Re: [eug-lug]New laptop - Distro recommendations
On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 09:11:59AM -0800, Ben Barrett wrote: IIRC the work nature of his iBook is that it belongs to the employer! Eh, after a couple of years, if there is a machine to replace it, the old machine is usually regarded as valueless. ;) ___ EuG-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug
Re: [eug-lug]New laptop - Distro recommendations
On Wed, Nov 12, 2003 at 02:36:08PM -0800, Jason wrote: I'm getting rid of my Mac work laptop and will soon be getting a new Stinkpad (T30 I believe). I have been out of the daily use Linux world for about a year or so, so I was wondering what thoughts folks would have on recommended distros for work purposes. I have been using mostly RedHat/Mandrake since about 1997 but am willing to change. What model of Mac, and what are you doing with it? ;) ___ EuG-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug
Re: [eug-lug]New laptop - Distro recommendations
IIRC the work nature of his iBook is that it belongs to the employer! Ben On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 23:04:47 -0800 T. Joseph Carter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | On Wed, Nov 12, 2003 at 02:36:08PM -0800, Jason wrote: | I'm getting rid of my Mac work laptop | | What model of Mac, and what are you doing with it? ;) | ___ EuG-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug
Re: [eug-lug]New laptop - Distro recommendations
Jason wrote: I'm getting rid of my Mac work laptop and will soon be getting a new Stinkpad (T30 I believe). I have been out of the daily use Linux world for about a year or so, so I was wondering what thoughts folks would have on recommended distros for work purposes. I have been using mostly RedHat/Mandrake since about 1997 but am willing to change. I do a good amount of security testing with my laptops and a small amount of programming. Nothing real CPU intensive besides running VMWare for writing documents, etc. VMware needs RAM more than it needs CPU power, I thought. How much time do you want to spend getting it just right? If you want to throw a CD at it and get on with your life, then install Debian through a KNOPPIX CD. The Debian advantage is that from then on, you'll be able to upgrade incrementally. There will be no big bang upgrades where half your apps stop working for a day or two while you sort everything out. If you install cron-apt (highly recommended), you'll even get email notification when it's time to update, especially the security updates. OTOH, if you want to abandon all semblance of a normal life and devote each of your remaining hours on this mortal plane to Linux maintenance, customization, and tweaking, go with Gentoo. (-: That's what I've done, and I don't regret it a bit. Seriously, if it's your first time, it could easily take a week to get Gentoo to a usable state. Debian/KNOPPIX (or Mandrake, Fedora, etc.) should be closer to an hour. But Gentoo does keep you on the cutting edge. I didn't have to go outside of Gentoo to get APM, DVD ripping, DVD playback (and lots of other video formats), 3D acceleration, and lots of other cool stuff (like a bunch of games I never play (-: ). I'm assuming you know your way around Linux enough that you're not intimidated by things like fdisk, editing /etc/fstab, or building a kernel. If that weren't the case, we'd be discussing Mandrake and Fedora. -- Bob Miller Kbob kbobsoft software consulting http://kbobsoft.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ EuG-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug
Re: [eug-lug]New laptop - Distro recommendations
On Wed, Nov 12, 2003 at 04:18:43PM -0800, Ben Barrett wrote: I helped a co-worker do a Knoppix install on his Dell 5100 and noticed that the *unstable* apt sources were in there by default. Ack? Yes; most everyone is using either those or testing. I was using stable, wherein begins a rant. I have a Synaptics touchpad on my laptop. I want to be able to use the mouse either in the console or in X. GPM, the mouse server program, supports a repeater mode. Unfortunately the version of GPM in debian-stable is several revs old, and does not repeat fully the protocol for the mouse which i have. I tried it in raw mode, and while i could indeed mouse in X, it did not have things like movement acceleration, so i would creep across the desktop. I examined the website of the GPM maintainer, and found that the latest GPM would correctly repeat a Synaptics touchpad, and moreover supported tuning of nice features like edge-scrolling that i never expected to work outside of Windoze. Having heard that a new release of Debian was due out before 2004, i went to the website and queried the web interface for the package information about GPM in the testing branch, which will become the stable branch. It was told that the version number of the GPM in that release will be a higher one than the one in stable, but will still not be up to the version that supports my mouse. This event was trivial enough in itself, the more so in that i was able to download the maintainer's tarball and build a current GPM, but it was symptomatic of the increasingly creaky Debian release system. It needs to change, perhaps along the lines of Joseph's vision for the package pools, before it becomes entirely antiquated. -- That time in Seattle... was a nightmare. I came out of it dead broke, without a house, without anything except a girlfriend and a knowledge of UNIX. Well, that's something, Avi says. Normally those two are mutually exclusive.--Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon ___ EuG-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug
Re: [eug-lug]New laptop - Distro recommendations
On Wed, Nov 12, 2003 at 02:36:08PM -0800, Jason wrote: Hey, I'm getting rid of my Mac work laptop and will soon be getting a new Stinkpad (T30 I believe). I have been out of the daily use Linux world for about a year or so, so I was wondering what thoughts folks would have on recommended distros for work purposes. I have been using mostly RedHat/Mandrake since about 1997 but am willing to change. Thinkpads are usually pretty standard hardware. I'd go with debian. Don't bother with gentoo, it's not good for laptops because of intense processing. However the cutting edge hardware support is great. Because of this I'd only run gentoo on a laptop with cutting edge hardware, like the dell that I have. With a thinkpad, I'd go debian. I also hear good things about libranet, a debian based commercial distro. Supposedly they keep things up to date, which may mean more up to date than debian-stable. Cory -- Cory Petkovsek Adapting Information Adaptable IT ConsultingTechnology to your (541) 914-8417 business [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.AdaptableIT.com ___ EuG-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug
