At 02:26 AM 10/5/2004 -0700, Ti Kan wrote:
John Pettigrew writes:
[ ... ] That being so, what sort of spec am I looking at? The thing is that a new= laptop is about GBP650 for a basic model, but even GBP500 seems to buy a = very poor second-hand machine by comparison (such as a P3-650, when the GBP650= could get a Celeron 2.4 GHz).
Are there any dangers I need to be aware of when buying a laptop on which= to run linux?
/snip/ There is an issue that has nothing to do with Linux, but with the hardware itself. Actually 2 issues. The main one is the battery or batteries. If you buy a refurbished laptop from a reputable supplier, the battery issue goes away, but if you just buy a used one, the battery may become a problem fairly quickly. For me it became a very serious problem, quite a few years ago. I bought a laptop with _no_ batteries, and tried to put some off-the-shelf batteries in it. I was unaware that the original battery pack must have had heat sensors in the pack itself, to avoid overcharging. I melted the computer case, charred a tabletop, and almost set my house on fire! The second problem is the illumination system. A special fluorescent lamp, or lamps, provides the light to illuminate the LCD display. It, too, has a finite life, and I have seen prices for replacement lamps in the US$200 range. Maybe that has come down, I don't know, but it would be worth looking into. It is frequently possible in the US to get good deals on laptops that have been refurbished. These are usually "new" machines that had out-of-the-box failures, and been returned to the factory for repair and replacement. US law does not permit these to be put back into the "new equipment" market, so they are sold as "factory refurbished," or words to that effect. What you get is a new machine that has been very carefully repaired and tested, so that they don't get it back again! And it's probably not more than 6 to 9 months into the release cycle. I wish I could justify a laptop, since they're so cool, but I can't! --doug