Looking to Trade Laptop

Hello all,
My wife has a practically new Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5130 we would like to trade for a comparable HP, Asus, Acer, or anything that will run Linux. The Toshiba has a Realtek Wireless modem, and they do not have Linux drivers that will work. This laptop has a 250 GB hard drive, and 3 Gb of RAM, fresh Windows 7 Home Premium installed, Avira Anti-Virus and Commodo Firewall. Please U2 me me for email address is anyone is interested. Trade must have at least 2 Gb of RAM, and at least a 2Gb HD. Prefer AMD but will consider Intel boards. Thanks!

If the wireless card in the laptop is the only thing keeping you from running Linux on it, then there is the option of purchasing a wireless USB modem that is supported by Linux.

If you're mechanically inclined, you can look on the bottom of the laptop and it will tell you where the wireless card is installed. You could remove it and purchase a different internal card from somewhere online, or a local computer shop that sells laptops.

It is very easy to get scammed over the internet when trading or selling items. The other option you could do is sell the laptop on Craigslist locally, then take that money and purchase a laptop that has a wireless card compatible with Linux.

I just got a thinkpad e520, after trying and sending back:

Asus 1015px (netbook) Sucked
Acer 3830t, fast but started falling apart

I had an asus 1005ha(netbook) and I loved it, however the thinkpad is awesome and I highly recommend one...

It's not flashy, but it's solid and with an i5 it's plenty fast

Stay away from Acer.

Thats the best advice I can give you in this area.

My sister and I went for Acers a few years ago and there are just too many smaller problems with it that get really annoying really fast.

You can build a better desktop for the price of an Acer.
Atleast that is what my roomate, who knows much more about computers than I, has told me.

Most of these laptops utilize realtech sound, and lan chips. My wife has an exceptional Sony VIO and it also runs the realtech chips. If it is set up wireless LAN you can get other devices that will work..if it has a PCMCIA slot you can get a Wireless LAN PCMCIA that will interface with your router. You can also get USB wireless LAN products that just plug and connect. I recommend if you like the Laptop to find a Wireless lan card..get one on ebay for pennies on the dollar. Just be sure that Linux supports the chip first if possible.
Do keep in mind that realtech or some use the name realtek sound, Lan, and other chips seem to be saturating the market....It is a market that is very lucrative. they get their chips imbedded on the motherboards of nearly every audio and LAN enabled motherboard. Just disable your LAN on the Laptop and insert your own Lan card. Just don't by a realtech piece of LAN hardware.
Realtek audio leaves much to be desired in any kind of digital age. Imbedded chips for Lan and Sound are not nearly as good as NON-OEM chips. If you can get a Motorola chip in a Lan card that should work out ok. At least thats what I have heard...
O Yea...and if all else fails. And it has the connector...run a cable to the laptop instead and that is much more secure.
DH

O Yea I also forgot:
We had an HP a while back. Lasted little over a year before the Power plug eroded the connector on the motherboard. Cost was prohibitive to repair; When I researched it online I discovered they had considerable problems with this. I even found used ones on Craigs List cheap that had bad Mobo connectors.
DH

reply to post by autowrench


If you do get a good offer to trade, pray it isn't an HP TX2500. I have one of these, AMD 64 bit 2.0ghz Turion X2 Dual core with 4gb of ram and a 320gb hard drive. Windows 7 screws the dog on this piece of crap. I would never buy another HP product, desktop or laptop after this experience. The unit overheats very badly and there is no way to speed up the fan short of taking the unit apart and rewiring the fan physically to always operate at full speed. I've had the processor and GPU go to around 90 degrees centigrade just playing music. I put a chill pad under it and now it only runs up to 84 C, yehaw. This isn't an ordinary laptop though, it has a full touch screen, pen input, remote media control, screen flips around 180 degrees and turns into a tablet. If it were Intel Dual Core based it would probably be a better machine, but it isn't, it has the AMD Egg Cooker Inside! Personally I think HP built the TX2500 this way so you would have to buy a new one in a year or less. BTW, this piece of garbage cost over $1000 and only has a 12.1" screen.

Now, will HP do anything about their flawed design? Nope, nada, refuse to even talk about it. HP service and technical support are just another useless bunch of turds in a rather large pile of useless turds. I asked these HP wingnuts for their commented source code so I could fix the problems and rewrite the BIOS myself. Didn't even give me an answer. One of these days when I have more time, I will disassemble the BIOS and do the job, then put it on the internet. That way others like me who have experienced trying to get help from the HP dis-service-from-hell-department can have a heating fix and maybe at the same time upgrade to a 2.4ghz dual core X2 Turion without fear of burning a hole through the processor, the case and their leg.

Cheers - Dave

Problems all solved! After trying Ubuntu, Fedora, Mepis, Zen, and Arch, I finally downloaded and installed PC Linux. Everything worked out of the box, including the Realtek/Broadcom wireless. The laptop now runs twice as fast as with Windows 7.

The reason I wanted to run Linux on it is simple. Every three days or so, her laptop would really slow down. A check with G-Parted would show an extra, FAT 16 partition. This is a well known hacker trick, install a DOS partition with a Trojan and Keylogger, and I have began to highly suspect Facebook of this. A Keylogger will record evey keystroke, and a Trojan looks for passwords, credit card numbers, physical addresses, names and usernames, and then, using a program named sendmail, emails this back to the owner, who now has your info. My wife has a Facebook account, her privacy settings are as high as she can get them, but this still happens. I could be wrong, but a quick search came up with some startling articles:

Facebook tracks you even after logging out

Facebook tracks you online even after you log out

Facebook tracks you

Facebook, as you may, or may not know, is owned and operated by the CIA.

CIA's 'Facebook' Program Dramatically Cut Agency's Costs

Beware Facebook is CIA Owned

So, now running Linux with security set very high, and a strong I-Tables Firewall, and encrypted Home partition, I doubt anyone will get into her computer now. I too have heard horror stories about HP and Acer, in fact, a customer of mine is right now looking for a used power supply for an Acer laptop. She also seems to think the hard drive is locked up. We bought the Toshiba because it was the only one with an AMD chipset, from hard experience I know Intel based laptops tend to run hot. She can sit with that Toshiba on her bare legs and it barely gets warm, even after two hours use.