There's always one thing wrong when you install Linux on a Laptop :

	* Energy management

	* Graphic chipset

	* Sound chipset

	* Trackpoint or Touchpad

	* Internal modem

Of course, you can't replace an UnsupportedDevice. Linux is not DesktopReady, nor LaptopReady.

''Installing Windows on a PC isn't pleasant either; however many PCs come with it pre-installed.  More so than Linux.''

Heck, even using a windows laptop with winxp preinstalled is still a pain if you want the embedded 3d accelerator to actually do anything useful besides the MS 3d screensavers.  On every laptop I've ever used, i find that all OGL applications draw odd little boxes around all the billboards - which, in the case of Celestia, can be hundreds of billboards, making the system crawl.  Heaven help you if your game uses billboards for the fonts.

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Linux is not TotallyAutomated.  Neither was PC-DOS in its day.  You bought a gizmo, you attached it, you installed the driver, and occasionally you fiddled with the load sequence of drivers so that one would not clobber the other.  Not GrandmaFriendly, and not meant to be.  A simple (?) answer is VendorDocumentation.

Back in the day, one bought a printer and it came with a book that contained its entire command set.  No longer.  Manufacturers save a bundle by not packaging and shipping trees with their printers.  Now you pay for that manual.

This is evidently allowable because there's less reason to hide how to make a printer dance and sing, and you're not actually controlling the printer from the inside.  Some gizmo makers do, in fact, include either Linux drivers or docs for aspiring driver writers.

The laptop problem seems to be exacerbated by widespread BadgeEngineering (OEM = Company A, Actual Manufacturer = Company B) and a reluctance to spend the money to licence tech docs.

One possible solution (or three) would be to a) buy brands where OEM = Actual, b) get tech docs from Actual for OEM box, c) choose a laptop already "Linux certified" by the vendor.


-- GarryHamilton


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What''''''Happened to Linux woes on Laptops? Is there a list of good valued laptops that will host Linux as well as Microsoft Xp in 2004? And if I want to run Lamp (Linux/Apache/MySQL/Perl) what else do I need to think about?

''If you have a specific laptop in mind, you might find http://www.linux-laptop.net/ helpful.  You can browse by manufacturer and model, and find reports on hardware that is and isn't supported.  The organization of the site makes it somewhat less useful if you aren't checking on a particular model though.  Oh and regarding Lamp -- as far as I've experienced, there's really nothing else to worry about; if you have the OS running well, you should have no problems.''

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SuSE 8.2 Pro runs just fine on my nearly 4-year old no-name laptop with a Celeron 433, 256 MB RAM, 4 GB HDD, wireless PCMCIA card. No CD burner.  --JohnWebber

Mandrake 9.2 works fine on my 3-year old Sony Vaio FX250.  Detected video, wheel mouse, floppy, DVD, CD-burner, Ethernet, and digital camera with no problems.  The power management is a little flaky - I've had instances where it never woke up from sleep mode - but I had that problem with Win2k too.  -- JonathanTang