Laptop

So far noone has ever installed LinuxBIOS on a laptop. But there have been many discussions. Few of them are linked here, you might get useful information out of them:

• http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.bios/12637
• http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.bios/13081

Laptop survey attemps to list laptops to find out which one might me easiest to port LinuxBIOS to.

• The Free Software Foundation's Campaign for Free BIOS

Who really makes your laptop? There are several various brands of laptops, but there are only a few actual laptop makers.

Name brand companies like Hewlet Packard, Compaq, IBM, Dell, Gateway, Sony, Micron, Toshiba and others; including Alienware and Voodoo do not make their own laptops. The exceptions are Asus and Apple, and even Apple doesn’t make all of their laptops.

Original Design Manufacturers (ODM) make the laptops for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). They in turn, add their preloaded hard drives and sell them to consumers.

Some ODMs are:

Quanta makes laptops for Sony, Dell, and IBM

Inventec and Arima make the Compaq line

Compal also makes IBM and Dell lines, as well as Hewlet Packard

Clevo makes the popular Alienware and Voodoo gaming laptops

These are the companies we need to get support from.

Makers of Laptops