Help Macbook or Thinkpad?

efourseven · 2009-11-28 23:31:03

Hello everyone, I need a laptop soon and have some questions that maybe the thinkpad user's and the Macbook pro user's can help me decide on which one to go for...

Choices: either a thinkpad t500/w500 OR a macbook pro.

Questions: for the thinkpad users.. which would be the better option w500 or the T500? Both have ATI graphics cards but the W500 has the AGI FireGL card and the T500 has an ATI radeon card... other than that, W500 seems to be the better machine. Maybe an older T61p with an nvidia card??

For the macbook users: How does Arch run on these? Any issues still of concern?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

EDIT: I think I will most likely go with a thinkpad, just not sure which would run better, a t500, w500, or a t61p... I like that the t61p has an nvidia card, and that I could get it a bit cheaper.

Last edited by efourseven (2009-12-01 00:25:31)

FALK · 2009-12-01 14:56:17

I also prefer nvidia, much better drivers and they are updated often.
No big problems with arch on a macbook pro. Although some of the exotic stuff like keyboard backlight and multi-touch requires a little effort to get working properly, but nothing special.

Stythys · 2009-12-01 16:53:32

for your macbook questions- refer here: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=58221

jealma · 2009-12-02 11:17:27

I have a MBP from my work, but can't use it with linux. The trackpad won't work fine, audio needs some patches to work, there's a kernel problem with all macbooks since 2.6.30 that causes a ACPI GPE storm, which makes virtualbox unusable, and maybe more. I would choose a Thinkpad, they have a reputation for good Linux support.

efourseven · 2009-12-06 22:57:40

Thank you for the responses. Looking into getting a new t61p right now. I'm also messing around with FreeBSD as well, so I wanted to make sure everything would be supported as much as possible between these 2 OS's. Arch has been great over the past few years that I've been running it as my main OS/desktop. I love this distro... can't wait to set it up on a thinkpad.

chpln · 2009-12-07 05:16:38

efourseven wrote:

Thank you for the responses. Looking into getting a new t61p right now.

Despite being a little older, this would be my preference also.

While I can't comment on the ATI/nvidia comparison (Intel is enough for my usage), I've used both a T60 (later model; not so dissimilar to a T61p) and T500. I feel the build-quality on the T500 is not as solid as its predecessor (keyboard flex, minor design flaws, etc). The T60 is a few years old now and the only problem I've had to date is a battery needing replacement.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-11-28 23:31:03

Help Macbook or Thinkpad?

#2 2009-12-01 14:56:17

Re: Help Macbook or Thinkpad?

#3 2009-12-01 16:53:32

Re: Help Macbook or Thinkpad?

#4 2009-12-02 11:17:27

Re: Help Macbook or Thinkpad?

#5 2009-12-06 22:57:40

Re: Help Macbook or Thinkpad?

#6 2009-12-07 05:16:38

Re: Help Macbook or Thinkpad?

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