14 Feb
2011
14 Feb
'11
11:41 p.m.
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. :)
Thanks,
Josh
--
Josh Lawrence
www.hardbop200.com
15 Feb
15 Feb
1:02 a.m.
Thinkpads generally have very good support. You can configure them
with incompatible options by accident, but for the most part nearly
all options have good linux support. Thinkpad T series are standard
issue at Red Hat for example.
HP elitebooks are also popular here at Red Hat.
Monty
4:22 p.m.
On Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:02:19 -0500
Monty Montgomery <xiphmont(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thinkpads generally have very good support.
I can vouch for this, I've run Linux on many different models of ThinkPad
and they just work.
--
======================================================================
Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh(a)brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa
4:26 p.m.
From: Joe Hartley <jh(a)brainiac.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:22:04 -0500
On Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:02:19 -0500
Monty Montgomery <xiphmont(a)gmail.com> wrote:
+1 for thinkpads.
T61p here for a few years on various distros.
it's my main audio production machine.
cheers!
.pltk.
Thinkpads generally have very good support.
I can vouch for this, I've run Linux on many different models of ThinkPad
and they just work.
16 Feb
16 Feb
4:54 p.m.
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Monty Montgomery <xiphmont(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thinkpads generally have very good support. You can
configure them
with incompatible options by accident, but for the most part nearly
all options have good linux support. Thinkpad T series are standard
issue at Red Hat for example.
cool - I've had a thinkpad in the past, and loved it. can you
recommend a model that you guys are using? my requirements are:
1. nvidia card
2. better than 1024x768
3. can read the battery :)
--
Josh Lawrence
www.hardbop200.com
17 Feb
17 Feb
5:10 a.m.
On 02/16/2011 07:54 AM, Josh Lawrence wrote:
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Monty
Montgomery<xiphmont(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Typing this on a T510 and happy with it so far. Graphics is:
nVidia Corporation GT218 [NVS 3100M] (rev a2)
I would have preferred Intel built-in but then I could not get the
1920x1080 screen which is great (not shinny!). 8G RAM + i7 CPU M 620 @
2.67GHz + 500G disk.
The battery indicator in Gnome seems to work fine. Sometimes it gets
confused when I put the laptop to sleep on A/C on and wake it up on
battery (shows too little battery left).
-- Fernando
Thinkpads generally have very good support. You
can configure them
with incompatible options by accident, but for the most part nearly
all options have good linux support. Thinkpad T series are standard
issue at Red Hat for example.
cool - I've had a thinkpad in the past, and loved it. can you
recommend a model that you guys are using? my requirements are:
1. nvidia card
2. better than 1024x768
3. can read the battery :)
6:02 a.m.
The battery indicator in Gnome seems to work fine.
Sometimes it gets
confused when I put the laptop to sleep on A/C on and wake it up on battery
(shows too little battery left).
I've noticed that recently. If you query the battery directly through
/proc, you'll probably see that Linux is reading the battery status
properly, but for some reason Gnome shows it incorrectly. That just
popped up in the past few months.
Monty
10:45 a.m.
Fernando Lopez-Lezcano wrote:
On 02/16/2011 07:54 AM, Josh Lawrence wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Monty Montgomery<xiphmont(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> Thinkpads generally have very good support. You can configure them
>> with incompatible options by accident, but for the most part nearly
>> all options have good linux support. Thinkpad T series are standard
>> issue at Red Hat for example.
>
> cool - I've had a thinkpad in the past, and loved it. can you
> recommend a model that you guys are using? my requirements are:
>
> 1. nvidia card
> 2. better than 1024x768
> 3. can read the battery :)
Another reason for problems reading the battery might be the battery
starting to go bad?
Typing this on a T510 and happy with it so far.
Graphics is:
nVidia Corporation GT218 [NVS 3100M] (rev a2)
I would have preferred Intel built-in but then I could not get the
1920x1080 screen which is great (not shinny!). 8G RAM + i7 CPU M 620 @
2.67GHz + 500G disk.
Sounds like a good machine.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
15 Feb
15 Feb
1:49 a.m.
