[conspire] Recommendations for cheap Linux laptop?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Snyder (pls29 at cs.drexel.edu):

> Greetings from Philadelphia,
> 
> My wife is out in Redwood City for at least the next month while her
> father is in the hospital.  Her old Dell laptop finally gave up the
> ghost, so she finds herself without a computer.  We're trying to decide
> if it makes sense to buy her a new one now (i.e., if we can find one
> cheap enough).
> 
> Does anyone have a recommendation for a dirt-cheap Linux laptop that
> could be, say, purchased at Frye's or ordered online?  Ideally, it
> would have integrated 802.11g, but getting a PC Card would be
> reasonable. 

People have differing understandings of the term "dirt cheap".  I'm
personally a notorious cheap bastard<tm>; my idea of a server upgrade in
2006 is to repurpose a donated 2000-era 2U PIII/650 with scrounged RAM
and hard drives, and I sweated bullets about the need to spend $120
to replace the RAM and PSU on a Cobalt Qube2.  ;->

By my standards, "cheap Linux laptop" precludes a new unit, so you're
talking about either:

1.  Linux Certified, http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html ,
or
2.  one of the Silicon Valley used computer stores, e.g.

Action Computer & Surplus 
   500 Lawrence Expy # F, Sunnyvale
   3783 El Camino Real, Palo Alto
Surplus Computers, 1600 Duane Ave., Santa Clara
   http://www.softwareandstuff.com/retailstore.html

Maybe you can talk to your wife via cellular while she's shopping? 
Otherwise, the Linux Certified people seem a fair bet.

Fry's Electronics is a real spectacle, and it's convenient for us locals
to know that it's open late, but I've never been really impressed with
their selection of things I'd actually want to buy.