Hi Chris,
congratulations on your decision. I went from DOS and Windows to Linux
and Mac OS X, but after a few months I returned to Linux for good
(firing up Windows only to fill out the occasional MS Word form that
looks weird in LibreOffice). You have already received a lot of good
advice, so as well as adding my own 2 cents, I will try to take that
into account.
Which Linux?
____________
My guess is that coming from Mac OS, Ubuntu will be the Linux
distribution you will feel most comfortable with. It is the most
popular Linux distro these days anyway, so you can hardly go wrong
with it. I have used it almost exclusively in recent years, and I find
it worth mentioning that the Ubuntu community is helpful and friendly
indeed. You will not often find arrogant BOFH responses in Ubuntu
forums because all Ubuntu contributors have signed a very reasonable
code of conduct <http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/conduct>.
As others have mentioned, you might want to try some Linux
distributions and desktop environments in a virtual machine running on
top of Mac OS X. VirtualBox is a popular and free, and works just as
well the competition from VMware or Parallels.
Which hardware?
_______________
You may not need new hardware at all. Since the MacBook (Pro) is
considered by many the best laptop (hardware), you may want to use it
for Linux (and Windows, if you must) as well. The Ubuntu guide for
people switching from Mac OS X contains some dual boot advice:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu/FromMacOSX
I think it is fair to say that Linux runs on any laptop out there. If
you want to make sure that every single feature is supported on the
particular machine you have in mind, then take a look at the lists
Chris Fitzpatrick provided (quoted below), or this one:
http://tuxmobil.org/mylaptops.html
Specifically for Ubuntu Linux, you will find compatibility reports on
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Laptops which is now
being replaced by this site: https://friendly.ubuntu.com/
I have installed Ubuntu on Asus EeePC netbooks, Dell laptops and
desktops, and Fujitsu servers. Of these, the Dell computers have
caused no trouble at all. I have also heard good things about Lenovo's
Thinkpads.
Enjoy!
Christian
On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 12:02:40PM -0500, Chris Gray wrote:
> It's worth Googling a bit. There are places that sell laptops with
> Linux pre-installed (which bypasses the Windows surtax on new PCs).
> It was easy to find these but I can't vouch for any of them.
>
> http://mcelrath.org/laptops.html - Linux Laptop Resellers
>
> http://www.linux-laptop.net/ - Linux on Laptops
>
> http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html - Linux Laptop -
> Fully Supported & Configured High Performance Linux Laptops and
> Netbooks | LinuxCertified
>
> http://linuxpreloaded.com/ - Buy a Linux Computer
--
Christian Pietsch <http://purl.org/net/pietsch>
computational linguist, Bielefeld University, Germany
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