[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I was originally looking at a toshiba Tecra 9000 for a new Laptop to fit
> my budget of $5000 CAD. I recently came across the IBM Thinkpad A30p
> which i can squeeze into the budget as well. I'm favouring this over the
> tecra now for a few reasons (133MHz Bus instead of 100, ATI Radeon 32 MB
> instead of some other garbage, Video in/out as opposed to tv-out only etc
> etc..) Does anyone know of any problems running linux on this model or
> have any opinions on IBM's w/ Linux as opposed to other Laptop
> Manufacturers?
I just got one of these, and here's the brief synopsis. Great
machine, but bigger than most laptops (A series).
* video - works at 1600x1200 but you need XFree86 > 4.1.99 from CVS
(or 4.2.0 when it comes out soon).
* built-in ethernet - works (e100 or eepro100 modules)
* built-in wireless - works (prism2, see http://www.linux-wlan.com/)
* built-in modem - AMR-based and will NOT work from what I gather
after search the Web for a while
* USB - works
* PCMCIA (yenta-based), serial, parallel, external monitor -
probably work as they're pretty standard but not really tested
* firewire, bluetooth - drivers seem to load, but not tested
* S-video in/out - no idea either way; haven't tried
* CD-RW / DVD combo - works for CD audio/CDROM reading, but it's
IDE and probably the other stuff works
* Sound - works with alsa + OSS compatibility (real audio, timidity,
etc. work; my needs are pretty simple)
Other nice features--can hold two drives (floppy + CD for example)
simultaneously. IBM thinkpads have 3 mouse buttons! Suspend works
but I haven't played with hiberation too much (it doesn't work
out-of-the-box with the Windows hibernation file). Very fast, tons
of disk to play with, and amazing resolution.
If you can afford the price and the extra size/weight, it's a great
machine. My A30p is the third Thinkpad model I've used and they've
all been very good to me.
Michael
