On 12/15/2011 09:57 AM, Thomas Bennett wrote:
> On Wednesday 14 December 2011 11:31:03 you wrote:
>> I just had a Howard Beale moment with Apple. I'm mad as hell and I'm not
>>   going to take it anymore.
>>
>> I'm curious what people can suggest for linux laptop?
>> Any suggestions for distros and hardware?
>>
>> thanks. b,chris.
>>
>
> Short version - download distros and try different ones before you get a
> computer to see which distro you like.  imho
>
> First I usually try to find a laptop with the clear screen, lots of ram (the
> more the better), and NVDIA graphics card.  I've run linux on several laptops:
> dell, sharp,alienware (pre dell ownership), and others.  Most of the others
> are ones I boot from a linux disk to repair or recover files from them for
> other people. For the NVDIA driver, I always download it from the NVDIA WEB
> site and have not had any problem with that as opposed to package versions.
>
> I prefer Fedora having used redhat linux since version 0.98 about 1989.  I
> would suggest that you download ISO files and burn those to DVD to install and
> test on an old machine to see what you like.  Many you can download "live"
> editions and run straight from the disk.  I like
>
>   http://distrowatch.com
>
> because they have most every distribution there, even the unheard of ones.
>
> I love my MacBook and Fusion (vmware for mac).  This is the only platform, to
> my knowledge, that you can run every OS on.  Currently I have Windows 7,
> Fedora, GOS (Google Operating System, actually a linux dist), Android LIve,
> OpenSuse, React OS (a free Windows OS to run MS Windows programs),Koha,
> Solaris, and yesterday added Windows 8 developer edition.  Some of these, like
> Koha, were VMs I downloaded.
>
> You can get a VMWare player program and download distros to see if you like
> them also.
>
> Thomas
>

   Finally, someone said something about Fedora. :)  I started using it 
a couple of years ago instead of a dual boot on my workstation.  I 
sysadmin a bunch of Redhat servers and I realized that Fedora is like a 
future version of what eventually will be on Redhat.
   It is a constant exercise to work with it and comprehend the 
direction they are trying to go with the init system for example.  Think 
of it like a treadmill.  You get something out of it.

   And I agree with the above, get a few 2G usb sticks and put a few 
live distros on and plug them in in the store.

   Distrowatch is frustrating because most of them say a variation on 
the same thing, "Based on Ubuntu but made to be easy to use and 
reliable." or "Based on Ubuntu and easy to install and use out of the box."

PaulC