Re: Laptop advice

["Robert Krawitz-2" <user=69@nabble.blu.org>]

    Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:09:01 -0400 
   From: Jerry Feldman <[hidden email]> 

   On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:26:27 -0700 
   "Kristian Erik Hermansen" <[hidden email]> wrote: 

   > +1 on Thinkpads: All of them I have owned worked great with Linux (at 
   > least 5 different models)... 
   > -1 on HP: They have all sucked for me with Linux (at least 3 different 
   > models)... 

   Just one more thing is that my experience at installfests is that: 
   1. Thinkpads usually work well with Linux. I've never had a problem. I 
   have seen some issues others have had with wireless on the T41s.=20 

   2. HP. There have been a lot of issues with HP systems, mainly with the 
   broadcom chips. Most of the time we get the wireless working.=20 

   3. Dell. I don't know if it is just me being anti-Dell, but nearly 
   every Dell I've encountered at the installfests have had some other 
   issues. In some cases we couldn't install from DVD. I guess Dell and I 
   have bad karma :-) 

On my own sample size of 3 (Inspiron 8000, 8200, and 9400), I've 
generally found it to be not much of a problem. 

My own installation on my 9400 was a breeze.  I made sure to get an 
Intel wireless card and an ATI graphics card which is supported (in 
2D) by the radeon driver. 

My installation was complicated by my method of procedure.  I wanted 
to clone the installation from the 8200 onto the 9400 so I wouldn't 
have to reproduce all the config files and such.  I wound up 
installing a bare bones OpenSUSE 10.3 onto one partition, copying the 
bits from the 8200 onto the 9400, and then using the new installation 
to bootstrap the old one (get the modules right and all that).  I 
started copying the 150'ish GB off last night after doing the initial 
bootstrap install, and then this morning it took me only about half an 
hour to get things right on the clone partition (the one I really 
want).  Mostly, that was deleting and recreating the network and sound 
drivers. 

I had to fiddle with the X configuration a bit, since the latest 
radeon driver seems to want to use the actual panel size (dimensions, 
not just pixels) reported by the LCD over what I tell it in the 
xorg.conf file, which results in getting enormous fonts.  I have a 
WUXGA 17" display; it's actually about 133 DPI but I want to tell X 
that it's 72 DPI to get small enough fonts since I have very good 
eyesight at typical reading distances.  I also had to fiddle with it 
to get the external display adapter working (and it only works under 
X), which always worked just fine on the 8200.  Most people wouldn't 
care about that kind of stuff. 

The font defaults on most systems look like they were designed for 
kids who are just learning how to read or for people with poor 
eyesight.  When it's hard to change them globally, it becomes a real 
nuisance. 

-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <[hidden email]> 

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2 
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail [hidden email] 
Project lead for Gutenprint   --    http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works." 
--Eric Crampton 

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