new laptop

24 respostas [Última entrada]
otho
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Joined: 08/09/2009

After 5+ years a number of "issues" (dead battery, structural flaws, semi-working keys, iffy fan etc..) forced me to buy a new laptop. After unboxing I installed Trisquel and all seems to be working out of box.

No issues with the graphics (intel), sound (intel), wifi (ath9x), etc.

All I did was update the kernel via PPA (Thanks jxself!) and everything is good to go.

Great work to all involved!

Cyberhawk

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Joined: 07/27/2010

Nice to hear you have such a good experience with it! Was it a machine from thinkpenguin.com?

muhammed
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Joined: 04/13/2013

It feels great when everything just works. Non-free people take that for granted! Well, except for the planned obsolescence and feature tier-ing.

Cyberhawk

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Joined: 07/27/2010

Once you get to the point, where all your hardware is fully compatible, everything works so much better than in Windows for example. I don't want to think about the difficulty of installing a Windows system ever again. I had to do this recently and boy, did I forget how shitty it was.

Search the web for drivers and applications you need, not having a package management which you can tell to "search packagename" or "install packagename".

So if you are looking for drivers, you have to know exactly what device you have. Who the hell cares what soundcard or chipset is on my mainboard? Why do I need to remember the exact model of my mainboard even after I bought it? It's necessary to read up on it before buying, but once bought, it shouldn't be important to remember that alphanumeric crypic code and (maybe) a flashy name that goes with it.

It would seriously bother me if I had to worry about all my drivers personally and not let the update manager handle it. Or look for programs in a search engine, then download them myself and execute the setup, sit through the wizard, accept all the standard answers. Nowadays I install software while doing something else, not focusing on the actual installation. This is a small thing, but so much more convenient.

Sven Schmidt
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Joined: 05/14/2013

The recent Windows are easy to install, as long as you are able to get a Disk, since MS does not ship disks any more. But Driver Problematics in Windows are not so common. Since Windows included Class drivers in Win8, most HW works out of the box.

Nothing personally against you, but I'm tired of all these flames, i hear such things every day and they are IMHO not helping.

On 14.05.2013, at 12:19, name at domain wrote:

> Once you get to the point, where all your hardware is fully compatible, everything works so much better than in Windows for example. I don't want to think about the difficulty of installing a Windows system ever again. I had to do this recently and boy, did I forget how shitty it was.
>
> Search the web for drivers and applications you need, not having a package management which you can tell to "search packagename" or "install packagename".
>
> So if you are looking for drivers, you have to know exactly what device you have. Who the hell cares what soundcard or chipset is on my mainboard? Why do I need to remember the exact model of my mainboard even after I bought it? It's necessary to read up on it before buying, but once bought, it shouldn't be important to remember that alphanumeric crypic code and (maybe) a flashy name that goes with it.
>
> It would seriously bother me if I had to worry about all my drivers personally and not let the update manager handle it. Or look for programs in a search engine, then download them myself and execute the setup, sit through the wizard, accept all the standard answers. Nowadays I install software while doing something else, not focusing on the actual installation. This is a small thing, but so much more convenient.

Cyberhawk

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Joined: 07/27/2010

I never tried Windows 8, so can't comment on it.

adherry

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Joined: 04/19/2011

No Problem. I wish sometimes that i haven't tried it. The Bigger systems (Windows/OS X/Gnu/Linux) have their Strength and weak points, and in my Opinion it is no flaw that the systems are different. They often steal features from the Others, like the Win7/8 Taskbar is a copy of the OS X dock. So those differency helps the Systems to evolve. (I hope windows "steals" the Unix-Directory-tree someday)

Windows has surely the Problem, that when you need drivers for "more exotic" hardware you have to search it. But most Linux-Distros also have that Problem. I tried to find Libre HW 2 Years ago. But most good Notebooks had at least one piece that makes problems with Linux-libre. The only ones, that were completely compatible were the most cheap ones (ok that was 2 years ago, donno how it is today).

My Conclusion:

We should try to spread the word about Gnu/Linux but we should respect that Gnu/Linux is not made for everyone.

Cyberhawk

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Joined: 07/27/2010

I didn't want to start some discussion about what system is better ultimately (I thought we all agree Trisquel is best :P ), just commented on the fact how easily everything "just works" given all your hardware is fully compatible.

I do think it is made for everyone, even if the distros aren't. If a non-technical person needs one week to "tame" a Windows computer into getting it to read/send email, use the internet and write (and print out) letters, who says she'd not be able to do all the same things on, say, Ubuntu, in the same amount of time?

Sven Schmidt
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Joined: 05/14/2013

Yes, but when you have only out of the Box supported hardware every OS works out of the box. I already tried to bring my Grandfather to Linux, which did not work (he was too used to Windows). Most Tutorials and Software is written for Windows and for a long time the Distros forgot the non-tech user. The Ubuntu App store makes it now easier to Install or Remove software because for most users don't want a CLI. But i think that Linux will stick with that "techie-os-where-nothing-works-out-of-box" for a while.

