Jim, Linux on laptops is not very hard, as long as your hardware is supported under Linux. The advice I always give is to take a look at the following web site: http://www.linux-laptop.net This site will give you a huge list of links with just about every laptop under the sun which is supported by Linux. Very useful. I personally recommend IBM laptops, as their quality is very high, and most of their machines are very well supported under Linux (that may change in the future). I just installed Slackware 8.1 over my IBM ThinkPad A20P and it works very well. Previously, this machine was running Red Hat workstation 7.2, with a default "laptop" install, and it was also running very well. There are some companies who sell laptops with Linux pre- installed (Red Hat or other). Here are a few: http://www.xtops.de http://www.debianshop.com http://www.tuxtops.com You can search for more on google. In general, laptops should be very well supported. The only (frequent) exception is the on-board modem, which is usually a Lucent winmodem, as these are proprietary hardware. Some kernel modules exist even for these modems, but "your mileage may vary"... (I am currently fighting with mine!!). Finally there are several "Linux Laptop How To". Most Linux "How To" can be found at: http://www.linuxdoc.org (Main site) (Main linux/laptop document) http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Laptop-HOWTO.html (Other interesting documents) http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/4mb-Laptops.html http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Acer-Laptop-HOWTO.html On Sat, 27 Jul 2002 09:20:14 -0700 (PDT), Jim wrote: > I have been told that installing linux on laptops is harder, > and requires more informed choices. -- Gil Andre gandre@arkeia.com Technical Writer Arkeia Corp. http://www.arkeia.com