Φορητοί υπολογιστές και LINUX

[chomwitt]

Andreas Chalkias wrote:
> Καλησπέρα σε όλους!
> 
> Θέλω να αγοράσω φορητό υπολογιστή και να εγκαταστήσω LINUX, αλλά έχω 
> αμφιβολίες αν όλα τα περιφερειακά θα αναγνωριστούν.
> 
> Μήπως γνωρίζετε κάποια μαγαζιά τα οποία πουλάνε φορητούς με LINUX ήδη 
> εγκατεστημένα ή έστω κατά παραγγελία στην Ελλάδα? 
> 
> Ίσως ακόμη αν γνωρίζατε κάποιον τεχνικό από μαγαζί ο οποίος να ήταν 
> "ανοιχτόμυαλος" όσων αφορά λειτουργικά συστήματα πέρα των WINDOWS ώστε να 
> έκανε εγκατάσταση LINUX από live CD (όπως το MandrakeMove) θα μου ήταν αρκετό 
> για να προβώ στην αγορά φορητού!!
> 
> Ευχαριστώ εκ των προτέρων για τις απαντήσεις σας,
> 
> Ανδρέας
> 
> 
  	Η γνώμη μου είναι  να πάρεις ΙΒΜ Thinkpad
ανεξάρτητα από το αν βρεις περιστασιακή πρόχειρη υποστήριξη
για το τάδε μοντέλο για λινουξ.

Είναι αποδεδειγμένα οι φορητοί με το καλύτερο Documentation on-line,
Hardware-maintance-manuals, parts-lists ,και ότι ποθείς.
Οπότε και αν δυσκολευτείς να δεις πx μερικά περιφερειακά μέσα
από GNU/Linux τουλάχιστον θα βρείς για ποιό chipset ψάχνεις driver.
Δες μόνό σου μερικά site ,για να δεις.Δεύτερη επιλογή Dell.
Και ας μην ξεχνάς ότι 50% των φορητών φτιάχνονται από 5-6 πολυεθνικές
της Ταιβαν.Οπότε μην κολλάς στο brandname ,κατά μεγάλη πιθανότητα
ενας hp,acer,ibm να βγήκαν από τον ίδιο κατασκευαστή.

http://www.arima.com.tw/
http://www.compal.com/index_en.htm
http://www.clevo.com.tw/
http://www.quanta.com.tw/e_default.htm
etc

Επίσης δες το βιβλίο του Scott Mueller για φορητούς.



Μέρος από αρθρό του δ.τόπου του forbes
Made in Taiwan
Andrew Tanzer, 04.02.01

Where was your laptop manufactured? More likely than not, somewhere 
close to Taipei. One billionaire has a big chunk of the market.

Recession? I don't know why people say there's a recession," says Barry 
Lam, the world's little-known king of notebook computers. "We've been 
working overtime for many weeks. We have a huge backlog, and customers 
are pushing us for earlier delivery."

Lam is the billionaire founder and chairman of Taiwan's Quanta Computer. 
He'll be disappointed if he doesn't ship 4 million notebook units this 
year—one seventh of all those sold on earth and up 50% from last year. 
Quanta makes more notebooks than anyone else, but you've probably never 
heard of it. You do know its customers: Dell, Compaq, Gateway, Apple, 
HP, IBM, Sony, Sharp, Fujitsu, Siemens.

Quanta is one of the beneficiaries of the trend among the brand holders 
in the electronics industry to have ghost manufacturers do most of their 
work. By doing so, they reduce fixed costs, inventories and risk. Last 
year, Compaq, Dell and IBM all outsourced at least 65% of their notebook 
needs to Taiwan.

Think Quanta, which will take in an estimated $3.8 billion in revenues 
this year, is akin to those anonymous sweatshops that crank out toys or 
sneakers for famous U.S. brand owners? It's more than a drone 
manufacturer; it is a designer, too, and puts a lot of engineering 
talent into its contracts. This world of ghost designer-manufacturers is 
peculiar to Taiwan, the world's dominant maker of notebook computers (a 
global 55% market share) and a whole spectrum of pc components and 
peripherals.

Taiwan's electronics factories started out at the drone end of the 
business. But there wasn't enough money in that. In the past decade they 
have evolved from lowly con-tract manufacturers into 
designer-manufacturers. They differ from the well-known contract 
electronics manufacturers in the U.S.—namely, Solectron and 
Flextronics—in typically having a few specialties, as opposed to making 
a wide variety of products. In Quanta's case the list includes laptops, 
and now cell phones and servers.

Craig Barrett, president of Intel, has observed the progression. "Taiwan 
made its mark in low-cost manufacturing," he recalls. "Now it's moving 
up to design and creation of products, while outsourcing the low-end 
manufacturing to China." This ability to move steadily into higher-value 
information-technology products underpins the prosperity of Taiwan's 
export-led economy.

How did Taiwan emerge as an electronics workshop to the world? The 
island has an abundance of relatively low-cost engineers, many of them 
returnees from the U.S., and strong connections to Silicon Valley. The 
Taiwan government stimulated the high-tech industry with tax and venture 
capital incentives. The country has a deeper technical and industrial 
base than its Southeast Asian neighbors. Taiwan's entrepreneurs have 
been much more adaptable than its competitors in Japan and Korea to the 
rapid change and short product cycles in the computer industry.

Taiwan has not been notably successful in branding and marketing its own 
products. Where it has succeeded is in partnering with the U.S. (and, 
increasingly, Japanese) computer industry. While being careful not to 
advertise what they are doing, the U.S. name-brand owners have delegated 
a lot to the Taiwanese. The brand holder may give a road map, such as 
product specifications and performance. Or the Taiwan side may generate 
the ideas and bring them to the customer. Taiwan has a particular 
strength in the time-consuming design of the printed circuit board, a 
customized system that is crucial to the overall speed and reliability 
of the finished computer. A joint development process between the two 
sides can come up with a new model in six to nine months.

Lam says that Quanta, which has 500 design engineers in Taiwan, did 
about half of the design work for Apple Computer's G4 notebook. For 
Dell, Quanta's biggest single customer, Lam says, his army of engineers 
does about 60% to 70% of the design work on Latitude models; Dell does 
the remaining 30% to 40%. He asserts that HP was a marginal player in 
notebooks before Quanta helped to design its products. Compaq, which 
last year sourced an astounding $9.6 billion of electronics from Taiwan, 
looks to become Quanta's No. 2 account.