On 02/14/2011 11:41 PM, 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. :)
LOL, Are you serious? I'd rather expect more audio-related constraints
here :)
IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad: They got about everything right:
from the inside: hardware IRQ routing: 1394 and at least 1 USB IRQ is
not shared with other devices - some models even allow to re-assign
these in the BIOS: that's great for connecting external audio interfaces
and achieving low latency;
the VGA (or DVI) out works OOTB on GNU/Linux; as does Wifi (double check
options when configuring/buying), suspend/resume; heck it even reports
temperature of the battery and allows to set high/low water-marks for
battery charge cycles.
to the outside: the keyboard and mouse-buttons have a healthy
press-depth and perfectly balanced resistance. There's even water drain
in the keyboard(!), very very robust casing, easily replaceable HDD,
almost no fan noise, etc.
On top of it: they do have low power consumption (long battery life) and
are "green" in terms of environment and recycling. Besides: GNU/Linux
support is amazing: thinkwiki.org
I do like the screen contrast, although the only disadvantage I can
think of is that it's sometimes not bright enough for a green on black
terminal in direct sunlight :) Oh and the built-in speaker (at least on
this X60s and also on the T401) is total crap.
Alas it's not a cheap solution, OTOH it really pays off.
Check the list-archive this is a recurring subject: just a few weeks ago
there was this "Firewire linuxaudio laptops, recomendations?" thread.
2c,
robin
2:15 a.m.
I agree with the positive comments about Lenovo laptops and figured
I'd throw in my quick vote of praise as well. I've been running on a
ThinkPad T410 for almost a year now, running Ubuntu, and I've had no
problems with that. From battery status to interfacing with my USB
audio and midi devices, it's all worked well.
-Jim
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:49 PM, Robin Gareus <robin(a)linuxaudio.org> wrote:
On 02/14/2011 11:41 PM, 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. :)
LOL, Are you serious? I'd rather expect more audio-related constraints
here :)
IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad: They got about everything right:
from the inside: hardware IRQ routing: 1394 and at least 1 USB IRQ is
not shared with other devices - some models even allow to re-assign
these in the BIOS: that's great for connecting external audio interfaces
and achieving low latency;
the VGA (or DVI) out works OOTB on GNU/Linux; as does Wifi (double check
options when configuring/buying), suspend/resume; heck it even reports
temperature of the battery and allows to set high/low water-marks for
battery charge cycles.
to the outside: the keyboard and mouse-buttons have a healthy
press-depth and perfectly balanced resistance. There's even water drain
in the keyboard(!), very very robust casing, easily replaceable HDD,
almost no fan noise, etc.
On top of it: they do have low power consumption (long battery life) and
are "green" in terms of environment and recycling. Besides: GNU/Linux
support is amazing: thinkwiki.org
I do like the screen contrast, although the only disadvantage I can
think of is that it's sometimes not bright enough for a green on black
terminal in direct sunlight :) Oh and the built-in speaker (at least on
this X60s and also on the T401) is total crap.
Alas it's not a cheap solution, OTOH it really pays off.
Check the list-archive this is a recurring subject: just a few weeks ago
there was this "Firewire linuxaudio laptops, recomendations?" thread.
2c,
robin
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
4:36 a.m.
New subject: Linux Laptops
re Lenovo. i'll never buy from them for a while. been using a Sony VAIO X for about a
year now but don't do much audio or i'd want something faster than an Atom. heres
my x200 review:
my x200 tablet has been nightmarish.
it seems to 'fry' network cards every couple of months. i replaced the stock 5100
card with a 5300, and it happened again!
the card just disappears from the device manager (win7) and lspci (linux) until a hard
power cycle. its accelerated to the point where it breaks within 30 seconds of startup
my 380D thinkpad also fried PCMCIA cards, and any CF cards in adaptors. i actually heard
zaps. +19V into a part requiring 3.3V or something? really f'd up.
X200 takes 20 minutes to POST, after a BIOS upgrade i ran hoping to fix the wireless. i
keep upgrading t the new BIOSes and the problem still isnt fixed, and BIOS downgrades
fail.
what about never rebooting? well hard freezes occur at least once a day.
its 2 years old,cant even figure out if its covered on warranty, support wants a
Serial/SKU which unfortunately i peeled off soon after purchasing and none of my email
addys pop up on lenovo's direct-purchase 'forgot my password' option..
my Thinkpad A21m fell apart, quite quickly. granted it was one of the cheap plastic ones,
the modern equivalent being ideapad.
i guess you can say i havent experienced the "Thinkpad Quality". in fact theyre
hitting 0 for 3
i should just go back to Apple, my 1992 Mac LCII still runs fine on NetBSD
11:19 a.m.
