Leslie Viljoen (leslieviljoen@gmail.com)
This is a low cost laptop that runs Linux very well if you are willing to accept some proprietary drivers.
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| Name | emachines G620 (full model: MG620-652G25Mi) |
| Processor | AMD Athlon™ X2 Dual-Core QL-65 |
| Screen | 17” up to 1440×900 |
| RAM | 2 GB |
| HDD | 250 GB |
| Optical Drive | DVD RW |
| Graphics | nVidia GeForce 9100M G (rev a2) |
| Wireless Network | Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01) |
| Ethernet Network | Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5764M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10) |
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Yes | |
| Screen | Yes | |
| HDD | Yes | |
| Optical Drive | Not Tested | |
| Graphics | Yes | Requires proprietary NVidia driver, Ubuntu 10.04 installs it (working package: nvidia-current, version: 195.36.15-0ubuntu2) |
| Sound | Yes | Comments |
| Ethernet | Yes | |
| Wireless | Yes | Requires proprietary Broadcom driver, Ubuntu 10.04 installs it (working package: bcmwl-modaliases, version: 5.60.48.36+bdcom-0ubuntu3) |
| USB | Yes | |
| Camera | Yes | Tested using Skype version 2.1.0.81-1 |
| Microphone | Yes | Low amplification, had to put on max volume |
Brightness and volume control buttons on the keyboard work out of the box with Ubuntu 10.04. Suspend and Hibernate functions also work properly with Ubuntu 10.04.
I'd recommend this laptop for Linux if you are not bothered by proprietary drivers. These drivers may be harder to install on a Linux other than Ubuntu and are a black box to distribution developers, meaning they can't be studied for security risks, debugged or improved upon.
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