On Thursday, August 2, 2001, at 08:59 AM, Jeremy Stemo wrote:
On Wednesday, August 1, 2001, at 03:36 PM, Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
> Hugo Haas wrote:
>>
>> I bought my laptop[0] one year ago, and installed Linux on it[1] as
>> soon as I got it.
>>
>> Little by little, I got everything working on it: first the screen
>> (X), then the sound (required Alsa, then was integrated in the
>> kernel), then USB (had to wait for a backport in the 2.2 kernel), now
>> the jog dial (in a 2.4 kernel).
>>
>> Basically, one year later, I have everything working. Well, not quite
>> everything: the MemoryStick reader can't see my memory stick[2], my
>> modem is a winmodem and has no driver under Linux[3].
>>
>> So there is a cost to owning a laptop running Linux: the chances that
>> you can use all the cool features of your brand new beast are very
>> low.
>
> Arnaud LeHors reprimanded me for using Linux. He said that Win2k
> was stable and that everything works with Windows AND you can
> run your favorite Linux programs either by using Cygwin or
> some other emulator/server software (about which I remember little).
>
Although I too have found Win2k to be much better than its predecessors,
I went with a PowerBook G4[1] and MacOS X[2]. The G4 is as
feature-filled as any notebook that I'm aware of - USB, Firewire, a
cheap ($149 Ca) 802.11 option, and a really nice widescreen display.
Under OS X, I run MacOS 9 apps like MS Office, OS X apps like IE5 and
Opera, command-line Unix programs (the developer tools CD includes
Apache, Perl, Emacs, etc), and Java 2. Apparently, you can even run X on
it [3]. Using my digital camera was as simple as plugging it into the
USB port. TCP/IP networking is similarly easy. To a large degree, Apple
has realized its promise of adding Mac-like ease of use to Unix.
Of course, its not perfect. My current complaints:
- some operations like opening a folder or launching an app are really
slow. This is supposed to be addressed in the next version (10.1), due
in September.
- There's no DVD playback under OS X. Again, supposed to be fixed in
September.
- there is no native Palm desktop software, and the IR port doesn't work
under OS X for hot-syncing.
1.
http://www.apple.com/powerbook
2.
http://www.apple.com/osx
3.
http://www.xdarwin.org
-Jeremy
>