I have a LinuxCertified laptop which I have owned for a while and have been very happy with. Wireless performance is great, and hardware is very linux friendly.
Point is that Apple mixes up software with hardware. On paper this may look good. In practice, this may result in compromise in either the software quality or hardware quality. Kind of like why SGI went down the tubes.
Unfortunately volumes are still not there when it comes to commoditized Linux desktops. Most Linux desktops are still somewhat custom, with custom distro, custom support requirements etc.
I think for a while Linux desktops and laptops will be mostly provided by boutique Linux expertise houses like Linuxcertified.
So, I think one great thing is availability of pre-loaded Linux laptops (e.g. from LinuxCertified http://linuxcertified.com/). I have had even problems with Windows and drivers for laptop components. So, we are almost getting equal (in good and bad).
How is the fact that the reviewer is female relevant at all!!!? You discredit yourself by making such a stupid comment.
I do have a bit of criticism for otherwise fair review IMHO: I think too much time is spent reviewing stuff that reviewer installed, rather than what LinuxCertified installed. The whole point of buying this laptop is not picking up any other whitebox, but the configuration pre-done by a Linux vendor.
We use different LinuxCertified laptop model in our department - LC2210 (because of its portability).
I think initial purchase price was about 10-15% lower than corresponding model from Dell. Which I guess makes it pretty much at par with them in terms of core hardware cost.
However, couple of critical support issues (one of them setup of wireless support), more than paid off for these laptops.
At this point, I think laptop hardware is getting commodotized. It is the value of integration and supporting Linux, that sets this offering apart.
As the previous poster noted - folks recommending roling up your own Linux laptop (i.e. installing on a IBM etc.), miss the key point of most people requiring some sort of handholding while deploying Linux based systems. Probably a typical Slashdot user doesn't, most most folks do....
It turns out I own one of these puppies. Let me be the first one to say : I absolutely love it.
I bought a dual-boot system from LinuxCertified in middle of February. I had thought that I would be using both parts of my system half the time. But, I am completely dependent on Linux now. I have not even booted Windows since early April. I am looking into shrinking that part of the system down now;)
In any case coming back to the point. Here are my observations about this laptop:
I ordered with Fedora (which is what the sales guy on the phone recommended):
Mini-pci built-in wireless card works flawlessly. I think I have achieved the best range possible - hopefully my neighbor is not reading this;)
Magic buttons on the front work. after power on, click on a button and my email shows up...
My kernel compiles faster than on my desktop (which is about one year older though). I do driver development work - in case any of you have any open projects.
My only negative (which is my fault) is that I have a 1024x768 screen. I should have ordered the version with higher resolution.
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I have a LinuxCertified laptop which I have owned for a while and have been very happy with. Wireless performance is great, and hardware is very linux friendly.
Buy a good quality laptop, and load linux on it. Lots of help on how to load Linux on any laptop is available. E.g.:
http://www.linux-laptop.net/
Point is that Apple mixes up software with hardware. On paper this may look good. In practice, this may result in compromise in either the software quality or hardware quality. Kind of like why SGI went down the tubes.
Of course Amanda supports tape backup hardware... Otherwise why would it be a backup software!?
I use Amanda to backup to disks, and am quite happy with it. Doesn't do the single instance store like you mention, but is very stable and zippy.
I love and trust Amanda to do all my backup. Thanks for the new release...
Unfortunately volumes are still not there when it comes to commoditized Linux desktops. Most Linux desktops are still somewhat custom, with custom distro, custom support requirements etc. I think for a while Linux desktops and laptops will be mostly provided by boutique Linux expertise houses like Linuxcertified.
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/forum/showthread.p hp?p=310
http://linuxcertified.com/freebsd-lc2210d.html
So, I think one great thing is availability of pre-loaded Linux laptops (e.g. from LinuxCertified http://linuxcertified.com/). I have had even problems with Windows and drivers for laptop components. So, we are almost getting equal (in good and bad).
I do have a bit of criticism for otherwise fair review IMHO: I think too much time is spent reviewing stuff that reviewer installed, rather than what LinuxCertified installed. The whole point of buying this laptop is not picking up any other whitebox, but the configuration pre-done by a Linux vendor.
At least I get the warning on my LinuxCertified laptop for low battery. So, it could be a different model thing..
LC2464: http://linuxcertified.com/linux-laptop-lc2464.html
We use different LinuxCertified laptop model in our department - LC2210 (because of its portability).
I think initial purchase price was about 10-15% lower than corresponding model from Dell. Which I guess makes it pretty much at par with them in terms of core hardware cost.
However, couple of critical support issues (one of them setup of wireless support), more than paid off for these laptops.
At this point, I think laptop hardware is getting commodotized. It is the value of integration and supporting Linux, that sets this offering apart.
As the previous poster noted - folks recommending roling up your own Linux laptop (i.e. installing on a IBM etc.), miss the key point of most people requiring some sort of handholding while deploying Linux based systems. Probably a typical Slashdot user doesn't, most most folks do....
I did do some tweaking on my kernel with help from LC folks.
I bought a dual-boot system from LinuxCertified in middle of February. I had thought that I would be using both parts of my system half the time. But, I am completely dependent on Linux now. I have not even booted Windows since early April. I am looking into shrinking that part of the system down now ;)
In any case coming back to the point. Here are my observations about this laptop:
I ordered with Fedora (which is what the sales guy on the phone recommended):
Mini-pci built-in wireless card works flawlessly. I think I have achieved the best range possible - hopefully my neighbor is not reading this ;)
Magic buttons on the front work. after power on, click on a button and my email shows up...
My kernel compiles faster than on my desktop (which is about one year older though). I do driver development work - in case any of you have any open projects.
My only negative (which is my fault) is that I have a 1024x768 screen. I should have ordered the version with higher resolution.