A few months ago I started sensing the need for a replacement for my aging and ailing HP Omnibook 4150. That machine's audio capabilities were negligible even with external hardware, but it had been serviceable for writing articles and as a portable MIDI composition environment. Alas, after years of travel and abuse the Omnibook's hard drive gasped its last breath of life. I had no fear for my data, the drive had been backed up, but clearly the time had come to buy a new portable computer.

My home town doesn't offer much choice when it comes to buying hardware. We have a Wal-Mart, a Best Buy, a Staples store and some local repair shops. Few sales people here know much about Linux, so my hopes for satisfaction were low. Nevertheless, I found a contender at Best Buy, a Hewlett-Packard G60-125NR. After due deliberation and much helpful advice from my colleagues on the Linux Audio Users mail list I decided to purchase the machine.

This purchase was risky. Google supplied only a little information about the machine's performance under Vista, and those reports were not overwhelming in their praise. However, I did find some reports indicating success with recent Ubuntu systems, and the machine's hardware seemed to be a near-perfect fit for my needs. The G60 is powered by an AMD Turion running at 2 GHz and includes a 250G hard disk, 3G memory, and a LightScribe CD/DVD-RW drive. Graphics are provided by an on-board nVidia geForce 8200M, sound is handled by Intel's HDA codec. Vista was pre-installed, so I took a quick look around before wiping the disk. Very pretty, rather slow. I hoped to see and experience better performance with Linux.

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