[HLUG] Linux Laptop

[Malcolm Herbert]

Steve, Chris, et all

I've been using Thinkpads (IBM/Lenovo) for 8 years, in common with all
Red Hat employees and now onto my latest T420s. 

There are good, play well with Linux (Fedora 16 in my case, go Gnome 3!)
and are very robust and usually outlast the Dell equivalents. No
problems with HD partition and devices etc. Have a current Battery life
issue, but will be resolving shortly. 

Can recommend Lenovo 

Malc

On Mon, 2011-12-12 at 11:22 +0000, Chris Owens wrote:
> Hi Steve
> 
>      It might be good to check whether newer Lenovo machines still use 
> the old IBM device of reserving a Host Protected Area at the end of the 
> hard drive. It is effectively a Rescue Partition but in the event of 
> difficulties can only be accessed by its own tools and if HPA becomes 
> unavailable by chance you can't access the tools.  Several posts refer 
> to IBM being very picky who they will release repair disks to (and they 
> charge) requiring warranty, proof of purchase etc. but there is one open 
> source repair package (FIESTA) around though I haven't got it to compile 
> properly yet. So I would recommend either making sure Repair Disks are 
> supplied with your new machine or make them as soon as practical.
> 
>      The HPA idea is fine until the hard drive cracks or it otherwise 
> becomes unavailable as I think happened on my T40 with a battery failure 
> whilst in sleep/hibernate state which was at the centre of the 'Broken 
> Boots' thread some time ago. Further if the HPA does go down you can't 
> re-load Windows and lastly there is also as yet an unexplained 
> interaction whereby whilst Ubuntu 10.04 can be re-installed on a dual 
> boot machine as often as you like, there are some circumstances (I 
> suspect around settings for HPA access) where Windows can't if 10.04 is 
> still present (and even most likely after it is removed) so the whole 
> concept of dual-booting can collapse on a perfectly fit piece of 
> hardware which essentially cannot be easily restored to factory-gate 
> conditions since most remedies involve removing HPA - I think!!.
> 
> Hope this helps a bit and good luck
> 
> Happy Christmas to everyone.
> 
> Chris
> 
> On 11/12/11 15:09, Steve Horsfield wrote:
> > I know this is a path well trod, but bear with me. I am trying to buy a
> > laptop - not for me I hasten to add. The only suitable offering I have
> > found with linux pre-installed is a 15.6" Lenovo from Linux Emporium in
> > Coventry for £ 535. Alternatively I could walk into PC World and pick up an
> > equivalent Dell, for example, for £400 and overwrite the Microsoft OS. Is
> > there actually no way to realize the advantage of an open source operating
> > system?
> >
> > Steve Horsfield
> > --
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> >
> 
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-- 
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Malcolm Herbert
Director, Infrastructure Consulting EMEA
t: +44 7720 079845
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