Laptops that work well with *nix?

[Crusty]

Or Debian... You can start with almost nothing, and add exactly what you want.

Or do the same with the Ubuntu by using the alternate install or even the server installer.

 

[LCTSI]

Or do the same with the Ubuntu by using the alternate install or even the server installer.

I think on Ubuntu Server you end up with deadline scheduler instead of CFQ... that can make some a difference on desktop responsiveness.

 

[Nothinman]

I think on Ubuntu Server you end up with deadline scheduler instead of CFQ... that can make some a difference on desktop responsiveness.

Even if that's true it's a minor thing to fix.

 

[LCTSI]

Even if that's true it's a minor thing to fix.

Of course. All you have to do is install linux-image instead of linux-image-server

 

[Nothinman]

Of course. All you have to do is install linux-image instead of linux-image-server

Only if they explicitly removed the other I/O schedulers from the server kernel package, which I would be surprised if they did.

 

[electroju]

Get a Mac and put Linux on it if you like the hardware that much.

And what's added on to Ubuntu that you can't remove?

Why would will you get a Mac and put Linux on it. There is no point doing this. Linux has poor power management and Mac OS X has excellent poor management. For notebook computers, the operating system requires good power management. I would not put Linux on a notebook computer. Linux needs a lot of aggressive patching to work for notebooks.

FYI, Mac OS X is still Unix like, so it can handle Unix programs.

 

[Nothinman]

Why would will you get a Mac and put Linux on it. There is no point doing this. Linux has poor power management and Mac OS X has excellent poor management. For notebook computers, the operating system requires good power management. I would not put Linux on a notebook computer. Linux needs a lot of aggressive patching to work for notebooks.

FYI, Mac OS X is still Unix like, so it can handle Unix programs.

I'm typing this on a Mac Pro running Debian, there's just no comparison IMO. As much as there is "unix" in OS X, the lack of package management and a good window manager makes it very frustrating to use.

And yes, this Mac Pro isn't a notebook, but I do have Linux on my personal notebook and it works fine for me.

 

[VinDSL]

Linux needs a lot of aggressive patching to work for notebooks.[...]

In my experience, I haven't had to patch diddley squat, especially on Debian-based distros.

I run 3 portables on Linux. The only one that required a patch was my EeePC netbook.

For some reason, whenever there was network activity, the display would flicker. I installed Mad-WiFi drivers, and the display problem went away. LoL! Go figure...

Setting up WiFi on Linux portables is (almost) always challenging, but other than that, I cannot remember ANY aggressive patching being required.

 

[LCTSI]

Only if they explicitly removed the other I/O schedulers from the server kernel package, which I would be surprised if they did.

I know. apt-get is easier on a noob than editing grub.conf

 

[Nothinman]

I know. apt-get is easier on a noob than editing grub.conf

Well I was thinking that there was a config file in /etc/default that controlled the scheduler in Debian but I can't find that now so either I'm confused or that functionality was removed. Either fix is really minor though.

 

[LCTSI]

Well I was thinking that there was a config file in /etc/default that controlled the scheduler in Debian but I can't find that now so either I'm confused or that functionality was removed. Either fix is really minor though.

You could put it in /etc/default/grub under GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT?

 

[Nothinman]

You could put it in /etc/default/grub under GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT?

True and that's probably the recommended solution now, but I thought there was a separate init script that handled a bunch of sysfs settings with the default I/O scheduler being one of them. Or maybe I'm just confused...

 

[LCTSI]

True and that's probably the recommended solution now, but I thought there was a separate init script that handled a bunch of sysfs settings with the default I/O scheduler being one of them. Or maybe I'm just confused...

Sysfsutils does that, but I don't think it's installed by default these days.

 

[JD50]

Linux needs a lot of aggressive patching to work for notebooks.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Yeah, I'm not really getting that either. Most recent/major distros will 'work' fine out of the box for the vast majority of laptop systems and components out there. Hybrid video can kinda goof things up a bit, and maybe the power efficiency isn't quite as refined....yet. But it's all coming. Given the heavy influx of low power tablets/netbooks lately, there's mostly definitely a strong focus on it.

 

[electroju]

I'm typing this on a Mac Pro running Debian, there's just no comparison IMO. As much as there is "unix" in OS X, the lack of package management and a good window manager makes it very frustrating to use.

And yes, this Mac Pro isn't a notebook, but I do have Linux on my personal notebook and it works fine for me.

