Two long years! That’s how long I’ve put up with my current notebook, a Compaq Presario 2500. To be fair, it’s has everything I wanted and it has worked (almost) perfectly with Linux since I first installed Mandrake on it (before ever allowing it to boot into Windows [ insert maniacal laugh here). In two years, it has run Mandrake (later Mandriva), SUSE, Fedora, and now Kubuntu. Nevertheless, the old notebook has been getting flaky these last few months and it’s time to move on. This is why I now need your help.

You see, I don’t know what to get next. I’ve had a Dell (two of them), then a Thinkpad, and now this Compaq. Where do I go from here? This is an open call to anybody who has recently purchased a notebook (a notebook running Linux, mind you). Do you love your notebook? Do you think I should get the same thing? Tell me why? Sell me on it.

I’ll give you a hint as to what I’d like though it’s pretty simple. Screaming fast performance, big hard drive (80 Gb or more), 1 Gb RAM, nice 3D acceleration, DVD writer, and the usual collection of ports for USB, firewire, etc. A diskette drive would be nice (hey, they still exist) but isn’t essential.

This call for advice is also open to dealers, by the way. If you are a hardware dealer and you think your hardware is something special and that you don’t think anything beats this notebook of yours (again, running Linux, of course), then tell me why I should turn over my hard-earned cash to you.

The notebook does not need to have Linux pre-installed — installing Linux is the easiest thing in the world — but it does have to work well with Linux. Consequently, I don’t need a lot of ahem, free Windows software since I’m going to erase it anyhow. What I need is a new notebook, but I also need your advice. Please help!

— Marcel