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The Future of Linux on Laptops
katie_york writes "CoolTechZone discusses the future of Linux on laptops after HP and Ubuntu's recent announcement. 'What would be even more exciting for Linux is if other OEMs, similar to HP, took the same approach by partnering with selected distributions of consumer friendly Linux and started offering an alternative not only in third world regions, but also in the United States. In addition to that, support for Linux on the desktop side of things would be just as welcomed.'"
There are already ways by which laptops with Linux installed can be purchased. The major news is the HP initiative that can spark similar behaviour in IBM, Dell (who do SuSE), etc.
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
Wireless cards.
Yeah, in theory they all work, but they usually require a buttload of work to get working, especially those who use the ndiswrapper instead of prism54 which many distros install the moment they realise there's a wireless network card in the computer.
It's seriously lacking in that area unfortunately.
There isn't much that doesn't work, but it's worth listing, and easier to keep track of than all the stuff that works just fine:
http://www.leenooks.com/
Not true at all for example
a spx/desktops_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.
Its done, But they give you such limited choices
Personal Website
The fact that Linux comes preinstalled or not with the hardware doesn't matter IMHO.
:
That is where you are completely wrong, as this is the only difficult part.
But once Linux is installed, the difficult part is to *use* it
Explain please !
IMHO it is a LOT easier to use Linux than Windows. One single example : configure the antivirus. Most users do not even understand the concept of an antivirus. At least in Linux you do not need one.
Installing new software and making it work properly is not trivial
Example please !
Installing software in a distro makes it work automatically. I wonder what you meant.
Even with GUIs like Synaptic, using any Linux distribution requires Unix knowledge
The lot of people I converted to Linux have exactly 0 Unix knowledge and use Linux pretty well.
You can't use (upgrade/customize/etc) a Linux workstation without using a terminal for instance
Several stupid FUD in one sentence
- You can use (upgrade/customize) a Linux workstation with the tools of your distribution (to upgrade) + a text editor (to customize), or with a Web interface like Webmin.
- Using a terminal does not require Unix knowledge, see Easy URPMI on the web before saying such clueless thing. Copy/pasting some instructions in a terminal is not Unix knowledge to me.
So for a newbie or for my parents, I'd never recommend a laptop running Linux (preinstalled or not).
That is your choice.
In contrast, I will recommend it, it is so much more powerful than Windows XP.
No, it actually refers to communist versus democratic countries. 1st world countries are either "within the sphere of US interest" or were democratic and somewhat allied in the cold war. Second World countries are communist. Third world countries are not in either sphere of influence. http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_ countries.htm
Linux has become all but invisible at Walmart.com.
There are limited prospects for after-market sales in Linux and maintaing a separate Linux inventory doesn't make sense for a mass-market retailer.
Kinda offtopic....
There's a known bug in hotspot's amd64 version that makes eclipse crash. Disabling the jit compiler worked for me, although with a performace hit. I've been waiting for Sun to fix it for a while already, it's pretty frustrating (so please vote for the bug).
Uh-huh
Sure. (Not technically without an OS, but a floppy in the carton with FreeDOS is about as OS-free as you can get)
Whatever you say.
I've always had success with IBM Thinkpads doing APM properly. In fact, I'm running a current (relatively) T41 with Linux and it does APM fantastically. So did my A20p, and 600X
ACPI is another story, and I won't touch that gunk with a barge pole.
So, yeah, for whatever it's worth I think IBM is the best laptop for Linux offering full laptop functionality.
Just my $.02
I wonder why an OEM vendor shipping Linux pre-installed on laptops only signals "The Future of Linux on Laptops" when it's Debian^WUbuntu ?
... but that's the price of Freedom ... Ubunto isn't Free!)
... I see this more as Linux becoming more mature in support of features we all want working out-the-box (which previously requried manual setup).
HP first started shipping Linux preinstalled on NX5000s with SuSE.
And, Mandriva ships pre-installed HP laptops (looks like an NX9030) in Europe
I point out that Mandriva 2005LE does everything (at least on my HP NX7010) this apparently "highly configured system designed especially for HP notebooks" does out-the-box, including:
-LAN (8139too)
-WiFi (ipw2100 in my case)
-Modem
-Sound
-Bluetooth (I use it with a Logitech MX900 and my Nokia 6600)
-Graphics adapter (fglrx or radeon)
-Battery usage meter (ie acpi)
-Suspend to disk
-Hotkey configuration (new in 2005LE, keyboarddrake should choose the right keyboard layout )
I don't have any Firewire devices, and I all the IR devices I have have a faster medium (bluetooth or cable), so I haven't tested them, but the firewire modules get loaded fine.
(On the download edition of Mandriva, you would need to download the firmware for the ipw2100, you would get the radeon driver, and the modem may not work out-the-box
So