Buying A Laptop

Hey everyone! I apologize if this is in the wrong section. Im considering buying a laptop and have a few questions for the SuSE community Ive been using SuSE on my desktop for a few weeks now and i really enjoy it Im considering buying a new laptop and want to install SuSE on it aswell. But ive been reading quite abit about SuSE not working aswell for 64bit. So i just have a few questions:

1)Is there any difference between centrino and amd turion other than 64bit
2)If i get turion 64, is there any difference installing suse 32 and 64, such as any noticeable performance improvements?
3)If i go with a 64bit environment would it be better to go with ubuntu as ive heard people saying ubuntu is native to 64bit compared to SuSE which is native to 32.


Im sorry im still new to a lot of this, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Brett

ps: Any suggestions for laptops would be greatly appreciated too.

1) Only Turion should be cheaper and more powerful. (depending on the speed of both)

2) Right now you won't see a big difference, unless you use apps that really take profit of 64 bit. Besides that and for what comes to SuSE 10.0, you might find 32 bit version running a bit snappier than 64 bit.

3) ??? :huh:

Now I need to say that I always use AMD, I like them better than Intel, and am happy with them.

Thanks for your reply Jop! Ill definitly look a bit more into Turion. Ill test that one out first

Thanks for your reply Jop! Ill definitly look a bit more into Turion. Ill test that one out first
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I seriously suggest you wait a short while, new dual-core Turions are due out soon, with chipsets that finally support DDR2. Turions will give you generally better performance, at the cost of battery life. The dual-core Turions, if done properly, will hopefully give you the best of both worlds. However, be advised that brand new technology often takes a little while to be well-supported in Linux. Look back in the archives of this section... You'll see a LOT of threads about ACPI issues on laptops when Turions were first introduced. Also keep in mind, that if you're a hard-core gamer, most modern games will only use one of the cores. ~Loki

Are you a crazy spreadsheet and mathamatics guru and need to do some heavy, heavy number crunching? If not, you are not likely to gain much benefit from a 64 bit laptop versus a nice 32 bit laptop.
Imho you are less likely to run into problems with compatibility if you go the 32 bit route. For instance, lets say you purchase the 64 bit system with a built in wi-fi adapter that has a chipset not natively supported by Linux. Well, depending on the chipset in that wi-fi adapter you will be trying to setup and use ndiswrapper or madwi-fi. You will likely be frustrated trying to find 64 bit windows drivers that you could use with ndiswrapper. You will not have a problem finding 32 bit windows drivers for wi-fi adapters however.
Of course, if you really do some research about whichever laptop you intend to buy, you might be able to find one with a chipset supported by SuSE out of the box. In which case the 64 bit versus 32 bit thing is not an issue, you wont have to mess around with ndiswrapper or madwi-fi. Research heavily, try to go with a laptop with hardware you KNOW will work with SuSE or whatever distro.
Just my two cents worth.

I seriously suggest you wait a short while, new dual-core Turions are due out soon, with chipsets that finally support DDR2. Turions will give you generally better performance, at the cost of battery life. The dual-core Turions, if done properly, will hopefully give you the best of both worlds. However, be advised that brand new technology often takes a little while to be well-supported in Linux. Look back in the archives of this section... You'll see a LOT of threads about ACPI issues on laptops when Turions were first introduced. Also keep in mind, that if you're a hard-core gamer, most modern games will only use one of the cores. ~Loki
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Dual core turions? wow. I actually just bought a turion64, so my question to you is how much will a dual core turion cost. Will it be the same about the same or extremely expensive? And about when are they coming out? Thanks for your replies! I have 2 weeks to take my laptop back if i dont like it or find something better so im just experimenting with it Havent had a chance to install linux yet but i will soon. Thanks again!

Are you a crazy spreadsheet and mathamatics guru and need to do some heavy, heavy number crunching? If not, you are not likely to gain much benefit from a 64 bit laptop versus a nice 32 bit laptop.
Imho you are less likely to run into problems with compatibility if you go the 32 bit route. For instance, lets say you purchase the 64 bit system with a built in wi-fi adapter that has a chipset not natively supported by Linux. Well, depending on the chipset in that wi-fi adapter you will be trying to setup and use ndiswrapper or madwi-fi. You will likely be frustrated trying to find 64 bit windows drivers that you could use with ndiswrapper. You will not have a problem finding 32 bit windows drivers for wi-fi adapters however.
Of course, if you really do some research about whichever laptop you intend to buy, you might be able to find one with a chipset supported by SuSE out of the box. In which case the 64 bit versus 32 bit thing is not an issue, you wont have to mess around with ndiswrapper or madwi-fi. Research heavily, try to go with a laptop with hardware you KNOW will work with SuSE or whatever distro.
Just my two cents worth.
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Im not a number crunching guru, but what ive been told is that if anytime in the future I decide to use a 64 bit enviroment like linux, or *gasp* windows vista, that i might aswell be prepared now. Instead of buying a 64 later. What you say about the hardware does make sense. When I install linux I think i might try just going with SuSE 64. And see how that goes, possibly if there is a huge hardware detection problem i might try some other distros like ubuntu. Thanks for your advice though, im going to start looking into the hardware now.

Dual core turions? wow. I actually just bought a turion64, so my question to you is how much will a dual core turion cost. Will it be the same about the same or extremely expensive? And about when are they coming out? Thanks for your replies! I have 2 weeks to take my laptop back if i dont like it or find something better so im just experimenting with it Havent had a chance to install linux yet but i will soon. Thanks again!
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From what I've heard, dual-core Turions and the DDR2-capable AMD chipsets should be out sometime in June or July, but AMD doesn't give a specific date, they simply say between Nov 2005 and Nov 2006. As I said before, don't expect good Linux support for them immediately. ~Loki

Go for ASUS M5200AE for enough to run Suse Linux perfecto!