Hi guys,
Am thinking that as a fun exercise (and with a bit of money to blow) it might be useful for me to get to combine two experiences - getting a laptop, and getting Ubuntu for it.
I have seen some nice laptops (such as the Sony VAIO's) which I would have snapped up in a second, except when I spoke to (insert atypical purple shirted laptop sales company) they don't have anything to do with linux.
I am specifically thinking to install Ubuntu, as this is what I have installed in my university machine (installed by myself, very easy). However, I am extremely worried about getting in over my head with random proprietry drivers and unknown devices installed within a laptop, and instantly killing any support by removing the default OS.
So my questions are :
a) Are there any "default" excellently supported (in terms of drivers) laptop manufacturers that I should be concentrating on?
b) I am not too concerned really about performance, more that it is extremely lightweight, power efficient, and a clear screen... a 3D graphics card would be nice but I don't intend to play games on it, maybe a little 3D development. Therefore I could easily settle on a 64-128M graphics, and I would like wireless connectivity. So my question is... if I get an onboard 3D graphics card, will I struggle getting drivers for it, as opposed to a laptop that says "NVidia" as its graphics supplier?
In some ways, my ideal solution would have been the uber laptop of yesteryear, at todays prices... super slimline, nice screen, much lower performance (which I can live with).
Any thoughts? Any brands I should steer clear with?
Am thinking that as a fun exercise (and with a bit of money to blow) it might be useful for me to get to combine two experiences - getting a laptop, and getting Ubuntu for it.
I have seen some nice laptops (such as the Sony VAIO's) which I would have snapped up in a second, except when I spoke to (insert atypical purple shirted laptop sales company) they don't have anything to do with linux.
I am specifically thinking to install Ubuntu, as this is what I have installed in my university machine (installed by myself, very easy). However, I am extremely worried about getting in over my head with random proprietry drivers and unknown devices installed within a laptop, and instantly killing any support by removing the default OS.
So my questions are :
a) Are there any "default" excellently supported (in terms of drivers) laptop manufacturers that I should be concentrating on?
b) I am not too concerned really about performance, more that it is extremely lightweight, power efficient, and a clear screen... a 3D graphics card would be nice but I don't intend to play games on it, maybe a little 3D development. Therefore I could easily settle on a 64-128M graphics, and I would like wireless connectivity. So my question is... if I get an onboard 3D graphics card, will I struggle getting drivers for it, as opposed to a laptop that says "NVidia" as its graphics supplier?
In some ways, my ideal solution would have been the uber laptop of yesteryear, at todays prices... super slimline, nice screen, much lower performance (which I can live with).
Any thoughts? Any brands I should steer clear with?