Attention Linux Users: I could use some advice

[HappyCheeze]

Greetings!

 

Let me first give you my story. I had my dad's old dell latitude C840, I was curious about Linux and the machine had a broken fan and kept crashing in windows from overheating, so I checked out an Ubuntu book at my school's library, installed it and I liked it a lot, never overheated, (at least enough for the powerdown failsafe to kick in). Well bout 2 days ago, after my lappy was running fine at school, either the ram, ram slots and/or mobo are dead (The evil capslock blinking 10 tens, than shuts off). So now I'm in the market for a new laptop, and I have about $700ish to spend.

 

I think a few of you guys talked about your linux laptops, playing tdm on them (was it Komag?) and so I'd like to know if you guys know any good laptops that can install with Ubuntu pretty good, and if possible run doom3 well.

 

Now I have my desktop that is my hardcore gaming machine, but if possible, I'd like to play TDM on my laptop, because I usually get a lot of sudden mapping creativity at school (of all places!) and I think it would be cool to be able to just put em down, plus vacations, I can have a portable Darkradiant :-D.

 

I don't know how feasible that would be with my price range to get a laptop that can run doom 3 due to it being quite the hardware tester even to this day. I've looked at Dell's Ubuntu laptops and also I've been thinking about getting an Ideapad y530, but it has a shitty onboard video card and probably won't run doom3 at all. My main reason for this laptop is for School, Finances maybe, I'm also trying to teach myself Python, and play some classic old games in WINE like fallout 1 and 2. But If I can manage to get a lappy that can play some doom3, I'd be more happier, but if not, I'll still be good.

 

I think I might register on the ubuntu forums as well and pitch my Q there.

 

Thanks,

[Crispy]

Gah, doublepost. First in years though.

[Crispy]

The main thing for Doom 3 compatibility will be the graphics card. Check the laptop's specs before you buy. Avoid Intel graphics cards if you expect to be able to play 3D games. For Doom 3's purposes it's better to have an NVidia card than an ATi card. Also check the CPU speed against D3's recommended specs.

 

For Ubuntu, do a Google search on the laptop's manufacturer/brand/model number and the keyword "ubuntu" or "linux" just to see if anyone's had any problems. Laptop compatibility is actually pretty good on Linux these days so you'll probably be OK, but best to check first. Even the ancient Compaq Evo I picked up third-hand for cheap worked out of the box with Ubuntu 7.10; it does have issues with suspending and hibernating but it's quite usable considering the age of the thing.

[HappyCheeze]

Yeah I've been looking at the GPUs. And most laptops around my price range have the integrated x3100 :-(

 

I've found some with a geforce 8400m which seems decent enough, but I'm still digging.

[Tels]

Yeah I've been looking at the GPUs. And most laptops around my price range have the integrated x3100 :-(

 

I've found some with a geforce 8400m which seems decent enough, but I'm still digging.

 

Yeah, get one with a GeForce. The integrated intel on my laptop is not so slow that it cannot do the 3D desktop effects, but it si way too slow for Doom (1 FPS and it cannot handle compressed textures (so almost everything is black). Not good for TDM.

 

I have a Dell Inspiron 6400, which came pre-installed with Ubuntu (the reason I bought this machine). The rest works fine (except some glitches with the wireless-indicator LED, which stopped working in Ubuntu 8.04 for some reason) and hibarnation, which I don't use (would defeat the completely encrypted harddisk