On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 07:49, ralph bacolod wrote: > Hi! Im planning to buy a second hand laptop .How do I > know if the monitor is a TFT monitor? What other > things should I look out for?
One thing to consider is purchasing through your local LUG. If the laptop already runs Linux and the functions you need are supported then you are assured of problem-free operation. Laptops have vastly different hardware than Desktops, and problems with sound and video drivers are common. Also if you buy from a Linux user then you can expect not to get ripped off. All laptops in the last 5 years have TFT screens. If a laptop has a CPU faster than 250MHz then it has a TFT screen. If no Linux users are selling then find some Linux users who have name brand laptops of the age you are interested in buying and check how well their ones work. Then you can buy one of the same make and model on ebay and copy the kernel configuration from another Linux user, which is much easier than figureing it out yourself. Also note that on laptops made before 2000 most of the hardware was "ISA". In many cases the only way of determining the hardware settings was through a Windows utility program. So you need the customised version of Windows for the laptop (almost impossible to obtain) or a pre-existing Linux installation if you want to discover the settings. -- http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/ My NSA Security Enhanced Linux packages http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/ Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/postal/ Postal SMTP/POP benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/ My home page
