From: Gene Tani <gene.tani@...>
Date: 2005-11-22T10:57:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Trying to change my OS from Windows to Linux/Mac


James Britt wrote:
> Rob Rypka wrote:
> > On 11/21/05, Sam Kong <sam.s.kong@gmail.com> wrote:
> ..
>
> >
> >
> >>2. I've never succeeded to make my laptops work perfectly on Linux.
> >>Sometimes, network card is not working, other times, USB is not
> >>recognized, or Sound card is not working. I've tried on 5 different
> >>laptops with different Linux but none was perfect. How do you overcome
> >>this problem? Well... if you use just a text-mode, this might not be a
> >>problem.
> >
> >
> > Many people keep journals of what they had to do to get Linux running
> > on a particular laptop.  I suggest you look into this for your laptop.
> >  If you're planning on purchasing a laptop for linux use, make sure
> > you do the research first.
>
> Is it feasible (e.g., no jail time) to go to CompUSA or Fry's with a
> Knoppix disk and just try out some machines?
>
Don't know where you are, but find a dealer with a reasonable
restocking fee (like 0%) & return period like, you know, Amazon).
stick to the best known lines (Toshiba, IBM have been pretty good as
far as compatibility, reasonable component life.  Well, good Toshibas
are good, bad Toshibas are real lemons),   I'm too lazy to try anything
beyond FreeBSD and SUSE linux (ok, shoot me), but they seem to do APM
and ACPI (don't do Logitech scroll wheels, tho).  Remember Larry Wall's
1st virtue!  Larry was right about this!  FreeBSD: the Complete FreeBSD
(greg lahey) and FreeBSD handbook are all you need to get your window
manager up (or you can do everythin in emacs.  I don't, but you can ;-}

And I've been using OS X for a few days.  Think different, look at
Oreilly's OS X  Tiger for unix geeks.  Metadata?  Objective-C++?  Fink?
 Darwinports?  For me, there's going to be lot sof adaptation required,
but they fixed the scary stuff, like you can "cp" and "mv" files
without screwing up resource forks and metadata (that's what the book
says, anyway).  If you still want a slow descent into do-it-yourself
WTF-ness, try to get a python 2.4 install on it without resorting to
(the brand-new) ActiveState release.  Powerbooks have nice displays and
video cards now, the mighty mouse I'm not sure about.