed out by some other posters). funny that they should choose to have xandros preinstalled...
I just picked up a IBM T40p and it is the best laptop (beating out my 15" powerbook). Doesn't come pre-installed with Linux, but Gentoo is just a download away. GREAT battery life, and on some of my research simulations, it actually beats my 2.6 Athlon XP desktop! Each with a Gig of RAM. I was floored. I want a cluster of these babies!
R. Dyer, PhD
Theoretical Population Geneticist
Department of EEOB
Iowa State University
Somewhat off-topic, but same vendor:
I have had excellent experience with LinuxCertified's LC2430 laptop with Debian (Woody).
I thought Xandros was based on Debian, so I am a bit surprised about some of the points in the review.
In any case, I have been very impressed by this vendor's customer support, so I thought I would post a positive vote.
I have an old Armada M300 laptop with Xandros and it never sleeps. Sleep button does nothing to it. I would love to have that ability, because the boot process is almost 3 minutes.
Keep waiting for the next version of Xandros, because everything else about the OS is just amazing. But it's no good on laptops yet.
Some more things needed:
-brightness control for laptops
-battery recognition for laptops
-SpeedStep (or other underclocking) ability
-faster response (possibly fixed with KDE 3.2.x?)
Hey Rig,
Do you have apm installed? If you do not, install it and everything will be good.
I have been very happy with my LC2210 laptop that I bought through our campus computer store. It came pre-configured with Fedora. WiFi works perfectly. Intially my CD-ROM drive failed, but I was sent a replacement immediately.
Actually I am quite surprised why Xandrus based installation was reviewed? Why not review with a mainstream distro?
> I am quite surprised why Xandrus based installation was reviewed? Why not review with a mainstream distro?
The laptop came with it. The review was meant to be with Xandros, that was the deal we had with Xandros and LC in order for them to send review unit over.
Having supported hardware really does make using Linux much more pleasent. Linux's hardware support is surprisingly wide (even when I have bought hardware without paying attention, its usually been supported), but getting a non-workable piece of hardware can really be a pain.
Little personal event: There is a counter-point to the above. While Windows can make it significantly easy to use certain hardware, it can also make it much harder. Case-in-point: I've got a cheapo $20 CompUSA wireless USB dongle. I've spent the last day trying to get one of my XP machines to see it. Windows just refuses to recognize it as anything more than a "USB Device" and thus not only refuses to load a driver, but won't even show the name of the device. The damn thing is a rebrand, and has no other identifying information whatsoever. For kicks, I hooked it up to my Linux laptop. It showed the chipset as being an Atmel one. 5 minutes of Googling pointed me to the Linux driver at Berlios.de. I downloaded the tarball, typed in "make install", and hotplug did the rest. The 15 minutes it took isn't exactly plug & play, but to tell the truth, its a lot better than the 5 or 6 hours I've spent getting Windows to see the device. For the record, the damn thing still doesn't work in Windows. I point it to the MA-101 drivers (which, surprisingly enough, work with the device on another of my XP machines), but it refuses to load the drivers I want it to load.
I have bought a brand new compaq x1030us notebook with 1.4 centerino,512ram, ati radeon 9200 32mb, 4gb hd,wifi,ethernet,dvd cd-rw, bluetooth, widescreen for $1500(vat included) with Win XP, DVD Software, norton antivirus,dvd burning software,ms money,quicken etc preinstalled.
And what they offer on that page is around $1599 before their generous discount, i really wonder how good of an offer or competitive their laptop is.
Forgive me pals, but correct me if i'm wrong.. i c definetely nothing catchy in here
If you're going to buy laptop for Linux usage - I wholeheartly recommdn IBM. IBM is using Linux on thinkpads themselfs and are going to certificate Thinkpads for Linux.
I am writing this one on IBM Centrino R40 business model laptop (my work laptop) and everything just works. Built-in wireless (intel 2100), radeon 7500 with 3D acceleration, quick keys, touchpad, that supernavimouse:), everything...
And warning too: Don't buy laptop with radoen IGP chipset, my own has one and it is a pain. It runs only on vesa, or with hacked Radeon driver but 3D acceleration and dri doesn't work with any patch. Some posts at Xfree86.org though claim it works, but I've compiled X about hundred times with different patches and it doesn't :I
Also I were a little confused by that laptop is "Linux certified" but still needs manual X86Config hacking to work and hacking it breaks some features from distro... 
You might want to take alook at this:
http://www.naturetechws.com/products/products_JDS.htm
Howcome nobody ever sends *me* their latest laptop?? Heh
I have IBM Thinkpad X31 with Slackware 9.1 ... and everything is working perfectly OK, without any single problem ...
