More new!

So to go with the new laptop (and to really finish off the rest of my savings...), I picked up a new monitor. I've been working on an LG T710BH 17" CRT for a while now. As 17" CRTs go it's a nice display, but it's still just a 17" CRT. Like laptops, displays have become (compared to what I'm used to) ridiculously cheap lately, so I picked up an Acer AL2016W 20" widescreen LCD for the princely sum of CAN$300. I remember the 19" curve screen CRT I used back in the U.K. cost more than that. LCD displays have come along in quality amazingly lately; I remember I held off buying one all the way up till last year because I still didn't think the quality was quite up to scratch, but this is a really extremely nice looking display, and it's not even a high-end LCD. I'm very happy with it, and the extra real estate is lovely. It was pleasingly simple to install on Mandriva as well. Disconnect the old monitor, shut down X, run XFdrake, tell it to detect the new monitor via plug 'n' play, set the resolution to the panel's native 1680x1050 and restart X. Done. I remember a few years ago trying to get Linux to use a widescreen monitor was a nightmare, nowadays it barely merits a second thought, except on those Intel chipset laptops with bad BIOSes that need 915resolution...