Re: Laptop Considerations

[Michael Puchol <mpuchol () sonar-security com>]

Hi David,

A laptop is a very personal choice, I for example choose portability 
over firepower, a Fujitsu P5010 until recently (some 12 hours of battery 
life and very very small), and now a Sony Vaio. The Fujitsu was OK with 
Linux, and I've not yet tried it on the Vaio, as it has only 40GB HD 
which at the moment cannot be increased, it's a new type of ultrasmall 
drive.

You may want to look for some models you like and be comfortable with, 
and then check this site out

http://www.linux-laptop.net/

where you can find out how tricky and what caveats you'll find in 
installing Linux on those particular models. Some newer ones may not be 
listed, so googling usually gets you some pointers too.

Best regards,

Mike


David Bouchard wrote:
> I am about to be purchasing a laptop and I was wanting the advice of the
> list.  I know this can be a very personal topic for some people, but I have
> to throw it out there anyway.
>
> Here's my situation...I'm about to be attending a degree program in
> Information Assurance and Forensics.  I also have my own business doing a
> variety of things computer related.  At some point I would like to delve
> more heavily into vulnerability assesment, penetration testing, and possibly
> forensics.  I'm looking for a laptop that will be flexible enough to meet
> all these needs.
>
> This is what my immediate plans for the laptop are:  for my business, I need
> to have some of the basic MS Office suite on it, as well as MS Publisher.  I
> plan on making it into a dual-boot machine with some flavor of linux.  I
> don't care to use a live linux CD because I want to be able to store logs,
> settings, and other data onto the drive, and I hope to eventually use linux
> for everything except the MS stuff that I have to use on occasion for my
> business.
>
> Because of the variety of things I plan on doing, I want to get one that has
> a serial and a parallel port in addition to the USB that they pretty much
> all come with now.  It would be nice to have at least one PCMCIA slot as
> well.  I plan to do some wireless network assessment, so it needs to be
> wireless capable, but for my purposes being able to attach an external
> antennae for extra range isn't that important.
>
> What I'm looking at right now is the Dell Latitude D600.  I've supported and
> purchased a lot of Dell desktop computers and have been very happy with them
> and I have run Knoppix-STD on a Dell laptop and everything ran well.  The
> D600 has the ports I'd like.
>
> Any thoughts or recommendations?  Any capibilities that you think I've
> missed?
>
> Thanks,
> David