Saga of a Windows Laptop

[treehead]

;so i've been tasked with outfitting my laptop at work--a task, mind you, that i do not begrudge, because, like most geeks, i'm a control freak when it comes to my systems.

;issue #1: windows -- given our software set, this laptop must have windows intstalled on it.

;so here's a saga of a windows laptop and how linux may just save it from complete cruftitude. as this thread proceeds we will illustrate just how windows utilizes system resources vs. linux, how the two perform on the same system, and the challenges i face trying to use linux in a business enviroment geared (almost entirely) toward windows.

;so here's what we have out of the box:

• 1 toshiba tecra s3 laptop
• 512 MB RAM
• 40 GB SATA HDD
• nVidia GeForce Go 6600 Video
• SigmaTel Audio
• 2 PCMCIA Slots
• 1 SD Card Slot
• MATSHITA DVD-RAM Drive
• Serial/Parallel Ports
• IEEE 1394 (Firewire) Port
• VGA/S-Video Ports
• Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG w/ HW Switch
• SMC IrCC Fast Infrared Port

;this is how toshiba ships it:

<a href="http://treehead.net/img/scr_tecra-s3_00 ... config.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://treehead.net/img/scr_tecra-s3_00 ... n.png"></a>
(thumbnail: select to view entire screenshot)

[Tsuroerusu]

It's actually pretty easy to use Linux as the client in a Windows environment, you just use Samba for file and printer sharing and then Evolution as an Outlook replacement with the Connector plugin for Exchange support.

[Gomer_X]

We use at least 2 applications at work that are only available on Windows. One of them we own and maintain, and porting it to Windows XP from NT 4 was a big problem. It'll never get ported to Linux. I'm pretty sure our server backend is a mix of Solaris and Windows NT, but on the desktop there just aren't any clients for most of our software. I also use a couple clients that are either Java or Visual Basic or a mixture of both. I'm pretty certain they wouldn't work on Linux.

Good luck convincing a large corporation to change it's whole IT infrastructure when you're at the bottom of the pyramid.

[snarkout]

How about thumbnailing that picture?

[treehead]

How about thumbnailing that picture?

;yeah, i will... i'm lazy.

;treehead

[snarkout]

Well, I can tell you this much -- the Toshiba S2 is a phoenix bios lappy, which means that it doesn't work for shit with linux. I foolishly purchased one a while back, and the incredible rigamarole I went through with several people at Toshiba flat out lying to me means I will never ever buy another toshiba computer, and highly recommend that others don't either. This in itself doesn't have a lot to do with your post, I realize, but if the S3 like the S2 has a phoenix bios, you can more or less forget about running linux on it in any useful fashion.

[treehead]

Well, I can tell you this much -- the Toshiba S2 is a phoenix bios lappy, which means that it doesn't work for shat with linux. I foolishly purchased one a while back, and the incredible rigamarole I went through with several people at Toshiba flat out lying to me means I will never ever buy another toshiba computer, and highly recommend that others don't either. This in itself doesn't have a lot to do with your post, I realize, but if the S3 like the S2 has a phoenix bios, you can more or less forget about running linux on it in any useful fashion.

;it does.

;treehead

[snarkout]

Bummer. Well, you can always give it the old college try, but I couldn't even get the ethernet on the s2 working, let alone the pcmcia slots. Se what kanotix or knoppix do -- both of them would run for a while on the s2, and eventually hardlock. Neither of them would boot at all unless I disabled pcmcia with a kopt.

[treehead]

Bummer. Well, you can always give it the old college try, but I couldn't even get the ethernet on the s2 working, let alone the pcmcia slots. Se what kanotix or knoppix do -- both of them would run for a while on the s2, and eventually hardlock. Neither of them would boot at all unless I disabled pcmcia with a kopt.

;yeah... i'm hoping the pages at the bottom of the list at linux-laptop will provide some insight. you'll notice there's no s3 listed there.

;side note: am i the only one who's bothered by the linux-laptop homepage and the way the navigation is laid out? i'm sorry, but i should not have to *side scroll* to select a link.

;treehead

[Gomer_X]

;side note: am i the only one who's bothered by the linux-laptop homepage and the way the navigation is laid out? i'm sorry, but i should not have to *side scroll* to select a link.

A quick look at the code shows this to be one of the most poorly coded HTML pages I've seen in a while. It's an HTML 3.2 page with an HTML 4.01 page inserted inside it in a table. It's a wonder it renders at all. The inner table has it's dimensions hard coded, so it won't wrap to the window. So yes, it is as bad as it looks.

[CptnObvious999]

;side note: am i the only one who's bothered by the linux-laptop homepage and the way the navigation is laid out? i'm sorry, but i should not have to *side scroll* to select a link.

