[Ubuntu-be] About bying a new laptop

[Pierre Buyle]

Hi,

I recently bough a Lenovo ThinkPad R500 which seems to work well with
10.04. Previously, I had a Dell Insprion 1520 which worked well. In my
experience, basic hardware compatibility is rarely an issue for laptop
from big vendors but checking the actual hardware specs against know
Linux issue is a must do if you want to avoid any trouvle. For the gfx
card, both NVidia and ATI offers free as in beer drivers but I've had
issue with both when it comes to dual-screen. Ubuntu 10.04 has free as
in speech drivers for both now, but the NVidia one (nouveau) is very
recent and lacks many feature and doesn't support desktop effects, or
with very limited performances.

Finding a laptop with no Windows licence is hard. Some vendors are
nicer than others when it comes to refunding.

For French speakers, you can check
http://bons-vendeurs-ordinateurs.info/ and
http://bons-constructeurs-ordinateurs.info/ for FLOSS friendly laptop
(and desktop too).

P.