Re: [SLUG] linux on ibook

[James Gregory <james@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2003-05-07 at 06:17, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
> On Tue, 06 May 2003 22:32:48 +1000
> Del <del@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > OK so enough about Linux on an ibook and a qustion
> > about an ibook for Linux.
> > 
> > So I've been completely happy with my toshiba laptop
> > running RH for a while, but it's getting long in the
> > tooth.  If I'm going to run Linux on my laptop anyway,
> > and I'm not a graphics user, why would I consider
> > buying an iBook instead of an x86 as my next laptop?
> 
> I've handled a number of laptops over the years and the iBook I have
> simply feels far more study that anything else I've had my hands on.
> Remember, the iBook was designed for US school and college sutdents
> who are likely to be far tougher on a laptop than the average 
> businessman.
> 
> The other big plus of the iBook is battery life. I regularly get
> 4-5 of life between recharges. 

It's probably unnecessary but I thought I'd present the alternative view
in case it was useful. Apple do make some cool stuff, certainly. I may
even end up buying their stuff in the future. But, I've been very happy
with my Compaq Evo N160. It doesn't have Wifi or Bluetooth or a CD
burner built in, which has proven to be annoying, but when I bought it I
thought "ho! as if I'll ever use technology like that". That said
getting the modem working was as simple as installing an RPM with the
drivers for it (it's a Lucent winmodem), and it's as good as any
hardware modem I've used (and trust me I watch these things. I'm the
sort of looney that uses compressed ssh tunnels to proxy servers to
squeeze that extra 0.1kbps out of the thing). The ethernet card is very
solid. It's one of the Intel ones and again, it works really well with
the Intel drivers. I was actually unaware that it was using Intel
drivers at all for about 6 months - they were built into the Mandrake
standard kernel I was using anyway. It has a DVD drive, which I've had
no problems with. Battery life is good. I normally expect 4 hours out of
it unless I'm watching DVDs or thrashing the CPU or something.
Apparently you can get a battery monitor working with it but of late
I've typically had it plugged in to power all the time so I haven't
bothered trying since about 3 months ago. USB works nicely - Mandrake
found my USB bluetooth widget as soon as I plugged it in, loaded the
drivers, made the appropriate entries in /dev/ and all.

Anyway, I mention it because its a 1GHz laptop and probably
significantly cheaper than an iBook.

Overall everything was a lot less painful than I expected it to be.

If you want PPC then go for it. Linux runs nicely on it (my firewall
used to be a ppc until it started eating SCSI disks for lunch), and as
many have said the standardised hardware makes a lot of things very
simple. I couldn't afford the money that Apple ask for the privelege
though.

HTH

James.