[wellylug] What new laptop < $1000 is compatible with Ubuntu 8.04

[Jonathan Harker]

Sorry, I didn't see the original post:

Carl Turney wrote:
> Whatever fits the price range and is locally available doesn't seem to
> have been tested on Hardy Heron, and the makes/models of whatever seems
> highly compatible to HH are not currently available locally or are too
> expensive.

Almost all new laptops should work with Ubuntu 8.04. Depending how awful 
the hardware components are in your cheap laptop, there may be some 
degree of cully-bogling to get it all working nicely. In my experience, 
pain points usually revolve around:

  - certain wireless network chipsets, particularly Broadcom
  - getting the crappy little webcams above the screen to work
  - those little SD/CF/micro card reader thingies
  - shutdown/suspend/resume working properly (especially if you are using
    proprietary solutions to the above, e.g. the ATI fglrx drivers)
  - Getting Adobe Flash to not behave like a bitch

The above are usually because hw manufacturers haven't/won't/can't 
released the specs and have instead written some awful buggy load of 
nonsense instead of letting open source developers get on with it. 
Especially Adobe Flash, they should all be shot or forced to take 
accordion lessons.

Generally, I find one can't often go wrong with a Dell laptop.

Conversely, things that I've had working without any trouble or extra 
fiddling include HP printers and scanners, even the OfficeJet 
multi-function things, those fingerprint scanner things, portable USB 
media, USB gaming headsets, 3D with NVidia chipsets (except my 8800GT at 
home, but I gather that's now fixed in 8.10), multiple screens, and so on.

> If they don't have an internal NZ-compatible dial up modem, do they have a
> serial port?

Probably not, but you can always get a serial-to-USB dongle, and it 
should talk to ttyUSB0 instead

> If they don't have a parallel port, will they talk to my Lexmark E230
> through my parallel to USB converter?

Almost certainly

> Can I successfully connect my PS2 keyboard and mouse via a USB converter?

Yes

> Is it difficult to swap hard disks in the thing?

They should swap out easily enough - most laptops take the same SATA or 
IDE 2.5" hard disks.