Am 15.02.2011 02:14, schrieb Jim Eastman:
I agree with the positive comments about Lenovo
laptops
I can recommend the thinkpad also
BUT: dont let yourself be fooled by the Lenovo-mark alone. Lenovo also
offers cheaper Notebooks. I had a N200 that was quite OK for day-to-day
use but certainly not the best machine under the sun for audio-work.
Get a Thinkpad, a real Thinkpad. If you find them too expensive buy a
used one. A 2-year old T60 is by far better than a brand new cheapo-model.
and figured
I'd throw in my quick vote of praise as well. I've been running on a
ThinkPad T410 for almost a year now, running Ubuntu, and I've had no
problems with that. From battery status to interfacing with my USB
audio and midi devices, it's all worked well.
-Jim
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:49 PM, Robin Gareus<robin(a)linuxaudio.org> wrote:
On 02/14/2011 11:41 PM, Josh Lawrence wrote:
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
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. :)
LOL, Are you serious? I'd rather expect more audio-related constraints
here :)
IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad: They got about everything right:
from the inside: hardware IRQ routing: 1394 and at least 1 USB IRQ is
not shared with other devices - some models even allow to re-assign
these in the BIOS: that's great for connecting external audio interfaces
and achieving low latency;
the VGA (or DVI) out works OOTB on GNU/Linux; as does Wifi (double check
options when configuring/buying), suspend/resume; heck it even reports
temperature of the battery and allows to set high/low water-marks for
battery charge cycles.
to the outside: the keyboard and mouse-buttons have a healthy
press-depth and perfectly balanced resistance. There's even water drain
in the keyboard(!), very very robust casing, easily replaceable HDD,
almost no fan noise, etc.
On top of it: they do have low power consumption (long battery life) and
are "green" in terms of environment and recycling. Besides: GNU/Linux
support is amazing: thinkwiki.org
I do like the screen contrast, although the only disadvantage I can
think of is that it's sometimes not bright enough for a green on black
terminal in direct sunlight :) Oh and the built-in speaker (at least on
this X60s and also on the T401) is total crap.
Alas it's not a cheap solution, OTOH it really pays off.
Check the list-archive this is a recurring subject: just a few weeks ago
there was this "Firewire linuxaudio laptops, recomendations?" thread.
2c,
robin
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
11:42 a.m.
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad W510, and I can't say anything bad about it,
it's really good quality hardware.
2:31 a.m.
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Robin Gareus <robin(a)linuxaudio.org> wrote:
LOL, Are you serious? I'd rather expect more
audio-related constraints
here :)
why yes, yes I am :)
seriously, fast disk, lots of ram, and I've got a nice soundcard. and
honestly, if it can't read the battery status (acpi issues), then I've
got bigger problems than audio.
--
Josh Lawrence
www.hardbop200.com
2:37 a.m.
Sure, I'll shill for my Thinkpad T410. The i5 with
4GB memory and a quiet 7500rpm disk makes it my
fastest machine evar.
I don't know much about graphics hardware; the Intel integrated
graphics device meets my modest needs.
Battery life is okay, many of the hotkeys work, it runs
cool. Has a matte screen.
Even has a modem, which may be useful in revolutionary
situations when ADSL/wireless is not available.
And I'll take this opportunity and soapbox to recommend
*against* Toshiba. I had a bad time with an
overheating L305 series laptop with Turion dual-core processor and
Linux-incompatible fan control.
The H2O BIOS may be to blame.
It would only *not* overheat at the slowest available speed (1GHz).
Cpufrequtils wouldn't get loaded until late in the boot
sequencer. (I never changed the init order.) As a result
The darn thing would overheat while doing a mandatory chkdsk. :-(
Mercifully the screen started misbehaving, giving me an
excuse to buy something nicer. :-)
--
Joel Roth
10:22 a.m.
>>>> "J" == Josh Lawrence
<hardbop200(a)gmail.com> writes:
J> Hey all, After getting scorched by purchasing two laptops with
J> almost zero Linux support (battery status? what battery?), I have
J> decided to go looking for a laptop that is sold by a company that
J> supports Linux.
