[Wylug-help] Laptop Suggestions

[John Hodrien]

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008, Smylers wrote:

> * The laptop it'll be replacing (a Dell Latitude X300) is just 1.4 kg,
>  which has been really convenient.  I'm not interested in anything
>  significantly heavier.

I'd be really lazy and suggest another Dell.  I've got an X1 (the X300
replacement) and apart from the hard disk dying, it's been great, and light
<1.2kg.  I'd be tempted to follow along those lines again, and cast an eye
over a Latitude D430 or D630.  They don't appear to list it under "Home", but
I doubt you'd have problems acquiring one.  Price wise you'd have to see what
they'd do.  It's under 1k ex-vat.  I believe Steve's got a D430, although I
could be wrong.  You also might find the external drive connector is the same
as your X300.

> * I want it to work with a protector (arbitrary projectors, belonging to
>  other people) when running Ubuntu.  By "work" I mean that it's
>  possible to get output on both the projector and the laptop's screen.
>  Ideally I'd like the possibility of _different_ output on each, but
>  I'd settle for identical output -- just so long as it doesn't wriggle
>  around the screen, or only work the first time then distort the next
>  time I cycle to the external display.

Previously I've got on well with cards that support dual monitor (which is
most these days) combined with xrandr, and the gnome screen resolution
doobrie.  Seeing as the D630 has an nvidia chipset you should have as much joy
with that as anything, although I'm biased towards nvidia.  I know more
recently there's been auto-detecty fun to play with within the nvidia driver,
but I've not played with it so I couldn't comment.

>  I note that many current laptops have 'widescreen' aspect ratios,
>  whereas projectors do not.  What happens when plugging a widescreen
>  laptop into a projector?

Nothing very different than if it wasn't widescreen I suspect.  My X1
(1280x768) screen resizes to 1024x768 with borders when I clone the screen to
a projector.  Graphics on that were Intel i915, which is about as basic as you
can get.

jh

-- 
"Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."
                                                      -- Robert Heinlein