On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 12:01 +0100, Simon Royal wrote:
I have been told IBM Thinkpads are good for Linux can anyone recommend anything in particular?
Thinkpads are good. Not just for Linux...They are good...period.
There is a notable exception with the "i" series machines...Avoid these if you can.
Also I want to buy a wireless PCMCIA card that will work on a laptop and under Linux, any suggestions?
Many of the more recent machines will have an internal Mini-PCI slot..if you can use this then it is a much more attractive option (no ugly card hanging out the side and better reception from the antenna wrapped around the screen) Sadly IBM block all but a few Mini_PCI vendor ID's in their BIOS so you need either an approved card (mine has an atheros card that works 100% in Linux using Ubuntu restricted modules package) or a bios hack to use something else....If you need an approved card then I can get them for you.
Mine is an R series (specifically an R40 P4M 2.0Ghz) The R series are more of a low end desktop replacement than a road warrior machine... However I have been very pleased with mine and Gnome is lovely on a 1400x1200 screen.
Lenovo have recently been building Thinkpads under license from IBM...But you would need to be buying new or very nearly new to get one of these...Personally I don't think the build quality is quite up to the IBM standard...but they are still nice machines and are much cheaper now...Entry level is around £400-£450 + VAT