[PlanetCCRMA] Advice on Music Laptop?

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   I bought a Compaq R3070 about 2 years ago and have had great luck
with it. Very Linux compatible. Good keyboard. TI 1394 chips. Wireless
has been a bit dodgy but I never tried very hard to get that working.
Great operation under Jack. I've run both PlanetCCRMA and Gentoo on it
and both have worked very, very well. (Jack at 64/2 is no problem)
This specific model is not available anymore but I'd be comfortable
buying another Compaq or HP machine. These all run in the $600-$750
range depending on model and options.

   When I bought this I took 5 Linux CDs to the store and booted every
one of them to see how they worked. At the time there was no DMA
support as the ATI chipset support was early on but after about a
month everything was in pretty good shape. I'd recommend running a FC
boot disk, a Gentoo boot disk, and possibly Knoppix, Damn Small Linux,
etc., and seeing the machine run Linux. Check hard drive performance
and look at the hardware with lspci. It will likely save you some pain
when you get the machine home.

cheers,
Mark

On 8/17/05, Henk Jansen <henk.jansen1@tno.nl> wrote:
> Hi:
> 
> I'm in the process of deciding which laptop to buy for good quality
> music recording (obviously using the CCRMA software). Therefore I want
> to buy a robust and toil free Linux compatible laptop connected to an
> external soundcard. As regards the latter I've set my mind on an RME
> Digiface, which will cost me around $500. With an estimated budget of
> appr. $1200 for the overall system this leaves me with appr. $700 for a
> laptop, which therefore (...I believe...?) should be 2nd hand (I'm
> interested in a reasonably fast good quality computer rather than one
> with all kind of fancy stuff). Now, I've read a good report about
> Linux/Fedora on an IBM Thinkpad T30 (http://www.linux-laptop.net) which
> I believe can be found within the limitations of my budget. I'd like to
> see one question answered really however before I buy such a machine:
> 
> 1) Is it a good choice, or can better laptops (considering the purpose)
> be bought (new or 2ndhand) for the same or little more money?
> 2) I.o.w. what are good alternatives?
> 
> Thanks for your time and advice,
> 
> --Henk
> 
> 
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