i finally got the t105 the other day and sure enough… i didn’t order the optical drive ($0) when i configured the t105 and dell actually listened and didn’t send one. after trial and error trying to follow the ubuntu live usb how-to, i actually got ubuntu 8.04 to boot off a usb drive.

one of the drawbacks to installing via usb vs cdrom is that you can’t install the alternatives cd and you have to use a ubuntu live cd. i did want to try out the encrypted filesystem support that’s available in the alternatives.

i am glad that i didn’t have to beg/borrow/steal a usb or sata cdrom drive. when going through the how-to make sure that you are using a live cd and also make sure you copy the .disk directory onto your usb drive. if you don’t include the .disk directory you’ll end up at initramfs prompt which won’t do much for you.

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another contender for a laptop is the hp tx2000z. it’s another deal i’ve spotted @ slickdeals a few times, $500 off any $1399 hp notebook. actually i guess it’s not a contender because i actually bought it before i finished this post.

amd turion 64 x2 dual-core mobile gold blah blah 2.4ghz, 2gb ddr2 mem, geforce 6150, touch screen & pen….

it looks like there might be some work needed to get the usb wacom tablet to work, but there’s always the 30 day return policy (i should re-read that) if i really can’t get it to work under ubuntu.

hp tx2000z reviews [ notebook review | hp | cnet | tabletpcreviews | computershopper | pcmag ]

surprisingly enough someone has already installed osx on the hp tx2000z:

one of the current quirks i have with my latitude d620 and ubuntu is when i either dock or undock i have to restart X11 in order to fix the second display (or remove it). yeah, kinda annoying… i should definantly take a closer look at xrandr to dynamically add or remove displays. [ here ]

update: apparently you have to use twinview vs xinerama…. booo.