Inexpensive Linux Laptop

Drew Van Zandt drew.vanzandt at gmail.com
Mon Jun 4 08:29:37 EDT 2007


I got this for about $850 direct from Dell, and a lot of that was
upgrades from the basic.

http://oddones.org/newsys.html

Upgrades I got were:
Screen to max res: $100
CPU to Core 2 Duo instead of Core Duo: $70 ?
RAM to 667 MHz instead of 533: $60 ?
Linux issues (Debian specifically, not sure how other installs would go):
1) Had to install ndiswrapper & Windows driver to get wireless
working.  Real driver may or may not exist, I didn't look too hard
once I got it working with ndiswrapper.
2) Full resolution not supported out of the box; installing
915resolution from apt repository fixed this (no config, just
installed it.)
3) on suspend/resume, video had dropped back to pre-915resolution.
Found 915resolution line in the suspend/resume config file,
uncommented it, works now.

The burner worked on first boot w/ Debian 4.0.

I note that Dell has a system with Ubuntu preinstalled for $599:
Inspiron E1505 N
Intel(r) Pentium(r) dual-core proc T2080(1MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB
Ubuntu Edition version 7.04
512MB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 DIMM
80GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive

Personally, I'd just watch for a good deal on stealdeals.net and get a
Dell with more RAM than the above.  For instance, $499 gets you:
# AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-50	
# Genuine Windows(r) XP Home	
# 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display	
# 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm	
# Size: 60GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)	
# 8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability	
# ATI RADEON(r) Xpress1150 256MB HyperMemory™ (Integrated)	
# Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card (54Mbps)

--DTVZ



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