Seems youve been unlucky?
Ive been setting up various linux-systems (Fedora, Ubuntu) on laptops
from Apple, Dell, Samsung, HP and Lenovo recent years, and from sometime
after 2007 most everything has been plug'n play.
2 experiences/suggestions:
- dont buy things containing hardware-components released last week -
linux-support (drivers) gets ready (available & stable) when enough
people start working with them, typically 3-12 months or so. Check
around on websites about other peoples experiences vs. a certain
model.
- dont base yourself on 'Linux-support' from manufacturer or retailer,
prepare to install os yourself. Most often you get outdated versions
of perhaps specialized systems, and in the worst cases may end up
being dependent on manufacturer releasing proprietary and buggy
drivers or software (fex. some Samsung printers.)
Good luck!
-anders
2:08 p.m.
On Monday 14 February 2011 23:41:25 Josh Lawrence wrote:
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. :)
My Dell Latitude 2110 here runs fine. shipped with ubuntu9.something, upgrade
gradually to current ubuntu-versions. I think wireless and sd-card use their
own driver, could be something in mainline already supports these.
My two asus laptops where also almost fully supported, usb-webcam on the
second laptop is not working. But who needs a webcam constantly pointed at
once nose-picking anyways...
Generally speaking, unless you go to "top-of-the-art" new features (like
touchscreen) most of what dell, lenovo, fujitsu, asus and maybe even acer
ships is running on linux. Best way to check for stories of success is to
google your desired laptop and your favourite linux distribution...
Have fun,
Arnold
7:04 p.m.
Hi,
I have purchased lots of equipment from Zareason.com. They do only Linux
computers! woohoo! I am really happy with them. The support is good, from
what I have heard, although I must confess that I have never had to use
their support, because their stuff just works. Everything you need to know
is at Zareason.com. I have been using Linux since 2000, and I am producing
a community-created documentary about how FOSS is changing global culture
at
http://archive.org/details/digitaltippingpoint
If you want to see the CEO of Zareason talking about how her company runs,
you can see the video here. This video was shot at a Linux installfest in a
small town in California:
http://www.archive.org/details/e-dv535_cathy_explains_03_zareason_001.ogg
<http://www.archive.org/details/e-dv535_cathy_explains_03_zareason_001.ogg>If
you want to see the story of how the Malmrose family, which makes Zareason
computers, moved to Linux, you can see it here:
http://www.archive.org/details/e-dv534_lin08_how_the_malmrose_family_moved_…
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 2:41 PM, Josh Lawrence <hardbop200(a)gmail.com> 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. :)
Thanks,
Josh
--
Josh Lawrence
www.hardbop200.com
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
16 Feb
16 Feb
1:37 a.m.
On Tue, 2011-02-15 at 10:04 -0800, Christian Einfeldt wrote:
Hi,
I have purchased lots of equipment from Zareason.com. They do only Linux
computers! woohoo! I am really happy with them. The support is good, from
what I have heard, although I must confess that I have never had to use
their support, because their stuff just works. Everything you need to know
is at Zareason.com. I have been using Linux since 2000, and I am producing
a community-created documentary about how FOSS is changing global culture
at
http://archive.org/details/digitaltippingpoint
If you want to see the CEO of Zareason talking about how her company runs,
you can see the video here. This video was shot at a Linux installfest in a
small town in California:
http://www.archive.org/details/e-dv535_cathy_explains_03_zareason_001.ogg
<http://www.archive.org/details/e-dv535_cathy_explains_03_zareason_001.ogg>If
you want to see the story of how the Malmrose family, which makes Zareason
computers, moved to Linux, you can see it here:
http://www.archive.org/details/e-dv534_lin08_how_the_malmrose_family_moved_…
Its interesting how it seems compiz was the main reason they adopted
Linux in the first place =)
15 Feb
15 Feb
11:15 p.m.
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.
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.
http://xkcd.com/243/
-ken
16 Feb
16 Feb
2:29 a.m.
Ken Restivo wrote:
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 04:41:25PM -0600, Josh
Lawrence wrote:
A friend of mine's family has a number of Asus EEE PCs, they all work
very nicely with Linux.
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. 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.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
3:07 a.m.
On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 03:29:52PM -1000, david wrote:
Ken Restivo wrote:
I guess some people actually do like it.