You probably did not put Linux in hibernation mode or sleep mode. For me it only works once, so patching is require in order power management to work well in Linux for notebook computers.

Who saids you need a package management to install programs. Compile the programs. You are too keen to Windows thinking.

In my experience, I haven't had to patch diddley squat, especially on Debian-based distros.

I run 3 portables on Linux. The only one that required a patch was my EeePC netbook.

For some reason, whenever there was network activity, the display would flicker. I installed Mad-WiFi drivers, and the display problem went away. LoL! Go figure...

Setting up WiFi on Linux portables is (almost) always challenging, but other than that, I cannot remember ANY aggressive patching being required.

For my Inspiron 1520, power management does not work well. Going into sleep mode only works once. The second time, I have to reboot. This means I have to configure the scripts and patch multiple programs for power management to work correctly. Sure using a script from Granola can help optimize power by tweaking cpufreqd settings while I am on battery, but not putting my computer in sleep mode.

Macs are good notebook computers and Linux is still design for servers.

Systems using ARM processors uses a patched version of Linux. A good example is Andriod OS. ASUS created their Linux distribution for their Eee PC netbooks. Their Linux distribution is specialized to work for Eee PC.

It is has been like this for years and seems everybody is naive that Linux power management works which in fact it does not work. Anandtech have done a review and it shows Linux is not good.

 

[VinDSL]

[...] Granola can help optimize power by tweaking cpufreqd settings while I am on battery[...]

[...] everybody is naive that Linux power management works[...]

For the sake of conversation...

I don't have a problem with power management in Linux. And, I'm not shy. If I did have problems, I would say so.

Secondly, it's a little naive to assume everyone uses battery power on their portables.

There is an AC outlet on every wall in America. The only time I use battery power is on airplanes, war driving, and convention hall tables. 99% of the time I'm on AC, so power management doesn't mean shucks to me.

 

[lxskllr]

Power management is virtually flawless on the few laptops I've put Ubuntu on. Installed, and never touched. It doesn't get much easier.

 

[pyr02k1]

I've gotten better battery life on my dv6000 using ubuntu rather then win vista that it came with. xp was ok, but by no means great. win 7 works well, but i wouldnt say the extra 10m on win 7 vs ubuntu makes a difference. battery life on this laptop has always been horrible though with a max of 2 hours use on battery. the only reason this laptop is running windows instead of linux as a default is that the wife refuses to just deal with it. when i get her a new laptop, this one will be linux only.

 

[LCTSI]

My Lenovo X60S gets 8hrs on stock XP and 6hrs on stock Ubuntu 10.04.
Not great but it's not horrible.

 

[Shining Arcanine]

Or Debian... You can start with almost nothing, and add exactly what you want.

That is not exactly true. Debian Linux uses precompiled binaries, which are compiled with every feature possible, so it is not actually possible to add exactly what you want unless you compile software, in which case you might as well be using a source-based distribution. At the same time, Debian Linux is a minimalist distribution, so the premise is that you have a small set of starting software and then you can add software to it to suit your needs, although it is not possible to add exactly what you want without going outside the scope of what Debian users are expected to do on their systems.

I use Gentoo Linux, which is similar in that it is a minimalist distribution, but it is different in that it is a source-based distribution. It implements a feature called USE flags, which allow you to specify whether or not to compile software with specific program features, so in terms of userland software, the effect is that you get exactly what you want. The kernel is another area in which Debian and Gentoo differ, because while Debian relies on precompiled kernel images, Gentoo Linux requires that the kernel be compiled from source. While it does provide an automated tool to facilitate that, the preferred way is for the user to compile the kernel manually, in which case, the user gets to specify exactly what it is in the kernel that he wants and what it is that he does not want, so the end-result is typically a lean kernel that boots quickly, uses less memory and has the exact features that the user specified. It is also in theory possible to do that on Debian, but Gentoo Linux is the only mainstream distribution that encourages users to do this while other distributions such as Debian discourage this sort of customization.

Edit: To answer the original poster's question, Gentoo Linux is an excellent distribution in terms of hardware compatibility provided that you are willing to spend some time customizing it and learning a little more about how UNIX operating systems work. If you are not willing to do that, then you will want a distribution that attempts to hide the details of how things work for you. Sabayon Linux, which is a Gentoo Linux derivative, does that to a certain extent, because it uses precompiled binaries, but since it is Gentoo Linux at its heart, it is still possible to do things in the way that they are done on the parent distribution, which is good considering that hardware compatibility usually depends on the kernel version and the kernel's .config file more than anything else.