[NBLUG/talk] Advice for prospective Linux lap-topper?

[Jeffrey Miller]

Dear NBLUGers (especially Linux laptop users),

I'm headed to a programmers' conference in late June and I thought it might
be time to get a laptop so I can "play along".  Of course, if this one is
going to be my own, I would like to be able to run Linux on it, as well as
Windows (for work-related purposes and some games, and a few random USB
devices like a digital camera).

Another force in me looking at a laptop as a replacement computer (I have a
desktop machine in storage which I got from VA Linux a few years ago) is
that I have just moved to a small apartment in Tiburon with a toddler who
likes to pull on wires and a domestic partner who doesn't like to look at
them.  So part of the picture is probably a wireless hub connected to DSL,
safely inside a ventilated box.

One alternate idea would be to get a bootable CDROM (a "Pluggable Linux
Personality") provided that it would be reasonably functional with the
less-standard hardware configuration of a laptop.  In order to exchange data
via the hard drive, I expect I would have to reinstall Windows and partition
the drive to limit the area devoted to NTFS.  (Or does Linux read NTFS these
days?)

My current inclination is to get a pre-installed Linux/Win2000 notebook.
However, a cursory survey (via Google) of Linux laptop vendors suggests that
I would pay a big premium for someone else to work out all the hardware
compatibility issues.

Or I suppose I could go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linux-dell-laptops/
:)

Does anyone have any general thoughts, suggestions, or pointers for where I
should be looking?

Thanks,

Jeff Miller
(Linux 0.98 - 2.2 user, but out of practice lately)

P.S.:  Thanks for the list.  I enjoy hearing what's up and learning tips
about Linux and networking, even if I am usually elsewhere on Tuesday
nights.