adultery (was: Toshiba Laptop X server woes / Laptops)

[Peter Evans <peter@example.com>]

An eon ago (4 July), in a long-forgotten thread, Scott Stone:

> Toshiba laptops are widely regarded by many to be complete and
> unadulterated crap.  YMMV.

Not related to my Fujitsu tragicomedy (paused while I get other work
done), but:

Some time during this year (no rush) I'll have to buy an additional
laptop for [blush] Windows use (but see below!) by a very good friend of
mine. (We'll be leaving Japan for a time, she needs a computer for work
as well as email, and both her laptops are getting geriatric: they
belong to the 586/120, 32MB, 1.2GB generation.)

I'd be looking for an A4 machine (for the full-size keyboard). 
Something that's slow and limited by 2001 standards would be fine. It
shouldn't be unusually heavy but it doesn't have to be particularly
light. If it stayed *cool*, that would be very pleasant.  (Are
Crusoe-powered laptops cool to the touch; and if so, are there any that
aren't tiny?)

The unadulteratedly crappy Toshiba on which I now type largely satisfies
my humble demands (I like it for the combination of low weight and
full-size keyboard), but at 12GB the hard drive seems very short measure
for the price of well over 200 thou -- and certainly not a good choice for
installing two OSes. (I note that even the tiny Casio now comes with
30GB.)

My only other experiences of a newish laptop have been with a
three-month-old Sharp equipped with Windows Me. Admittedly, this OS gets
a bad press even from people who are happy with Win98, but either WinMe is
excruciatingly bad (worse than its critics say) or there's something
wrong with the design of the Sharp.  Whatever the cause, the combination
of Sharp and WinMe hangs routinely.

Of course I'd like to be able to get a machine on which, wetware
permitting, it would be not too difficult to install GNU/Linux or *BSD
some time later. Moreover, S amazed me last night first by revealing
that she was halfway through an enjoyable read of Linus Torvalds' autobiography.
So who knows -- even she might eventually want an alternative to Windows.

Any brands or models to be avoided or searched out?

Scott Stone, not quite an eon ago (9 July):

> I've never had trouble running Linux on any laptop I've
> ever had, X included.

That certainly sounds more cheering! (But perhaps the success is thanks
in part to avoidance of the crappy alternatives.)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Peter Evans peter@example.com