the ultimate fedora laptop?

[Robert P. J. Day]

  (ok, not the ultimate, just really, really good since i don't want
to break the bank.)

  i'm pondering a new laptop to replace my current gateway, and i'm
wondering what a shopping list would look like if i went out hunting
for a system that would be wildly compatible with the imminent fedora
12.

  the first part of that shopping list would be fairly no-brainer:

  * buckets of RAM (4G seems standard these days)
  * large, 7200 RPM hard drive
  * for me, as much screen res as is reasonably affordable
  * HDMI port
  * bluetooth
  * SD card slot (pretty much standard these days)

beyond that, though, what would match up nicely with fedora?

* i'm adamant on getting a 64-bit CPU with HW-assisted virtualization,
of course, but are there any compelling differences between intel and
AMD CPUs?  beyond the standard virt support, is it worth looking at
IOMMU support?  (intel calls it VT-d, while AMD calls it AMD-Vi.  are
laptops shipping with that feature these days?  is it immediately
useful?)

* wireless?  given the new b43-openfwwf open firmware for wireless, it
would seem that at least *some* broadcom wireless chips are now safe.

* video chipset?  that's the choice that always scares me.  starting
with f12, what would represent a safe bet?  and it would be nice to
have a laptop that would comfortably drive an HD TV.

  anyway, you get the idea.  thoughts?

rday
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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

            Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.

Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
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