A quick look at the code shows this to be one of the most poorly coded HTML pages I've seen in a while. It's an HTML 3.2 page with an HTML 4.01 page inserted inside it in a table. It's a wonder it renders at all. The inner table has it's dimensions hard coded, so it won't wrap to the window. So yes, it is as bad as it looks.

Thats something that has been bugging me for awhile. Since Dreamweaver and other Website Design software has become popular most code no longer fits the W3C standards which has helped somewhat in IE's monopoly. I always code everything by hand and have it meet the standards

[jamathis]

Unfortunately I don't get to use a computer at all at my crappy job. Talk about 8 hours a day of pure hell. But for my college online class I have to use Winblows since the online course is encoded only for IE 5.5 or higher. I can't use IE on my OS X machine and couldn't get IE to work on my Xandros machine through wine. So I'm stuck using Winblows for now. But in the coming week I'll be setting up one of my laptops with Open SuSe 10, I'll see how that works out.

[treehead]

I always code everything by hand and have it meet the standards

;amen, brother.

;so it's been a while since i've updated you on the story. there are two reasons for this: 1. i have been only poking at the laptop when i have time, and i've been in-and-out of the office over the past week or so. 2. (and this shouldn't surprise anyone) it takes much longer to get a windows computer fully functioning than it does a linux box. this segues into the first chapter of our saga....

Chapter 1: The Install
Or: Installing Windows in Eighty-Six Easy Steps

;the first thing any geek will do when given a new system is wipe whatever's on the harddrive and reinstall the OS. if we're running unix or linux, this is because we want it installed our way--we are geeks after all, tweaking is like breathing. if you must run windows, then the additional reasoning behind this is that you must remove all the standard marketing bloatware on the system, and as windows does not have a proper uninstall mechanism, the only way to effectively do this is to start from scratch.

;of course, starting from scratch does not guarantee you cruft-free system. once the first installation phase is complete, you have only installed windows. now you must locate the model computer you are using on your computer vendor's support web site, determine the appropriate hardware-specific proprietary drivers, download them, and install them one-by-one. you must then uninstall useless programs that are installed with windows by default (msn explorer), hack those you cannot uninstall (windows messenger), live with those you simply cannot remove (windows movie maker), remove all visual effects for some semblence of response time (system/display properties), crank security up on components that are inextricably embedded in the OS (internet explorer), replace those you can't with marginally better third-party equivalents (windows firewall/ICF), uninstall useless components (themes), turn off useless services (auto updates, UPnP), account for software that should have been included given the nature of windows (anti-spyware, anti-virus), and then procede with installing program and security patches.

;all this, and you are still not able to use your system yet.

;assuming you make it to this point in a single day (an observation i make without jest or sarcasm--once to this point you have spent at the very least two hours installing the operating system alone and have rebooted your system no less than 4 times doing so)... you are still not finished: you have no software installed.* only after this lengthy ordeal can one begin to start installing the programs that they intends to use (this is the step i am currently on).

;this, humorous as it appear to some, is the de-facto for windows installation. don't miss chapter 2, where we will compare this to a linux installation.

;i wish i had more humor, but i don't... i've been doing this for too long.

;treehead

*read: end-user software

[treehead]

Laptop Showdown: Replace the Toshiba?

vs.


;ok, so this topic fell by the wayside as i have had other concerns at work, but i still have to decide what i'm going to do.

;i'd like some advice, because i now have choice of laptops. i can either a) stick with the new toshiba tecra s3 that i've been using, or b) choose to use this older hp nx5000 that i'm using right now. they have similiar specs. here is how they compare....

tecra s3:
* 1.6 GHz Intel proc
* 800 MHz FSB
* 40 GB SATA drive
* 1024x768 LCD
* dvd-ram drive (dual layer burning)
* 802.11a/b/g minipci wireless
* somewhat condensed keyboard
* no working linux configs (that i know of)

nx5000:
* 1.4 GHz Intel proc
* 500 MHz FSB
* 40 GB IDE drive
* 1024x768 LCD
* dvd-rom/cd-rw drive
* 802.11b only minipci wireless
* really condensed keyboard
* working linux configs (fully supported by hp on suse 9.1)

;the key points here are that the toshib has a dvd writer and a/b/g wireless. now, the dvd writer isn't a big issue--i don't burn many discs and i have a writer on my personal laptop at home if i absolutely need one. the 2 major points are the wireless and the linux compatibility.

;which ever i choose, i will have to dual boot with windows xp. i don't pretend to be well versed enough to get linux working on the toshiba. especially given the fact that most linux installers won't recognize the SATA drive (which is set up on a RAID controller internally in JBOD, or Just a Bunch Of Disks, mode).

;so everyone, which do i choose?

;treehead