1. Preface

Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding is the third. -- Marge Piercy

1.1 About the Author

People like either laptops or desktops. I like to work with laptops rather than with desktops. I like Linux too. My first HOWTO was the Linux/IR-HOWTO about infrared support for Linux. My second is this one and my third the Ecology-HOWTO, about some ways to use Linux in an ecology aware manner.

Also I have written some pages about Linux with certain laptops: Olivetti Echos 133 DM (German) (together with Kurt Saetzler), HP OmniBook 800CT, HP OmniBook 3100 (together with Friedhelm Kueck) COMPAQ Armada 1592 DT and COMMODORE C286LT.

During the work with the Laptop-HOWTO I have collected some surveys about laptop related hardware: graphic chips, unofficially supported PCMCIA cards, internal modems and infrared chips.

But I don't claim to be a laptop guru, I just had the opportunity to install Linux on some laptops and I simply want to share the information I collected.

Since I don't own a non-Intel based machine, this HOWTO might not contain all the details for non-Intel systems or may contain inaccuracies. Sorry.

1.2 Sponsoring

This HOWTO is free of charge and free in the sense of the General Public Licence - GPL. Though it requires much work and could gain more quality if I would have some more hardware. So if you have a spare laptop, even an old one or one which requires repair, please let me know. Especially I need one with infrared port, USB port, DVD drive, WinModem and a non Intel machine. The according chapters need a major rewrite. For the curious, this HOWTO is written on a HP OmniBook 800CT 5/100.

Or sponsor a banner ad at my WWW pages LiLAC - Linux with Laptop Computers.

You can hire me for readings or workshops on Linux with Laptops, Repairing of Laptops and other Linux topics, too.

1.3 About the Document (Mirrors, Translations, Versions, Formats, URLs)

Many times I have mentioned MetaLab formerly known as SunSite. This site carries a heavy load, so do yourself a favor, use one of the MetaLab mirrors .

For Debian/GNU Linux the mirror URLs are organized in this scheme http://www.<country code, e.g. uk>.debian.org .

This text is included in the LINUX DOCUMENTATION PROJECT - LDP .

Richard Worwood mirrors this HOWTO at http://www.felch01.demon.co.uk/laptop-howto.html .

Lionel, "trollhunter" Bouchpan-Lerust-Juery, <trollhunter@linuxfr.org> provides a translation into French. You can download or browse it at http://infonomade.linuxfr.org/portables/ressourcesfr.html#howto . And he mirrors the English version at http://infonomade.linuxfr.org/portables/ressourcesen.html#howto

He has also written a HOWTO about portables and wearables, please look at his pages http://infonomade.linuxfr.org/index.html (French version) http://infonomade.linuxfr.org/indexen.html (English version).

Translations into Japanese (Ryoichi Sato <rsato@ipf.de>), Italian (Alessandro Grillo <Alessandro_Grillo@tivoli.com>), Portuguese (Gledson Evers <pulga_linux@bol.com.br> the translation will be announced at LinuxALL) and Greek (Vassilis Rizopoulos <mscyvr@scs.leeds.ac.uk>) are under construction.

Please contact me before starting a translation to avoid double work. Since a translation is a great amount of work, I recommend to do this work as a group.

Nearly all of the programms I mention are available as Debian/GNU Linux packages, or as RPM packages, look up your favorite RPM server, for instance RUFUS .

The latest version of this document is available in different formats at LiLAC - Linux with Laptop Computers .

1.4 Contact

This document isn't ready yet. If you like to write a chapter or even a smaller part by yourself, please feel free to contact me. Also your suggestions and recommendations and critics are welcome. But please don't expect me to solve your laptop related problems if the solution is already documented. Please read all according manual pages, HOWTOs and WWW sites first, than you may consider to contact me or the other resources mentioned below.

Since I want to write much more stuff about mobile computing and Linux I'm thinking about turning this HOWTO into a book.

Werner Heuser <wehe@snafu.de>