Help Requested in Choosing a Power Linux Laptop/Notebook with Multimedia.

[Sanjay Arora]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 4:00 AM, Tim <ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-04-30 at 01:34 +0530, Sanjay Arora wrote:
>  > However, I am in a fix now. I need to buy a high end laptop, (4 GB
>  > RAM, 200 GB HDD, 17" Screen, Touchpad, Integrated Webcam and Full
>  > Multimedia, so that the system can double as a Personal Entertainment
>  > Device High End Audio/Video on long trips). I will need to run Centos
>  > & Windows virtualized with Xen or some other hypervisor, for my some
>  > of my office applications
>

>  If it's CentOS you're interested in, you're on the wrong list.

As I said in  my OP, I use Fedora, presently 8 (However I do tend to
upgrade to new versions as soon as they are available. However, my
Company runs Centos 5 & Windows and I wish to run them under
virtualization.

>But I
>  bought a fairly new Asus laptop at the end of last year, and just about
>  everything works on it (haven't tried firewire, the multi-card reader
>  only manages to read SD-RAM cards, the webcam isn't usable).  Using
>  Ubuntu on the same laptop, the webcam does work.
>
That's the problem with the literature out there. Just like your post,
users have tried & reported various hardware and posted their results.
Sometimes they have outlined workarounds & sometimes an alternate
linux versions where their hardware works.

No one points out a version where software works on the hardware out
of the box. I think, each community should at least adopt at least 3
Models (low-end, medium-end & high-end) of any one manufacturer and
support them. If average users get a model supported out of the box,
buyers like us would definitely end up buying more laptops fully
supported by their distros.

This may even create a Virtuous Circle where seeing incremental sales
through support of a linux distro the manufacturers  may even become
more open to  co-operate with the community.

With best regards.
Sanjay.