Hi Anna These are some pretty tough questions that take a lot of research. If you would like you can certainly give me a call to discuss the options. I will give you some ideas in line. On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Anna Schneider wrote: snip > I would like to go laptop if possible, but I understand that that may not > work. Again, if people could please go from experience. I do think I > will wind up using a combination of Speakup with Red Hat and Emacs with > Emacspeak which I know is Linux too but if it's important, well you all You certainly can go with a laptop if you like. Most of the current models from hp sony toshiba ibm gateway and compaq will work. However your going to want to choose one carefully to make sure that it has a supported sound card modem and ethernet... http://www.linux-laptop.net is your friend in this regard. > a certain type of Cd burner? I was led to understand that this is better If your going to be getting a laptop it will be an item that you will want to have as a component of the laptop. Most usb cdburners are expensive and slow. Most pcmcia scsi cards are expensive also. > a printer. I don't know that I need color printing, but I do need one As far as printers go you need to decide on how much printing your going to be doing. If your doing a lot then your going to want to spend the extra money on a printer that isn't going to die on you. Most printers these days are made just good enough to get the job done. http://www.linuxprinting.org is the place to find a compatible printer that will work with the software that you want to use. There however aren't very good descriptions on this sight about a printers features. > a sound card Once again this is an included device in a laptop. You will want to read up about different laptops and what sound devices they have. Currently the best sound device I know of in laptops are the ymfpci chips. This audio controller is made by Yamaha. It comes on some sony's hp's and ibm's if I am remembering correctly. > a video card. This should be decent quality. I'm an artist and I use a Pretty much all video cards are of reasonable quality these days. Once again part of the laptop. If the folks at the linuxlaptops sight know anything they will know whether or not the video card is xfree86 compatible. > modem. I was led to understand by a friend that for laptop there are Sure you could get a modem on a pcmcia card. Most likely you will find that laptops come with modems these days. This is a very tricky area however. There are very few modems that work with the linux kernel. I think that the linux laptops page will once again help you with this. > And last of all scanners. Some debate seems to have occurred on this Yeah... A very very very ridiculous argument. I would like to set some people straight. Twain means nothing sane means nothing. Everyone uses what ever command set they want. Some come closer to compliance with twain then others. http://www.mostang.com/sane/ is the sane home page. You can find out there which scanners work well. You will probably want a usb scanner. There going to be the most economical way to scan. Like I said above about cd burners scsi cards for laptops get expensive. Usb scanning should be just as fast. If I can be more help feel free to call. -- Frank Carmickle phone: 412 761-9568 email: frankiec at dryrose.com
