[LAU] Linux Laptops?

[david]

Ken Restivo wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 04:11:38PM -1000, david wrote:
>> Ken Restivo wrote:
>>> On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 03:29:52PM -1000, david wrote:
>>>> Ken Restivo wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 04:41:25PM -0600, Josh Lawrence
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> Hey all,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> After getting scorched by purchasing two laptops with
>>>>>> almost zero Linux support (battery status? what battery?),
>>>>>> I have decided to go looking for a laptop that is sold by a
>>>>>> company that supports Linux. I'm looking for any pointers
>>>>>> to companies that sell Laptops that run Linux here in the
>>>>>> US.  (I'm already familiar with System76.)  Bonus points if
>>>>>> you've done business with them and have praise or warnings
>>>>>> to go along with the pointers.  Feel free to shill for your
>>>>>> own company if you want, just make sure if you recommend a
>>>>>> laptop that Linux can read the damn battery status.  :)
>>>>> I bought an Asus laptop (Core 2 Duo, 2.33Ghz) 4 years ago and
>>>>> it is still my main audio production station on Linux. There
>>>>> was some weirdage with the ATA support; a SATA drive would
>>>>> have been a better choice, but that wasn't their fault, it
>>>>> was mine in configuring the machine.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I also have an Asus EEE in which everything "just works",
>>>>> better than any hardware I've ever had... probably because
>>>>> Asus used to actually ship the EEE with Linux.
>>>> A friend of mine's family has a number of Asus EEE PCs, they
>>>> all work very nicely with Linux.
>>>> 
>>>>> I have used ThinkPads before, and they do indeed work well on
>>>>> Linux, but I absolutely HATE HATE HATE that damned nurple. I
>>>>> will never buy a Thinkpad again. Gimme a trackpad or
>>>>> trackball or a real mouse any day, and please, no nurple.
>>>> Decades ago, at a previous employment, I borrowed a Thinkpad
>>>> laptop to take notes at a meeting. It had the IBM Trackpoint in
>>>> the keyboard. I used the laptop for about 45 minutes, went back
>>>> to my desktop machine (also an IBM, but no Trackpoint in the
>>>> keyboard) - and found my fingers automatically reaching for the
>>>> Trackpoint. They are incredibly efficient. Sorry you didn't
>>>> like it.
>>> I guess some people actually do like it.
>>> 
>>> ThinkPad + focus_on_mouse + typing anything with a 'g' or 'h' in
>>> it == TROUBLE.
>> Didn't have any trouble typing those letters. What do you mean by
>>  "focus_on_mouse"?
> 
> I have for the last decade or so set whatever window manager I've
> used to focus on mouse. Every window manager I've seen on Linux has
> this as an option; although I'd have to go back probably 20 years to
> find one that had it as a default (Sun OpenLook? HP CDE?).
> 
> Focus on mouse means that, wherever the mouse is over, that window is
> where whatever I am typing is going to get typed. I don't have to
> click on a window (or bring it to the front, if it is a non-tiling
> window manager) in order to switch from one window to another. This
> makes it very fast and easy to switch between windows. In ion3 I can
> also do it with key commands as well.
> 
> Anything that moves the mouse while I am typing, screws me up
> massively. I end up with stuff typed in wrong windows. It sucks a
> lot. ThinkPad nurples do that to me, hence I don't use them.
> 
> To be fair, the trackpad on the EEE does this to me occasionally too,
> since my palm will occasionally contact the trackpad and move my
> mouse around, causing me to exclaim "AARRRGHH!!". I dislike that a
> great deal. But it happens far less often than with the IBM nurple.
> Also, trying to do any kind of fine graphic manipulation (i.e. GIMP,
> or even selecting text in an xterm!) with a nurple is beyond
> frustrating for me. Trackpads and mice can do fine manipulatinos with
> a lot more coarse movements.

My wife encountered that problem with trackpads a while ago. Only way I 
could figure out to avoid it was to disable the trackpad completely. 
(Although the distro on her present laptop doesn't seem to be having the 
problem with the trackpad is enabled.)

I HATE focus on mouse. I always turn it off. Needing to keep the mouse 
pointer over the window I'm working with just puts it in the way. 
Positioning it somewhere else is also annoying - trying to find an empty 
bit of desktop space for it isn't easy. Plus accidentally moving the 
pointer over some other window and having it become active (as you 
mention). I think focus on mouse isn't worth saving one click to make a 
window active.

I find keystrokes like Alt-Tab much faster than clicking to switch 
between windows - don't have to grab the mouse, move the pointer over 
the target window (assuming it's visible) or over whatever window task 
bar thing the desktop environment offers, then click. (Although there 
are a few apps that don't cooperate with that method if they happen to 
have a dialog box open.)

I can use trackpads, but I don't really like them.

I have a trackball right now, but would much prefer to be using a 
graphics tablet again. Used one for many years. The mapping between 
tablet surface and display is marvelous - could do all kinds of pointer 
moves and actions without looking at the tablet.

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community