Cheap Laptops. Was: [plug] linux on ibook

[Alan Graham]

I've got a Gateway, PIII 500Mhz with 288Mb, 10g HDD.  It runs everything 
flawlessly.  A PIII 500 with enough memory is more than adequate for 
everything except video rendering and some fo the new games.  I'm currently 
running Mandrake 9.1 on it, with all the fruit.  I've recently had Suse 8.2 
and Ximian Desktop 2.  It even plays DVD's.

As a user sitting in front of it, it's only slightly slower to respond than 
my Athlon XP 2100+, also running mandrake 9.2.

But don't take this as a recomendation for Gateway.  The battery died and 
they want $400 for a new one.  

Alan Graham

On Thursday 28 August 2003 19:26, Luke Dudney wrote:
> On 28/08/2003 7:15 PM, Craig Ringer wrote:
> >> My budget is very very very limited. Think notes being taken in a VI
> >> console session (no X) ;-). But seriously prices I am looking at are
> >> somewhere between $500 and $1000. If I had $2k to spare I would be going
> >> for a new clone at wholesale.
> >>
> >> It is pretty much going to be a glorfied mobile word processor with the
> >> possibilty of running it as a mobile thin client to my main desktop
> >> machine when I am at home.
> >
> > Second hand would be useful, but you won't have /any/ warranty, and
> > expect battery life to be poor (worn out battery). New batteries are
> > often expensive for older models, and frequently "refurbished" (read:
> > really inferior). Don't buy gateway, they don't even operate in the
> > country anymore.
> >
> > You're unlikely to find a new laptop for those kinds of prices. A
> > cheapo PC w/o monitor is $600 to $700 after all. So some kind of older
> > 2/h laptop will be the way to go.
> >
> > Craig Ringer
>
> I picked up an Acer Travelmate 512T (Celery 366, 64mb ram, 4g HDD) from
> an online auction site. It was ex-lease and runs fine, I get about 2
> hours battery on it IIRC. Runs RH9 fine, only problem was it needed a
> special driver for the inbuilt LT winmodem, and that now works fine.
>
> I got it from http://www.graysonline.com.au/ for $420.
>
> Cheers
> Luke