- WLAN
- Bluetooth
- Firewire
- USBs
- Sleep and Hibernate
- IRda
- Thinkpad extra keys
...
really everything ... and my next will be Thinkpad X-Series again ...
the del 8600 (there are various versions of teh 8600) works very well. i got it becuase the dell hardware design and build is excellent. the laptop comes with the windows and applications and drivers on CDs (which is useful for people constantly installing OSes - i would never buy a laptop if the supplier didn't provide all on CD). the support/drivers/apps online are excellent. the nvidia version works perfectly with the nvidia drivers - incl the widescreen version. various people online have guides to getting things working, like the X config for the widescreen. all components work - incl cd burning and network. internal speaker is actually not bad at all.... has 2nd VGA output too... and even the centrino wireless can be made to work (ipw2100.sf.net) - i think knoppix 3.4 has it built in now.
the only thing i'm not sure of is whether linux is actualy monitoring the load and adjusting the power (frequency scaling, fans) - i fear most laptops are driven at full pelt by linux. any links on this would be appreciated.
i did purchase an old IBM T40 - which also works well.
my attempts oin cheaper no-brancd laptops failed - they are not worth the purchase.
I want to get my company to be totally Windows free--from servers to workstations to the secretaries' desk computer. The big stumbling block so far has been the lack of availability of a factory supported Linux laptop. I've thought of buying iBooks for my sales teams to bridge the gap. Any recommendations? I saw that IBM is planning on releasing a Linux certified laptop, or maybe even better a pre-installed laptop. Any timeframes on this?
If you want to buy a *BSD/Linux-compatible laptop, visit these Websites:
http://www.asacomputers.com/
http://www.elementcomputer.com/
http://eracks.com/
http://www.laclinux.com/
http://www.sub300.com/
http://www.apple.com/ibook/
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/
I would not by that laptop. If it is Linux certified, every component should work.
My laptop, an iBook from Apple, though not Linux certified, I got almost everything working. YellowDog Linux is also available pre-installed in dual-boot with Mac OS X from Terrasoft Solutions ( http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/apple/ ). I bought my laptop elsewhere and installed Gentoo. Note that you will not be able to run Windows or x86-precompiled binaries on these without emulation as they have PowerPCs processors. However PowerPCs are nice for laptops, I don't know why IBM did not tried to sold Linux laptops with PowerPCs processors. NB: I am not sure how they compare with the Centrino, but with non-Centrino CPUs, you definitely have a mobility advantage.
The only 2 negative Linux compatibility points with my iBook are:
- The softmodem required binary drivers that are freely available from a 3rd party company. Since I don't really care if they are bin-only, this is acceptable.
- I could never get video mirroring to work which is somewhat inconvient as I have to reboot in Mac OS X for presentation. Video mirroring seems to work out-of-the-box for the powerbook as one of my friend as one.
More linux laptops.
http://www.emperorlinux.com/
Excellent links on Linux laptop guys...I'm appreciative!
Generally the best thing to do to get reliably working laptops on Linux is to buy old ones. I run a five year old Sony VAIO C1XD - it's tiny, it weighs next to nothing, every single bit of it is perfectly supported under Linux (including the fabulously gimmicky built-in camera), and it still runs fast enough, with Xfce 4, to do anything I want on it. Perfect machine for me. Though I *am* eyeing either the last Picturebook model they made, or the TR series...:D
I have a Panasonic Toughbook W2. I have tried Xandros 2.0 Deluxe, Gentoo, Xandros Business Edition, Debian Sarge Mid-March 2004 version, Lindows 4.5 Laptop Edition. In that order. This is written with Lindows (Linspire). Neither of the Xandros had any support for Centrino out of the box. I didn't spend enough time with Debian to know. Gentoo had native drivers for the wireless part and it worked flawlessly after a few tries. Lindows had the ndiswrapper pre-configured and worked without effort. Even the sleep mode works, but takes a long time to come back alive. All I have to do is to close the lid.
I purchased the LC2430 a few months ago with RH9 on it. It has similar problems. Upgrading to the latest 2.4.x kernel and reinstalling the existing LC custom drivers got everything working (but mine doesn't have built-in WiFi).
So be fair. Sometimes its not a problem with the laptop, but a problem with a distro that's just not up-to-date enough to handle the newest hardware. LC can't really be in the business of vetting, putting out, and maintaining customized distros with newer kernels. Just upgrade the kernel, for gosh sakes. Its not all that hard.
>So be fair.
I was more than fair. I didn't even mentioned the gamma correction problem the laptop had, because i didn't want to make the article too negative.
>Sometimes its not a problem with the laptop, but a problem with a distro that's just not up-to-date enough to handle the newest hardware.
That's what I said, didn't I?
> LC can't really be in the business of vetting, putting out, and maintaining customized distros with newer kernels.
No, but LC *can* choose which distro they sell their machines with. Selling their machines with fucked up distros, makes it their problem as well, because people are buying a "linux certified" laptop in order to have a smooth experience, out of the box.
>Just upgrade the kernel, for gosh sakes. Its not all that hard.
What are you saying? That I don't know how to upgrade a kernel?
The point is the out of the box experience. THIS is what LC *sells*. If this "out of the box" thing doesn't work, for me the product doesn't worth a damn.
