Opinions On The Compaq C774tu?

After looking around NZ retailers for a simple, no-frills low-cost laptop, my wife has decided to pick up one of these, and I'm interested in opinions on how Suse-friendly it is likely to be. I was pleasantly surprised when she agreed to my suggestion to wipe its pre-installed Vista Basic and replace it with Linux, but I hope that there are no potential snags that might make her regret her decision. I searched for the model here before posting but came up blank, so any opinions on its suitability will be welcomed.

My wife and I plan to purchase a new laptop, probably around the November timeframe. The places where I look for Linux compatibility in Laptops is:

a. linlap: http://www.linlap.com/
b. openSUSE hardware compatibility List: http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/Laptops
c. linux lapop: http://www.linux-laptop.net/
d. tux mobile: http://tuxmobil.org/mylaptops.html

I looked in those, and did not see reference to your C774tu.

If it were me, PRIOR to wiping Vista, what I would do is download both of these two Live CDs:
* Kanotix http://www.kanotix.com/
* Sidux http://sidux.com/

They have the reputation for the best hardware detection in Linux. I would then boot to those LiveCDs, and confirm I was happy with the functionality, especially in terms of:
* wireless
* sound
* hard drive access
* graphics display

I would copy to USB stick any resultant config files when running those LiveCDs (ie copy their appropriate sound config files, copy their equivalent fstab, their equivalent xorg.conf file, etc ....). I would run:
* lspci
* lspci -v
* lsusb
* dmesg
and copy those in a text file to a USB stick. Those files will tell you what hardware this laptop has (to the vendor/device ID level).

I would then use that information to confirm openSUSE compatibility via detailed searches.

I would then install openSUSE as a DUAL boot, and only after I confirmed openSUSE ran well, would I remove VISTA.

Alternatively, if you get lucky, a Linux user who has Linux running on this laptop will speak up.

Thanks for the very detailed and helpful reply. I will definitely try those Live CDs and copy the config files as you suggest. I'll also start scouring Usenet to see if anybody anywhere has good news on this one. I wasn't planning to to replace the Vista with Suse until 11 came out anyway, so that gives me a couple of weeks to check everything out first.

In the end, we bought an Acer Aspire 5520, and Sidux won't even give me a GUI. I tried startx, and found a related thread at the sidux forum, but it's not the "just works" experience I was hoping to give my wife.

In the end, we bought an Acer Aspire 5520, and Sidux won't even give me a GUI. I tried startx, and found a related thread at the sidux forum, but it's not the "just works" experience I was hoping to give my wife.[/b]

You should be able to get that Acer running with openSUSE. Surfing I see some posts (in French and also in German) by successful users.

Reference "sidux", per the URL you provided, simply use the boot code "xmodule=vesa" and it should boot X ok. Note that is NOT an openSUSE boot code.

Don't forget, the intention of using "sidux" was for diagnosis, not, and I repeat, NOT to convince your wife. From a terminal in sidux you can obtain all the diagnostic information you need.

If you want to convince your wife, install openSUSE as a dual boot, take a couple of weeks to tune it properly, and then provide the option to remove Vista. Anything else is fraught with problems IMHO.

That Acer looks like an excellent choice, I don't foresee you having too many problems running Suse on that unit, provided that you are willing to invest some time installing Nvidia graphics drivers and maybe fighting with the wireless a bit. Fortunately, if you have too many wireless problems, you could substitute a more Linux-compatible add on unit.

In the end, we bought an Acer Aspire 5520, and Sidux won't even give me a GUI. [/b]

Hows your Italian?
http://web.tiscali.it/m_marani/5520G.html

It appears from the above URL that the user who posted their experience managed to
* get wireless working with the ndiswrapper,
* for sound they needed alsa-1.0.15 (opensuse-10.3 comes with 1.0.14 so you will have to update alsa (follow http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AudioTroubleshooting ), or wait for openSUSE-11.0 which comes with 1.0.16),
* for webcam used the "uvc" driver which is well supported with openSUSE

Hows your Italian?
http://web.tiscali.it/m_marani/5520G.html

It appears from the above URL that the user who posted their experience managed to
* get wireless working with the ndiswrapper,
* for sound they needed alsa-1.0.15 (opensuse-10.3 comes with 1.0.14 so you will have to update alsa (follow http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AudioTroubleshooting ), or wait for openSUSE-11.0 which comes with 1.0.16),
* for webcam used the "uvc" driver which is well supported with openSUSE
[/b]

Grazie mille! Non parlo italiano bene, pero leggo un poco.

Also, fwiw , I am currently using the Sabayon Live DVD on the Aspire as I type this. Score one for sabayon over sidux for hardware recognition and "oobe" so far.