Looking for a laptop

[Phil Meyer]

Todd Zullinger wrote:
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> Matt Domsch wrote:
>   
>> I'm writing you from a Dell Latitude D610.  Works perfectly fine after
>> putting the Intel ipw2200 wireless card in (~$30 kit from Dell if
>> you've got a different wireless card).  Suspend-to-RAM and
>> Suspend-to-Disk are also both working great (I'm running
>> FC6t1+updates; earlier FCs may also be fine.)
>>     
>
> Matt, any pointers or advice on getting suspend working on some Dell
> hardware?  I've got an Inspiron 9400/E1705 and suspend is one of the
> few features that I've never had working.  I've got FC5 on this now.
> It'll suspend, but it never wakes back up properly.  :)
>
> - -- 
> Todd        OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xD654075A | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp
> ======================================================================
> Hardware:  the parts of a computer that can be kicked.
>     -- Jeff Pesis
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>   
The issue with suspend is often related to proprietary video drivers.  
Newer Nvidia cards seem to work better than newer ATI cards currenttly, 
but in my experience with both on several DELL laptops, FC5 has 
functional suspend.

The first thing to try is to set your video driver to the open source 
one and then test.
The second thing to do is to update your system (especially if there is 
a new kernel) and try again.

If you get it perfect, don't update for a while.  There is no great harm 
in waiting 6 months to update your FC5 setup if you get it 'just right'

Some of my users laptops have not been updated for a year!  Why bother 
when its just what they need?  We are already way ahead on kernel 
security, so unless there is a major CERT warning for FC5, leave that 
perfect laptop alone! :)

The Lattitude D6NN for the past couple years all seem to work ok.
I have done a couple Inspirons with success, and will be testing a new 
one in the next week or so.  If there is still interest I will happily 
report my findings.

The point is this:  Every kernel update could be the one that fixes or 
breaks your particular setup.  Keep trying!  FC moves very fast.  Don't 
depend on a post/blog from a month ago because its probably already out 
of date.  And by all means, air it out when there is trouble.  Details 
are always welcome and enlightening, if not actually helpful sometimes :)

In terms of overall laptop driver support, the dialup 'WINmodem' is the 
only 'broken by design' hardware in most laptops.  The WIN in WINmodem 
is a Microsoft specification that made modems cheaper ($10.00 vs 
$60.00-$100.00) by putting all port I/O processing on the CPU and not at 
the serial port on the modem.  This was doen intentionally to 'break' 
all modems unless they are run under Windows.  Remember that the 
Internet was all dialup in those days and MS wanted a toll booth onto 
the internet highyway.  This is one of those toll boothes that they 
designed.  The specifications for the OS part of a WINmodem was never 
released by Microsoft.

Having said all that to say this:  If you are dependent upon modem 
communication from your laptop, you are looking at buying a $100.00 
PCMCIA card (which almost always will work) or paying nearly the 
equivalent for some commercial software that MIGHT make your WINmodem 
work under Linux.