Re: Choosing Hardware

Richard Hector wrote:
> One of my main concerns is keeping at least my hardware drivers Free -
> I'd rather not have firmware blobs either, but I can tolerate those if I
> have to. I can also tolerate drivers that aren't in the standard kernel,
> but again I'd rather not if possible.

You may want to look at older laptops rather than newer laptops. In general after hardware has been around a year or so problems have been worked around. It is usually the brand new hardware that has issues.

Frankly for me there is little difference in useful performance and features between the latest bleeding edge and the trusty proven two year old models. There is obviously difference but I say useful difference because for me the latest hotest machines were not more advantageous over an older long battery life machine. YMMV but this is certainly something to think about.

> the local one I'm looking at seems to have Intel wireless, while others
> I've seen in howtos have Broadcom. Anybody know if these are any good?

Warning! Broadcom wifi is right now completely without native linux driver support. I would avoid it explicitly until that changes. They seem to be completely uninterested in supporting FLOSS drivers.

Bob

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