Xeron Sonic Movie M11A

[Jonathan Berry]

On 5/12/05, Bady <e2.bady at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok I posted this at linuxquestions.org but obviously nobody know there
> because nobody is writing me back :( so I'm asking here:
> 
> http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=322199
> 
> Ok I was thinking about buying a new Notebook. Mainly to Work, Game,
> and do my school work(CAD, Programming). I found this notebook from
> Xeron and I thought it is a pretty cool notebook for a decent price.
> The only thing I'm kinda worried about is the graphic card, but as I
> read in this forum this won't be a big problem.
> 
> Mobile AMD Mobile Athlon 64™ 3400+
> 128 MB ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 (M11)
> 2GB RAM
> 100GB (5400rpm)
> DVD/CDRW Combo
> 
> But for nearly 2050 Euros($2665) this is a lot of money for a student
> and so I want to make sure my Vector Linux(Based on Slackware) will
> work and I will be able to run Quake 4 and some other new games....

If you want an AMD64 laptop, I highly recommend the Compaq Presario
R4000 series:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_series.do?series_name=R4000_series&catLevel=2&category=notebooks/compaq_presario&storeName=computer_store

With the hardware maxed out, it's still under $2000 (USD).  I have an
R3000Z (it's predecessor) and it runs very well.  Unfortunately, for
the R4000 HP decided to go with an ATi card (the R3000 has an nVidia
GF4 440 Go), so you might run into the same difficulties there.  The
100 GB disk is 4200 rpm instead of 5400; you could go with the 80 GB
5400 if speed is more important than space (I'd recommend it).  You
can get 2 GB of RAM, a DVD burner, and an AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (I think
a socket 939 too, so dual channel memory).  I've never heard of Xeron,
but the Compaq looks like a better computer for less.

There are some Linux issues, though.  The wireless is a Broadcom
chipset, so no native support.  It works great with ndiswrapper and
the 64-bit windows driver, but there seems to be issues with that
driver and having > 1 GB or RAM.  Of course, the ATi card is a
concern.  It certainly won't work out-of-the-box.  There is a great
user base for the R3000, though, and there are some people trying out
the R4000 now on this list:
http://lists.pcxperience.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxr3000
So you wouldn't be alone in trying to troubleshoot things.

> thx in advance
> 
> And than my second question:
> 
> Is anyone using the Sandisk Mp3 PLayer(1GB)? I was thinking about
> buying this one... will it run without me having trouble?

Don't know anything about this one, sorry.

> thx
> 
> Bady

Jonathan