Laptop Ubuntu
Ryan on Nov 23, 2004 5:59pm
Alas, after working feverishly to backup my data, and restored to my freshly installed Ubuntu laptop, I have time to post my impressions about getting it to run on a Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100.
First of all let me say that these laptops are pieces of shit! It went to the shop, (like the rest of our 6100s in the office), to get an overheating problem repaired. Once mine came back, certain chipsets had changed which really messed up my Debian install. Don\'t get me wrong, Debian installed fine and sure as hell was better then Red Hat. However, certain things didn\'t work the way I wanted them to. They weren\'t necessary so I learned to live with them.
That being said, Ubuntu solved most of those issues. Granted, I am sure there is a significant amount of bloat, but everything *just works*. Sound out of the box, wireless setup was breeze using gnomes network control panel, and the install was simple as can be, (well at least for someone whose been around linux installs a bit. I still wouldn\'t hand the CD to my mother and expect her to install it, but with coaching, I bet she could).
The only real glitch I had was with the CD itself which I had burned. It worked find for the desktop install I review earlier, but something must\'ve happened because it slowed way down and made funny noises while copying some packages. I was able to work around the issue by modifying my package sources *on the fly* and was off an running in no time. X even started right away in a nice 1400x1050 resolution.
The only gripe I have, and again, this is not Ubuntu\'s fault but Toshiba/NVidia is that I am unable to use the NVidia\'s native drivers. X will start but I get a black line down the right-hand side of the screen. All of the fixes that fixed this problem before it got sent to the repair shop fail at fixing this issue. I chalk it up to a minor chipset change at Toshiba since they swapped out the motherboard.
Overall, the machine still screams, the install was a breeze, and I believe I may have found my deskpt distro. For servers however, I will always be a Debian man. My congratulations goes out to the Ubuntu team. *NICE FREAKIN\' JOB*
First of all let me say that these laptops are pieces of shit! It went to the shop, (like the rest of our 6100s in the office), to get an overheating problem repaired. Once mine came back, certain chipsets had changed which really messed up my Debian install. Don\'t get me wrong, Debian installed fine and sure as hell was better then Red Hat. However, certain things didn\'t work the way I wanted them to. They weren\'t necessary so I learned to live with them.
That being said, Ubuntu solved most of those issues. Granted, I am sure there is a significant amount of bloat, but everything *just works*. Sound out of the box, wireless setup was breeze using gnomes network control panel, and the install was simple as can be, (well at least for someone whose been around linux installs a bit. I still wouldn\'t hand the CD to my mother and expect her to install it, but with coaching, I bet she could).
The only real glitch I had was with the CD itself which I had burned. It worked find for the desktop install I review earlier, but something must\'ve happened because it slowed way down and made funny noises while copying some packages. I was able to work around the issue by modifying my package sources *on the fly* and was off an running in no time. X even started right away in a nice 1400x1050 resolution.
The only gripe I have, and again, this is not Ubuntu\'s fault but Toshiba/NVidia is that I am unable to use the NVidia\'s native drivers. X will start but I get a black line down the right-hand side of the screen. All of the fixes that fixed this problem before it got sent to the repair shop fail at fixing this issue. I chalk it up to a minor chipset change at Toshiba since they swapped out the motherboard.
Overall, the machine still screams, the install was a breeze, and I believe I may have found my deskpt distro. For servers however, I will always be a Debian man. My congratulations goes out to the Ubuntu team. *NICE FREAKIN\' JOB*
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