[ale] Linux on Laptops

[Dow Hurst]

One of my coworkers acquired the new Apple G4 running OS/X.  It is the 
sweetest laptop I have ever seen, and I have seen some really nice 
ones.  OpenSSH preinstalled.  Has a really nice GUI for the "gooey 
oriented people", has MSOffice preinstalled for licensing and runs fine, 
but has Darwin as the underlying OS.  So it is a BSD variant engine with 
the pretty GUI on top.  Has a titanium shell.  The LCD screen is wide 
enough and very high res so you can have two full documents side by side 
on the screen.  Built in Ethernet, Firewire, USB, Parallel, video in and 
out, and just about anything you can think built right in.  It seems 
expensive but isn't really for what you get.  The FPU on the RISC based 
G4 at 800MHz is fast enough so you could run real computations for 
science related research competitively with the heavy duty servers we 
have here at KSU in the Chemistry Dept.  You have regular XWindows and 
OpenGL enabled video hardware for visualization software like RasMol or 
Schrodinger's chemistry modelling package Macromodel.  You have the MS 
software running for those inconvenient moments when someone who doesn't 
understand the issues sends you a proprietary binary file format known 
as Word or Excel.  What else?  All the open source that will compile on 
it is available.

It weighs alot though at around 6 lbs.  Wireless ethernet built is 
available.  DVD reader and CD-RW drive internal.  My friend paid 
somewhere around $3000.  I don't think I would need any other computer 
with something like this.  The Linux Magazine review said "Open Source 
with Style" as their title.  I totally agree and am really wishing I had 
the money.  My Dell Latitude runs just fine, but doesn't have the 
capacity to function that this Mac has.  I was drooling over the sleek 
case and ease of use between command line and GUI functions.  The GUI 
feels like Gnome and not KDE.  I didn't have much time to evaluate it 
but found that the usual shell access is right there and so I felt right 
at home.

Oh, yeah.  It has a five, repeat that, five hour battery life.  My 
friend's machine was more advanced than the review in the hardware specs 
so you should check the latest available specs.  It is definitely on my 
wish list!

My boss has a disability that prevents her from carrying heavy weights 
for any length of time.  We found www.dynamism.com which sells the 
latest Japanese laptops here in the US.  They support them themselves 
and load the latest MS OS as part of the deal.  The capabilities of 
these machines are phenomenal for the weight, however, the BIOS/CMOS is 
in Japanese! ;-)  We purchased one for about $3500 a couple of years ago 
that was 3lbs in the case with power supply, floppy disk, and all 
accessories.  Had Ethernet and USB built in.  Really nice little 
machine, however, if the weight doesn't bother you the Mac is still the 
winner in my mind.
Dow


John LaPierre wrote:

>Geoffrey's Omnibook post prompted me to post this message - 
>
>Last December I bought a Toshiba Satellite 5005-S504 notebook. And for the 
>stock XP Home Edition it worked OK. But of course I had to put a real OS on 
>it. Well, I did not do my homework. A simple Google moment would have steered 
>me away from the Toshiba Satellite 5000 series altogether. They are 'legacy 
>free', read "no bios access". The only bios access is through an applet that 
>will only run in Windows XP. How convenient for M$. So just to install linux, 
>I have to download several patches, compile my kernel a certain way, and then 
>I get almost full functionality. 
>
>To make a long story short, if you are looking for a Linux friendly laptop, 
>look beyond the Toshiba 5000 - 6000 series. There is also a class action suit 
>being brought against Toshiba for a flaw in the design of this series that 
>causes overheating and shutdown every few minutes. I thankfully have not had 
>that problem, but many hundreds have and they're organizing now.  
>
>http://putland.linux-site.net/mailman/listinfo/toshiba-5005
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toshiba5005/
>
>I will be giving this laptop to my daughter when she leaves for college this 
>August, so if anyone can recommend of a Linux friendly laptop that I can 
>replace it with, I'd be grateful. Thanks...
>
>jj
>
>  
>


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