ThinkPad + focus_on_mouse + typing anything with a 'g' or 'h' in it ==
TROUBLE.
-ken
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 04:41:25PM -0600, Josh
Lawrence wrote:
A friend of mine's family has a number of Asus EEE PCs, they all work
very nicely with Linux.
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. 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.
3:11 a.m.
Ken Restivo wrote:
On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 03:29:52PM -1000, david
wrote:
Didn't have any trouble typing those letters. What do you mean by
"focus_on_mouse"?
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
Ken Restivo wrote:
I guess some people actually do like it.
ThinkPad + focus_on_mouse + typing anything with a 'g' or 'h' in it ==
TROUBLE. On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 04:41:25PM -0600, Josh
Lawrence wrote:
A friend of mine's family has a number of Asus EEE
PCs, they all work
very nicely with Linux.
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. 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.
3:49 a.m.
On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 04:11:38PM -1000, david wrote:
Ken Restivo wrote:
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.
-ken
On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 03:29:52PM -1000, david
wrote:
Didn't have any trouble typing those letters. What do you mean by
"focus_on_mouse"?
Ken Restivo wrote:
I guess some people actually do like it.
ThinkPad + focus_on_mouse + typing anything with a 'g' or 'h' in it ==
TROUBLE. 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.
4:55 a.m.
Ken Restivo wrote:
On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 04:11:38PM -1000, david
wrote:
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(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
Ken Restivo wrote:
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. On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 03:29:52PM -1000, david
wrote:
Didn't have any trouble typing those letters. What do you mean
by
"focus_on_mouse"? 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. 
8:18 a.m.
On 16 February 2011 10:48, Ken Restivo <ken(a)restivo.org> wrote:
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.
Have you tried things like
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Synaptics#Disable_Trackpad_while_Typing
?
--
GPG/PGP ID: B42DDCAD
10:29 a.m.
Cedric Roux wrote:
----- "david" <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com>
wrote:
Quite a number of years past "young", my friend!
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
Didn't have any trouble typing those letters.
What do you mean by
"focus_on_mouse"?
how old are you young man?
:-)
11:12 a.m.
On Wednesday 16 February 2011 10:29:51 david wrote:
Cedric Roux wrote:
I do consider myself as not so old, still I love "focus on mouse". Now what?
----- "david"
<gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
Quite a number of years past "young", my friend! Didn't have any trouble typing those letters.
What do you mean by
"focus_on_mouse"?
how old are you young man?
:-) 
17 Feb
17 Feb
6:44 p.m.
16.02.2011 12:12, Arnold Krille kirjoitti:
On Wednesday 16 February 2011 10:29:51 david wrote:
I definitely love "focus on mouse", too. Couldn't think of using any WM on
linux
without it enabled. Incidentally, lack of this feature is one of the main
reasons I find working on OS X so frustrating.
JR
--
"Every mouse click is a click too much"
Cedric Roux wrote:
I do consider myself as not so old, still I love "focus on mouse". Now what?
----- "david"
<gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
Quite a number of years past "young", my friend! Didn't have any trouble typing those letters.
What do you mean by
"focus_on_mouse"?
how old are you young man?
:-)
8:08 p.m.
Jouni Rinne wrote:
16.02.2011 12:12, Arnold Krille kirjoitti:
Different strokes for different folks. Focus on mouse is utterly useless
for tablets and graphics tables, where the only way to put the pointer
over something is to tap on it. Which on these devices is the same thing
as a click.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
On Wednesday 16 February 2011 10:29:51 david
wrote:
I definitely love "focus on mouse", too. Couldn't think of using any WM on
linux
without it enabled. Incidentally, lack of this feature is one of the main
reasons I find working on OS X so frustrating. Cedric Roux wrote:
I do
consider myself as not so old, still I love "focus on mouse". Now what? ----- "david"
<gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
> Didn't have any trouble typing those letters. What do you mean by
> "focus_on_mouse"?
how old are you young man?
:-)
Quite a number of years past "young", my friend! 
16 Feb
16 Feb
11:59 a.m.
On Wednesday 16 February 2011 03:06:48 Ken Restivo wrote:
On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 03:29:52PM -1000, david
wrote:
I use a Thinkpad with TrackPoint and focus-follows-mouse every day, and
I really got used to it. These nipples come in different shapes and
sizes. I found that the small, convex ones are much less prone to
accidental cursor movement than the larger, flat ones which seem to be
installed by default these days.