On 14.05.2013, at 13:27, name at domain wrote:

> I didn't want to start some discussion about what system is better ultimately (I thought we all agree Trisquel is best :P ), just commented on the fact how easily everything "just works" given all your hardware is fully compatible.
>
> I do think it is made for everyone, even if the distros aren't. If a non-technical person needs one week to "tame" a Windows computer into getting it to read/send email, use the internet and write (and print out) letters, who says she'd not be able to do all the same things on, say, Ubuntu, in the same amount of time?

onpon4
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Joined: 05/30/2012

Well, maybe that's valid for completely free distros, but considering that Windows drivers and firmware are nonfree as just as some Linux drivers and firmware are, I don't think Windows has a significant hardware support advantage over GNU/Linux distros that use mainline Linux and don't have any policy against including nonfree software (e.g. Ubuntu and Linux Mint). Of course, the hardware can stop working with a future update, but the same is possible if you do a major upgrade of Windows; the major difference is that people don't tend to do major Windows upgrades that often.

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

Now you're spreading nonconstructive FUD yourself. There is no reason to have to use the command line if you're afraid of it. You know what they say about old dogs.

Linux is a kernel, the OS is GNU/Linux btw.

adherry

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Joined: 04/19/2011

Well, the most people I know that don't want to use linux or gone away from Linux said, that they don't like CLI. (Linux is now for generical-linux-distribution here). The most non-Techie people i know think Linux is something where you have to do much over CLI and that nothing works out of box. That is the Image Linux distributions have to get rid of.

ahj
ahj

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Joined: 06/03/2012

>Linux

Linux is a kernel developed by Mr. Torvalds in 1991; a kernel is of little practical use for computing by itself, so an associated userland such as GNU is used in combination with the kernel. The system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux.

adherry

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Joined: 04/19/2011

I dont know if you read everything or simply saw linux, then posted this. I use Linux as general term for a Linux-based System, since GNU-System is normally nothing more than GNU-Tools running on Linux. The non-technical People on this world normally talks about Linux, when it comes to Systems running on Linux. And not about GNU-Systems. IF we want to explain such Systems to non-technical People, we should use Words they already know. The GNU Tools are invisible to most users that only use a desktop Environment like Gnome or KDE).

grvrulz
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Joined: 09/23/2010

GNOME == GNU Network Object Model Environment :P :P

Sven Schmidt
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Joined: 05/14/2013

That acronym was dropped years ago
On 16 May 2013 08:35, <name at domain> wrote:

> GNOME == GNU Network Object Model Environment :P :P
>

grvrulz
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Joined: 09/23/2010

Please notice the two smileys at the end which mean that I'm joking..

onpon4
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Joined: 05/30/2012

The acronym was dropped, but GNOME is still a part of the GNU project.

andrew
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Joined: 04/19/2012

> I dont know if you read everything or simply saw linux, then posted
> this. I use Linux as general term for a Linux-based System, since
> GNU-System is normally nothing more than GNU-Tools running on Linux.

A kernel is not very useful without the rest of the OS. The FreeBSD
developers would probably be offended if you called Debian GNU/kFreeBSD
just "FreeBSD".

> The non-technical People on this world normally talks about Linux,
> when it comes to Systems running on Linux.

Sure, which is why we're here to explain the difference. :-)

> And not about GNU-Systems. IF we want to explain such Systems to
> non-technical People, we should use Words they already know.

When people found out that the world was round, should people have
continued telling kids that the world was flat?

> The GNU Tools are invisible to most users that only use a desktop
> Environment like Gnome or KDE).

GNOME is a part of the GNU project. Many GNU/Linux distros use GRUB, a
GNU project. Maybe there will be once or twice when a non-technical user
will open a terminal window, with a GNU Bash backend. And don't forget
The GIMP. ;-)

Andrew.

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

And the GNU project was something that inspired Linus when he wrote the kernel using GNU tools and then released it under the GNU license.

Since Linus and the GNU project have pretty different ideologies today it's important we call it GNU/Linux so people actually know what it is all about.

There's more on the subject here https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html

quantumgravity
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Joined: 04/22/2013

You're right, it's important to use the correct term which is Gnu/Linux, but I have to admit this name is kind of impractical. Especially because you sometimes have to use the word more often in one phrase.

Think GNU should finish their own kernel, then everything will be fine. But it's the eternally unfinished project... when will it be done? No one knows.

jxself
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Joined: 09/13/2010

> You're right, it's important to use the correct term which is
Gnu/Linux, but
> I have to admit this name is kind of impractical. Especially because
you
> sometimes have to use the word more often in one phrase.

This:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#long

And the 3 or 4 right below it.

> it's the eternally unfinished project... when will it be done? No
one knows.

Ha - You've not been keeping up on things!

Check out the roadmap, in particular this coming September:
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/ROADMAP

The discussion about booting the system is up for discussion:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guix/2013-05/msg00050.html

If that's something anyone's interested in please join.

Discussion of "The GNU System" happens on gnu-system-discuss, if
anyone is interested:
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-system-discuss

otho
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Joined: 08/09/2009

Thinkpenguin is very cool but I picked up my laptop from a local retailer. Non-free systems also just work.. unless they don't..

Cyberhawk

I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/27/2010

That's a pretty cool retailer who sells hardware that works with free software so well. What model is your laptop? Please add the information about your model working to to h-node, so everyone knows about it.

lammi87

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Joined: 07/27/2012

"Please add the information about your model working to to h-node, so everyone knows about it."

Yes, please do.