i have been browsing for a laptop replacement to the compaq i currently have since well before christmas last year.  i’ve compared, looked for new features, priced out the current options, and found none that i wanted…until the hp g26t which seemed to be something that had all the things i wanted.  intel core i5, 4 gb ram (with room for 8 gb later), non-ati video drivers, nice design.  i have specific wants with regard to keyboard and asthetics which also strongly drove my search.

hp g26t

i purchased the laptop with money from tax return, and it shipped to me.  i picked it up on friday and unboxed it immediately only to find the keyboard wasn’t what i thought it was going to b (first unmet expectation).  i took it home, ran the dvd backup software first, then shoved my fedora 12 (64-bit) dvd into the player for the reboot.  the installation went smoothly.  i ran the upgrade next (since i hadn’t previously downloaded a f12 respin image and didn’t want to wait for it).

when it rebooted, i noticed the resolution was still stuck on 1024×768.  this thing does better, i reasoned.  i copied the xorg.conf file to my home directory and rebooted.  when it restarted, i had no screen.  i rebooted again.  same deal.  i tried to ctrl+alt+f2 to a straight up text login.  nothing.  all the f-keys gave me nothing.

i tried rebooting into vesa mode, nomodeset, noacpi…all the same blank nothingness.  i set my init to 3 and booted to a command line.  checked intel hardware, looked on the google for any hope of someone posting a solution or even a sympathetic blog post of the same problem.  nothing out there about it.  this machine is too new for that.

after asking for more advice in the #fedora channel on freenode (irc), i realized i’d found an intel video driver the linux kernel didn’t support.  i decided it was best to send it back.  which i did.

now, i’m back to where i was just before i found this laptop.  my second interest laptop isn’t a strong enough want to just simply purchase it.  maybe if i wait, i’ll find something i want when they put out some new laptops.