Incidentally, at work I sometimes use a Thinkpad which has both
TrackPoint and touchpad. The touchpad is disabled in my own user
account, but not in the login screen. I can't count the number of times
I inadvertently rested my hand on the touchpad, causing the password
field to lose focus while typing...
Dominic
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. 
12:26 p.m.
Focus on mouse with click to raise! Allows you to read stuff from a window
while
typing into the mostly hidden window behind it.
Immanuel
On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Dominic Sacré <dominic.sacre(a)gmx.de>wrote;wrote:
On Wednesday 16 February 2011 03:06:48 Ken Restivo
wrote:
On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 03:29:52PM -1000, david
wrote:
I use a Thinkpad with TrackPoint and focus-follows-mouse every day, and
I really got used to it. These nipples come in different shapes and
sizes. I found that the small, convex ones are much less prone to
accidental cursor movement than the larger, flat ones which seem to be
installed by default these days.
Incidentally, at work I sometimes use a Thinkpad which has both
TrackPoint and touchpad. The touchpad is disabled in my own user
account, but not in the login screen. I can't count the number of times
I inadvertently rested my hand on the touchpad, causing the password
field to lose focus while typing...
Dominic
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
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.
4:47 p.m.
On Tue, 15 Feb 2011 18:06:48 -0800
Ken Restivo <ken(a)restivo.org> wrote:
I guess some people actually do like it.
ThinkPad + focus_on_mouse + typing anything with a 'g' or 'h' in it ==
TROUBLE.
I've been using a ThinkPad for a very long time now and have
never had this happen to me, and I always have the focus follow my mouse;
it's a holdover from using X Windows since the 80s. I don't know when
the various GUIs started defaulting to click-to-focus, but it's one of the
first things that gets changed when I sit at a new system.
The second is disabling the touchpad. it seems I'm always touching it
with the heel of my hand, sending the cursor elsewhere - hence my like
of the nurple.
The third is the remapping of the Caps Lock key to be another Ctrl key,
since I've been used to that since the Sun keyboards of the 80s & 90s,
and the fact that caps lock is pretty useless!
--
======================================================================
Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh(a)brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa
9:05 a.m.
Quoting Ken Restivo <ken(a)restivo.org>rg>:
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.
I have never really noticed the nurple other than maybe subconsciously
("Ohh, red thingy. Nevermind"). And it's dead easy to remove the
rubber head if it gets in the way of your fingers.
- Peder
4:41 p.m.
On Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:14:36 -0800
Ken Restivo <ken(a)restivo.org> wrote:
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.
Different strokes, and all that - I despise touchpads and love the nurple.
Check out the rollover text :)
--
======================================================================
Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh(a)brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa
17 Feb
17 Feb
2:48 a.m.
On 16/02/2011, Joe Hartley <jh(a)brainiac.com> wrote:
Different strokes, and all that - I despise touchpads
and love the nurple.
Me too; I wish I could find more desktop keyboards with nurples. I
just can't get on with touchpads at all - more often than not I end up
disabling the damned things and using an external mouse.
As for focus model: for my money, windowlab has it absolutely right -
click to focus, but focus doesn't auto-raise.
4:30 a.m.
On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 5:14 PM, Ken Restivo <ken(a)restivo.org> wrote:
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.
nurple FTW
Brilliant!
16 Feb
16 Feb
2:33 a.m.
Josh Lawrence wrote:
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. :)
All three of our Toshiba laptops work fine with Linux, including reading
battery status. Have had no hardware failures whatsoever.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
5030
days inactive
5033
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
38 comments
25 participants
participants (25)
-
andersvi＠notam02.no -
Arnold Krille -
Bernardo Barros -
carmen -
Cedric Roux -
Christian Einfeldt -
david -
Dominic Sacré -
Fernando Lopez-Lezcano -
Gwenhwyfaer -
Hartmut Noack -
immanuel litzroth -
Jim Eastman -
Joe Hartley -
Joel Roth -
Josh Lawrence -
Jouni Rinne -
Ken Restivo -
Monty Montgomery -
Ng Oon-Ee -
Paul Coccoli -
Peder Hedlund -
plutek -
Ray Rashif -
Robin Gareus